I brew, you brew, hopefully we don't spew: The Beer Thread

[Violentvixen]

I'm going off alcohol temporarily for Reasons, so I've been reading back through this thread for N/A beer recs. Thanks to all who posted, but if you've made any new discoveries since last year or have any further suggestions, please share! The stuff on shelves nearby is limited, so all I've really tried so far is Athletic's All Out Dark which is... fine. Took a moment for me to get used to it and I don't think I'd really call it a stout, but it's better than nothing when I'm feeling like a dark beer. I might try ordering some things off the Better Rhodes site mentioned above, though people's comments about shipping costs are making me preemptively wince a bit.

So one thing I reminded myself about after traveling out of state is how much easier it is to buy it elsewhere. Bevmo and Total Wine aren't in Oregon but should have a LOT of selection including NA stuff. I saw the Busty Lush brand I liked at a Bevmo in CA but have never seen it in any stores in Oregon.

But yeah, NA stuff in general is exploding in popularity right now so I'd be curious if you find some new ones you like. And if you do decide to try Better Rhodes let me know and I'll dig up that referral code, doesn't offset shipping but should help.

 

[Violentvixen]

Miller Lite, I'm proud of you. Requesting people send back all their sexist advertising, offering $10 in merch as a thanks, and then donating the fertilizer and hops to female brewers?

I love that they acknowledge their role too:

“We recognize that Miller Lite played a contributing roe in this in the past,” she says. “We’ve been collecting our and other brands outdated, old sexist ads, displays and posters for months. We have been buying and removing any pieces we could find on the internet.”

Also if any of you don't know the Pink Boots Society is a legit brewing group and I pay attention when they're included in something this big.

 

[Kirin]

Nice. Afraid I’m still not interested in drinking Miller but the gesture is appreciated.

 

[Kirin]

So while keeping an eye out for convenient NA beer, I noticed my local coop now has NA Guinness of all things. Now, as a fan of big bad aged craft stouts, Guinness has always seemed a little thin to me and basically the epitome of “...yeah, it’s fine”. (I hear it’s better in Ireland, but haven’t gotten a chance to try that.) Anyway the NA version is... still fine. Nothing amazing in itself but probably the closest NA to regular comparison I’ve come across. So I guess it’ll be a nice thing to keep on hand if I just feel like an okay lightish stout.

 

[Kirin]

Due to both the weather warming up and the dearth of readily available NA dark beers, I’ve been trying some NA Hazy IPAs. I found Sam Adam’s “Just the Haze” at a local pub and it’s actually quite good. Could barely tell it’s NA really, though I’m not exactly a connoisseur when it comes to IPAs. Sadly though, Althletics “Free Wave” contribution isn’t as good and I just don’t like it very much, which is a pity because I picked up a whole 6pack...

 

[John]

So while keeping an eye out for convenient NA beer, I noticed my local coop now has NA Guinness of all things. Now, as a fan of big bad aged craft stouts, Guinness has always seemed a little thin to me and basically the epitome of “...yeah, it’s fine”. (I hear it’s better in Ireland, but haven’t gotten a chance to try that.) Anyway the NA version is... still fine. Nothing amazing in itself but probably the closest NA to regular comparison I’ve come across. So I guess it’ll be a nice thing to keep on hand if I just feel like an okay lightish stout.

The AirBnB house we rented a few weeks ago had some of this in the fridge, so I tried one. I agree, it's "fine", not something I'd buy, but it was pretty close to the regular version. I preferred their Extra Stout to the regular light stout, but all Guinness were only good for the novelty of getting a black & tan.

 

[Issun]

Athletic Brewing (which specializes entirely in NA beer) has a new Witcher tie-in beer called Geralt's Gold. It's a hoppy Helles lager and it's honestly one of the best NAs I've ever had. It's a couple of dollars more than Athletic's other offerings, but it's good enough that I'm willing to toss a coin their way.

 

[Violentvixen]

Athletic Brewing (which specializes entirely in NA beer) has a new Witcher tie-in beer called Geralt's Gold. It's a hoppy Helles lager and it's honestly one of the best NAs I've ever had. It's a couple of dollars more than Athletic's other offerings, but it's good enough that I'm willing to toss a coin their way.

I have tried so much Athletic Brewing stuff and just haven't been impressed by any of of it. But I like Helles so I will give 'em another shot with this one.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I went home to Ohio from Seattle for a week, and was reminded of how much better the Midwest does Christmas beers than the PNW does. When I say Christmas beer, I mean an ale of some sort that's heavily spiced with christmas spices (e.g. ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, you know the drill). They're distinct from pumpkin spice beers in a way I can't articulate.

Ohio was absolutely lousy with these, but they're downright rare in Seattle. There are seasonal winter beers in Seattle, but most of them are "winter warmers," which are just strong dark ales which are (to my palate) offensively hoppy for something that's supposed to be winter-seasonal. The few Christmas Beers that I would recognize as such are not up to the Midwest's standards, either.

It gets me wondering, how regional is this? Where's the cutoff? Is the Christmas Beer that I know a Midwestern oddity? Or is that the standard and the PNW's hoppy winter beers are the regional oddity? Do other regions even get winter-seasonal beers, and if so, what are they?

 

[Violentvixen]

Is the Christmas Beer that I know a Midwestern oddity? Or is that the standard and the PNW's hoppy winter beers are the regional oddity? Do other regions even get winter-seasonal beers, and if so, what are they?

I strongly feel like the Pacific Northwest is bad at dark strong beers, I remember reading an opinion piece that talked about what grows in different areas and how hops go nuts up here which is why they're in so many beers. Dunno if it's true but makes sense and would make it regional.

You'll see more of the Christmas beers in more Scandinavian-settled areas as they're loosely based on old Norse recipes, or at least attempt to recreate them. This is a regional thing, as dark malts were mainly Scandinavian and then came over to the Midwest. There are of course a lot of German/Czech ones too but those are usually a darker/spicer version of a known beer rather than a whole regional style. There are English Christmas ales too but I think they're different.

Anchor made one of the most classic Christmas ales (they made the first one in America) but they closed this year, it sounds like the employees are trying to buy it back and I hope they succeed.

Sam Adam's Old Fezziwig is supposed to be good and I hear about it a lot, oddly quite often from homebrewers haven't seen it or tried it myself so don't know where it's distributed.

I'm completely blanking on other Christmas ales right now but I know they're out there. But definitely don't seem to be on the West Coast as much.

 

[Violentvixen]

Ha, this morning someone on Beer Advocate shared this, looks like it was just posted yesterday:

Doesn't go into the history, but he does complain about hops and things not being a true Christmas ale, ha. He has chapters for each beer so skipped around to the start of all of them.

 

[Kirin]

Anchor made one of the most classic Christmas ales (they made the first one in America) but they closed this year, it sounds like the employees are trying to buy it back and I hope they succeed.

Whaaaat, I hadn't heard about that, that's incredibly sad. Here's hoping it can be resurrected. I always looked forward to their Xmas ale (which uses a different recipe every year), but hadn't checked this year since I'm off alcohol at the moment.

(NA xmas beer seems pretty hard to find, I turned up a "12 days of NA xmas" list of which only like two really seemed like xmas beers and both those were out of production. Clausthaler does make a cranberry-cinnamon variety of their standard NA, though it's really more like a winter radler.)

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Man, just found out that our (extremely) local brewpub is closing down. They were our lifeline during the covid years, as they had a huge outdoor terrace with spaced-out tables and they were only a 5-minute walk from our house. It wasn't the place that made the best beer, but it had a great vibe and a solid menu. And did I mention it was 5 minutes away from our house? Sad times.

 

[Paul le Fou]

(NA xmas beer seems pretty hard to find, I turned up a "12 days of NA xmas" list of which only like two really seemed like xmas beers and both those were out of production. Clausthaler does make a cranberry-cinnamon variety of their standard NA, though it's really more like a winter radler.)

I tried the Clausthaler and enjoyed it for what it was - like you said, it was more like a radler, but it was a good one. Worth trying out, at least!

Man, just found out that our (extremely) local brewpub is closing down. They were our lifeline during the covid years, as they had a huge outdoor terrace with spaced-out tables and they were only a 5-minute walk from our house. It wasn't the place that made the best beer, but it had a great vibe and a solid menu. And did I mention it was 5 minutes away from our house? Sad times.

Sad times indeed. My friends also just lost a brewpub right across the street from them, and it always sucks when a beloved local business goes out.

 

[Kirin]

Dang, lot of that going around. Just found out that the brewpub just down the street from my work's home office in NY state just closed after 15 years of operation. Sad times x3. Was always a reliable place to visit when I was up there.

 

[Violentvixen]

Untappd is doing a little Year in Beer retrospective so you can see your 2023 stats which is fun.

All local Bend stuff except for Vertere which was a place in Japan, but I met the brewers/owners at Funky Fauna here in Oregon. I joined Funky Fauna's pub club thing which includes fun quarterly small batch releases so not at all surprised it has such a high amount of beers drunk.

10 Barrel is where we have staff meetings and even though work doesn't pay for our beer everyone usually grabs something after. The Japan hotel is because we all bought a bunch of kombini stuff and shared it one night so that was essentially 8 sips of different beers, but I guess each beer checkin counted as a visit, weird. IBREW is also Tokyo and I had a flight and it counted each one separately but whatever.

 

[Kirin]

*sigh* I miss real beer. And making my untappd numbers go up, lol.

I should be better about checking in NA stuff I’ve tried, but the field is just so much smaller I feel like I can just about keep the readily available options in my head. It growing at least, but slowly.

 

[Violentvixen]

It growing at least, but slowly.

I honestly would say it's growing pretty fast! Mocktails certainly get the most press but more and more NA beers are coming out.

 

[Kirin]

TBH, that's true, it's a hot sector, just coming up from an orders-of-magnitude smaller base than the regular craft beer market. Also I get a little discouraged by the prevalence of IPAs and relative dearth of dark brews, though I've found several I like from Bravus that aren't hard to get. Just wish I could get more variety without mail-ordering from across the country or something.

 

[Issun]

 

[Daikaiju]

Is that licensed?

 

[Violentvixen]

Anchor is coming back! Apparently the founder of Chobani bought it? I learned from this article that he started Chobani by buying a closed yogurt company and hiring back all the people who were laid off so that's cool. Hopefully it gets back up and running soon!

 

[Kirin]

Nice!

 

[Issun]

Yay! Anchor Steam is a good beer and there's really nothing else like it, so I'm glad it's not disappearing forever.