I follow quite a few of the Chicagoland breweries on social (Phase Three, Half Acre, Solemn Oath, etc), but have not really seen much for fresh or wet hop releases this fall. Does anyone know of breweries in the area having releases this year or any that have done them in previous years?

The two beers I love the most (hacker pschorr munich gold and edelstoff lager) are just not available within 300+ miles of my zip code unless I shell out for a keg and a kegerator ;_;

So at work I need to check dates on beer, and one date that has always confused me was Laguintas IPA(excuse my spelling of I spelt it wrong), the IPA has a "Born on date", but no one seems to know when they expire. I asked a lot of people including people who have been with the company for years and they have no idea, I asked my manager and she has idea. So what exactly is the shelf life for Laguintas IPA?

My favorite type of beer is what I used to call a hazy IPA - a dank, resinous, ​high IBU, cloudy heavily hopped beer.

I dont really like juicy IPAs.

I do like a bitter clear crisp west coast, but prefer the cloudy dankness of a bitter hazy.

I guess Im getting old or something, because sometime in the past decade all the supposed hazy IPAs are basically juicy IPAs with visual haze. And taste pretty much the polar opposite to what I remember a hazy IPA tasting like.

WTF happened and where are the HAZY IPAs? Did the entire industry do a bait and switch at some point? How can I go to a taproom with 20 beers on tap and not have a single HIGH IBU DANK HAZY IPA?

I think I had all the ones I wanted. Only ones I didnt get that I was interested in are Bell's Octoberfest which didnt show up in my area this year for some reason and Goose Island Octoberfest which isnt on their website anymore so Im assuming it didnt come out this year. I had all the other ones I was seeking out so now I can take off drinking for the rest of the month.

Ok hear me out lol. I’ve been thinking about making my top 10 beer list and something keeps bugging me.I’ve had expensive beers that were just ok, and I’ve had a cheap cold lager that tasted like the best beer in the world just because of where I was.

Maybe I’m nuts but I’d take a Guinness in an old Irish pub over some fancy $30 beer any day. And don’t even get me started on that first cold beer after a long day 😂

So when you guys make your top 10 lists, are you picking the best tasting beers or the ones you have the best memories with? mine is the outdoor hock game in CowTown ,Calgary vs Montreal and it was the coldest beer i ever did drink.

What’s one beer you still remember because of where you drank it?

This might be a long shot, but I am looking for a bar/pub in NYC that serves Murphy's. Ideally on tap, but a can would work too. Any leads? Thx in advance! 😄

Hey everyone, I'm the type of guy to pour a beer and watch other people review different brews on YouTube.

In the past I used to enjoy A Beer Snob's Cheap Brew Review and Beer Brackets, but as a graphic designer I stopped watching them and unsubbed due to their heavy use of AI.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a simple beer review channel that isn't filled with slop?

20+ years ago I worked for a Miller distribution center, and a single 6–pack made its way to the floor of this beer. It was darker packaging with black/gold (maybe silver) think foil over neck and cap. Remember the bottle had details about the beer having won first place at I believe, the World Beer Cup. I was able to try one and it is too long ago to remember much, but I know it was good, like really good. Think it was amber in color. Anyone have any ideas? Pictures of bottles that may match? This would have been very rare and not hit the shelves at an average grocery store. We literally had a single case come (maybe just the 6-pack) for entire distribution warehouse.

If anyone can nail this it’s the people of Reddit.

Thanks.

I’m from Southwest PA region and I’m looking for a beer that tastes like you’re biting into a slice of pumpkin 🥧. Not the pumpkin spice slop.

I will be in Seattle during the week of Oct. 19. It's been a while since I visited the PNW. I started homebrewing in 2006 and I can think back to all the winter beers I used to get from that area: Full Sail Wassail, Pyramid Snowcap, Widmer Brrr (newer), etc. Most of these are discontinued or defunct now. What are your recommendations for seasonal beers while I'm up there that'll let me chase the nostalgia of my 20s? I'll take any recs but I'm specifically looking unspiced winter warmer styles. I'm looking forward to getting out of Texas and experiencing some fall weather and beers to match!

Ive tried a few taprooms (evil twin, finback, grimm, other half, singlecut, talea, threes, and wild east) and I noticed that I like darker beers that are full-bodied and sweeter and lighter beers that are wheat-forward.

I also noticed that I dont like bitter, piney, resinous beers. Id like to try to find an ipa Id like and Im wondering which taproom(s), excluding the taprooms Ive been to, in nyc youd recommend?

Edit: forgot to mention that I thought most ipas I tried were ok; didnt really like other halfs since they seem to be more bitter tham the other taprooms

I understand the basic idea, that hops are harvested in Sep & October in the Pacific NW and that a fresh hop IPA is made with these just-harvested hops. But I didn’t realize this was a “thing” aside from Sierra Nevada’s Celebration IPA… that is, until my sister moved to Portland (Oregon) a couple years ago & I started following the craft beer bars & breweries she frequents on Instagram.

So just curious … is this only really a Pacific NW thing? A West Coast thing? Or does the entire US craft beer scene try to get in on Fresh Hop season? And if not, is it because it’s just too hard to get those fresh hops to other parts of the country for brewers to use, without losing their freshness? Or just for a general lack of interest in WC-ipa’s outside the WC?

As for the beers themselves… it seems like it’s mostly/only WC-style IPA’s (& related styles, like WC pils & Cold IPA’s) that brewers are making with hops? Or are fresh hop Hazies also a thing too?

Thanks!

A buddy of mine put me onto Garage Beer, and it’s pretty much the only beer I buy in bulk (the lime variant specifically).

I don’t know that I’ve really seen a new light beer hit the market in the last few years that’s nearly as good as GB (Texas gulf coast market).

What’s your go-to?

Cheap shit thread. Im in Maryland so im guessing the answer is Yuengling (Yuengling is my standard/minimum so far) but what else should I be looking at? Pabst is meh, NattyBoh is piss, Miller Lite is ok. Looking for canned stuff mostly, things I can stuff in a mini fridge once I buy one (cmon Ollies dont let me down).

EDIT: Stopped by the liquor store on Saturday and bought Yuengling and a six pack of Coors Banquet. Tried to look for Narrangasett but they only had it in 30 packs.

I am interested in beer after seeing how big the craft beer market is. I have had maybe 2 alcoholic drinks in my life, it's just never been a prior interest to me, but being into cigars and pipe tobaccos I am interested in the flavor notes and complexities of beer from a hobbyist standpoint.

I've been doing a fair amount of research on the origins of beer, it's various types, how to best taste it, glass types etc. However, I want to try good examples of each type without spending a fortune.

With that said it seems like liquor stores often let you mix and match single beers?

In that case, I am asking for suggestions on well regarded, easily available beers that you guys would recommend for my goal of trying the rainbow of beers to try and find what I may like.

It seems a lot of beer is regional, I am in Rhode Island for reference in case that plays a significant role.

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to getting into the hobby, also welcome any tips or advice you may have for me.

I saw a post on beer porn where buddy was drinking a 24 oz doodoo ranger 11% IPA with a crazy fighter pilot skeleton on it that he said “burned” and it got me thinking back to the old New Belgium. I used to work at a fancy grocery store back in like 2008 and stocked the beer section. We got plenty of New Belgium stuff. The standard Abbey Trippel and Dubbel, and Fat Tire of course. But we also had the Mighty Arrow Pale Ale, Mothership Wit, Skinny Dip Lager, 2 Below in the Winter, Hoptober in October, and tons of other seasonal things that came and went.

They had a genuinely wide range of all the styles, mostly done quite tastefully and well, and all in those attractive brown glass bottles with the long neck that had a sort of raised band around it. The labels had hand painted images on them depicting pretty landscapes, bicycles, Belgian abbeys, etc. the box proudly proclaimed that the brewery was employee owned and wind powered.

What they’re doing now sucks so bad. Gas station beer for alcoholics, as far as I can tell. They seem to be shooting for the same market share as Steel Reserve, Natty Ice, or Mickey’s.

It feels almost like a societal tale. I knew them best as an employee owned, wind powered, and biodynamic Colorado brewery. They spoke to the values I was learning in my liberal arts degree at a liberal northwest university. The warm fuzzy Obama era progressive capitalism with a triple bottom line that we thought could save the world. They represented a uniquely hopeful part of beer culture too. Americans could enjoy Belgian style beers and incorporate a respect for traditional beer styles into American micro brewing, while running a brewery in a socially conscious way, and still having the beers reach lots of markets that otherwise didn’t get a lot of micros. Good beer would become universally popular, and new Belgium’s socially conscious employee run business model would prove viable.

And yet they’ve now become a lurid, neon and fluorescent lit grotesquerie of it. A 24 oz can of a skeleton in a fucking war plane, containing a cloudy and toxic smelling 11% alcohol beer that the OP admitted “burns” on the way down. It sits next to the other “micro brews” which are also all foul and overly juicy hazy IPAs. It is an alcoholic beverage that MBAs in private equity have told the brewmasters (who are probably just AI algorithms at this point) to make appealing to the young impulse consumer who wants to get drunk playing GTA 5 by himself on a Thursday night, as well as the elder millennial partially unhoused alcoholic who used to be the life of the party and a real suds connoisseur, but is sleeping under a bridge tonight. Both consumers reach into that humming gas station fridge and pull out a tall can of voodoo ranger hazy ipa, and the world is a little worse because of it.

I got a good 20 to buy some 40's I'm planning to buy 2 8 balls and 2 double malt 45s is it sum good picks I'm probably gonna smoke a joint or 4 and drink a monster. I've heard 40's (particularly 8 ball) taste absolutely horrible if they get hot so should I bring like a cooler or will it probably be fine?

edit: I have an insane tolerance the first time I ever drank I drank half a red cup of whiskey and felt literally nothing like at all and last time I actually felt something was after 2 gallons of freeze distilled wine so I'll probably have to drink like 2 or 3 40's

My old favorite sour was the raspberry Sour from 56 brewing out of the twin cities. Unfortunately the last several times I've purchased it something has been off, it hasn't been as crisp and a really gross plastic aftertaste has been in each can so I'm looking for some recommendations!

I'd be interested in any fruity sour ales to be honest, doesn't have to be raspberry specifically!

Sometimes I’ll be having a beer, not really looking at it, just smelling and sipping while I watch whatever. Well I’ve noticed that anytime a fruit fly finds its way into my glass a DISTINCT smell develops in the beer. Distinct enough that I will notice it by smell before even taking a sip. Sometimes I don’t even see the fly but if I smell that smelly smell I know it’s in there somewhere, usually buried in the dissipated head. Not entirely sure how to describe what it smells like…maybe a little tangier, slightly flatter? I don’t tend to notice it as much in the flavor, mostly the aroma. Anyone else?