FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE (G&T @ Jan 1, 2011 -> 08:47 AM) Had our first bottled of Dom last night (gift from my wife's work for our wedding). Also had my first caipirinha (superb!) and pisco sour at dinner. And my first hangover off 2011. Very nice! Did the Pisco sour have an egg white froth with a bit of Ango bitters sprinkled on top? If so, you had it done right. I'm all out of Pisco after mixing up a few Pisco sours for some partygoers at a friend's New Years party.

Not a bad beer list all in all. And some great commentary by everyone. All the Hoegarden accolades are well-deserved, and it is my go to traditional witbier. I'm also quite partial to Blanche Bruxellss (Mannekin Pis outside if the US), but I give Hoegarden the edge because it was Pierre Celis' determination that saved this wonderful style from extinction. To be more correct, Celis resurrected the style when it already had died out. Ponder this. The SoxTalk top beers list has FOUR witbiers on it, and this is a style that would not exist except for Pierre Celis. That witbier exists now and has become hugely popular is a near-miracle and a great thing for beer lovers. Regarding favorite Oktoberfest beers, I agree that anyone who enjoys the Sam Adams interpretation should seek out authentic Munich examples as well. I regularly only get three of the Munich Big Six festbiers in Florida — Paulaner, Spaten, and Hacker-Pschorr. I think they are all malty, wonderful autumn beers but I'll give the slight edge to Paulaner. It has been several years since I have had festbiers from either Löwenbräu or Hofbräuhaus, and I have never had anything from Augustinerbräu. I saw a shout out for Spaten's Optimator Doppelbock. A very good beer, but my hands-down favorite Bavarian doppel is Ayinger Celebrator. Pour that one roughly a couple of ounces at a time to give a dense meringue head and you'll be enjoying a seriously good beer. Tuchor's Bajuvator is also a fine authentic doppel that I haven't had in quite a while. G+T's suggestion for everyone to give Fuller's ESB a spin is a great one, but I'm a bigger fan still of their London Pride. As a beer equivalent to Sam Adams Boston Lager I don't think either of them is quite there, but Sam is a tough one to find an equivalent for. Domestically, I'd steer people toward Great Lakes Elleiot Ness Vienna Lager for something comparable (or their Dortmund Gold — great beer), but I realize that Great Lakes doesn't have much distribution. Brooklyn Lager or one of the German Dortmund beers (DAB or Dortmunder) are also in the same wheelhouse. You can say want you want about Jim Koch and Boston Beer Co's. attempts to muscle out other craft brewers by virtue of their size, but Sam Adams Lager remains an outstanding beer. I quite like Fat Tire, but I was surprised it took top spot. Guinness is my Nirvana. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. . . On Tap, bottled "buldog" Extra, or the bottled stuff with the widget, I adore Guinness. Should have been #1 in a walk in our top beer list, but I'm not complaining. Happy Hoppy New Year and Happy Beer Drinking to all my SoxTalk Friends.

Continuing the multi-threadded beer talk. . . A friend of mine who was the beer expert at a local liquor store that sadly just closed is now the per pro and head bartender at a new gourmet burger and beer place near where I work called BrewGrrs that just opened this week after many months of delays. I went yesterday with a work friend and had a very tasty falafel burger and three of their 36 impressive beers on tap. Had a lovely Blanche de Bruxelles witbier and thoroughly enjoyed the Mannekin Pis brand logo as always. I then had two beers I hadn't tried before. The first was Brooklyn Brewery's Cuvee Noire, part of their Brewmaster's Reserve lineup. Belgian ale yeast complexity meets a heaping helping of dark roast malts. Dark yet fruity, sort of like Guinness' gay cousin. I finished out the session with the recently released double IPA called Swamp Ape IPA brewed right up the road from where I live at Florida Beer Company. This was really a standout. Nice fruity notes, good alcohol warmth, very nice hop balance. This is probably the best thing Florida Beer Co. has ever done.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 30, 2010 -> 11:32 AM) Recipe for a Rum Emanuel (safe for work) :lolhitting

QUOTE (3E8 @ Dec 30, 2010 -> 10:59 AM) Plus, the bottle is shaped like a mallet! Bonus points for the bottle, definitely!

X-rated turn the thread has taken.

QUOTE (G&T @ Dec 29, 2010 -> 09:38 PM) That beer sounds good. Speaking of sours, here's one I didn't know existed until tonight and desperately want. The brewery is like 4 hours away but I don't have time to go out there. As for the syrups, my first impression is that the dark syrup would be a good way to fill out a lighter Jamaican rum, like VX. I used it with Appleton 12 and felt the fruity notes were hidden in the mai tai. Blueberries and Brett! That does sound nice! The Cigar City Sea Bass was very good, but my wife was in a mood for something lighter last night and I actually had a bit of a time polishing off the whole champagne bottle on my own after the wonderful beef stroghanoff dinner my wife served up last night. Great nose, dense head, rich flavors and a very well-balanced tartness, this is another great Cigar City product. Their Jai Lai IPA has become a favorite, and the Humidor Series version aged on cedar is something special. G+T, is that one you got to try when you were in Florida?

Four solid entries in slots 11-15. I'm not at all above enjoying a shandy when mood and season call for it. A Bass shandy made with White's fizzy lemonade from England is a crisp and refreshing change-up now and then, and English ale and ginger beer is also nice. Bass sells a pre-mixed shandy in a can that my local UK import shop stocks and a can't leave that place without buying a couple of cans. We get the Linie Summmer Shandy here but I have avoided it thus far. I have been underwhelmed by a lot of Leinenkugel's more recent offerings, but I'll have to get past that and try the shandy. The dose of honey the product purports to contain has also kept me from trying it. Honey is a total enigma to me: I LOVE it in lots of mixed drinks, expecially rum drinks, but I have yet to really like any beers that use honey as an ingredient. The mouthfeel and flavor profile always come off as wax-like to me, even in a couple of well-regarded Belgian ales like Barbãr Belgian Honey Ale. I can't say anything about the Linie Shandy until I try it though, and I will make a point of it when it shows up this year. As for the other four beers in this pull, there's not a bad one in teh bunch. Urquell, of course, is the archetype Czech Pils. As such, I think the RateBeer "to style" rating of 95/100 is still a little low. The lukewarm BeerAdvocate ranking of "B" (Good) is a travesty. I won't even get into how much I disagree with the relatively low scores the ratings sites give Negra Modelo. A rich beer with a rich history, and a welcome site on a menu in places where good beer can be hard to come by. Honker's Ale for me is the embodiment of coming back to Chicago for a visit and it's something i always look forward to. Another beer that I greatly prefer on tap versus bottled. I was totally bummed a couple of years ago when the Clybourne Goose Island location looked like it was going to close, but they are up and running there again, right?? Bell's Two-Hearted has been down here for a couple of years and it is great to have it and Oberon on tap in several good beer places. It's actually been a few months since I have had a Two-Hearted just because there are so many good American ale choices these days. I think I'll have to stop after work for one to get reacquainted. I think pittshoganerkoff's description of this one is on target, and this beer always drinks lighter and is more refreshing than the 7% abv suggests it should be. 11am and I'm already thirsty.

QUOTE (G&T @ Dec 29, 2010 -> 09:04 PM) I decided to mix up a 2:1 syrup with sugar in the raw. It's probably not demerera but I read in Imbibe that it is a decent substitute. On its own, it is really good. I put it in a mai tai and daiquiri and I felt that something wasn't entirely right. Not bad, just different. I might have to mess with the proportions a bit. Not bad, just different is the right mindset I think. I'm tending to use the dark sugar syrups more for grogs and potent punches and usually keeping with light simple syrup for Mai tais and daiquiris. Of course that is only a guideline that should be ignored whenever you feel like it. Let the rum dictate what the drink needs - I think that is the only real rule. Back on the beer front, I am thoroughly enjoying a Cigar City Sea Bass dark farmhouse ale that would be right up your alley.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is THE American Pale Ale. Period. There are more full-bodied, higher-octane, or mor aggressively hopped American ales out there now, but this is the classic American Pale Ale that served as the prototype for everything else. In my mind (and in the minds of others), there are five guys who are the Forefathers of the American Craft Beer scene: Jack McAuliffe (New Albion), Bert Grant (Grant’s Brewery Pub), Fritz Maytag (Anchor Brewing), Charlie Papazian (the Father of American Homebrewing), and Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada. Grossman and his partner were homebrewers who took a chance and scaled up to small-scale commercial production. The company started out producing less than 30 barrels per week and no they produce more that 13,000 a week. Sierra Pale Ale is the nuthin’ fancy homebrew-based beer that set the stage for all the hoppy, flavorful West Coast (later nationwide) ales that would follow. The signature use of Cascades as the finishing hop, with its floral citrus/spicy nose was unlike any commercial product at the time. Bottle conditioning — a homebrewing staple — was also pretty much nonexistent in commercial beers at that time.

QUOTE (G&T @ Dec 29, 2010 -> 11:48 AM) Everything I have read about CAMRA leads me to believe that they don't know who their friends are. The movement seems to be anti "craft" beer (read American small brewery movement) though the CAMRA movement would be better suited to have such people on their side. IMO, it is American innovation that is truly reinvigorating the artisinal beer styles. American has become a beer destination for it's quality and variety. Real ale is as likely to catch on the States as it is to be reinvigorated in the UK. If American craft brew fans sought out real ale, a style I love, it would help their cause more than CAMRA wants to admit. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think you are wrong. The United States craft beer consumer has absolutely started the ball rolling worldwide as far as a global beer renaissance. And yes, world class beer in just about all styles is as likely to come from the states as it is from the country of origin. I'm sure we've talked before about how cool it is that brewers like Scotland's BrewDog are now sending us their reinterpretation of the US over-the-top interpretation of classic English ale. I love it. But 1971 was way different than today, and CAMRA was busy fighting the good fight when nobody in the US even knew what real ale was. The joke about Englishmen drinking their beer warm and flat was about as much as we knew.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 29, 2010 -> 11:04 AM) Around Christmas? This thread started on November 10th. EDIT: And why don't you just put me on ignore. It seems like 80% of your posts are stalking me and complaining about what I say in here. This list could have been more timely in the offing, and certainly that would have been nice but everybody's free time is scarce. And I don't begrudge you, Milkman, or anybody for thinking that this list topic is not a good one. Jeremy stressed at the outset that he's not a beer drinker so we knew going into this that it was going to be a bit different. I, obviously, think it is a great topic for listing and for general discussion, and I'm pleased to see I am not the only one. With literally thousands of beers of varying accessibility worldwide, of course consensus is going to be impossible. But I think that an enthusiastic discussion of the beers that did/didn't/should have made the list is going to more than make up for it. The list has already reconfirmed for me that there are plenty of beers I've not had the pleasure of sampling, and that is exciting.

First I'll get the confession out of the way. I drink Corona. I do the whole lime thing and everything. I'm not proud but there it is. In Florida Corona is ubiquitous, and I apparently have a tastebud blindspot that allows me to choke it down way more willingly than a Miller Lite or a Bud. In Corona I don't taste the adjunct grain (corn or rice) nearly as up front as I do in the majority of American megas, and I think that is the key reason I can tolerate the stuff. For the record, please not that Corona did not make my top 20 list, but it actually might crack my top 200. With that said, knight's last set of 5 has a lot worth talking about. I've already indicated that Oberon is among the very few American style wheat beers that I find satisfying. And Three Floyd's Alpha King is a long-time favorite of mine that I wish I could get with more regularity. Stella Artois is an enigma to me. When I think of Belgian beer I do not ever think of light lagers, but the numbers from the thread post indicate a sad (to me) reality that 3/4 of Belgian beer production is light lagers. The concern for me and other lovers of world class artisinal beer is that economics may eventually drive many of the hundreds of Belgian ale styles to extinction. If you can make a beer that satisfies 75% of the population and it doesn't involve cask conditioning, wild yeas wrangling, double decoction, or vows of silence/poverty/chastity, there is a real danger that the historic, unique, expensive, and and hard-as-hell to produce beers will die out. I actually think there is less danger of that now compared to just a few years ago because much of the rest of the world finally woke up to the glory of Belgian ales. Any drop in domestic consumption of the craft products in Belgium is probably more than offset by export consumption for at least those brewers with the capacity to export. The cautionary tale that I know I've related in the Finer Things thread is the story or British Real Ale. This unique, historic, and miraculous traditional beer style came frighteningly close to extinction as new generations of drinkers fell victim to global commercialism and eschewed cask ale in favor of the likes of Budweiser, Carling's, and Stella Artois. If not for the herculean efforts of the grassroots Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in the 1970s, British cask ale could very well have disappeared. That would have been a mortal blow to a big part of our global beer heritage. Having said all of that, I do think Stella is a good beer. And I too much prefer the draught version to the bottle. I just really hate the idea of the Belgians wasting their time producing (and drinking) such a non-Belgian offering. I have quite a bit to say about my beloved Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, so I'll keep that as a separate post.

Crap or Fact? you make the call.

Actually i can not say that is the case, as i did enjoy a few Guinness with my Irish stew at the pub early this evening and i'm drinking a very nice English ale right now.

Regarding the aging of standard gravity IPAs, I wouldn't expect the sort of magical transformation you get from strong ales, old ales and barley wines, and honestly they don't have the alcohol and many don't have the hopping rates to lend themselves to years-long cellaring. George Hodgson's October beer notwithstanding (the pre-Burton precursor to 19th century British IPAs),these were beers meant to be drunk within months of production and not years. now that we have jumped into some good beer chat, I'm jumping into what I hope will be several days of new and exciting beers. Right now I'm drinking a bottle-conditioned Hen's Tooth English Ale that I have had before and which i like very much. A very traditional English ale fro the Morland Brewery in Suffolk, malt accented, copper color, malt and metal on the nose and with a really nice hop balance. Velvety mouthfeel and lingering hops and malt in the finish. At 6.5% abv, it is higher strength than a standard British bitter, but it is perfectly suited to the season. It is a chilly 30 degrees here tonight, so i have a nice fire going in the fireplace, and this beer is a fine complement to the scene.

Yap moony is hard to carry around.

Oktoberfest and Winter Lager are the two Sam Adams seasonals that are consistently very good and the ones I make sure to try every year when they show up. If they didn't make it so hard to find Old Fezziwig outside of the stupid holiday 12-packs I would probably have that on the favorite seasonal list as well. i was lucky enough to score a bottle of Sam Adams Infinium this year and I am looking forward to sharing that with the wife on New Years Eve.

This is fun. I do recall G+T saying the cranberry lambic had been overhauled. I guess I'll have to chance another one. Lindenans kreik is nice and their framboise is great when you are in the mood for light and fruity without it being cloying. Their renee cuvee geuzue is wonderfully tart. Given the choice I would take Cantilon's Gussie over Lindeman's, but it is almost unheard of down here.

Zima did not make the SoxTalk best of beer thread. This I am happy to report.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 28, 2010 -> 01:12 PM) I've never had the Allagash White, I might have to try that. Haven't had the Sam Adams Cherry Wheat either, but don't plan to. I've never had a fruit beer or lambic that I actually liked. Yes, seek out the Allagash. It has been years and years since I had the Sam Adams Cherry Wheat when it first came out, and that is because I found it to be utterly undrinkable. That and the Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic are the worst thigs I've ever had from them. I should try the cherry wheat again to determine if they have changed the recipe, because I cant imagine it can be the same drek as the original recipe based on all the people who enjoy this beer. I very much enjoy traditional Belgian fruit lambics ad well as non-fruit guezue lambic. Don't dismiss these entirely based on one or two samplings — especially if the fruit beers you have had have been mostly bad American examples.

Hooray Beer! I could write for an hour just on the 10 beers that have been posted, but I will spare you. I will admit that two of the best regarded beers on the list (Gumballhead and 1554) are beers I have yet to try but am dying to. New Belgium's stuff is supposed to be gradually rolling out in Florida this year starting with Fat Tire and then others, so hopefully 1554 will be close behind. Grandiose phrases like "the beer that reinvented the American wheat beer style" in reference to Gumballhead have me very eager to taste that one. American wheat ale has traditionally been one of the least satisfying corners of the craft beer world with a few notable exceptions (Bell's Oberon, Goose Island 312, and especially the basically extinct Bert Grant's Wheat). Three Floyd's Spotted Cow is one I have had and really like. Made it to Geneva this Summer to see family and made a point of drinking my share of Spotted Cow. The general negativity toward Red Stripe is not misplaced. I will drink Red Stripe before drinking almost any domestic adjunct lager but it is not a great beer. As far as Caribbean lagers, a few years ago I would have put Kalik (Bahamas) at the top of the list, but tasting the beer recently I'm convinced they have modified the recipe and the current product is not as good as it once was. For me, Red Stripe gets high marks for the stubby bottles, the "Hooray Beer" ads that crack me up, and the fact that you can combine equal parts Red Stripe and J Wray and Nephew overproof rum and actually arrive at an interesting and drinkable (if rough-edged) cocktail that is a regular feature at some Jamaican bars. Allagash White is a fantastic beer. I'd still rank it as my go-to favorite domestic witbier interpretation. That title used to belong to Celis until the Miller takeover and brewery closing. Allagash didn't make my top 20 but is easily a top 50 for me. Smithwick's is decent enough that if I see it o tap at a bar or restaurant I know I won't have to beer slum. It seems to be a fairly faithful interpretation of an Irish Red Ale relative to low hopping rates and an emphasis on malt sweetness (moreso than British bitter) with a good dose of crystal/caramel malt in the grain bill. I can't help but feel the bottled version is way overcarbonated for the style though. The nitrogen draught system attenuates this a bit in the tap version, but I think more authenticity as achieved by pouring a botle and letting the glass stand to offgas and warm a bit before drinking. I'll happily drink a Shiner Bock and enjoy it in and of itself, but I think it's a weak interpretation of the style, both from a strength and malt accent standpoint. Goose Island Harvest is solid. Rogue Dead Guy is a beer I really love, but I totally don't buy the maibock style the brewery states they are brewing to. The malt varieties are all pretty traditional European and the hops work for lagers and ales, but, for me, once you opt for a warm, top-fermenting ale years like Rogues Pacman, you are brewing an ale regardless of the malt, hops, and water you are using. To me, the yeast defines the broad category. Those quibbles aside, Dead Guy is excellent. When I can get it, the sedimented, bottle-conditioned Rogue XS version is a treat. The XS Old Crustacean Barleywine, btw, is definitely worth trying.

Indeed

Garden Gnomes from across the valley have joined the fray.

Elf rebellion over at the Keebler Tree!