Scott... You can't go wrong with any of the Rocheforts or St. Bernardus brews. I have yet to find one I don't like. Sat down to three more brews last night: St. Bernardus Tripel, St. Bernardus Witbier, and Flying Dog Kerberos Tripel.

Review links:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/st-bern...l/2528/103915/
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/st-bern.../12269/103915/
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/flying-.../82820/103915/

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bernadus is good. I'm back on the Salvation again.

I should have my shipment of 12 liters Franziskaner and Maisel's in soon. Sweet

Salvation is pretty badass... Had it awhile back per your posts. I was impressed.

I've slowed waay down on buying new stuff lately. Haven't bought a drop of beer in about three weeks and I've still got 200+ bottles in my storage locker upstairs. Should be back to buying new stuff here in a couple weeks.

cool. Affligem is worth a shot too at $9/75l. Salvation is a good runner-up to Piraat which is out of stock through most of the US.

Brian,
I'm still building that welcome home package for you up... It should be massive and might come in quite a few boxes. Haha Also, I had a MASSIVE beer buying trip this past weekend in Greensboro, NC. Bought over $450 worth of beer, had the Audi's trunk SLAM full.

Trey,
I actually had one of the smaller bottle quite a while ago. Might revisit a larger one sometime in the near future.

:rly: Maybe I should go back to the beer store and stock up? They had plenty a couple weeks ago, small bottles as well as 750s.

Attachment 197078

We don't get Piraat here... But I do know you shop at Total Wine now Scott. Haha! Mind picking up one of each (big and small) and shipping them to me? It had me at 'Tripel IPA'... I will return the favor with brews from around here. :D PM me if interested...

Piraat gets me all excited. I have one sitting in the fridge for emergencies, and I have 3 750's in the wine rack to see if age does anything to the beer. I plan to drink one at 3, 5 and 7 years.

DO NOT age that beer. drink it as fresh as possible.

That's awesome, sorry I haven't gotten you a box yet like I said I would, but I've been busy as hell with an upcoming deployment (early next year) and I'm actually falling behind on a few trades as well. I feel like an asshole, hopefully they understand. You'll get a box soon enough, ;)

I'm coming home July 7 - 20, if I find myself down that way I'll be hitting you up to grab a beer.

My beer of the day is whatever someone left in my fridge the weekend before. i havent bought beer in monhts.

Tonight it's miller light 12oz cans. Yum.

I'm gonna agree with this. While I don't think it will go south too quickly, Piraat does not strike me as a beer that will get much better with age. In Piraat's case this is mostly due to a lack of residual sugar, at least that I can taste. Part of what makes it good is the phenols & esters given off by those Belgian yeasts, and I've honestly never experimented enough with Belgians to see how those flavors hold up over time.

The beers that do age well are things like old ales, barleywines, etc. High alcohol and loaded with malt, kind of like a wine that ages well will have a good foundation of fruit. Anything hoppy generally isn't going to age very well because hops flavor is more susceptible to degradation over time especially if there's any oxidation.

I've had both cases happen to me with past homebrewed batches. Last month I opened an unlabeled bottle of mine, and when I poured it out I knew immediately that it was an attempt I made at a barleywine in 2003. When I first made it, it didn't ferment down all the way and tasted lightly alcoholic and very sweet, because it had a shitload of malt and my yeast were not robust enough when pitched. Seven years later, it was waaay better. OTOH, a bottle of IPA that was a few years old tasted, well, old and dull and stale.

BTW I don't know why Piraat is called a Tripel IPA on that label. It doesn't taste like an IPA at all. It's pretty much just a Belgian Tripel.

Nothing ages worse than an IPA up to and including cheese. I've never had piraat myself but saw the label saying IPA, if it truly is a Tripel then it may age OK, but I still wouldn't recommend it, hops and time are not friends.

Yeah... Usually the hops loose their potenency as they sit while aging. So a lot of the character of the brew is lost during the aging process. If you do decide to age it, post the results.

Brian:
Definitely hit me up if you make it down this way. No biggie on the box... I know how hectic things can get.

Lots of people recommend aging that beer. You gays scare me though and I want to drive one really bad ATM.

my finace's dad just gave me a bottle of this last weekend. plan on taking care of it tonight:

http://thefullpint.com/main/wp-conte...hebrew13th.jpg

anyone else here brew? if yes, anyone interested in doing a swap? i haven't brewed in awhile but i have a "chocolate chip cookie" stout that i came up with, that's been sitting in a keg for a year. almost time to crack it... :-)

Yes, but it's been so long that you probably won't want to drink anything out of the next batch, whenever that happens. :laugh: