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

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
This year I won't even have to miss days due to holiday travel!
But yeah, this one shop's been doing it for two or three years now and it's a fabulous idea. Especially since my beer tastes are broad enough now that there's rarely more than a couple things out of the 24 that I really have no interest in drinking.
 

Cyrael

...we're shy.
(he/him)
This is breaking my heart.

In other news anyone want to ship a box that's totally not a beer advent calendar to Utah?
 

Cyrael

...we're shy.
(he/him)
Lunch beers all week because IDGAF. Got a good stash from Colorado and have been really enjoying Avery's Imperial Marzen (The Kaiser). Also got 2 big bottles of Chimay Blue to save for special occasions.
 

Cyrael

...we're shy.
(he/him)
Hey so what is everyone drinking tonight?

I am busting into the Chimay for either celebration or commiseration. 750ml can't be healthy but.....
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
I only have Elysian pumpkin spice beer onhand, but I might hit the whiskey for The Big Night. Hmm, too late to run to the store...?
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I can't decide. There's a part of me that wants to try to get ahead on work just in case I'm a mess tomorrow, but another that could really use the chilling out. Hmm.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
I had a bottle of 2017 DKML I had lying in the fridge, a ridiculous "imperial malt liquor" craft beer at 14.5% abv. Seemed like a good decision to take the edge off last night.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Deschutes released the Abyss as 4-packs of 12oz bottles this year instead of the usual 22oz, my spouse found the pack in the grocery store and I flipped out. This is my favourite beer but I'm a lightweight (even more so this year) so can't polish off a bottle on my own. I would be thrilled if other breweries do this as well, there are so many beers I love but can't handle myself.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Deschutes released the Abyss as 4-packs of 12oz bottles this year instead of the usual 22oz, my spouse found the pack in the grocery store and I flipped out. This is my favourite beer but I'm a lightweight (even more so this year) so can't polish off a bottle on my own. I would be thrilled if other breweries do this as well, there are so many beers I love but can't handle myself.
Oooooooh...
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Went to the bottle shop over the weekend where I'd pre-ordered the craft beer advent calendar to pick it up... and ended up buying another like $120 worth of craft singles, since I hadn't been to a bottle shop since pre-COVID. My backlog is replenished.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Hop Culture/Untappd is doing a breakfast cereal themed beer fest by mail and I kind of want to do it! Hell of a price tag, but it's 18 beers and I've barely spent any money on alcohol/social stuff in the past 12 months...

On a related note my alcohol tolerance is practically nothing now. One beer and I'm feeling it for hours.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
I am sorely tempted but also know better than to get into that. Especially after my last couple Tavour orders... I'm still working through all that beer.
 

Dracula

Plastic Vampire
(He/His)
One of our local microbreweries, Lost Forty, won a big national award this year, so I'm curious if any of y'all beer aficionados have encountered their product in other parts of the country.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
As an IPA snob, it's never desirable to stock up too heavily! If you can't drink it within a month, don't drink it at all.

Speaking of not drinking at all, the missus and I are considering having a dry February. We did it last year, just before all this nonsense really took off, and it was nice to break out of our habits. Lord knows I could do with a few less calories after all the food we ate this year - turns out we don't need to see people in order to have huge holiday dinners! We might just drink through what's in the fridge and start from there, see how it goes. Last year we only cheated about 2 times during the month when we had date nights. Since we aren't allowed to let my in-laws anywhere near our son right now (COVID restrictions have recently been tightened up around here as things are deteriorating), that might not be much of a temptation this time.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I am sorely tempted but also know better than to get into that. Especially after my last couple Tavour orders... I'm still working through all that beer.
As an IPA snob, it's never desirable to stock up too heavily! If you can't drink it within a month, don't drink it at all.

I'm lucky that I mainly like dark beers! I'm still working through the take home winter brewfest from early December, but they'll all last. The few IPAs that were in there are going to bread/brats/chili/etc.

One of our local microbreweries, Lost Forty, won a big national award this year, so I'm curious if any of y'all beer aficionados have encountered their product in other parts of the country.

I have not, but that Honey Bock looks good and is now on my wishlist on Untappd.

Speaking of not drinking at all, the missus and I are considering having a dry February. We did it last year, just before all this nonsense really took off, and it was nice to break out of our habits. Lord knows I could do with a few less calories after all the food we ate this year - turns out we don't need to see people in order to have huge holiday dinners! We might just drink through what's in the fridge and start from there, see how it goes. Last year we only cheated about 2 times during the month when we had date nights. Since we aren't allowed to let my in-laws anywhere near our son right now (COVID restrictions have recently been tightened up around here as things are deteriorating), that might not be much of a temptation this time.

We set a rule of three drinks (soda, spirits or beer) a week a couple months into the pandemic. I noticed a lot of friends drinking just to drink which scared me.

We have fridge magnets we move across the fridge when we each have a drink, it's a nice visual reminder when you go to the fridge. Multiple times I caught myself going "oh wait I only have one magnet on the left side of the fridge, maybe I'll wait to have that until I'm watching football". But honestly most weeks we only had two and it confirmed my suspicion that we almost never have soda.

About five years ago I did something I enjoyed: only new beers for one year. That summer I noticed I didn't necessarily WANT the beers I was having at summer BBQs and such, they were just there and other people were having beers so I did too. Our local brewfest is in August every year, so I decided to have nothing but new beers starting with that and through next year's festival. It really made me realize how often I was just drinking because a beer was available. It made me have to put in an effort to explore a bit, I tried a few new local breweries I'd never bothered to and honestly had a great time. And perhaps most importantly if a party doesn't have drinks I'm interested in, I just have water now.

All that to say, do it you want to! Breaking habits or at least trying to break them is good to do now and then.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I tried Ribe Mjod mead based on a recommendation and holy shit this stuff is good. The (ceramic!) bottle says it's a collaboration with the Viking Centre to celebrate Scandinavia's oldest town but I'm not clear if that means it's a limited edition? Either way it's a splurge but so good.
 

Cyrael

...we're shy.
(he/him)
Taking February as a dry month to see how much impact beer has had on my weight. I didn't start drinking till about 8 years ago (late 20's) and noticed a uh... decrease in pants fitting over the past few years.

I am still excited to see your untapped updates and hear from it, and I bought a 24 pack of Costco's Kirkland brand IPA to enjoy when it's all over.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
The Saturday Morning Beer Fest has started and I decided to do the Apple Brandy Jacks from Ingenious Brewing Company during the panel with the brewery.

Holy shit it's good. And also extraordinarily dangerous, 11% and tastes so damn smooth. The brewer is from Texas and apparently just got power back before the panel but they used both apple brandy barrels and actual Apple Jacks to make this! If you can find stuff from this brewery and like dark stuff and apple flavour highly recommend this.

Also I learned that 7-11 has trademarked things related to the phrase "brain freeze", so one of the breweries got sued for trying to call their beer that.

Edit: They have just instituted a rule that when anyone starts talking while accidentally on mute everyone must take a drink. Best drinking game ever.
 
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Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
It's not as big a deal as it used to be but when I see Pliny the Elder on the shelves and for sale I still buy it! Like today at the grocery store.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
That apple brandy beer sounds amazing!

For Valentine's Day, I broke out one of the older beers on my shelf - a 2016 Sexual Chocolate from Foothills Brewing. Goddamn that was good. Chocolaty bourbon barrel stouts mostly tend to age really well. (The bottle for this beer is also a bit of a problematic collector's item, as they discontinued the art they'd been using for being a little too blaxploitation...)
 

Cyrael

...we're shy.
(he/him)
It's not as big a deal as it used to be but when I see Pliny the Elder on the shelves and for sale I still buy it! Like today at the grocery store.
I had this for the first time in 2019 when I saw a couple bottles in Steamboat Springs, CO on vacation. It was nice, and I'd still do the same thing in your shoes.
 
I'm not a big fan but I have many friends who stan Pliny the Elder; glad you've got access to it where you're at. It's not the most common of beers!
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Underwhelming, sadly. Being a cream ale, it was just kinda weak, as I recall. But I didn't write down any specific notes, so I don't remember if there were other particulars.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
My last Tavour order

Dang, we have a lot of overlap in our beer taste. I've had several of those, and would like to try most of the rest.

Some highlights from my recent check-ins:

Prenzlauer Berg from Pohjala (red Berliner Weisse) - probably a bit sweeter and thicker than the style is technically supposed to be, but that made it probably my favorite one I've ever had. (Honestly I love every single thing I've had from this brewery - pity they're in Estonia but they do seem to distribute a lot over here.)

Panther Cub (2021) from Founders (barrel aged imperial porter with maple and vanilla) - I'm not buying much from Founders these days since they were being low-key racist idiots in public a while back (I should check someday to see if they're gotten a clue but I'm not holding my breath), but fuck if they don't make delicious dessert-in-a-glass beers, dammit.

Seed Spitter from Tarboro (salted watermelon gose) - a striking style that was off-putting at first but opened up once it sat in a glass for a minute and it grew on me.

Three Strikes You're Stout from New River (barrel-aged lactose/vanilla imperial stout) - I'm gonna like anything in this style but this was quite good, direct from a little brewery in the NC mountains when I was on a short vacation trip

Don Dada Cardamom Stout from Spaceway - Cardamom! Yummy.

Lower Expectations from Bond Brothers (barrel-aged imperial with nutmeg and vanilla) - Contrary to the name I had high expectations, and they were met.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Don Dada Cardamom Stout from Spaceway - Cardamom! Yummy.
I MUST try this. I love cardamom!
Lower Expectations from Bond Brothers (barrel-aged imperial with nutmeg and vanilla) - Contrary to the name I had high expectations, and they were met.
I love Nutmeg too! Not as much as cardamom, but definitely enough to want to snag some of this.
 
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