What Beers Did You Drink Today? Or Yesterday? (Part 3)

**FrogPrincesse** · July 25, 2014

[Host's note: To avoid an excessive load on our servers this topic has been split. The discussion continues from here]

A couple of beers from a relatively recent trip to London.

Yakima red ale on draft. Yakima is brewed by Meantime, a brewing company located in Greenwich, using five hop varieties from the Yakima valley in Washington state. The beer was moderately hoppy with a good malt to bitterness balance. Very nice.

Beavertown 8 Ball rye IPA, an American-style IPA brewed in London. Love the wild label. It was caramel-colored and had a nice mix of spicy rye and resinous hops. I liked this a lot and want to try the rest of their line.

Edited December 28, 2015 by lesliec
Added host's note (log)

haresfur · July 26, 2014

A couple of beers from a relatively recent trip to London.

Yakima red ale on draft. Yakima is brewed by Meantime, a brewing company located in Greenwich, using five hop varieties from the Yakima valley in Washington state. The beer was moderately hoppy with a good malt to bitterness balance. Very nice.

Beavertown 8 Ball rye IPA, an American-style IPA brewed in London. Love the wild label. It was caramel-colored and had a nice mix of spicy rye and resinous hops. I liked this a lot and want to try the rest of their line.

You go to London to drink American style beer? :wink:

I wonder which hop varieties in the Yakima. My first batch of homebrew was made with road-kill hops that fell of the harvest trucks in the Yakima valley. You should make a trip there for the beer and wine, afterall Yakima bills itself as the Palm Springs of Washington.

**ChrisTaylor** · July 28, 2014

A couple of local brews

Australian Brewery's Pale Ale. Never tried their products prior to this but they use cans. Unusual for a craft brewery. Heavily carbonated. Really needed to be decanted into a glass and even with a careful pour that took a while. Big on the citrus. Crisp. Yeasty. I rather liked this one. I reckon I'll check out the rest of their range.

Cooper's Vintage '14. I think I need to revisit this one as all I came away with was a sense that, yes, I liked it. I have some bottles of '13 kicking around and it seems ... more approachable than they do but it's possible this is just due to age. '14 seems a little more restrained than last year's batch.

**FrogPrincesse** · July 28, 2014

You go to London to drink American style beer?

I wonder which hop varieties in the Yakima. My first batch of homebrew was made with road-kill hops that fell of the harvest trucks in the Yakima valley. You should make a trip there for the beer and wine, afterall Yakima bills itself as the Palm Springs of Washington.

Funny, right? The reality is that I travel with an open mind and just try whatever knowledgeable people tell me to try! So far it's worked pretty well for me.

I tried to find out what the five hops in the Yakima Red were, but no luck so far. I am curious as well.

**FrogPrincesse** · July 29, 2014

[...]
Never tried their products prior to this but they use cans. Unusual for a craft brewery. [...]

Actually this is getting more and more common. We have the same trend in San Diego with craft breweries such as Modern Times and even Stone releasing some of their beers in cans. The advantages being convenience, ease of transportation, longer shelf-life, cost, etc.

NPR wrote a little article on this trend of craft beers in cans a few weeks ago.

**FrogPrincesse** · July 29, 2014

I am surprised I haven't talked about this one already, so let's take care of this omission asap.

Lightning Amber Ale. Lightning ("Better Beer Through Science") is another brewery in San Diego (Poway, to be exact). They've been around for about 10 years.

This specific beer is an English Special Bitter (ESB) done the SD way. So it has a solid malt backbone combined with more hops than you would expect for this style. It remains well balanced with a pleasantly bitter finish. Very nice accompaniement to a plate of halibut tacos.

**FrogPrincesse** · July 29, 2014

The beer board at BLAH this weekend.

For the first round, went with Hottenroth Berliner Weisse, a German-style sour ale from The Bruery (front) and Seizoen Bretta from Logsdon. Didn't care much for the Bretta (good thing, it was not mine). Very dry and almost austere (drier than the bottled version). The Hottenroth, on the other hand, was tart and crisp, interesting, and refreshing. Milk combined with tart fruit and citrus. It did not help that they were polar opposites.

Second round - Ritual Hellion (Belgian strong pale ale) (back - excuse the messy table). Yeasty, apricot, with a dry, slightly bitter finish. Overall smooth.

For my dessert I picked Consecration from Russian River (right).

Consecration is a Belgian sour aged in Cabernet barrels. The cab influence was obvious with a lot of red fruit in the beer. It was rich, thick, potent, delicious.

Hassouni · July 30, 2014

Efes Filtresiz (unfiltered), a Turkish beer that doesn't suck! (The Dark is not awful. Filtresiz might be better. Regular Efes is RANCID)

Hassouni · August 14, 2014

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Westvleteren 12.

I don't know if it's the best in the world, but it really does live up to the hype

Hassouni · August 14, 2014

Efes Filtresiz (unfiltered), a Turkish beer that doesn't suck! (The Dark is not awful. Filtresiz might be better. Regular Efes is RANCID)

Also, Bomonti Filtresiz is not terrible either...

**ChrisTaylor** · August 15, 2014

Westvleteren 12.

I don't know if it's the best in the world, but it really does live up to the hype

I remember paying a not-insignificant amount for one bottle of each of the three Westvleteren offerings and postage from Belgium to Australia. My reaction was much the same as yours.

Hassouni · August 15, 2014

Yeah, this one bottle cost €15 in a Brussels shop...ouch

**FrogPrincesse** · August 20, 2014

Witch's Wit from the Lost Abbey. A very good example of witbier with the typical esters, coriander, orange peel. From recollection alone, similar to Hoegaarden but with more character. It kills me to think that I haven't been to their brewery yet; I don't know what I am waiting for. They are located in Stone's old facility in San Marcos.

**ChrisTaylor** · August 23, 2014

Purchased a few beers today. The first one I cracked open was Crown Golden Ale. I'm not fond of Crown Lager: a mass-produced beer that is marketed as something special (gold label, 'royal' name). The Golden Ale is a little better. Unremarkable but drinkable. Can't see myself throwing down the cash for a case any time soon, though. It's just ... plain.

Murray's Rudeboy Pilsner. Bready. Crisp.

**ChrisTaylor** · August 24, 2014

More Moa. 99 Not Out Pale Ale. For people living in dark places the name refers to a boring sport called cricket. Supposedly this beer was developed in partnership with Shane Warne, a cricketer famous for being a cricketer and for smoking when he shouldn't be smoking and for shagging Elizabeth Hurley. The beer itself is unremarkable. The flavour profile reminds me a whole lot of the flavour profile of generic, mass-produced Australian ale.

**ChrisTaylor** · August 25, 2014

Birra del Borgo Duchessa con Farro. Yeast. Fruity breakfast cereal. It's okay, I guess.

**ChrisTaylor** · August 27, 2014

Another Birra del Borgo offering. Cortigiana. Fruity. Tropical fruit. It's okay, I guess. And that, I guess, is a bit of a Birra del Borgo theme.

**ChrisTaylor** · August 31, 2014

4 Pines Hefeweizen. Fruity. Tropical fruit. Mushy fruit. Some weird lactic notes to it that didn't sit well with me. I dislike the flavour of milk. Heavy carbonation. This one's just a no.

JoNorvelleWalker · September 2, 2014

With my pizza Margherita tonight, my last bottle of Victory/Dogfish/Stone Saison du BUFF. Only because my dear son said he got me some more.

**FrogPrincesse** · September 2, 2014

Jo - This was a limited release in 2012. I've had it at Stone, but it's long gone from the stores. Maybe your son was smart enough to stock up on it!

I am so behind on my beers notes it's not even funny.

Here was the beer board at Tender Greens, one of my favorite ultra-casual lunch places, a few days ago. All local brews. I had tried everything already except for the Saint Archer white ale, so I went with that. Saint Archer is another craft brewery in San Diego located in Miramar, close to where I work.

It's a typical white beer, coriander and orange, nothing offensive, and refreshing. Nice with my salad.

Edited September 2, 2014 by FrogPrincesse (log)

BrentKulman · September 2, 2014

Jo - This was a limited release in 2012. I've had it at Stone, but it's long gone from the stores. Maybe your son was smart enough to stock up on it!

It has been brewed since then and this year it was brewed by Dogfish Head without the other two breweries participating, though it will rotate to the others in future years.

http://www.dogfish.com/community/blogfish/members/mariah/saison-du-buff-it%E2%80%99s-time-to-go-solo.htm

JoNorvelleWalker · September 2, 2014

Brent beat me to it.

**FrogPrincesse** · September 2, 2014

It has been brewed since then and this year it was brewed by Dogfish Head without the other two breweries participating, though it will rotate to the others in future years.

http://www.dogfish.com/community/blogfish/members/mariah/saison-du-buff-it%E2%80%99s-time-to-go-solo.htm

Cool. Thanks for the correction!

Hassouni · September 2, 2014

Flying Dog Dead Rise summer ale, AKA the crab beer, made with Old Bay

**FrogPrincesse** · September 2, 2014

No crab in the beer? (I've seen oyster beer before.) How was it?

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