Finally got my hands on the Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro. Turns out it is stocked just over the river in Iowa, even though it isn’t here. Whatever.
It is very good. But after all the hype, I was disappointed to discover that it still isn’t as good as the local Lucky Bucket Certified Evil. Well, sorta disappointed - I don’t have to drive over to Iowa to get Certified Evil.
This is only beer-adjacent, but it happened this weekend so I figured I’d talk about it. There’s a series of road races, mostly 5k, in Grand Rapids around various bars and breweries. Mostly you run, and then drink a beer at the end. But for this last one of the summer, it was more of a bar crawl - stop at 5 bars along the way and have a beer at each. Of course you didn’t have to drink all the beer, but I’m dumb so I drank 'em all.
Sadly the selection was limited to one or two beers at each place, but there were still some decent ones. City Built Brewing had a Cream IPA which seemed good if you’re an IPA person, and I had a brown at Grand Rapids Brewing Company that I thought was the best of the bunch.
Man, that sounds like a blast. And I’d totally be in favor of those beer choices. Brown ales are my jam.
You’re in Chicago, right? You should come over across the lake next year! Bring the family, make a weekend of it! We got lots of beer to try in GR :)
I might have to do that some time. Probably not for the pub crawl though, anniversary weekend and all that ;)
I have had some good Cascade beers but those prices are crazy. Am I reading that right at around $52 for 2014 Pumpkin Smash? That’s insane for a beer that size, or at least 99% of them. It appears that they are cranking out one-off beers as well based on the shelf, so even when a good one lands, it’s not like it was apparently that rare.
The prices on that bottom right shelf are more in line with what I expect to pay with one exception, buying a beer long after release that ended up being very highly rated and desired. I’ve bought a few like that and they certainly held up well.
But even at release, that Pumpkin Smash was so-so. I don’t care if it is three years old and they had a golden ticket inside that got me a brewery tour by Gene Wilder’s ghost.
I’m down with taking a chance on beers, but not at those price tags. The bottom shelf is more normal, and I’m down with taking a chance on something up to about $15 if I like the style or it’s a brewery that I know and love.
Lagunitas, I’ve professed my love of their stuff before. Their special 22oz bottles of limited release stuff are usually good, but pack quite the whollop.
This was no different. Taste is somewhat like an India Brown Ale, for lack of descriptors. The caramelly goodness of a brown with the hoppy bite of an IPA. I quite enjoyed it.
And now I’m drunk coding. Because the best way to learn a new dev environment is while buzzed.
Yum. I see that one all the time but haven’t picked it up. Sounds delicious from your description, so I think I know what I’m picking up next time.
Yes, it pretty much nails the intersection of my beer preferences. While the Qt3 hivemind is all abuzz with their milk stouts, give me a good brown ale any day of the week.
A question to you guys outside of the NC/SC area. Now that Inbev bought Wicked Weed, are you able to get any of their beers locally?
I’m off to the Steel City Beer & Cider Festival tomorrow and thought I’d swing by here to ask if anyone has any recommendations I can add to my hit list:
http://www.sheffieldcamra.org.uk/festival/
Great site btw, you can click on Cask/Keg/International/Cider and order the drinks by breweries, type, and ABV and apply various other filters.
good grief that’s a huge list haha. There’s a tonne of decent stuff on cask, depends what you are particularly most interested in I suppose?
finish your night on this:
Magic Rock - Bearded Lady Dessert Edition (10.5%)
I have to say, most of those are new to me. I guess if you haven’t had the Kernel before, definitely have that.
Excellent, thanks. I’ve noted those down.
I’ve actually been getting into porters and stouts over the last year. Before that it was mostly pale ales. What a difference a year makes since trying the Brewdog milk stout!
I noticed the ‘bacon ice cream stout’ by Abbeydale (a Sheffield brewery) and Ass Clown, which sounds as rough as it does intriguing. I’m keen to try Chocolate Wonderland after enjoying Jaipur and Chiron by Thornbridge. Thor Cake, which is brewed in Ashover, I had earlier in the year and that was really good:
Thor Cake (5.8%) - Spiced brown ale
Rich brown ale brewed with oats, black treacle, orange peel, ginger and coriander seed.
A colleague at work recommended Spill the Beans by Brains, a coffee porter sold at Aldi for 99p, and I’ve been really enjoying it.
That Thornbridge Cocoa beer is nice in a bottle and I can only imagine it’s somewhat better from cask dispense, giving it more body.
A few dark beer picks then:
Elland - 1872 Porter (6.5%) : a former CAMRA champion beer of Britain, well deserved, its super
Wild Weather - Bello Di Mamma (6.0%) or North Riding Tiramisu Porter (4.5%) : Tiramisu beers (and there’s another I haven’t listed!)?! that’s gotta be worth a go yeah? good breweries (though not convinced WW have canning nailed)
Abbeydale - Salvation #5 (5.8%) : doughnut stout! think i have a sweet tooth. not had this but Abbeydale a very decent
Titanic - Plum Porter (4.9%) : if you’ve not had this, and like the idea, then give it a go. it’s hugely popular where I live in the local CAMRA dens
Hey, if you can, try the Abbeydale/Ass Clown collaboration beer: “Don’t Go Bacon My Heart”
I have not had it, but I would be interested in hearing your take on it. Ass Clown is about 5 minutes from my house. It is a tiny place, and the head brewer is all over the map with what he makes. Some of them end up being fantastic, some do not.
I’ll try to swing by over the weekend and see if he has that same beer on tap locally.
The rest of your choices there all seem local. I don’t recognize any names at all. Usually I really enjoy when things are like that, it makes me happy for the local brewers getting some fact time and recognition.
You could say that about everything Ass Clown makes as well. The lead brewer/owner is one of the, “I don’t care what anyone thinks,” types of people. Obviously so with his name, which he had to fight our state to even use as a brewery name, apparently. Honestly his concoctions are hit or miss, but sometimes he strikes gold and they are highly sought after.
