Haha

So this Ballantine IPA thing, which is PBR's latest foray into the craft market... I bought one just to see what they drummed up. Back story: it was a real old IPA, has legitimate heritage, but there is no recipe anymore, so it's all been recreated by talking to people who drank it, and some process notes they found about oils and aging. Anywho, I had it yesterday. It's fine, but it tastes like 32 other large IPAs that are borderline DIPAs. It's fruity and almost soapy, and has a good bit of astringent bitterness, moreso than I'd like. I don't need to buy it again. I don't even blame them for making something indistinguishable... everyone else came along after Ballantine, so I get it. But it sure does make it unable to stand out.

Would prefer anything local and small to this, just to put my bucks in the right pockets.

Hassler's dad used to tell me about drinking Ballantine Ale. Hunter Thompson used to mention it a lot as well.

Had a Ballast Point Grunion Pale Ale the other night. It was friggin' excellent. Best beer I've had in awhile.

Never seen it, but I'll look.



I can imagine it being downright revolutionary in 1970. There was NOTHING like this around then.

Recents:

Belching Beaver Peanut Butter Milk Stout

I was expecting this to be a little too gimmicky but Holy crap was this good. Peanut Butter wasn't too overpowering, but a nice flavor enhancement to a really good milk stout. I know nothing about this brewery but strike me impressed.

Smog City Coffee Porter

A local L.A. brewery and not really one of my favorites but I'd read good things about this beer. It was probably the best thing I've had by them but still not exceptional.

Eagle Rock/Alesmith - Dairy Tank

Another Milk Stout - this one a collaborative beer between LA's Eagle Rock Brewery and SD's Alesmith. Alesmith makes very good stouts and this was really good. If I hadn't had the Belching
Beaver one recently, I probably would have liked it even more.

Noble Aleworks - Chinook Showers

These guys are one of the best smaller craft breweries in S.CA and they do really good IPAs. This is part of their Single Hop IPA series that is really popular among CA beer nerds. This one doesn't seem to be as well-received as most of the series but I liked it fine.

Russian River - Temptation Ale

A blonde sour aged in chardonnay barrels, it's one of the harder to find RR sours that they bottle. I'm not sure I've had it before but it was really good. I don't like it as much as Consecration or Supplication but I think I like it more than Sanctification.

Upright Brewery - White Truffle Gose

I'm not a huge Gose fan but I love truffles which is probably why I bought it this spring. It's been in my refrig ever since and I forgot it that they used truffles in it when I opened it. There really wasn't any detectable truffle on the nose or the palate but perhaps it did give it a more earthy and rounded flavor because I liked it much more than the typical gose. A pretty enjoyable beer in this heat wave but I can't say that I really think it was worth what I paid for it.

Brew Fist/Prairie Artisan Ales - Spaghetti Western

A collab beer between Italian brewer Brew Fist and OK's Prairie Artisan Ales, it's an imperial stout with coffee and cocoa beans and apparently some pasta mixed in with the mash tun. I love everything Prairie makes so not surprisingly this was really good.

THAT... is a spectacularly bad brewery and beer name combo. All the more interesting that it was so good.

Pabst just got bought by a giant Russian beverage firm.

Putin has won.

I know, right. I guess I was somewhat amazed at the level of autonomy they had managed to keep all these years, at their size.

pretty solid beer haul today. GABF is a little more than a week away, and the goodies are starting to roll in:

speaking of GABF, i don't suppose any of you fools will be out here? i have the good fortune to be pouring all four sessions for my buddy's nephews brewery, Cellarmaker.

i'm stoked -- these guys are absolutely killing it with the West Coast hop bomb goodness. highly recommend a visit if you find yourself in San Francisco.

oh yeah...and a couple recent's that i really dug:

billy i'll join you on the Prairie love...these guys can seemingly do no wrong. both of these we solid:



and i know many here dislike Stone for whatever reason, but this was tasty as hell - i'd even go as far as saying it's almost on par with Bomb!:

Best brewery in America if you ask me. I have 3 of those Cherry Funks at home but haven't had a chance to try it yet.

Thanks for the tip on that Stone collab beer. I don't hate Stone. I just haven't had anything by them that rose above pretty good. I'll have to try that one though.

Very cool stuff! I say again: Westbrook's "One Claw" is a sixpack beer with very few peers.

Mix one of those Westbrook Gose cans with a little tomato juice and thank me later.

Regarding this new Ballantines thing... co-worker here who used to work at Harpoon asked me if I'd tried it yet, the other day.

"Yeah, it's ok. No longer amazing in 2014, but surely revolutionary in the 70's, if it really did taste like that back then."

"Sure, but it's like $6.50 a sixpack. For over 7% abv, and it's pretty decent."

...he makes a compelling point. I only saw it in a bomber, not in sixpacks. If I can get a sixer of that for so cheap, it would be hard not to go for that on a semi regular basis.

Had my first Weyerbacher pumpkin of the year last night with dinner. Was about 66 degrees outside.

Felt like Fall had officially arrived.

damn, i'm gonna have to try this Sunday morning while watching my dolphins fail in london.

billy, do y'all get Perennial Artisan Ales out your way? they are doing very similar things to Prairie, though i've had 1 or 2 misses by them. overall very solid.

also, Almanac is really doing it for me these days.

Not sure if Perennial is available out here. I've never heard of them, but will keep a lookout for them now. Thanks.

I like Almanac but I think they are a little overpriced. They always seem to sit around my refrigerator for that reason...too expensive to just be a random beer I grab to drink after already having had a few but not really what I reach for first if I want something special. I need to clear out some room for a big batch of eggnog I want to make next month so I'm probably going to start thinking less about that stuff and just try to clear some more room in the refrigerator.

Maybe the only pumpkin beer I can still enjoy, I'm beginning to think. A few have snuck into my hand here and there these past few weeks, all of them either Meh or NO.

A good 4-5 months ago at work, they tried to institute "clubs." Like, go to the caf, there's a table full of clip boards, with things like "Bike club" or "photography club" on them. See things you like? Sign up. Then they figured out who would manage each one, they set aside rooms just after work once a week, etc. I started "Craft Beer Club," and had a ton of people sign up. Then every week, nobody would show up. I arranged it for 1pm in the caf, thinking that would be easy. I also had a steady stream of new people come by my desk, ask about it, and then ask to be added. And none would ever show up. Meanwhile people heard about it, and would sometimes stop by to ask for beer recommendations. As in, "I like ____ beer, but I want to try new things. Any suggestions?" So I would jot down some suggestions (specific beers or just breweries).

Someone suggested moving it to after work, once a month, at a bar. I did that, and I got 2 people to show up. It was fun, but turned into a bitch session about work, because they're kinda burned out. I'm thinking of having themes each time, like "german beers" etc, where I explain the styles, the history, and we sample some. I could also organize a homebrew demo day and have people over. Would love it if this didn't wither and die, but I don't know how else to get support, and I don't want to push. If they support it, it lives, I guess.

<nerdiest thing ever, cry blood tears for my former glory>
Could you possibly related to work? I had some luck a few months ago scheduling a seminar on new technology in sports analytics and explaining how it related to our internal statistics. Some people are afraid to dedicate time at work to nonwork pursuit, but you can get solid attendance if you could make it sound like it's tangentially related to work.</youth>

In some ways, yeah, but I'm really only interested in putting a certain amount of work into this. Manufacturing beer and enzymes is actually sorta similar.

Yeah that how I would pitch it, by bringing in some nerd biochem wizard to explain why learning how he makes enzymes will make you a better brewer. Maybe @4:30 at a bar.