Beer Thread

[flayedandskinned]

Originally Posted by Somnium

ITT: Me wishing I was 21...

Since they don't brew Djent, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Regurgitated]

Originally Posted by flayedandskinned

The Nico you mention wouldn't happen to be Nico from the 21st Amendment, would it?

No, I'm talking about GrindMasterFlesh, of the infamous SMN ALLSTARS

[Regurgitated]

Originally Posted by captaincleanoff

best beer in the world, without a doubt, comes from my own brewery.

would like to try your hefeweizen; do you know if there's any place around my area that would happen to have any of your products?

[Szadou]

Originally Posted by Somnium

ITT: Me wishing I was 21...

LOLmericans

[Phidion]

That one I tried and it`s super yummy.

Had this one some days ago. Was pretty good...

[wachtourak]

[Reincremation]

sup motherfuckers. i've been pounding dunkin donuts iced coffee all morning. but let's talk about good beer instead.


been drinking this a lot since the liquor store i frequent started carrying it and it's strangely cheap. also had it on tap and it was sooo much better. a nice belgian sour brown. cons: not quite tart enough for my tastes, and a slight wateriness. pros: avoids that overdone worcester sauce/ketchup flavor that plagues a lot of brown ales. for instance, i can't drink monk's cafe anymore cuz all i taste is ketchup.


just got this. $10 for a 12 ounce, hopefully well worth it. cracking this the second i get home from work today.

"Aged for eighteen months in fresh Cabernet Sauvignon wine barrels, Dihos Dactylion features a primary fermentation using a proprietary blend of saison yeasts, a secondary fermentation of our house brettanomyces wild yeast strain, along with lactobacillus and pediococcus bacteria added to sour things up. Dihos Dactylion bursts with aggressive aromas of red wine and a touch of brett; delightfully sour to the taste, initial lactic acid flavors hit high in the cheekbones before transitioning to complex layers of soft fruit, oaky-tannins and red wine."

sounds absolutely delightful, and my dick's rock hard contemplating the (way above average for the style) 10.74% abv.



in response to earlier comments about westvleteren: pick up the st bernardus 12, it's exactly the same recipe. st bernardus used to be contacted to brew westvleteren, then their contract expired and they're no longer affiliated but it's basically the same stuff. granted, westv will be marginally better because it's a small batch, but you're going to have to be a pretty hardcore connoisseur to taste the difference.

[Grindmasterflesh]

Originally Posted by Regurgitated_Guts

No, I'm talking about GrindMasterFlesh, of the infamous SMN ALLSTARS

sup

[captaincleanoff]

Originally Posted by Regurgitated_Guts

would like to try your hefeweizen; do you know if there's any place around my area that would happen to have any of your products?

You talkin bout 4 Pines beer?

[Regurgitated]

Originally Posted by captaincleanoff

You talkin bout 4 Pines beer?

Yessss

[nigelwho]

11 percent sour in cab barrels? Oh shit.

[Regurgitated]

Had this yesterday, would buy again, especially at the price of 4.99 for a bomber:



Had this a few days ago as well, I really recommend this to everybody:




There's a bar in the neighborhood over that has an extraordinary selection, including The Abyss on tap as well as tons of Port Brewing/Russian River selections...If only GrindYourMind was still in San Diego...(hint hint CerebralCereal)

[Casket]

I can usually only afford to drink PBR, but when I've got some extra cash, it's all about these Flying Fish's Hopfish India Pale Ale, Stone's IPA, and also Arrogant Bastard. I mean, how can you go wrong with a Satanic ale?

[flayedandskinned]

I love that beer, Pranqster!

as far as Arrogant Bastard goes, eh too bitter without the complexity.(and i LOVE incredibly bitter IPAs)

[ChAAPY]

Originally Posted by Casket

Stone's IPA

so good.

[Tomes of Deceit]

I've never tried anything from Stone that I've really loved. Don't quite get the hype. None of it is bad but not worth the price for me.

[Reincremation]

Originally Posted by Tomes of Deceit

I've never tried anything from Stone that I've really loved. Don't quite get the hype. None of it is bad but not worth the price for me.

stone got recognized early as a craft powerhouse and i think it hurt them in the long run. they dictated american craft drinkers' tastes for several years and basically inaugurated the trend towards really malty, overhopped, high-alcohol brews. in response, other breweries went one of two directions: brews that were more subtle, interesting, and complex, or beers that were even more extreme in their hop, malt, and alcohol content. both of those developments made stone look bad. all their recent brews are trying to go the subtle and unusual route, but it's falling flat. i still think their ruination IPA and classic IPA are two of the best west coast IPAs, and there's nothing to hate about their russian imperial stout, though i've noticed a decline in the quality of their old guardian barleywine over the years. btw, i'm no sucker for historical context when it comes to beer a brewery is only as good as their latest batch.

[Reincremation]

Originally Posted by Reincremation

just got this. $10 for a 12 ounce, hopefully well worth it. cracking this the second i get home from work today.

"Aged for eighteen months in fresh Cabernet Sauvignon wine barrels, Dihos Dactylion features a primary fermentation using a proprietary blend of saison yeasts, a secondary fermentation of our house brettanomyces wild yeast strain, along with lactobacillus and pediococcus bacteria added to sour things up. Dihos Dactylion bursts with aggressive aromas of red wine and a touch of brett; delightfully sour to the taste, initial lactic acid flavors hit high in the cheekbones before transitioning to complex layers of soft fruit, oaky-tannins and red wine."

sounds absolutely delightful, and my dick's rock hard contemplating the (way above average for the style) 10.74% abv.

drank a bottle of this and couldn't resist buying another the very next day. if you see this in a store and you have ANY interest in beer, please pick one up on my recommendation. both of the boutique craft beer stores near my house had bottles, so it can't be that limited. you'll drop about $10 for a 12 oz. i'm not going to do a full review cuz i'm not worthy, but it reminded me of the De Dolle Oerbier special reserva - a double sour brown with a pronounced lambic element. in comparison to the De Dolle, the Avery really shines in its carbonation - tiny, zesty, champagne-style bubbles. tarter than most sour browns due to souped-up brett content, and a lot of great fruit flavors, some rotting melon (in a good way). first you taste a geuze, then you think you're drinking a sour brown as it rests in your mouth, and the high-abv gives you a barleywine vibe as you swallow. good shit.

http://beeradvocate.com/acbf/beer
heading out to the American Craft Beer Fest in Boston after work. gonna be great. above is the tasting lineup for those who are as bored at work as i am. gonna get pretty blasted, all you can drink for 3.5 hours, only $45!

[cry0fth3carr0ts]

Originally Posted by Tomes of Deceit

I've never tried anything from Stone that I've really loved. Don't quite get the hype. None of it is bad but not worth the price for me.

+1. They have all the stone brews on tap at the riot room (a local venue here) and i think i've tried them all and i just don't get the hype either. it's not bad, but not anything special. the oak aged ale is probably my favorite.

they also have old raspy on tap and this:



sooooo good...

and that 9.6 abv is a lie. it's more like 10.5 if i remember correctly

[entwinedwithsickness]

the only Stone brew I'm really into anymore is Double Bastard. Really smooth stuff that always does the trick for me. Half the time I go out thinking I want something new I end up with a bomber of this instead. When available anyhow..

[Tomes of Deceit]

So, for people like Reincremation or Flayed who seem to be down with the whole tasting notes scene:

Did you actively cultivate your ability to pick out flavors? Whenever I read beer reviews I can't taste 98% of the flavors people claim are in there. I often wonder if I either don't have the right tastebuds, or the right cognitive workings to ever taste things in that way. Often someone will compare a beer to an ingredient that I've certainly had in various different food-settings, but I can't even conjure up a clear idea of what that thing tastes like in the first place, let alone search the beer for it.

I'm not really worried about it in terms of my own enjoyment of beer, mainly curious.

[wachtourak]

I think you just need to drink lots of it, I am slowly getting there, I find it's the same thing with Wine.

[Regurgitated]

Originally Posted by Reincremation

http://beeradvocate.com/acbf/beer
heading out to the American Craft Beer Fest in Boston after work. gonna be great. above is the tasting lineup for those who are as bored at work as i am. gonna get pretty blasted, all you can drink for 3.5 hours, only $45!

you lucky bastard

[Regurgitated]

Originally Posted by Tomes of Deceit

So, for people like Reincremation or Flayed who seem to be down with the whole tasting notes scene:

Did you actively cultivate your ability to pick out flavors? Whenever I read beer reviews I can't taste 98% of the flavors people claim are in there. I often wonder if I either don't have the right tastebuds, or the right cognitive workings to ever taste things in that way. Often someone will compare a beer to an ingredient that I've certainly had in various different food-settings, but I can't even conjure up a clear idea of what that thing tastes like in the first place, let alone search the beer for it.

I'm not really worried about it in terms of my own enjoyment of beer, mainly curious.

I seem to have a mild problem like this. Sometimes I taste what's there and sometimes not.

I had a bottle of Gulden Draak a few days ago, and I really liked it, but I didn't find many of the flavors most people got. Transient said it tasted like sweet caramel in the old beer thread but I hardly tasted sweet caramel. My girl had a few sips and said she didn't like it. Definitely worth the money and would buy again, like Wachtourak said, I guess you just need to keep drinking it.

Originally Posted by Reincremation

stone got recognized early as a craft powerhouse and i think it hurt them in the long run. they dictated american craft drinkers' tastes for several years and basically inaugurated the trend towards really malty, overhopped, high-alcohol brews. in response, other breweries went one of two directions: brews that were more subtle, interesting, and complex, or beers that were even more extreme in their hop, malt, and alcohol content. both of those developments made stone look bad. all their recent brews are trying to go the subtle and unusual route, but it's falling flat. i still think their ruination IPA and classic IPA are two of the best west coast IPAs, and there's nothing to hate about their russian imperial stout, though i've noticed a decline in the quality of their old guardian barleywine over the years. btw, i'm no sucker for historical context when it comes to beer a brewery is only as good as their latest batch.

The Stone Brewery isn't too far from here and although I've tried all their products, I'm not a stone drinker anymore. I was always told that Stone was the ULTIMATE MAN'S BEER and if I didn't like it that I WAS A GIRL. I wont lie, I got used to the "hoppiness" of most Stones and I would say it's definitely gotten me ready for different beers like the Green Flash West Coast IPA or Old Rasputin, but I know they aren't the epitome of what a good beer is.

[Tomes of Deceit]

Ok, about to get way too far into this...basically whenever I used to read beer reviews part of me wondered if it was all BS, but I think I have a new, less black-and-white way to ask the question.


I guess what I'm wondering about beer tasting is whether it could have to do with the extent to which peoples' minds make associations between semi-unrelated things. For example, having a great appreciation for poetry (or even literature or film) requires you to read a word or phrase and pull out all these connotations and associations that the author may be implicitly trying to get you to think about.

If I read a poem I invariably have no idea what it's supposed to be about. Then if someone explains to me these connections, I think it's obvious and I can't believe I didn't notice it. In this case it makes sense, because I spend all my time reading science writing, in which you have to train yourself to perceive only what is explicitly stated, and never assume even the slightest detail which you think the writing may imply.

It seems to me that one's physical brain structure could influence whether they take things very literally or make more intuitive associations between memories.

Tasting is kind of the same thing: a physical chemical hits your taste buds, but after that the process of memory takes over and could be subject to the same sort of associations between various tastes from your past. People talk about developing their palate, and I certainly believe that you can learn to identify the flavor of certain malts or hops that are actually in the beer. But in the case of ingredients which are NOT physically present, could much of this "palate development" really be about building these associations?

[Naitz]

I think so. Hefeweizen e.g. often has a "banana" taste. I've heard that from many unconnected sources and I agree. Someone who never drank a beer before probably wouldn't notice it.

Apart from that, even if the banana in the Weizen isn't really there, the taste of it IS.
I guess some people would associate the taste with something different, but there is no reason to assume that it's totally individual, as the complexity of the taste has a certain form which should theoretically be the same for everyone (seeing how our tongues work in the same way).

[discombobulation]

I know fuckall about fine-ass beer, but I'm sipping on this now and it's bitching. It's become my favourite beer.

[haiduk]

I'm no connosseur, but Beck's is one of my favorites.
Tried a Leffe blonde a few times and that's gotta be one of the finest brews I've tried.

[Regurgitated]

Originally Posted by discombobulation

I know fuckall about fine-ass beer, but I'm sipping on this now and it's bitching. It's become my favourite beer.

don't worry, you're doing it right ;)

[Reincremation]

Originally Posted by Tomes of Deceit

I guess what I'm wondering about beer tasting is whether it could have to do with the extent to which peoples' minds make associations between semi-unrelated things. For example, having a great appreciation for poetry (or even literature or film) requires you to read a word or phrase and pull out all these connotations and associations that the author may be implicitly trying to get you to think about.

If I read a poem I invariably have no idea what it's supposed to be about. Then if someone explains to me these connections, I think it's obvious and I can't believe I didn't notice it. In this case it makes sense, because I spend all my time reading science writing, in which you have to train yourself to perceive only what is explicitly stated, and never assume even the slightest detail which you think the writing may imply.

It seems to me that one's physical brain structure could influence whether they take things very literally or make more intuitive associations between memories.

Tasting is kind of the same thing: a physical chemical hits your taste buds, but after that the process of memory takes over and could be subject to the same sort of associations between various tastes from your past. People talk about developing their palate, and I certainly believe that you can learn to identify the flavor of certain malts or hops that are actually in the beer. But in the case of ingredients which are NOT physically present, could much of this "palate development" really be about building these associations?

that's a really interesting way of looking at it, not sure if the following is or isn't the same idea in different words:

"let's look at fruit flavors in wine. If winemakers don't add other fruits to wine -- and they don't -- then where do these fruit flavors come from? According to Terrance Leighton, molecular biologist at the University of California at Davis, "A wine's flavor, character and aroma are locked up in the grape, and it's the yeast (through fermentation) that activates -- unlocks -- these characteristics."

A wine grape is a unique fruit in that it contains natural chemical compounds that are also found in other fruits and vegetables. Fermentation, a simple chemical reaction, releases these compounds, and so we smell and taste these same aromas and flavors in the finished wine. For example, the strong black pepper aroma and flavor of California zinfandel (red, of course) comes from the same compound that gives black pepper its spicy kick. And the tangy apple flavor found in most chardonnays comes primarily from malic acid, the tart acid found in apples."

i don't think i could ever train my palate as well as others, all i can really do is try to keep up. when i was first learning how to taste for particular flavors, i would "cheat" a lot by looking up reviews on beer advocate or ratebeer. then, as i drank the beer, i would read reviews and see whether i could or couldn't taste the flavors that some reviewers noticed. as i became more confident, i would generate my own ideas about flavors and then double check them against reviews. maybe i would be thinking "this is a prominent blueberry flavor," and all the reviews would say "nah, more like blackberry" (bad example but you get the idea). then i would try to think about why it was blackberry rather than blueberry and try to "memorize" the taste for next time. nowadays i don't read beer reviews too much because i feel comfortable making my own judgments. i know i'm not going to taste everything some people can taste, but i can still notice the main flavors.

one thing my old boss at the liquor store taught me was to eat fruit often. we used to walk across the street to whole foods at lunch and buy a selection, because fruit flavors are some of the most detectable in beer, and the ability to differentiate between various fruit flavors is essential. especially because west-coast hops often taste like grapefruit or mango.

naitsabes' example of banana in hefeweizen is a really good one. that's one of the first fruit flavors i had an easy time noticing. buy a few hefs and pay special attention to the frequently-observed banana, bubblegum, and clove flavors. drink them one after another and you'll start to notice their similarities and differences. now that you've added banana flavor to your repertoire, you'll have an easier time noticing it in the future. if someone gave you a blind taste and you tasted banana, you could make an educated guess that you were drinking a hef.

it's really all about practice. working at a fancy liquor store for a year, i was trying different beers every day and getting tasting advice every day. through diligence, interest and practice, anyone can develop this ability.