bigc wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 1:15 pm

RyanZ wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 12:43 pm When I first moved to CA, Lagunitas Brewing had a beer called Dogtown Pale Ale that was perfectly hopped. I eventually grew to hate hoppy craft brews but this beer was always tastefully done. Crisp and clean with a little hoppiness. I pretty much steer clear of craft brews these days unless they are pilsner or kolsch style. I can't deal with the sweetness, high alc. and over the top hop flavor. Migraine city.

Agreed. So much hops, ABV and intensity of late. We call it 'Kris Kringle's nutsack ale'. That, or hazy, astringent bitterness.

Hops are often overdone, but the massive cloud of yeast in most craft beers is what ruins them for me.

biscuitdough wrote: Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:10 am
Hops are often overdone, but the massive cloud of yeast in most craft beers is what ruins them for me.

The hazy IPA movement. I deal with it because there's some correlation between the hazy style and a reasonable hop balance and an approachable abv. The whole cork sniffer thing about "mouth feel" is cringey to me and I usually drink hazys right out of the can so I don't have to contemplate the fog of sediment swimming around the glass.

The thing about the IPA is it's a great flavor in its essence but the process is friendlier for novice brewers and so it's the flagship of every aspiring microbrewery. If making small batch lagers wasn't so damned hard beer drinkers would be tired of the constant shitty tasting lagers everywhere.

It's gotten to the point that there are so many negative associations with IPAs that when a good one winds up in my hand I think "This is...... Good? Oh yeah, these CAN be good!"

atomjackfuser wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 3:52 pm Beers (one’s you could buy at stores) that you loved that were kiboshed at by their breweries. This includes beers that are only available at the brewery now.

Boulevard Tropical Pale Ale

Of course Boulevard has brought it back in a 12 beer variety pack with three other beers that I don't really.....boooooooo!!

Unless employees manage to resurrect it, add Anchor Steam to this list.

kicker_of_elves wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 12:29 pm

Dave N. wrote: Mon Dec 12, 2022 9:30 pm Does Olympia still exist? I spent the better part of my twenties guzzling Oly.

Holy lord, I drank a shit-ton of Oly in the 90s. I think it was like $8 or $9 a case.

Related: a brewery in Tacoma has revived Heidelberg, another PNW original watery lager in the vein of Oly/Rainier/etc.
Pabst owns Oly and stopped making it in 2021; haven't seen it since.

I also really miss Hair of the Dog.

I never tasted the original, but the revived Oly was swill.

I was sad to see Anchor Steam mentioned recently. It was one of the first "fancy" beers I liked in my 20s.

This is pretty local to Colorado, but I recently found out that Odell Brewing in Fort Collins stopped making their 5 Barrel Ale. To continue the theme above, I would much rather have that than their many overcharged IPA variations.

Krev wrote: Thu Aug 10, 2023 9:29 pm I never tasted the original, but the revived Oly was swill.

Granted, it’s been decades, but my recollection is that the original Oly wasn’t much different or better (or worse) than any other mass-produced beer, just that they produced less of it. Same goes for Rainier.

The good local beer was Henry’s.

brephophagist wrote: Thu Aug 10, 2023 8:09 pm I also really miss Hair of the Dog.

yeah, that was a shame

Three Floyds had a really good hefeweisen called drunk monk that was only available at their now closed brewpub in Munster, but started bottling it around 2015. It might have been the best beer I ever had, seriously. They started bottling it again last year, but earlier this year they discontinued it to make yet another bullshit double imperial IPA. I'm so fucking sick of quadruple dry-hopped IPA with extremely high abv and whatever the fuck the scoville-ass bitterness scale is. Make some hefeweisens, some pilsners, some simple lagers, or anything other than lazily dumping a shitload of hops into the brew you Indiana fuckers