I don't even want to think about what I spend on beer. Like at all.

And that Avery Maharaja is a fucking mouthfull for sure. I haven't had another one.

Brewmasters Notes
Fermented with wild yeasts and aged in wine barrels with orange peel, Sofie is a tart, dry, sparkling ale. A subtle, spicy white pepper note, a hint of citrus from the orange peel and a creamy vanilla finish make Sofie an intriguing choice for Champagne drinkers and beer drinkers who are fond of Belgian Saisons.


Recipe Information:
Style: Belgian Style Farmhouse Ale
Alcohol by Volume: 6.5%
International Bitterness Units: 25
Color: Champagne
Hops: Amarillo
Malt: Pilsner, Wheat



This fantastic brew began its life as "Charlie", the third installment of the Brewer’s Select Series. It is now part of our seasonal lineup and will be released in the month of January. It is an intricate dark ale with a touch of smokiness. The rich malt flavor, crisp bitterness and smoke reach perfect equilibrium in this brew. At 7.5% abv, Fireside Ale will warm you up as the temperature drops.

i always see a couple of weyerbacher beers at the liquor store that are like $4 for a 4pk and wonder if they're actually any good. they don't have great ratings from beer advocate though.

I don't think their beer advocate scores are especially bad, although one of their highest rated beers on there has been my least favorite.
Blithering Idiot Barley Wine B+
Double Simcoe IPA A-
Fireside Ale B+
Heresy Russian Imperial Stout B+
Insanity English Barley Wine A-
Quad B+
Those are all pretty good scores, and usually anything a B or higher means it is well worth the purchase on that site.

I really enjoy their Kilo Saison which only got a B-, and though that the Double Simcoe was a bit too much for one variety of extremely pungent hops. It's one of those beers that really puts off the cat pee odor.
If you only have to pay $4 for a four pack, I'd say go for it. They cost about double that here due to a lack of availability

i know they had the Slam Dunkel for $4 but i can't remember what the other one was. i thought it had a score of 83 but maybe i was wrong.

That would be a ratebeer score rather than a Beer Advocate score, and it got a great review.
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/weyerbache ... kel/73958/

I think their reviewers are generally a bit more favorable to good, but not great beers and they are less likely to downgrade a beer due to the style. There are some beer snobs on Beer Advocate that are too much like your average indie music message board poster. They only like what they like and don't objectively rate beers on how a beer of that style should actually taste. Plus, a lot of them have bought into the high hop/high ABV trend and equate that with great beer.

That would annoy the piss out of me.

Had a variety of stuff this past weekend for the cookout we had at our house. I'd had most of it before except for most of the Great Divide sample pack I bought and Bell's Two Hearted (as far as I can remember).

Great Divide
Belgica. The guy at the store said this was great so I bought a sampler that had it instead of Collette. (The GD samplers each have a different assortment of four beers.) Big mistake. I guess I could have done worse by getting the case with the raspberry beer, but this was still pretty bad. Very disappointed in them with this. First of all, would Belgians ever make an IPA? I mean, I guess they would, and a brewery like Chouffe seems to try their hand at a lot of different things. But this was just wierd. Kinda fruity and spicy like a typical Belgian but, of course, over-hopped. Just wierd. I got another person or two to try it and they felt the same.

Denver Pale Ale. Very good beer. Fairly "basic" I guess, but a good summertime-type drink. If it was cheap, it's the sort of thing I could easily go through a whole bunch of in a day.

I'd had the Claymore before and wasn't that impressed with it, and I still have yet to try the Titan IPA. Not really looking forward to it, though, given that I'm not really an IPA guy, and this isn't supposed to be one of the best ones out there.

And...

Bell's Two Hearted Ale. I don't think I'd ever had it before, and I've had two now, both while grilling. Maybe extreme heat isn't the best situation for this because I have to say that I don't really get what the big deal is. Of course it's good, but I feel like I did when I tried Rogue Dead Guy a while back (which I need to try again). Just trying to figure out why it's so universally loved. It's pretty well balanced. Clear hops but not overpowering. Is it just that I know nothing about beer that I don't really, really appreciate something like this? If it wasn't so expensive - just like Dead Guy - I could see myself drinking it from time to time. But I'm just not really convinced that it's worth it. People complain that Oberon is expensive, but it's at least a couple of dollars cheaper per six pack here, and being more of a wheat beer guy anyway, I'd much rather buy that, especially during hot weather. But then, I've had way better wheat beers than that, too.

It wasn't the first time I've had it, but I also bought a lot of New Belgium Skinny Dip which went over really well. I haven't had a lot of summer brews, but for what this is, it seems just about perfect. Super easy drinking and pretty damn tasty.

Also had their Mothership Wit for the first time but was fairly unimpressed.

i think the best beers from Great Divide are the Hades, Hoss & Collette.

I really like Saint Bridget's Porter a lot. Need to try Collette and those others.

My personal Great Divide favorites are:
16th Anniversary Wood Aged Double IPA
Old Ruffian Barley Wine
Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti

Abita Satsuma Harvest Wit

Just picked up a sixer of these. Really enjoy Abita's seasonals and I absolutely love satsumas.

if you have a chance to try beers from either of these Columbia River gorge breweries, do it. had some this weekend and they were very good.

I thought this was a quality summer beer, but wasn't up to the standards of a really good Belgian Wit.
It was on par with Blue Moon and most american wheat beers, but a little too carbonated.

Tonight, I am going to a tapping party for Sierra Nevada's newest beer 'Tumbler', which will be replacing their 'Anniversary Ale' after it's 3 year run.

Brewer Description
Tumbler is a malt forward brown ale which uses two-row pale, crystal 40, chocolate and smoked malts to deliver it's malt complexity. Tumbler is made with fresh roasted malt straight from the roasting kilns and into the brewery. We have an agreement with our maltsters to deliver our malt within days of cooling for a much more pronounced roasted-grain flavor to the beer.

That sounds good.

I'm going to a tapping party tomorrow for Brasserie De Blaugies La Moneuse Saison
It has an ABV of 8% and a rating of 98 from Rate Beer and an A- from Beer Advocate

COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION
La Moneuse is named for A. J. Moneuse (b. 1768), a famous local bandit and gang leader, and ancestor of the brewers' family. It is a classic "saison" beer by virtue of its strength and its earthy, aged quality. It has a hardy, semi-dry malt character, a fresh but not overpowering hoppiness, abundant yeasty, fruity flavors and a fairly strong, but pleasant and enticing mustiness.

It wasn't as good as their strawberry seasonal, and any satsuma taste was hard to find. I was a bit disappointed. Abita is usually better than this.

im a big fan of the Abita stuff

When I got wind of this last month, I talked to my tavernkeeper who told me that the quantities would be so limited, he was pretty sure the N. American distributor would only be releasing it to a small,select number of venues (one of those brother in law deals), meaning he, along with anyone else in the Southeast, wasn't going to get hold of any.

Lo and be damned, he sent me a message on facebook last night to tell me that he'd been able to convince the distributor to send him a small quantity (just HOW small, I'm not sure yet). So, yeh, I haven't actually TRIED it yet, and should probably wait until after tonight to mention it in this thread, but I'm really pumped about getting my hands on a bottle (or two)tonight. Never even heard of Green Flash Brewing Company before- apparently located in San Diego- but if their brewmaster convinced St. Feuillien to do one up together, he must be pretty fucking good.

For anyone in New York that's interested, there's a bar somewhere on Long Island with the very sissy name La P'tite Framboise that has some now. A joint in San Diego named O'Brien's is set to do a debut on August 7. Don't know about other locales.

Report forthcoming, probably tomorrow.

Tentoze,

Rate Beer says that beer has officially been distributed to Maine, Illinois (Chicago area) and DC as well, and that it seems to be on tap in more locations right now than in bottle form.

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/st-feuilli ... ie/126758/

I loves me some Turbodog.

Drank some Sofie yesterday. No idea what it tasted like. I was pounding Pyrat beforehand.

I read that as well. The US distributor responded on facebook to a lament I made a couple of days ago about it not getting to the southeast: