..allow me to officially stunt on ya'll!

http://i61.tinypic.com/jr4poh.jpg

or

http://i58.tinypic.com/29xx7r.jpg

or even a side of...

http://i60.tinypic.com/n48t1c.jpg

What is currently in your cellar or what are you brewing?

I want to do another Russian Imperial Stout. The last one we did we soaked medium french oak chips in Bulliet Bourbon with two vanilla beans & then added the chips and 11oz. of bourbon during the secondary fermentation. Still sitting on one bomber I have left.

I do trades btw.... Craftbeard on Untappd
Let's talk craft beer!

Yes it's misspelled and they have it at trader joes at least out here in LA

..local stuff though like Fulton's & Flat Earth.

And Firestone brewery from northern Cali is great

It's amazing, best IPA out IMHO

...and it is indeed a GREAT IPA.

Back when I first knew about them, they weren't allowed to ship to Chicago so I would always grab a few bottles of Arrogant Bastard Ale when I took my biannual trips down to Memphis.

I went up to my Brew Depot one day and started talking shop with one of the guys about beers....I mentioned how i LOVE 3 Floyds (still do) and wanted to find similar joints to Gumball...then we started talking shop and I asked when Chicago was going to get Stone....

Him: Dude....their sales department are total fucking dicks. I mean, they make a passingly decent product but their attitudes are complete ass and they won't get a dime of my money based upon their general douchebaggery.

Guess he left an impression because, in retrospect, when we got Stone in Chicago I was underwhelmed (they aren't even fucking with my other fave brewery, Lagunitas)....I haven't really bought any since.

D

Arrogant Bastard in particular is not that good IMO.

What Stone is very good for, however, are their experimental and collaboration beers.

Something like this:

http://www.stonebrewing.com/collab/greentea/

is excellent.

The problem for you though is these particular Stone beers don't make it East

______________________________
http://i.imgur.com/81XSukd.jpg

Since November I've brewed:

Sour beer
Double IPA
Black IPA
Stout with bourbon, oak and coffee
Pale Ale
Baltic Porter
Robust Porter
Saison

I also have a few long term projects, including a 60 gal used wine barrel full of sour beer.

Commercially, I just had a few beers from Carton Brewing in NJ. Really good hoppy stuff. The 077XX is as good as Heady Topper, imo

...especially when you can chill your beer in the snow after the boil.

That certainly does make it easier.

Based on the amount of Darkness you have, I assume you are in MN. Did you get out to any of the Surly/Doomtree events in December?

...they are about to can Doomtree but I had it on tap. It tastes like a toned down Furious. I think it's in the 5% abv range.

I tried this for the first time a couple months ago and I absolutely love this stuff. Seems like it's not that common around my parts.

Do you always keep that many? I thought only certain beers were good for keeping in a cellar. I would imagine the hoppier beers are best drank right away.

Is this cause they're hard to get in your area or do you just like to keep a variety on deck?

I have a dope beverage center down the street so i just cop a couple 6s at a time.

...the years depend upon the type of brew but up to 5 or 6 years.

http://instagram.com/p/xsv6b6KjXj/?modal=true

...I wished they produced enough of those to have reached here but I should be able to trade for one of these.

How was it?

would have been killer with some noodles or wings.
but sadly just drank it solo.
its bite is there but subtle enough.
id rather have the rougue chocolate stout instead though.

..sometimes the bottles are even sticky and you can smell the chocolate across the room.

that's a lot of darkness! how many years do you have? just finished brewing a vanilla almond stout.

the resident beer snob at work has been hyping this up for weeks
so i went to my local supermarket and they had it
went to pick that jawn up and it was $22 for one bottle
0_0
fell all the way back off that
just curious if anyone here had it before

as far as what i'm drinking at home.... i been banging with 12, golden monkey, and mad elf for the last couple of months

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/604/2232/(scadis)
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/345/8998/(twelve)
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/345/1003/(golden monkey)
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/694/7531/(mad elf)

and the St. B Christmas I probably like better than the 12. Haven't done a head to head though.

Favorite Belgian Christmas beer I've had though was the Tsjeeses REserva... not sure if they make it annually but the case I got was from 2010 and was just awesome. The regular Tsjeeses was good too but I believe the Reserva was aged 6 months on oak, made a big difference and knocked the beer into the stratosphere.

Also love Delirium Noel. Got a 6 of Pere Noel bombers, they're good but basically a BPA-style thing rather than an amber or darker. And I just recently got a 6 of Gulden Draak's Vintage holiday ale from 2009... probably two years past due. Not bad but not awesome.

is there a reseller that sells aged beer?
i've heard of ppl aging stuff like mad elf
but i didn't know you could just buy it already aged

could be a doable visit for you - just off the route 30 exit from 476, west of Villanova. I'll inbox you details if you want.

They have a fair amount of dated stuff on the shelves, but once it hasn't moved they have a little section of past-due stuff that they mark down. Markdown % will depend on who's working at the store then but is typically 40%. The irony is that for some of those strong beers, aging is actually considered desirable - so you're getting a better version of the beer at a lower price. Not always, though - that Gulden Draak isn't awesome, and I've had a case of De Ryck Special from the discount rack that was also probably past due.
Most of the beers back there are seasonals from one or two seasons ago, though.

Occasionally they get rid of those discount cases by doing bottle blowouts at a nearby bar, so it can be really hit or miss.

I've actually been planning to head in to see if they have the Belgian Christmas ales on markdown yet. Typically since those are big-ticket items they'll mark 'em down in late spring.

*edit* I've had my eye on some of this http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/184/53946/ (the shop actually has cases from more than one batch) but haven't been able to justify the $200+ price tag yet, and of course in PA you can't buy singles....

oh damn i'm in lower merion, i'll inbox you

been keeping a case handy and drinking it pretty regularly.

Just scored two cases of the October '14 batch of Weyerbacher's Althea. Love it, that's enough that we should be able to drink it pretty regularly and still sit on a few bottles.

Still have about 2/3 a case of DFH 120" IPA, mixed from 2009, 2011, 2012 I think. THey came out rarely but when they do my wiife gets very excited.

Did a group buy recently. A lot of the stuff was fairly mediocre (our last one was all tripels, and it was just too expensive for a couple people who normally participate) but we had some good stuff in there too. There was Goose Island's Ogden, which is supposed to be a tripel but was pretty aggressively hopped... Tank 7 from Boulevard was really good. Old favorites like Goose Island Matilda and EKU 28 managed to make it in as well.

As far as cellared stuff, I think my stash has dwindled a bit outside of the 120"s. I should poke around a bit and see what we have. I mentioned the Gulden Draak Vintage above. Also have a few bottles of the 2010 holiday joint brew from Stone, Jolly Pumpkin and Nogne O. I don't love it though - it's got chestnuts in it and comes out kind of think. Defiinitely a unique beer.

Homebrewing, I haven't made as much time for this year. I got a half-hearted start on the year's garden series; my first batch of wood sorrel saison didn't turn out great. Just bottled up my first mead, and I think it's possible that I don't like mead... the sample I tasted at bottling was pretty nasty. I'm giving that stuff away anyhow as a client who has hives asked me to make it.

I'm more excited about my berry beer for this year. Last year I brewed three different ones - mulberry, raspberry and a saison with Cornelian cherries (which are an edible dogwood fruit, not a true cherry). They all turned out well. This year though I put all three berries into the same batch, soaked them for a month, and now I've got it about two months into aging with oak cubes. Not sure how long I'm going to let it sit...

Planning to brew one more garden series, a spicebush saison. Current plan is to cut a bunch of branches and make a spicebush tea, then use that as the base for the boil. (My first batch of wood sorrel beer this is what I did, and it turned out waaaay better than when I made the tea separately and added after the boil. So hopefully it'll work for the spicebush as well.) After that I want to take another shot at a maple syrup beer I've made in the past that was awesome. Then I need to get back to some lighter beers so I can get the kegerator fired back up this spring and summer...

-case of Brother Thelonius, being consumed slowly

-case of Philly Tripel (http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/21734/122778/)

should throw one of each in the fridge!

.

damn good beer... as far as their European-style offerings this (I guess I'd call it an imperial hefeweizen, almost 7%, but the flavor profile had me guessing wit originally) is probably my #2 pick after Golden Monkey.

...consistently funky!

Spicebush is an edible native plant that used to be commonly used to make teas, etc. I have a few in my garden and the leaves & berries smell wonderful when you crush them.

So I trimmed up a few branches into small chunks, boiled 'em for an hour or so to make roughly 3 gallons of tea. While that was happening I bottled the batch that had been fermenting... mixed berries from the garden; had been in secondary with oak cubes for about 10 weeks (I pulled the fruit after 4 weeks though). Sample was tasty.

After an hour, I shut heat off and used the tea as the base for my beer: roughly 1/2 pound each of oatmeal and flaked wheat, 8 lbs LME and a pound or so of honey. Mild hops, I think Saaz for bittering and Goldings for aroma.

Also had a taste of the tea with a little honey in it. Very nice.

For yeast I used the trub from the berry saison I bottled immediately prior... yeast was probably weak as it was from secondary and had been in the secondary bucket for well over 2 months... but it seems to be fermenting OK, not terribly vigorously with about a 24 hour lag time. Also threw in the oak cubes from the berry beer... wasn't going to since I wanted the beer to be light colored but as it was already dark coming out of the boil I figured what the hell, let's try it.

Smell from the airlock is incredible.

Decision will be whether to keg or bottle... keg or bottle... keg or bottle...

You CLEARLY aren't manly enough for all of that beer....so slip me them GPS coordinates so you can slide over and let a live ninja handle that


jusjokes. I'ma try my hand at brewing this summer as a project, I'll be in touch.

D

oh dear God if so never let me know where you live I'm so serious

D

http://nodabrewing.com/beer/hop-drop-n-roll/

It's damn near impossible for me to ride past their brewery on the way home without stopping.

...I like what they have done with that area.

Is it worth it? Last time I didn't feel like paying $15 for a bottle

On some non snobby shit the best beer I've had is Cerveza Hatuey as of late

http://www.hatuey.com/

It doesn't have the crazy credentials or anything it's just a straight up tasty beer

Another one I can't find lately but was good - Blacklight IPA
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/8/117559/

I saw Sculpin mentioned which was my favorite from Ballast Point and in general for a minute

Cigar City - Maduro, another good one

>Is it worth it? Last time I didn't feel like paying $15 for a
>bottle


A very deceptive 10% as well, kinda dangerous in that regard.


Also, it's 15 over there? It's 8 here in SD...

>
>I saw Sculpin mentioned which was my favorite from Ballast
>Point and in general for a minute
>
>Cigar City - Maduro, another good one
>
>


Glad to see someone mention Cigar City...my hometown brewery matches up with the best of them IMO