What Beers Are You Drinking These Days?

[snakster]

Currently I'm drinking my staple, Stegmaier 1857. Brewed at The Lion Brewery in beautiful and historic Wilkes-Barre, PA.

[barturtle]

Did they have the Grand Cru or Classic on tap??? I don't know what kind of imports you get in KY, but if you like the Rodenbach's I suggest Panil Barrique, Duchesse De Bourgogne, and La Folie (New Belgium). I find that I love the Flanders Oud Bruins as much as the Flanders Red ales. Go for Liefmans Goudenband and Petrus Brown. The fact that most of these are barrel aged, giving the ales an oaky wooden flavor really does it for me. I have a bunch of these cellaring right now.

I just went a took a Grand Cru and Goudenband out of the beer bunker and put it in the fridge for tonight. I've been doing vertical of Barleywines and Imperial IPA's lately and this will be well deserved change of pace. Thanks Tim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, bottles only, but your choice of 750ml or 8.45 oz (glad I just realized they were that small or I wouldn't have picked them up for they price they were charging...ouch!)

Duchesse De Bourgogne I have had, as well as Goudenband and Petrus. I consider Goudenband my "camping beer". Panil Barrique, though, I have not heard of, and alas New Belgium doesn't make it here (nor in Louisiana, either...but I can go over to Texas and pick some up from time to time.)

About cellaring these...how long do you expect to cellar this type of beer, I have never thought of cellaring them before, though I do have some others hidden away in a cool dark closet.

While we're on the subject...do you think '97 JW Lees is ready to drink at this point or past its prime?

[pepcycle]

Last night I dranks some Andelot ABT Mystique.

Malty and velvety smooth with notes of raisin.

Lots of alcohol this quadrupel comes in pretty high in the ABV category.

A pleasant surprise.

[Pastor Bourbon]

The prospect of store-bought is not a thrill. It's legal to brew here in Australia, and fully 95% of my beer would be homebrew!

I agree with OscarV - that (brewing) and drinking beers, ale, lagers, and stouts is a seasonal event. The hotter the weather, the lighter and colder the beer.

Here in Queensland, Australia the 'winter' weather has set in and it's nut brown ale, Brown smoked ale and Bock beer with additional malt for me. The enjoyment of stout is yet to come with the heavy winter weather still ahead.

Having said all this I had some of the Yuengling Traditional Lager when we visited family in Lexington, Virginia and that was not a bad drop.

Grolsch, Kirin, Elephant Beer, Asahi and Guinness are hard to pass as regular store-boughts and maybe it's the ex-patriot in me but I buy a six-pack of Bud in the summer when the weather is really sticky and get it to just below icing up in the bottle temperature...

and there you have it

[Joeluka]

Hey Pastor, Coopers Vintage Ale is one of my all-tme favorties

[gothbat]

The beer I most recently tried was called Famosa. it was a pretty good lager for summer, tasted great, cooled me down, and went great with the clams! I just bought it on a whim because the bottle said it was Guatemalan. I'll definitely be buying more of this but probably not until after I work through all the beer I accumulated earlier this year.

[brian12069]

These days...Saranac Black Forest...

[mred]

Miller Lite

[OscarV]

Molson Golden

[smokinjoe]

Still working off some beer from our Cinco de Mayo party last month: Dos Equis, Tecate, Corona, Sol, and Modelo. :bandit:

Cheers!

JOSE

[snakster]

These days...Saranac Black Forest...

Me likey.

To me, the only good thing about winter time is getting the Saranac '12 beers of winter' case.

[Joeluka]

I went with two complete opposite ends of the beer spectrum. Started with a 750ml of Cantillon Rose De Gambrinus. This is one of my all-time favorite fruit lambics out there. I then decided to open up a DFH Burton Baton I've been cellaring for a year. This is a great American double I.P.A. Its a blend of an oak-aged English Strong ale (Immort Ale) and a double I.P.A. (90-minute I.P.A.) I recommend both if you can them.

[ratcheer]

I went way off my usual scale, yesterday. I went to a beer store that claims to sell every beer legally available in Alabama. Many desirable beers do not qualify because of above-the-limit alcohol content.

I decided that while I was there, I would choose something more upscale in honor of Father's Day. So after browsing the choices for 20 minutes or so, I settled on a 4-pack of Samuel Smith's Organically Made Ale. What could it cost? $8? $9? It rang up as $11.58 including tax!

So I had one last night. It is very good, but I'm not sure its that good. :skep:

Tim

[Pastor Bourbon]

Yes Joeluka, Coopers do a fine job all round! If you're a stout drinker too, you might like to see if you can find a Eumundi Stout, bottled here in Queensland, Australia. fairly 'fruity' and straight shooting withvery little bitterness.

The other one I enjoyed when we were in the States in January was the Negra Modelo which I sampled while sitting in LAX for 12 and a half hours Couldn't remember what it was called til I read through these postings; but if I ever see it in Oz I'll definitely get a six-pack.

[OscarV]

Stella Artois from Belgium.

I have noticed the last half year that this beer has been grabbing a lot of tap handles in bars and resturants.

So I tried it on tap and I see why. It tastes like beer.

Not light beer, ultra light beer, dry beer, ice beer, amber beer, honey beer, raspberry beer, ect. beer, ect. beer.

Yeah, it tastes like beer and beer tastes good.

I also got a 6pac bots. Much prefer it on tap at a bar, but I will repeat that 6 of bots.

[TBoner]

Stella Artois from Belgium.

I also got a 6pac bots. Much prefer it on tap at a bar, but I will repeat that 6 of bots.

My recommendation is to buy a 12-pack next time. Because of the green bottles (which don't block UV rays), the hops in Stella can get skunked by UV light in beer display cases, etc. This may be one reason you prefer it on tap. The bottles in the 12er are sealed off from light. Not saying the sixer you have is skunked, but it's worth a shot. I always buy 12ers of clear or green bottles if I can. YMMV.

[TNbourbon]

Sam Adams Winter Lager, with chicken/pasta at Ruby Tuesday's in South Carolina.

Good choice -- I'll look for it when I get home.

[OscarV]

Yeah TBoner,

I will try a covered 12 pack the next time, I do know light does hurt beer, also heat and time. But there is a difference between draft and bottled beer.

A few years ago I heard that a beer advocacy group was going to petition breweries to stop using clear and green glass bottles and to go with brown only.

[jesskidden]

My recommendation is to buy a 12-pack next time. Because of the green bottles (which don't block UV rays), the hops in Stella can get skunked by UV light in beer display cases, etc.

I can't find any confirmation of it on the 'net, but on one of those cable TV channel (History, Food, Discovery?) shows on beer and the brewing industry, there was a segment filmed at the Stella Artois facility (right around the time InBev first re-introduced it to the US market as "luck" would have it) and a brewery spokesman said that Stella's green bottles had a "special coating" that filtered out the harmful light waves. I sort of raised my eyebrow at that (gee, wouldn't it just be easier to put it in brown bottles, "tradition in the US" be damned?) and since it's not the sort of beer I'd ever seek out I've never "tested" the special bottle and now I'm surprised to see no mention of it with various Google searches. Anyone remember that show?

[Gillman]

An interesting and controversial question. I prefer beer in brown bottles or preferably, if newly packaged, in cans. Fresh Stella Artois in cans is an excellent mass market lager. It is good on draft too. We get it fresh in Canada due to the Labatt distribution that opened when InBev (Stella's parent in Belgium) bought Labatt's, and due also to the sales volume: Stella is selling very well here.

However, I drank Stella in Belgium in the early 90's and thought it was better than what we get now, not because of freshness, but it seemed more flowery in taste. I suspect the beer was tweaked somewhat in connection with the international launches that occurred after but make no mistake, it is an excellent beer, all-malt as far as I know, anyway I like it.

Probably the green bottles are as good since they are sold fast also but I just have an ingrained tendency to prefer brown glass and canned products (all cans are lined now to prevent the tinniness that used to occur). Heineken's green bottles seem, today, largely exempt from the skunking problem, I am sure it too uses some type of coating or other system to retard the reaction that can occur when light and hops interract.

It's funny though, I think some of this has to do with the brewer's skill and/or nature of the beer, e.g., there is a Saison I like, I think Pipaix', that I used to buy at Beers of the World in Rochester, NY when I got down there more than I do now. It was sold for many years in clear bottles, and maybe still is. The beer was always perfect! I had drunk it in Belgium and it always tasted great here too, no matter how old. Some beers are just made right and (within reason) nothing can hurt them.

Samuel Smith's beers (well-regarded ales from Yorkshire, England) were sold for many years in clear bottles and they always seemed fine to me. I have noticed recent imports of Sam Smith beers are sold in brown glass and I am all for that, but the clear bottles seemed okay in their case.

However I can't count the skunky pils-type beers I've had in green bottles in my time and so in general, I stay away from any beer sold in green glass unless I buy them right out of a freshly opened case. I did this recently with a 6 pack of Peroni and it was fine, assisted also by the freshness of the beer. While we don't have the largest selection of imported beer in Ontario, generally the imports are being brought in really fast these days and their quality is much improved as a result.

Gary

[Pastor Bourbon]

"An interesting and controversial question. I prefer beer in brown bottles..." Gillman

For home brewing purposes I wouldn't use anything but brown bottles; because of the 'light' factor.

Anecdotally speaking, a friend brewed several darker ales, using whatever bottles he had at the time - clear Corona bottles, greens and browns. He didn't like them brews and had promised to give me several dozen old bottles he was no longer using.

Along with the empties came the beers he didn't enjoy. They had been sitting in a shed, partially exposed to light for two years. Same bottling, mixed together in the cases, some of each colour exposed to direct sunlight some not. All of the clear bottles without fail were rubbish! not many greens so hard to tell; but... even the brown bottles exposed to light were still drinkable; and those which were out of the light made me very pleased indeed that my mate didn't like dark ales.

To answer the question: at the moment I am drinking young kit homebrewings of Brown Smoked Ale and Nut Brown Ale. Soon I will be getting into the last of my Cooper's Stout homebrewing which is 1 year old and lovely! Cheers.

[Gillman]

All good and interesting points. I don't doubt that over a long time period such as you describe, brown glass containers are superior to clear or green although as you point out, even brown glass ultimately allows some light in (i.e., you said the ones kept completely dark were best).

What does this mean? Beer should be consumed as quickly as possible, but where it is intended for aging, keep it out of any light whatever.

This mean too that some green glass beer will drink well if sold quickly. The turnover of high-volume brands like Heineken and Beck's (plus Grolsch and many others) is such that the light just doesn't have time to work any harm to the beer. Also, I believe some companies do use a protective coating as was mentioned earlier.

Still, all in all, I'll take a canned product over the bottled equivalent. Comparative tastings e.g. of Pilsener Urquel in its green bottle and the can show to me the superiority of the canned one although when very fresh the differences are not great.

Gary

[Pastor Bourbon]

Sure, no problem.

When it comes to home-brewed beer, part of the added pleasure is that if treated like wine in the storage process, homebrew develops character with age.

I drank a ten year old stout and a six year old brown ale that had been well cellered and they were better and more interesting than ANY store-bought beer I've ever tasted with one or two exceptions that were equally as good.

This is not to say that any homebrew will be better than any store-bought of course.

[Gillman]

Definitely agreed some beers benefit from long aging, this will occur with bott-conditioned beers. It is such an exception (i.e., known only to some homebrewers and micros) that I didn't mention it, but I've had some great unfiltered long-agers (I did mention e.g., earlier Saison Pipaix).

Gary

[melting]

Wachusett Country Ale. In a nice brown bottle. In my opinion, beer should be packaged in bottles, not cans. I believe Jim Koch just ruffled some feathers when he made that statement.

Chris