"Craft" beer recommendation

[BP]

As for the Cozumel place it's right on the beach and almost hidden other than the Paulaner umbrellas.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/La-Internacional-Cerveceria-Cozumel/825715740782532

Beers were $5-6 each which is expensive for the area considering Carlos and Charlies and Margaritaville are within a couple of blocks, along with several dozen other places selling Corona's with limes. It keeps the massive crowds out though so I was happy paying the same I would here.

It seems that Mexican breweries really like making Imperial Stouts with peppers which is awesome because I love those. Even better if you barrel age it and throw in some Cacao nibs.

Cerveza Oscura Con Cacao Y Chile was my favorite of the group and if you look on untappd it's pretty rare. I can't even really understand the reviews since most are in Spanish. It's a chocolate pepper stout and it was fantastic.

They also had a beer called Sospeso IPA. It's from a brewery in Tijuana that does collaborations with their local coffee roaster. There are a couple of coffee IPAs out there now, this and Rogue's Cold Brew are the only two I've had but I liked them both equally.

For NOLA on tap it was almost a complete clusterf@ck but turned out okay. We went to Cafe DuMonde for their fried biscuits with powdered sugar. I really don't get the appeal. The great thing about that though is it's located adjacent to Jackson Square, where a group planned on tearing down the statue. Also where David Duke decided to hold a rally while we were there. So several hundred cops were blocking the entrances, barricades were set up, fire trucks were blocking the roads. It was GREAT! We finally managed to get in touch with an uber driver and it routed us right next to where the protest march was starting up.

So I'm white, as is my wife. Our driver is black and local. These weren't BLM protesters but there were probably 2k of them, I'd imagine a some of them had the same views. They started blocking the streets while marching to the square. Eventually (around 45 minutes) the road cleared up enough and we were on our way.

Oh on top of this there was a biker rally in town. So you have a group of protesters marching by the biker rally, heading to a David Duke rally in an already crowded as hell French Quarter.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/09/jackson_square_protest.html

I really don't understand how you can expect someone to tear down a statue dedicated to a former president, in a park named after him.

Then at Nola on tap they used RFID enabled wrist bands to "pay" for beers. Instead of tickets like most festivals. Well they didn't work so anyone that bought pre loaded bands had to go back and swap them for ones that worked. Without a receipt, since we paid cash. Other than that the festival was great. My favorite was Voo Ka Ray IPA. Just a really good IPA. I sampled around 30 beers so I can't remember them all.

[GrayStangGT]

It is October, what Oktoberfest beers are yall drinking. I've been hitting up the Big Bend Brewing one at a local burger joint for almost a month now.

[BP]

So I was a world traveler last week and stopped at Caybrew in the Cayman Islands and found a spectacular beer bar in Cozumel, right next to Margaritaville.

Oh yeah and NOLA on Tap last weekend.

So for Caybrew they of course are in the Cayman Islands and were started by the former overseas market manager for Guinness and his group of investors. They hired a good German born brewer and they make beer, a lot of it. They wouldn't say what the capacity was but they have 6 of the massive outdoor fermentation tanks. I'd imagine it's well over 100k barrells a year.

On to the beer though they are a little different than most. Their "bock" is very hopped up, if it wasn't so malty it'd probably be an IPA to most people. To me it was pretty similar to Rahr's Stormcloud only with a more floral hop profile. Which is good because I love the Rahr one. Ironshore Bock is the name and I rated it pretty highly.

They also do one called Mango Tango which as you can imagine is a fruit beer. Normally these types of beers are wheat based and I hate them. This was more of a lighter bodied pale lager and the Mango wasn't too overpowering. It was a great lighter beer.

Also had their 345 Stout and it was a very good traditional strong stout type beer. Amazingly enough since the brewery was founded by a former Guinness employee.

They have a few other beers but they are traditional styles that are obviously trying to appeal to everyone.

[Fatass]

Guess I'm late to the party as well, just recently started drinking beer again and have been hitting the taps and caps near me pretty regularly for growler fills. Taps 1-10 are $10 or less for a 64oz fill. Haven't stepped out very much into the crazy stuff, been enjoying the live oak hefeweizen and the dogfish head punkin more than anything.

[BP]

am i behind the times? heard of oskar blues new brewery in austin today

Way behind, it opened in April! They are canning lots if Cigar City beers there right now, not sure what market they are for though.

Inbev bought Bosteels this week as well so no more Kwak and their weird glasses.

[dsrtuckteezy]

am i behind the times? heard of oskar blues new brewery in austin today

[BP]

I've liked most of Boulevard's stuff I've had and thankfully Duvel bought them before Miller or AB.

Have you ever checked out Prairie's place in Tulsa? I guess it's actually Krebs now but they make some fantastic beers.

[Strychnine]

So I have an office in downwtown FW and an office in Tulsa. I spend a week to a week and a half of each month in Tulsa so I know the bar staff at my hotel pretty well. That's where I do all my work in the evenings. I get to the hotel today, pull up to the bar to start emailing after my roadtrip, and see that they have Boulevard Rye On Rye on tap. Fuck yeah, I was pumped! Tulsa got 6 kegs this year. Here, a beer/burger placed called McNelly's, and one other place that blew through theirs in about 7 hours. It's a 12% rye ale aged in rye whiskey casks. Amazingly delicious.



I'm on my second snifter and loving life. Well there's some corporate event here with some international folks, and a Spanish looking/sounding woman (who might weigh 115 lbs) starts asking about beer. She landed on the Rye On Rye and the bartender said, "a small one or a large one?"

I paused in disbelief...

She said LARGE.

She walked away from the bar with a 32 oz 12+% beer (granted she paid $40). She's going to be wobbly in a bit. I looked at the bartender and said, "You can do that??? That's a fucking 12% beer..." He said, "I heard this year it may be closer to 15%, but she's at her hotel. Hope she has a good evening!"
(I looked it up after she left - he's right, this year's is 14.6%)




Edit: 6:30pm - she's finished it

[BP]

OK scratch that. Grapevine isn't shutting down completely, they are killing their distribution lines. Which basically means the same thing to consumers. You'll only be able to buy their beer at the brewery for now. They would be able to self distribute up to 40k barrels a year though. That's what Revolver was doing before the Miller buyout.

[BP]

So there has been some big news in the DFW beer scene. Revolver sold a controlling interest to Miller last week and today Grapevine Craft Brewery sent a letter out to distributors that they are shutting down effective immediately.

Revolver has absolutely exploded over the last 4 years so it's no surprise they were on the radar. Grapevine though seemed to be doing very well. I'm hoping this means they'll focus on contract brewing and keep the tap house open.

[phaux]

Going to hit up Division Brewing and Legal Draft in Arlington this weekend to see what's up there.

Division has some good beers, they're heavy on the IPA's. I like their "Squeeze" and "cosmic awe". Had one of Legal's wheat beers at a beer bar and wasn't too impressed, can't speak for any of their other stuff.

[Tyrone Biggums]

Haven't checked this thread in a while. We're supposed to have Bell's next year. Sweetwater is coming to Austin and DFW as well. I haven't gotten any W00tstout this year, but last years is aging well. Haven't really been buying many bombers lately. Too much stuff to keep up with anymore and I've already got so much beer "cellaring" that I didn't intend to have this long. It just kind of piled up.

Per tradition, I drank an 18 month old DFH 120 on IPA day. Pretty good. I still think 2-3 years is the sweet spot, but I'm going to let the rest of them get to 5 years just to see what that's like.

Had a '13 Pumkinator last week, still holding well. Birthday is coming up, so I'll be opening my Firestone Walker XVII. Really looking forward to that.

I think my favorite new(ish) local beer right now is Texas Ale Project's 100 Million Angels Singing. Going to hit up Division Brewing and Legal Draft in Arlington this weekend to see what's up there.

[BP]

I hit two new breweries this weekend. The North Brewery in Endicott and Binghamton Brewing which is actually in Johnson City, NY. Every city up here has at least 3 local breweries it seems. Most are trying to advertise that they use all NY state sourced ingredients, which is funny because I see Rahr malt bags in all of them.

Anyway you won't see any of these beers unless you head to a craft beer bar somewhere in the Southern Tier portion of NY.

I did pick up a 6 pack of Bell's Two Hearted Ale though, this stuff is fantastic. Every bit as good as 90 minute, Sculpin or Yellow Rose. I wish Bell's would distribute to Texas. That and I grabbed two more bottles of this years Woot Stout.

The funny thing is that the local beer store wants Revolver's Blood and Honey. They don't have anything like it up here but everyone loves it. Seriously I could probably trade two bottles of it for a KBS.

[txsr20de]

Quality haul! The shelf life of those Pliny's is fairly short, drink up. That's our next trip hopefully though. Russian River is most certainly on the list.

Yeah, that picture is actually from a few weeks ago when I first pulled everything out of the wine shippers I used on the plane ride home. The Plinys were consumed within the first week home.

Russian River was very cool, but the place is hammered all the time, so you are usually looking at 1-2 hours to get a table. We waited about 40 minutes just to get in and fought for a seat at the bar. Make sure you also go to The Rare Barrel in Berkely if you are in the area, there stuff is killer(if you like sours) and no wait.

[BP]

My wife and I made a road trip up the California coast last month and stopped at some breweries along the way. This was my haul for the trip. Mostly sours from Russian River, Firestone Walker Barrelworks, Libertine, The Bruery, and The Rare Barrel. Can't get the majority of this stuff in TX, unfortunately(The Bruery has limited distro here). Picture quality sucks I know.

Quality haul! The shelf life of those Pliny's is fairly short, drink up. That's our next trip hopefully though. Russian River is most certainly on the list.