141–150 of 155 posts
Vermont today has much better beer than Magic Hat (even at its height). They tried a lot of different stuff, and most of it just wasn't very enjoyable. What Magic Hat did have was beautiful marketing and wider distribution. It has to be partially by choice, but The Alchemist and Lawson's make some of the best beer I have ever had, but they are both impossible to find outside of New England and a few parts of New York…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe on the west coast? Here where I live on the east coast there's plenty of high quality lagers, pilsners, and brown ales.
Any recommendations? I usually end up with Mexican beer, Presidente or Imperial.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I won't drink any IPA that wasn't around 10 years ago just to filter out the garbage You might be missing out on some really goods ones with this strategy
No kidding! Tree House was founded in 2011. You won't find anyone calling their beers formulaic garbage. I understand the want to change it up. I seek out breweries that I haven't been to before or that have a deep catalog of beers that aren't found on shelves. Flights are a great way to try those beers, and their styles are usually of more variety. One of my favorite breweries is Hermit Thrush in Brattleboro, Vermon…
Not just Treehouse, Trillium is another highly critically acclaimed Massachusetts brewery and its even younger (2013).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone that just wants a refreshing but quality lager there's nothing for me in this current wave. It's all group think. IPAs and Imperial Stouts everywhere. To the extent that you will find entire categories of beer on beer rating sites with nothing above a 4/5 in that category due to the groupthink that says more flavor = higher ratings. Refreshing, crisp and other such metrics don't count right now due to the…
I have similar preferences and share your frustration. I wonder if part of the problem is that "refreshing and crisp" are hard to quantify. Because you can't put objective numbers to them like IBU or ABV, you can't hope to sell your beer by having "better numbers" than your competitors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I supported American craft beer since the mid-90's until a few years ago when everyone went nuts with hops. American breweries seem to have become a copycat industry. Nowadays I'm going back to European beers. In particular, I'm looking for German doppelbock these days. But anything from Belgium is usually excellent.
Americans are as much sheep with beer now as they were when your choices were Bud, Michelob and Schlitz. Overhopped beer is disgusting and generally (badly) hiding infections or stale malt tastes. The only good thing you can say about it, besides the fact that it's estrogenic enough to make boobs grow[1], is it tastes as shitty when it travels as it does when it's fresh. [1] https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/84/6…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be really into discovering beers, but I usually just drink Founders All Day IPA these days, with a German Pilsner as a backup. There are only a couple months out of the year here in Florida where I'd want something that over 5%, though.
It’s funny because some of the “hot” breweries in Florida are known for making big sweet 15% barrel aged stouts year round.
But, to your point, even Cigar City's flagship IPA is 7.5% and way too heavy for the climate. We find it very ironic that a brewery from Michigan makes a wider, better range of refreshing beers.
I hope they're able to stay open after all of this, but my favorite brewery in the area is Flying Boat (St. Pete). They don't distribute, but their beers are consistently refreshing across styles. It's located at the end of a quiet, suburban neighborhood, so you you can have a beer outside and watch the neighbors mow their lawns.
As a craft beer lover, I'm really at odds with what to think about where the scene is today. There are so many breweries out there that are brewing some really great beer and coming up with some interesting styles. In many places there's a recapturing of what I'd call "beer as place" with beirgartens, brew-pubs, and breweries themselves having a more open and inviting experience to hang out and drink beer. It's tasty…
I used to be really into discovering beers, but I usually just drink Founders All Day IPA these days, with a German Pilsner as a backup. There are only a couple months out of the year here in Florida where I'd want something that over 5%, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, Alchemist has been distributing much further for about a year now. Easy to get in NY and MA now. Like, on the shelf at Wegmans easy.
This was marketed as an exclusive quarantine initiative, with distribution help from Night Shift. If it's not temporary, I'm happy to be wrong.
As a craft beer lover, I'm really at odds with what to think about where the scene is today. There are so many breweries out there that are brewing some really great beer and coming up with some interesting styles. In many places there's a recapturing of what I'd call "beer as place" with beirgartens, brew-pubs, and breweries themselves having a more open and inviting experience to hang out and drink beer. It's tasty…
I'm really getting tired of the IPA fad. I loved IPAs when they were a niche product and you could sample most of them in a reasonable time span. Now they're 90% of the shelf space and other deserving varieties are hard to find. Most of the newcomers are poorly executed hacks that follow the simplistic formula: IPA == bitter hops, therefore let's overload on hops. I won't drink any IPA that wasn't around 10 years ago…
Regardless, sorry to tell you, but IPA has long since passed its initial fad stage. New styles of IPA can take over the IPA niche in an annoying way once in a while, but IPAs as a category have reached a stable level of popularity that seems to be sustained as new generations of beer drinkers enter the scene.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess I agree with this in a way, in that what most people are looking for are water substitutes that will give you a low-level buzz. This is not really what I meant. I mean to say, for instance, I prefer Sam Adams over 90/100 microbrews I've tried. Name the top 6 non-economy beers in the supermarket, I enjoy most of them more than 75/100 microbrews. Taste-wise, I think most microbrews are a bad product, even if…
> I mean to say, for instance, I prefer Sam Adams over 90/100 microbrews I've tried. All a matter of taste, of course, but I've always found Sam Adams to be on par with Magic Hat as the worst of the Big 'Craft' group. They tend to produce the most inoffensive option of any style, typically devoid of any of most palatable of its respective flavors. After years of drinking these kinds of beers and being consistently di…
Most of the macros have a 'flagship' product, and that's what I was more or less referring to. Most micros have a fleet of beers, all bad or mediocre. A handful of them have 1 or 2 flagships that are quite good. It's rare that a microbrewery has more drinkable than dumpable beers, IMO.