These guys have just opened up a new taproom near me. Picked up a sampler six-pack on my way back from work yesterday. They also have a great selection of bottles from other UK craft breweries. Looks like a great addition to the neighbourhood, though I haven’t had any food yet.
Being both a coffee nerd and a beer nerd, I have Ideas™ on how best to make a coffee stout. A lot of the recipes I’ve seen seem to miss some of the essentials when it comes to brewing coffee.
I find that most coffee stouts are pretty mediocre, if not terrible, but luckily a Norwegian microbrewery that makes one that is actually good was willing to share their recipe. It is probably the one I’ll select the next time it is my time to decide what my brewing guild makes.
It has a complicated malt profile, is pretty strong (8% abv) and dark candi sugar to balance out the bitterness.
Fish, the best homebrew I’ve had with it was a cold brewed coffee from a french press, added into secondary.
But the best tasting professional one I had was coffee added to a milk stout. The lactose sweetened things up a bit so it wasn’t so damned bitter.
This surprised me in the local library’s e-newsletter: a home brewing event!
I’m not a home brewer, but I look forward to the release of the winners’ full batch next summer!
We have a couple of breweries here that do that, called ProAm brew competitions. The same result applies, the homebrewer with the best submission gets to brew on the big system with the pro brewer, and the brewery gets to can/bottle that beer.
I don’t know if the homebrewer gets any monetary pay for that, however.
My wife does a thing with lamb shanks that calls for a bottle of stout. I think it really adds depth to the sauce.
I walked in to the local Jewels and they just had a few cases of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout just hanging out sitting on the floor. I had walked over so I only took 4 bottles home with me, but holy hell that is a nice Stout. I totally get why everyone adores it. I was tempted to drive my car over and load up but at $10.99 a bottle I felt like I was probably already burning my reasonable special beer budget since I also just picked up a few bombers of Half Acre’s Big Hugs and it seemed like some other people should get a fun surprise buy.
Anyways, long story short, if your local grocery store happens to have it sitting around while you’re buying chicken thighs totally pick some up.
Goose Island has always been ok with me. Not great, not terrible, but never my pick. As far as local ‘big’ breweries go, I much prefer Lagunitas.
However this has me intrigued. I suspect this should be easy for me to find.
Bourbon County has always been a top notch stout. Thumbs up. I get a 4 pack every year. I still have about a 6 year vertical saved. Waiting on a massive tasting day to break them out.
Not a huge drinker, but I did recently have a very cold Piton Lager. It wasn’t bad at all!
How are both Goose Island and Lagunitas local?
Both are Chicago breweries. Simple as that.
Lagunitas originated in California, but for the last 5-10 years they’ve also operated a brewery in Chicago. Not headquarters, sure, but all the stuff is made locally here, and they are easily available on tap at many places.
Went shopping for not so great beer for older relatives today, and noticed that they had a few dogfishhead 120 minute ipas…and better, they were 7.99. I never see them that cheap, and while I don’t love IPAs in general, for this I’ll make a huge exception.
Sierra Nevada is another California brewery that has operations on the east coast I think. Firestone-Walker will or maybe does by now as well.
Well? Well???
Hey Beer aficionados! My girlfriends dad has a love of really hoppy beers and I’d love to pick him up something good for the holidays. Does anyone have recommendations?
They are in Asheville, NC, along with Oscar Blues, who also put their east coast operations near there. If any of you ever get close by, GO TO ASHEVILLE. It’s a smaller city in a valley of the Smokey Mountains full of great food and breweries.
Another big east coast opening was Stone, opening up east coast operations in Richmond, VA.
Where do you live now, Shellfishguy?
Live in Annapolis, MD.