I'm with you V. There are no good ipas any more. They're all way over hopped and excessively bitter. IPAs should be dry and piney without being bitter. Still a beer you only want one or two of, and not something to drink in the summer heat. Its like the gin of beer.

So, who's had Pliny the Elder? I'm interested in your opinion.

I've had Pliny once, and surprisingly, I liked it. I think the fact that it was fruitier (sweeter) than other IPAs helped someone who typically doesn't care for IPAs. I just remember it being really well balanced.

There's a brewery nearby in VT- The Alchemist Brewery- who makes "Heady Topper", which is the closest thing I've had since.

For anyone in CA looking for a simple, good, drinkable and not at all fussy beer, Anchor Steam just works. Nothing at all special about it, but again, it's just easy to drink and unoffensive.

I've had it many times, both in the bottle and on draft (prefer the draft). I think it's a very good beer, nicely balanced with a distinct citrus note that I always enjoy, but I don't think it deserves nearly the amount of hype that typically surrounds it (i.e. people staking out select liquor stores to purchase the limited 1 or 2 bottles they'll allow for purchase).

I would try Pliny the Elder if I had the chance, but I'm not about to go down on my knees in some alley for it, and I'm also not going to search forever and stake out a place like a DEA agent. I live in TX, and this beer is impossible to find except for the desperate.

If I want a stupid amount of hops, I'll buy some Stone Enjoy by. Their 4/20/14 iteration was their best so far, and I have had many of them since and before. It's a real hop experience, but you have to be in the mood for it.

I agree that many beers today are way too hoppy to be anywhere near balanced. I don't care if a beer has 35 or 100 IBUs, but if it doesn't have a malt profile that backs up the bitterness, it's not for me. I love many Belgian beers because they are so well balanced.

Hardly. There are some good IPAs and some terrible ones.

For instance, one of our local breweries, Marshall, makes a killer IPA. Has a nice malt backbone, but still get the aroma and bite of the hops without it being mouth puckering.

Flip side, we finally had our local beer pub place (350+ beer selection) get some Lagunitas IPA. It's supposed to be like "so awesome man." I seriously had trouble finishing it.

Had a chance to sample one of these at the Destihl Brewery in Champagne IL last week. Very Delish, Much Yum!


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Speaking of Old Rasputin, this patiently aged clone is being shipped to one of you homos this week.

Just finished a wonderful can of Bells Two Hearted.

It's okay. Far from my favorite though. Doubt it's even the best Santa Rosa has to offer, also not the best beer on their menu. Younger was no where near worth the wait even at 50% of the line length these days. I'll bring some Elder next time we're in Redwood City.

Posting to subscribe here.

I'm a huge fan of big flavor imperial stouts, particularly bourbon barrel aged stuff. Also love barrel aged barley wines, scotch ales, porters, etc. generally big, strong malty beers, with the occasional imperial IPA.

Too many favorites to post but I'll try to post up good stuff as I come across it.

Sounds like you need to sample a bottle of Founders Backwoods Bastard.
Trust me.

Just because the multi-national owned "craft breweries" are churning out shit doesn't mean the style is bad. Just don't buy shitty beer and IPAs can give you a perfectly good drinking experience.

A big hint something is a crap beer is if you see it in the beer aisle in publix/walmart/costo or if it's on tap in sports bars. If it's on tap in the local brewery tasting room, it's probably not shit. Places that are serious about beer will post beeradvocate ratings on the shelves, or reviews for each beer.

Meh, the "good" places have all the junky stuff too, at least around here, in addition to the good stuff.

What blew my mind though, was on Friday I went around to like 7 different places: Costco, Safeway, Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven, CVS/Longs, and a couple of the Liquor stores near my house. I know I know, all pretty crappy places to look for craft beer, but I was too lazy to drive to Bev-Mo. All had a HUGE selection of utter crap. All carried 99% IPA's with bitterness rating of 35-75 when I looked em up. All with beer advocate ratings of like 70-80. I was overwhelmed with the mediocrity. Everything else was toilet water like bud light and the like.

I guess I'm just surprised at the proportions of terrible beer that most people apparently "prefer" (or those places wouldn't stock it)

I think the fundamental problem is that supermarkets want to move volume on at least a regional basis if they can. A multinational owned brewery with mash tuns the size of an aircraft carrier is going to be able to consistently supply those needs with no fuss. Even a reasonably high volume local brewery is going to struggle to supply supermarkets beyond their local area because they can't just leverage their multi-billion dollar market cap to build a city-sized beer factory.

It's not so much that people prefer to drink shit beers, it's that people walk into the aisle of the store and pick from what's available. It tastes bad because the giant brew corps have invested tons of money and time in finding that sweet spot where you can cut as many corners as possible and still have something that most of the focus-grouped public will find drinkable and be willing to pay a premium for.

The craft beer revolution is (to them) just an exercise in producing the cheapest beer that will get a premium amount of money out of your pockets. Is goose island 4x better than bud light? Think it costs 4x more to make? That's a sort of classic bandwagon IPA- a modest amount of flavor/aroma hops and a shitload of bittering and BAM you've got an intense IPA that most people will gobble up in preference to bud light or whatever shit they were previously drinking.

Anyway, this is why I brew my own. It generally costs me about 4 to 6 bucks per gallon to make premium beers. Maybe 10 bucks a gallon if I used a metric ton of hops and grain. Even that price point, I'm still paying about a dollar a bottle, which compares favorably to pretty much everything.

Never thought of it like that. Thanks for the difference perspective

Relevant to the last 3 pages:

1.) I really like a floral/ fruity IPA. Bell's Two Hearted, Boulevard Single Wide (already mentioned) and Magic Hat Number 9 are excellent "starter" IPAs (technically, Two Hearted and Number 9 aren't IPAs, but whatever). I also will drink the shit out of a Stone Enjoy By, or a similar Double IPA. That shit is delicious. A few of the local/ locallish breweries have really stellar DIPAs. Straight to Ale Monkey's Uncle will change your life. Same with Trim Tab Tesserae.

Having said that, a super bitter IPA is just gross. Some of the new "cool" IPAs are poison.

2.) IPAs are very sensitive to age, and I believe to heat cycles (I think I can taste even one heat cycle in a good beer, though a lot of beer geeks says I'm a liar). Be careful where you buy them, as some supermarkets will leave microbrews in the back under a pile of Bud Suitcases for months before they put them in the cooler.

3.) I toured the Budweiser Brewery in St Louis a few weeks ago, and the scale that they brew at is incredible. They showed us 1 rack of four aging tanks that were ~15 ft in diameter and ~30 ft long equating to ~50,000 beers per tank. There were at least a dozen more of those racks on the campus.

Also, Straight to Ale is most of the way through renovating the middle school they just bought here in Huntsville. There will be several breweries and tap rooms in the facility, including STA's new brew house that is taking up the entire former basketball gym. I am excite. It's gonna be righteous.

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I think one of the biggest things someone needs to consider when choosing a beer is the quantity they intend to drink. I can sip and appreciate the complexity of some Imperial Mocha Cocao Nib Porter, infused with Ethically Foraged Hibiscus Extract & Rhino Horn tincture, but fuck, I don't want to drink 2 or 3 of them.

3 or more beers for me means I'm looking at something "sessionable". Something that won't leave me with Sanka breath or burnt taste buds. For me, that means plain 'ole Pale Ales, Wheats, Hefeweizens, Whites, Amber/Red Ales, etc.

Yup, exactly my kind of beer. Don't think I've actually had it, but I know a buddy has some lying around so I should go bug him. I'm a big fan of founders in general since they make a lot of good stuff. Even the regular dirty bastard and their porter are great brews, and I always stock up on their imperial stout when it comes out.

Backwoods bastard is founders dirty bastard scotch ale aged in oak barrels...I'm 95% sure. All I know is, it's amazing and you should have some. It's in my top 5 beers of all time list.
In fact, while we're there. This might be my top 5, in no order:
Peche Mortel
Backwoods bastard
I had a firkin once of flying dog raging bitch that was brewed with Belgian sugar.
Southern tier oak aged pumking (draft)
Prism love is evil. Was a strawberry jalapeño lager. Sounds bad, but it tasted like a dark lager with strawberry in it, but the after taste actually stung your lips. Was very interesting.

That's what I think of now...if I think hard enough, 1/2 that list will change, but peche Mortel and backwoods bastard stay.