Stairs from the bedroom (where the ibuprofen was located) back down to the living room. Carpeted, with me wearing socks... I took the last 8 or so steps on my right side.

I just found video from the festival. ...oh yeah.

First, the brands we had...














If I took a picture of it, then we had at least one of their beers, and usually more like 3-4.

Oh yeah. Ouch.

Lost Abbey. I felt bad for them because their sign obviously didn't arrive or something, but it turns out to have been an excellent indicator of their work ethic. The beer was AWFUL. I had something by them aged in red wine casks and it was acidic, tart, fruity bullshit.



A local brewpub, Watch City. Again, awful. Neuro had this one (he's a fan of the misuse of fake "scare" quotes), and reported back in the negative.


...while I had this one, which tasted like 50% Hoegaarden / 50% Bud Light. Awful.



Something doesn't taste good



Deciding to move on to a new table after 3 bad samples in a row.



Sip



Fin Du Monde to the rescue. Love these guys.



NERD ALERT



Sam Adams showed up. They made some special stuff. OHG WE PROMISE IT WONK TASKE LIKE OUR OVER STUFF and it didn't exactly, but in this company it was not a strong enough effort. I had the belgian whatever they brought, and it wasn't bad but it did not stand out. Way below other north american belgian-style efforts.

Aside: The serving girl here said "Wanna compete for a keychain?"
Me - "compete?"
Her - "You know, answer a question...?"
Me - Sure, whaddya got.
Her - What's our new spring seasonal?
Me - Yeah I'm not gonna get that right, you guys put out like 14 new beers every 2 weeks.
Her - Ok, where did Sam Adams go to school?
Me - Easy, Haaaavid!
Her - Yep! here you go!

...so the next day I show the bottle opener to the wife and she's like "why... did you want this?" And I had no answer.


Something about 2 hours of strong beer makes peope look sad / sleepy.



Not the same without Haq there (ala 3 years ago) but we gave it the ol college try.



Stumbling down deserted subway halls all alone, on my way to falling down the bedroom stairs. GOOD TIMES!

Man, it looks like I'm wearing one of your shirts.

Kyle, I have to subtract points for the wearing of a hat indoors. I know you've forsaken your roots and all, but you can still remember your MANNERS

Man, I miss stuff like that. I went to a chili/beer fest in Portsmouth when I was there - I think I had to fumigate the apartment/burn my sheets the next day. We have a beer "tasting" here, but no shit, Sweetwater is exotic down here.

I DID have an interesting time with one of our more right wing legislators on election night. He came to our office party, and we had Two Hearted, and he and I had a long talk about how great a beer it is, what other stuff we like etc. So, even though we probably don't agree on anything else, he's now a good chum because of good beer - you can always find common ground!

I saw a lot of hats indoors, and just gave in. Plus I was already lugging around my jacket.

2 Hearted bringing people together is awesome. That beer for me will always be associated with playing country / western gigs with my buddy Ken in Madison at a place called the Weary Traveler. It just had this really great intimate vibe in there, and I loved what we were playing, and most of it was just a tiiiiny bit above my skillset so I was constantly working my ass off to keep up. Ken always drank pints of 2 Hearted, and I finally asked for a sip one night and was like Oh FUCK that's good.

I'm just messing with you on the hat. I remember the whole having to wear a jacket outdoors, but then everywhere being sweltering inside thing you get in the winter up there.

I'm just glad we have Bell's in a lot of places down here now. When people ask me what it tastes like I just reply "Awesome."

And you would love this guy I'm talking about - he plays dobro and mandolin, and they jam in a bi-partisan group of legislators and lobbyist types...and he LOVES beer. Invited me up to H'ville, where he represents to "check out the 4 breweries up there."

Aside from being a paleo conservative, he's good peoples

Holy shit yeah, that is my kinda dude. Lotta middle ground, politics be damned.

man, victory helios smells so bad.

For the record, most Lost Abbey beers sell for $20-30 a bomber...the one you had was most likely the Amazing Grace, which, like all their other beers, has received great reviews.

Jealous of you guys going to that Belgian beer fest. We have several beer fests here that some of my friends go to, but I never seem to be able to make out to them. One day.

A belated entry into the not nice beer category:


Victory - Moonglow Weizen Bock

So I had posted before about how I had just had some weizen bocks for the first time, and I loved all three of them - Ayinger, Weihenstephaner Vitus, and Schneider Aventinus. So I figured there must be a good American brewery that does these (and, you know, sells them in good old six packs), and sure enough, Victory makes a weizen bock called Moonglow. It's rated really highly on both beeradvocate and ratebeer. Well, so much for that. It sucks.

I've only been able to drink two bottles of it so far, but on the first taste, I was struck by how it seemed like a synthetic, unbalanced imitation of the German ones. Maybe I just got a bad batch or something, but it seemed overly sweet and just kind of flat. (I checked the date on it, and it's not really old or anything.) I suppose if I'd never had those German ones I might have thought this was OK, maybe an interesting wheat beer variation but too sweet and just a little off somehow. I'm really shocked by how highly this is rated. I'd give it a D+.

(I also got extremely sick the day after I had my first one of these, and that may have colored my impression a little. But I had another one just a few days ago and was still totally unimpressed.)

Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock
Hadn't had this on draft before, only bottles. Ended up in a place with it on tap last night and went through a few. Good, strong stuff. Really malty so if that's your thing, check it out.

This thread.



Three of these have slid down my throat real nice, ta!. Looks like they have a nice selection of pills from that photo. I've taken 4 Nurofen plus and a couple of valerian root to take the edge off. Slight twang of valerian with an earthy must.

Man, you like Singha? I used to work at a Thai restaurant where they forced that stuff on me all the time...tastes like watery cough syrup mixed with Bud Light or something.

I did prefer Leo whilst in Thailand, but yes, this is going down really fucking nice.

Yeah, I had that Moonglow a few weeks ago. I thought it tasted like beets or some other earthy vegetable. I somehow managed to power thru the sixer but I definitely won't be picking that up again.

Drinky, nobody in the US really makes a german weizen, not like they do. Ours are either sweeter, stronger, hoppier, etc. None of the subtlety, the malts are a little different, and I don't know, maybe just a difference in the water or something. But I've never had anything from here fool me into thinking it might be from Germany - you can always tell, right away.

Recents

Sierra Nevada - 30th Anniv. Grand Cru

Left both cameras at work that night... cell phone pics blow. Anywho, this is a big mashup of 4 or 5 of their beers, with more hops added at the end. It was very, very sharp and dry, and especially bitter. I can't say I really dug it. The alcohol content was really noticeable, and that late hop add really just felt like too much. Not their finest work. B-

Harpoon - Pott's Landbier

For Harpoon, this is good. It's a very humdrum normal german beer, but what surprised me was how german it really did taste. I see they made it in conjunction with a fellow brewery in germany, so I don't know what that actually means... shared just a recipe? Shipped over german ingredients too? Or brewed it there? Or brewed here but by their guys? Anyway it was different, not super exciting, and just ok I guess. Neuro brough it over, so I'm glad I got to try it. B



AleSmith - Wee Heavy

Man was I let down. This tasted flat, thin, and utterly uninspiring. With a name like that, and the packaging... I was looking forward to a velvet ass kicking. This was literally less exciting than Guiness. Look at that pitiful excuse for a head!! That might as well be a glass of coke from the 2 liter someone put in the break room last week. C+


Great Divide - 16th Anniv. Wood Aged Double IPA

As always, I am a sucker for wood aged beers, all else being equal. This was not a bad beer at all, better certainly then the ones preceeding it. It had a nice kick, great hop presence, good malty flavor under it, and just a hint of vanilla oak that you could pick up on without being told about it - but not enough to overstay its welcome. Not bad. Not amazing, but not bad. B+


Rock Art - Pumpkin Imperial Spruce Stout

Brewed with pumpkins and fucking Spruce Tips. I had to find out what this tasted like. Sadly, the answer was "a decent stout, with a hint of pine tar flavor." And no pumpkin whatsoever... I mean not a hint. Like, someone got stoned and forgot that step that day, because there might've been ONE little sugar pumpkin in that vat of wort, maybe, but there weren't two. Usually even if I can't taste it I can smell it, but nada. Meanwhile it was just an ok stout, so ... ZZZZZ B-

Kyle, did New Belgium have that Ranger IPA? That was a favorite at my last beer fest and I've been enjoying it lately.

last night I was at the corner store debating between that and just making old fashioneds, and this giant, bearded dude walked up, looked at the six pack in my hand and bellowed "that does it. I was gonna get some Rogue but you just made my mind up for me" and grabbed 2 sixers of the Ranger.

we took a trip to Western NC over the weekend and drank some great brews along the way:

Stu had:
French Broad Brewing Co Wee Heavier Scotch Ale
Lexington Ave Brewery Dunkelweizen and Oktoberfest
Victory Lager
Asheville Brewing Co Amber, ESP, ESB, IPA, Brown Ale and Golden Lager
Pisgah Brew Equinox Harvest Ale, Pale Ale, Porter, Trippel, Amber, Endless Summer
Foothills Brewing People's Porter
Wedge Brewing Company Community Porter, Iron Rail IPA

Femdisco had:
Grove Park Inn Abbey Ale
Lexington Ave Brewery Oktoberfest
Green Man IPA
Asheville Brewing Co Amber, ESP, ESB, IPA, Brown Ale and Golden Lager
Pisgah Brew Equinox Harvest Ale, Pale Ale, Porter, Trippel, Amber, Endless Summer
Foothills Brewing Torch Pilsner
Big Boss Brewing Blanco Diablo
Wedge Belgian Abbey Ale
Wedge Julian Price Pilsner

A local sports bar/restaurant called Duckworth's has a nice draft list and I had a couple of good beers on special for $2.50 on Friday night:

Lagunitas Little Sumpin'
Stone IPA

Surprised this thread wasn't going off during this holiday weekend.

Got some of this on sale:


And it was actually really good. I didn't know what to expect from a French beer, but its a really decent. The taste was slightly sweet, and but finished with some yeasty flavor (not bad, seriously). The one problem was, this poured with a heavy head. I guess I'm just spoiled with a lot of IPAs being less foamy, but you definitely had to watch your pour from the bottle with this one. Also, like many of the reviewers on beeradvocate, I, too found this reminiscent of a lot of Trappist beers. I need to go back and get some more bottles of this while they are on clearance.

I just had a french ale on lees too, gotta find the pic of it. I fucking loved it... like a lighter sunnier belgian almost.

And Cotton that's awesome. I love beer store comraderie.

I didn't expect it to taste just like the Germans, and there are a handful of American hefe's that I like just fine (Sierra Nevada's Kellerweis, mainly). It's not so much that it doesn't taste the same. If anything I was looking forward to whatever twist a good American brewery might put on it. (And being able to get it in a six pack.) But it just isn't good.

Hey, shiv didn't like it, either.