My beer guy is Tom at the Consumers on Transit, East Amherst. We’ve kinda bonded over the hoppy stuff, so I’m on his speed dial list whenever any of the real good stuff shows up there. They had about a dozen last Wednesday. I bought 6. They should still be available there.
Also, I was doing a bunch of errands about a month or so ago. One of them was a beer trip to Consumers. Tom let me know that Pizza Plant just South of them actually had Ruination in the hand-cask. Horrible timing for me. Didn’t have the time to stop in there, and the next time I was by, they were out. Duh.
Anyway, yes, the cave-aged stuff is well worth the premium. Most of the local stores won’t have it. I was out in Cooperstown area about a year or so ago on a beer/wine trip with my wife and father in law. We did the Ommegang tour and they had a decent amount of the cave-aged stuff in the store. Smooth. Same basic taste, I suppose, but soooooo much better. Smoother, sorta like a Johnny Walker Blue compared to Gold, if that makes any sense.
I truly don’t have the patience for that, especially when I know for sure that I can’t do justice to the truly great beers out there (most from Dogfish, Lagunitas, Stone, Weyerbacher, etc).
Here’s a perfect example why. Check out Stone’s open source recipe for Vertical 10/10/10
Ok, homebrewers, I’ve got a serious question. Not slamming your abilities at all, just genuinely curious.
Let’s say you had about $400/month that you absolutely HAD to spend on beer. So, essentially, you could keep a beer fridge full of the better stuff available. Would you still homebrew?
See, I’ve had plenty of homebrews, and they’ve run all the way from “pour on the ground immediately” to “yeah, this is reasonably impressive.” But none that I can honestly say “holy shit, this could take a regular place in my beer fridge” because it was that good.
so I stopped by the six pack shop, after not finding anything exciting at the distributor… and picked up a six pack of boddington’s and a six of Dark Horse brewing Crooked Tree IPA
not so bad…
but I should have bought more than just 12 beers… back to the magic hat… and soon back to the leftover yeunglings…
The cave-aged Ommegang is definitely worth the price. I bought a bottle of cave-aged Hennepin before, it was much better than the normal one. I’ve never seen them in stores though, I bought it right at the brewery in Cooperstown.
My girl stopped at Beers of the World after I told her about this thread, and got a “sampler”, two for her, two for me.
For me: The Burton Baton is aged inside oak barrels… delicious as advertised. Not sure if I like it more than the 60 minute by itself, but yes, I’d kill a man for one
Bourbon County… rich, dark porter with bourbon in it. OMG so heavy but soooo good
Hers… Midas Touch is supposedly the oldest beer recipe in the world, it’s saffron beer? Pretty good but I only had like 1 sip
Rodenbach, a Belgian, tasted like a whale’s vagina (which is like a vinegary wheat beer, do not want)
Followed up by a 12’er of Labatt’s Blue Light, sleepytime at 10PM :tspry:
I wouldn’t consider myself a beer snob, but honestly as far as homebrewing, if you know what you’re doing, it’s really hard to get a bad tasting brew. I’ve had some that I would consider excellent. You have to have lots of patience though…
The Burbon County is excellent, but definitely not a “session” beer, unless you want your session to run about 2.5 beers long.
I actually do like the Burton Baton a bit better than the 90.
Midas Touch…ok, I love Dogfish, and all that they stand for, but I also think they step off of that edge at times and make stuff that I can’t consider beer. I also had one sip of Midas Touch, and had to let the rest go. Ick.
So review these shits… any good? I’ve had the Hex before
Jason, if I had two of those Bourbon Counties I would have been sleeping at 9! Delicious, but I think that’s a “every-once-in-a-while” brew. I could see it getting played out pretty quickly
Highland Gaelic is a personal favorite of mine. It’s brewed in Asheville, NC which is probably one of my favorite places to visit too. It’s an Amber Ale, not too hoppy, goes down super smooth.
The Hex is a great octoberfest, I was already kind of drunk when I had it, but I remember thinking it was delicious.
The Retro Red is brewed in fort collins, co. If you like a hoppy red, you would love it. It’s a hair on the bitter side, but good nonetheless.
I never got a chance to drink the other 2. Although, I’ll say this. The second from the left is called Hoptoberfest. It’s by New Belgium Brewing which is also out of fort collins. Their “Fat Tire” (amber ale) is another one of my favorites and so I don’t think this one could be bad.
edit: If you can’t tell yet, I love Amber Ales which coincidentally makes oktoberfest season my favorite beer season by far.
