It is with a heavy heart that I report that Heckasac has taken the day off. Not to be confused with yesterday, when Heckasac took the day off. Is it just me or is Fat Tire the worst beer ever?
miller
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About Me
71 comments:
Fat Tire is so gross. I find it mind boggling that both Sierra Nevada and New Belgium have the worst flagship brews ever. Pale Ale and Fat Tire are both so upleasantly acrid.
Niki
Fat Tire is the worst beer ever.
Is it me, or is F.T. the new Sierra Nevada? (which is the second worse beer and gives IPAs around the world a bad name)
I like Sierra Nevada! But Fat Tire blows dicks.
not only is it the worst, but it also has the worst name.
-ez
sierra nevada IPA is the worst of the worst. crap syrup! it induces hangovers that feel like someone kicked a ball-point pen into your ear.
I like fat tire, but only one per evening. Or maybe just half of one. Sierra Nevada is horrible. I will drink cheap midwest beer before that. bleg!
Heckasac, I hope you feel better. I've been working more than procrastinating and it's making me uneasy. Come back to work!
Sierra Nevada, for some reason, I sometimes have the hankering for. I'm not usually a guy who likes really hoppy beers, but maybe it satiates that need. I can imagine hoppiness tasting a lot better. I usually drink it when people who love it drink it. Those people ususally smoke a lot of pot. That sorta makes sense, since it tastes like something you'd drink while you're smoking pot.
Fat Tire was greatly heralded by a former co-worker of mine, and I tried it, and it just tastes like Pale Ale, only not quite as sweet and with a hint of a burnt popcorn-type taste.
I can imagine beers that taste worse, though. But I don't want to drink them.
I guess people think that if you load a bunch of expensive ingredients into a beer, it's worth it to keep making it, even if it ends up tasting gross.
I can handle Sierra Nevada but it's completely played out. I probably never need to drink another one. Fat Tire on the other hand is a whole new level of sour! Who the hell is the genius who convinced every bar in California to carry it? Another brew that I can't hang with: Newcastle Brown - if you've been drinking brew for over a year, you have no excuse for this to be a favorite. Sweet, syrupy & uninteresting. And I also hate Guinness but I think I'm in the minority there. I just think there are way more interesting stouts and not just the heavy ones - the more refreshing ones too. I can't stand the sight of someone pretending that Guinness is strong or somehow crazy. It's like, what 3 or 4 percent? It tastes like bitter water to me. OK now I'm sort of on a roll. If you've talked to me for 0.5 seconds or more, you may know that I love beer. Not just being drunk - which I also love - but the amazing taste of good beer. It's a constant source of irritation to me that so often the most boring beers rise to the top. Every year, some beer is suddenly everywhere: Fat Tire, Stella, etc. And it usually doesn't matter the quality of the bar or restaurant - they always get snowed by the brew. Take, say, the Waterboy (or to you haters, "your beloved Waterboy") great wine selection, great food, and crappy brew on tap. I mean, the only thing I can say for the Two Rivers pomegranite cider is that it's better than the apple. (not technically brew but I'm lumping it in cuz it's on draft). You have no idea how much it anguishes me - who is a major lover of cider - that Sacramento is home to the worst cider I have ever tasted. It tastes like a fucking band-aid! Or some medicine they give you as a kid that they try & sweeten up. Also at the Waterboy: Lagunitas IPA - I have some love for Lagunitas but for one, it's totally uneven from batch to batch & second, it's not a good beer for dinner. What else do they have? Widmer or Sierra Nevada or something? So fucking played out. Anyway, yeah, they should put Chimay back on & get a quality subtle beer like Sudwerk Pilsener or Lager, Anderson Valley Poleeko Gold, or Staropramen. There are a billion brews in the world & 1% are on draft everywhere! I know it's because everybody uses one distributor but I don't care. Even the Streets Of London & the Bonn Lair are lazy. The Lair has one or two revolving taps but it's nowhere near as creative as it once was - and the Streets beer selction is so boring (and I think their lines need to be cleaned). I really can't think of one creative beer selection in this whole city. The Fox & Goose keeps it somewhat real (it's nice to have the Youngs Double Chocolate Stout on nitro) and Brew It Up of course has a unique selection because they brew it all there but I can not hang with the crap ambience there. Oh wait, you know who has a somewhat decent selecion? The Pine Cove. The have, like, Steelhead & some other stuff you don't usually see but you have to gamble with the Cove because just when you settle in to a mini-pitcher, either the karaoke machine comes out & suddenly 3 drunk sorority girls are singing Build Me Up Buttercup, or, like the whole Sac State football team shows up for $1 purple hooters. Nice Sunday afternoon place though. Also, of all places the Tratoria Bohemia has good beer & I was talking to the owner (who's rad) & he was saying he wishes people would come there to drink & that it's no problem if you're not eating - but I don't know, it just doesn't seem like a place you'd pick to go do that. Maybe if there was a back area. Still man, it's the capitol of California & there should be a dope bar downtown with good beer AND good ambience. Becks was claiming that beer just needs it's "Sideways" but I just think the distributors are lazy & they underestimate people. Brew It Up does a huge business by not assuming everybody just wants a light beer with a lemon in it.
miller
The distributor thing is a huge problem!!! Even though the wine selection in Sacto's restaurants is better than their beer selection, they're still not as original as they could be given the amazing amount of wine in the world! And worse is the selection in the grocery stores!!! Taylor's, Corti's, and stupid fucking David Berkely aside, the selection in the grocery stores (I'm looking at you Safeway) is ridiculous. And you know it's because the wine buyer buys it all from one or two distributors who have them most generic portfolios ever!!!!
-michele
Enough with the Sierra Nevada bashing! Me and Darcey went to the factory in Chico a couple of months ago, and ordered the 15-beer sampler. At least 85 percent of the beers were freakin' brilliant! I'll concur with the earlier post that Pale Ale is a weak flagship beer, but most of the rest are fantastic!
good lord Miller you are on a roll. I will say this, I agree on the guiness, blech. I know I tend to be a bit too punk rock in my cheap beer is the best beer stance but that shit is bitter water. I disagree however on the lagunitas, its never good. I want it to be at least passable perhaps with the heavy aftertaste "good beer" often has but el grosso
alisha is trying to convince an old friend of hers who is a wine dealer to open up a wine bar here. he could probably bring in some good stuff cuz he has clients all over california and really knows his stuff. don't know if he knows anything about beer though. i'll tell alisha she needs to keep working on getting him up here.
Sierra tastes like soap, what the fuck. I like Belgian beers, Duval, Chimay and their ilk (Stella too, and that awesome one Bon Lair has on tap, that Pritchard introduced me too). I like heavy brit beers like Guiness, Boddingtons and Young's. Or really really really shitty beers where you can drink 50, pee all night long, yell with your friends and still make it to work the next day (craving sweets none the less, all that sugar used to make ferment those cheap beers faster does that to you). I also like that Jamaican Schlitz "Red Strip" but only because of the bottle.
Olympia brewery has the best beer tour, complete with enough samples to get a hefty buzz and beer cookies. PBR didn't even have a tour, they just had a locked gate and a sign that said "No work related accidents for _ days"... think think when i was there the _ was like "2".
Trader Joe's has a fake Duval/Belgian beer that's pretty decent and about 3 bucks a bottle cheaper than Chimay.
Cheap brew's a whole different thing. You get what you pay for & nobody's trying to fool anybody with Pabst. It tastes like water, it's $5 a twelver and everbody's happy. I find no contradiction in the fact that I love good beer yet I was drinking a Pabst last night at Ironsides (ohhh - Ironsides dirty, dirty beer). But if I'm gonna pay $8 for a sixer, it has to be better than Fat Tire! A brewery I've just recently reevaluated is Unibroue from Quebec. I must've had one I didn't like at some point because I've stayed away from it for years but I noticed that they brewed Trader Joe's 2005 Vintage Ale & it was only $4.99 for a big, corked bottle so I got one. It's excellent! 9% but totally smooth & delicious. And considering that Unibrou bottles are usually in the $7-$9 range, a great deal. I picked up some various Unibroue beers at BevMo & they were all great. Shit, I even decanted one! Which, by the way, is a terrible idea because it foams like CRAZY!
miller
Omnibus, has the Olmypia Brewery reopened? because I think they closed it down in 2003. I know what you mean about those Red Stripe bottles. Olympia beer tasted so much better in them. Now it tastes exactly like PBR and Hamm's.
-ez
DB, when I say Sierra Nevada, I mean Pale Ale becasuse yeah, I love most all of their other beers & the brewery, if I remember correctly, has a bunch of good stuff on draft that they don't have in bottles. I've never taken the Anchor tour but it reportedly rules. And that's coming from Marie D - who would know. Oh yeah, and how bout that Barnesyard?!
miller
Streets really does need to clean their lines or something. All the beer there is starting to have the same dirty, tingley taste. It might be all those chippy bartenders getting their mid-drifts all over everything.
-Connie
The dirty tingle! Exactly.
miller
I haven't been to Oly in awhile, but I used to go all the time on tour so we'd always try and stop. I've heard the Anchor tour is one of the best tours for "real" beer, I think Jay took it recently and was raving about it. I really like Anchor, its a decent beer. Smills - what other beers does Unibroue make? Is it pronounce "Uni-brow"? That's fucked up, especially if its Quebecois, those French Canadians can't catch a break. The T-Joe's vintage is really good.
Miller, the brewery not Miller the nar, buys up breweries and shuts them down to try to catch up with Bud. They bought up and shut down: Oly, Weinharts and Ranier.
Pabst, I think, was bought up and shut down by the guy who overlogged the No Cal forests. He knows that if you're not into the company for the long run, you can boost the stocks and sell out. He bought Pabst, shut the brewery in Milwaukee after saying he wouldn't do that, and leased the name out.
Oh yeah, Bud brews a ton of the specialty beers. I wouldn't be surprised if they made Sierra Nevada. They got into hot water with their specialty beer companies by saying they were going to put "brewed by Bud" on the bottles.
And how come there's a shitty beer talk and no ones mentioned Rubicon? I hoped that when it got sold the new owner would make drinkable beer but that never happened.
As for the wine distributers, the big distros have a huge inventory of wine. Most alcohol managers only order what they're told to order. Safeway will order good wine if you ask.
One of my sisters works for a wine distro. Most of the orders are "Well, give me what the other (any major store) buy". If you're a wino, and you'll actually buy wine instead of asking for it and the letting it sit on the shelf, let me know, I can give you a list of wines and the store of your choice will probably order it.
Not always because some managers suck and only order the payola accounts. Yup, stuff just like most major businesses are ran by payola. Here's some Kings tickets, thanks for your order of 10,000 cases of Night Train.
The chippy's dirty tingle! I live right by Ledgers Liquors which has a lot of Belgian beers, odd ones I'd never seen before. We've been into some of the Brit beers there, St. Peters Golden Ale, Bombadier, Old Suffolk. I love Hoogarden too, and in a bottle its really tasty. On New Years we picked up a case of a beer called Sessions which was pretty good and light.
Tess
Woah, that's interesting that your sister works for a wine distributer! i'd take you up on your offer, but I'm in Rhode Island where you can't by wine in the grocery store. At first I was bummed about that when I got here, but then I realized that the while the wine shops were more expensive and not open until two...the upside was that they were run by small business owners, who sometimes actually have an opinion about the wine they sell.
But I know you are right about the grocery wine buyers, they just buy from the distributors what they think consumers will buy from the store...but's like Miller said, they aren't giving people enough credit. I know most of my friends are just experiementing with what they see on the shelf. If that selection was as interesting as at Corti's, I think the people would be psyched. Sure, of course Safeway will always stock the Yellowtail kind of stuff, but it would be rad if they were more adventurous.
Also, I'm partial to European wines, so it's appalling to me to look at the selection at Safeway...most of their "imported" aisle is from South America and Australia, not Europe. And of course most of the wine is from California, which makes sense...Californians love California stuff. On the east coast, you get more European stuff, I guess because we don't have a huge wine industry over here, and also, we are closer to Europe.
-michele
Oh man. Don't get me started on Streets. Their lines need to be cleaned big-time.
I ordered on of their hand pumped ales and it tasted so bad I had to bring it back to the bartender. The bartender said I probably didn't like it becuase I'm not used to hand pulled ales. Little did she know who she was talking to...one of the dudes who flew to London to drink beer and see the TVPs play (They were soooo good!), but like I always say, whatever man!
and back to Flagship beers. No matter where I go, dive or not, here is your selection:
Fat Tire
Sierra
Pyramid Hefewizen
Newcastle
Bud Light
and sometimes Guiness and/or PBR
What's up with the beer selection at the Distillery? Weak!
Why is the name "Sessions" so funny to me? It conjures up images of sunsets, banana boobs, cocaine, and gross orange-hued man legs in short OP's.
- Patrone
those images are great patrone. now i want to drink "sessions" so i can just lay back and day dream about all of those things!
Ha ha! It sounds like it should be a sweet Alize type drink name. Coconut Sessions. Papaya Sessions. Im almost embarssed to admit that while I was typing about Ledgers and beer, the guy from Ledgers called me to tell my my order for Becherovka has arrived. Boozie!
Tess
With Safeway, they don't have room to stock many wines. They "can't afford" wine sitting there waiting for someone to expirement, they want something that they know will sell. Especially the one on 19th. Their backroom is basically the size of a sheet of plywood. I suppose one day, there will be an upmarket version of Safeway that'll stock good food and wine.
The place my sister works for has a huge amount of wine, but that's not what major stores want. Even the weird stuff that gets stocked at BevMo sits around.
That's where I bought Speights. It a beer from New Zealand and it sucked. When I toured their original brewery in Dunedin, NZ it was great. They bitched about how they were bought up and the recipe was changed for mass market by the bigger brewery in Auckland. They still did it the old way and they said they were expecting to be shut down by the owners.
It was pretty good tour. Ranier, Oly and Weinharts had good tours even if the beer wasn't great. At Oly, you could spit in the beer and drop in plastic spiders. I wondered why they let you stick your head into the vat, but I couldn't pass up dropping in plastic toys. Bud in Fairfield was the worst tour I've had. Or maybe they just didn't like a tour van of punks showing up. A quick "yeah, we brew in this room, here's a Dixie cup of Bud light, get out". Ranier and Weinharts each had a "I'll just shut my eyes and it's all you can drink" time which leads to pantless Hal and Dave flashing wieners in the parking lot.
Red Hook also has a good tour but you have to pay for it. It's best followed by a tour of Ranier where you can pass out in the car naked in heavy slow freeway traffic and get woken up by Bill pulling into a Safeway parking lot and Hal throwing snow on your crotch so you jump out of the car screaming and attracting unwanted attention.
I'm risking the dreaded double comment here since blogger comments are acting all craaazy right now, but anyway, as a beer lover & an Oasis fan, I sincerely hope that brewery's name is pronounced "Unibrow". This is their website - it's pretty neat. Then again, I can stare at a larger than life glass of beer all day & be happy as hell.
http://www.unibroue.com/english.cfm
That apple Ephemere looks delicious!
miller
How bout it? Seriously, the Barnesyard will be back in business, but probably not until the end of the month or next month. I'm ridiculously swamped at work, and at home, the 2012 Portland Trailblazers are making a serious run for the NBA Live championship. However, I did start reading a Little Richard biography that Mike Dub gave me, and it should provide an endless source of quotes and anecdotes once the Barnesyard is up and running again.
Can you get Gouden Carolus in Sac? It's the best belgian beer I've had in a bottle.
Banana Boob Sessions
Ella
Smitty, and all you other spaceknights, Rubicon is basically undefendable. I'm glad it's there for some reason but I dislike almost all their beers. I do like their stout & I also tend to like their seasonals because they stray from "the taste". When Rubicon started, Sierra Nevada was just starting to emerge as the top micro & I wonder if Rubicon used them as their model. As you probably know, Sierra also has "the taste". By that I mean that all the beers have the same particular taste throughout all the styles. In Sierra's case, it seems to work better in their porter, stout, wheat & Celebration than it does in the pale, in Rubicon's case, it kinda just sucks all around. it's signature, that's for sure. You can tatse a Rubicon beer a mile away. But I prefer something like Anchor where all their beers taste pretty different (to me anyway). The thing about microbrews is that they're almost alwasy brewed by stoners. Stoners love the hop because it's a lot like a sweet green bud. Stoners will pour ungodly amounts of hops in to their beers to try & create the greenbud of beers. This is also why so many microbrews have such straight-to-the-dome alcohol contents. When it succeeds, it's glorious, when it fails (like Rubicon, and to some degree Lagunitas) it can be pretty nasty. I love hops. I don't see that they're bitter - I think they taste fresh & delicious - but it's really gotten to the point where I think west coast microbrews should push themselvees a little more. There's more to brewing than hops, hops, hops.
miller
Smitty,
You didn't like Speights! That was my staple when I was living in NZ. Much better than Tui's. "Speights gives you Mates!"
To Tess:
Wow, the liquor store calls your house??? My ulcerous, bloated liver bows down to yours.
- Patrone
If anyone can find the Gouden Carolus that Ella mentioned, please post it! I'm a fanatic about Belgian beers (which are always watered down for U.S. comsumption - something about having to lower the alcohol content for export).
All of the Leffe beers are amazing. And Hoegarten is still pretty great, even when it's been watered down.
Dani - who owns special glasses in which to drink her special Belgian beers
No, I liked Speights in NZ. At least the "craft beers" brewed in Dunedin. The stuff imported here wasn't good. Blame Auckland and the probably heating and cooling of beer in shipping. Tuis was okay. I wanted to see if I could tour the Auckland Guinness brewery but didn't get a chance. Blue Moon was great, but that's talking NZ microbrews. They're proud to announce they import their stout to Ireland.
When I was in Melbourne, I met an American ex-pat who asked where I was from. I said Sacramento and he says, "Rubicon and Hopheads". He knows microbrews all over the fuckin' place, but he hadn't been to Little Creatures. It's a microbrew in Perth that's the best beer I've ever had. But that's okay, I've never been to Hopheads or that other one on lower uh... I Street? J St? How're those places, Ye Beere Drinkers of Sac?
Thanks for the pot analogy, Miller. That makes a lot of sense. Now I just imagine Charles brewing beer. Would he add raisins like Jim MacLean did?
Is this going to post twice? Is it this Apple from 1981 or is it the blog that's being weird?
I don't agree on the Guinness thing, Miller. I like how it tastest like water with copier toner in it, and it's not grainy. It's smooth. On top of that, the only others like it that I've had are Rubicon (boring and all their beers taste like baking soda) and Murphy's, which is good, but it's not as smooth and it tastes saltier. I think there's another one that's in moderate rotation that I might have tried, but I don't remember it. I also like that Guinness isn't super strong. I don't know why it's so popular to pretend that drinking Guinness is some test of fortitude. I guess maybe because it might be weak, but it's substantial. But well, I mean, if beer drinking fortitude was gagued on calorie content, well, then just drink a 40 of Mickey's and eat a loaf of wonderbread, if that's what impresses you.
I wholeheartedly agree with the bit about microbrews and hops. That's just the thing with Sierra Nevada. I'm not much of a beer snob any more because I have yet to put a beer to my mouth that I hated so much that I wouldn't finish the glass/bottle/can based on how bad it was alone (except the first time I had Natural Ice, if that even counts) but microbrewers do need to think more.
I don't know what it is about Sierra Nevada PA, but sometimes when I get it to my mouth, even though at first seeing the green and yellow striped labels makes my heart sink if that's the only beer available, I drink it and I want to have more of it. I guess it's sort of like the thrill you get from eating cheap halloween candy.
If we're going to have dumbed-down microbrews, why doesn't one of them go for overloading a beer with Malt instead of Hops? Now there'd be a dumb beer that I'd be into.
I also for the first time in my life had a glass of wine that I actually enjoyed. I never liked wine much, but was always willing to give it a shot sometimes.
I couldn't tell you what it was, though, because well, I drank a lot of it and got drunk so I totally forgot. I think my friend said it was made by some guy who used to be a record producer or something.
Anyone who puts Guiness in a list of "heavy brit beers" (Omnibus) has obviously never had one. Like smiller says, it's really low in alcohol. It's also really low in calories, lower than Bud. But smiller is insane when he complains about the taste of it. I find Guiness one of the best balanced, most refreshing brews on Earth. But then, i remember when smiller hated Elvis Costello, too.
Funny how this thread just pulled everyone out of the woodwork.
Anyone who puts Guiness in a list of "heavy brit beers" (Omnibus) has obviously never had one. Like smiller says, it's really low in alcohol. It's also really low in calories, lower than Bud. But smiller is insane when he complains about the taste of it. I find Guiness one of the best balanced, most refreshing brews on Earth. But then, i remember when smiller hated Elvis Costello, too.
Funny how this thread just pulled everyone out of the woodwork.
Anyone who puts Guiness in a list of "heavy brit beers" (Omnibus) has obviously never had one. Like smiller says, it's really low in alcohol. It's also really low in calories, lower than Bud. But smiller is insane when he complains about the taste of it. I find Guiness one of the best balanced, most refreshing brews on Earth. But then, i remember when smiller hated Elvis Costello, too.
Funny how this thread just pulled everyone out of the woodwork.
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention something else! You know how people will brew beers with things in it that sorta you never put in beers, but maybe it'll work!
What about a beer with cheese in it? I would say "Best Idea Ever?" But I won't. I'll say "Best Idea Ever."
And thank you, Michael, for co-defending Guinness with me, though I admit I didn't know it was so low calorie. Guinness get's it's dark, heavy, strong reputation probably just by people guessing about it due to it's origins and the stereotypes, I guess. But yeah, Guinness isn't supposed to be heavy and strong. Just dark, and I think it does a good job of that. It could only be better if it had some gravy in it.
Remember Marie's Hamburger Brau?
Nasty. It had meat and onions in it, but to my knowledge, no cheese.
Guinness = the only beer I can drink for breakfast when camping. Doesn't get you drunk and its less trouble than starting a fire to make coffee.
Ella
Every few months I give Guinness another shot & every time, it's worse than I even remebered! I have to choke it down. It has a really specific (subtle, but specific) taste that I can't get with. I wish I liked it since it's everywhere. I feel like my tastebuds don't register what's good about it - kinda like how tomatoes taste bleachy to me. I always figure I can't taste them right. Olsen, is it Beamish stout that you're thinking of? I like Beamish OK.
Fuck, I can drink ANY beer in the morning when I'm camping! Camping is little more than an excuse for a pre-noon brew!
miller
Yes. It was Beamish, and now that I remember the name of it, I remember it as being good, too.
So when are we going camping, and who's going to drive the truck full of ice chests?
this is way off subject, but i still need help. if this post is fruitless as well ill give up. if it yields at least an apple or two, thats cool. im still wondering about the possibility of sunday and a place to play for fishtank ensemble. i know if we had a spot people would come and love it! im assuming the distillery is a no go. if sunday is simply out, then im wondering if anyone can tell us about a party to crash and play saturday night in case we decide not ot go to necada city that night. in any case, this is the only place we havent played yet anmd its my town and i want to share a little music!let me know, anyone, otherwise, till next november...
Ursula, are you all acoustic or do you need amplification?
miller
I tried to post earlier but apparently my 40 page thesis on beer is lost in the ether.
I would like to stand up for both Fat Tire and Sierra Nevada. I like the microbrews that are hoppy and give me horrid hangovers and make me hecka gassy in the morning.
I would like to give a shout out to beers in the special can, Boddingtons, Beamish, and my hard to find favorite, Old Speckled Hen. I would also like to give a shout out to my friend Blue Moon Belgian White. You are a special beer and I will treasure you always.
I hate to disappoint, but I think Unibroue is more like Uni - brew than it is like Uni - brow. But that's not so disapointing now is it?
Miss B
I would also like to make a tip of the forty to my dead homie Sheaf Stout. It was my favorite beer when I was about 20. Now I really want some. I haven't seen it in forever. Does anyone else remember it? Seen it around anywhere? Was it a NW thing?
Miss B
Trader Joe's used to carry Sheaf Stout but I haven't seen it in years. I loved that brew too.
miller
...and it had cheese in it?
Hey Ursula,
we might have something going on Sunday night, we'll find out by tomorrow. You guys are welcome to crash out at my pad as well. Can fit four in the living room and two in the kitchen. Will cook you a delicious shitake soup. Call me @ (916) 837-0171.
see ya,
Larry R.
DB, you're so right about Sierra Nevada's other beers. the tour, the rack, they're all worth the drive to Chico.
hello, Unfiltered White, BiG FooT AlE, EXTRA SPECIAL PALE ALE!!
and honestly? the Bud tour isn't half bad either since they do sample many of their specialty beers (mmm, Blue Moon). oh, and you can stock up on vomit Jelly Bellies practically next door.
i'm sure Michelle is in the know, but from my side of the bar, it's not so much distributor laziness. it's what sells. Smiller, money is the genius that convinced every bar in CA to sell SN Pale Ale. we sell what we can make bank on. and yahoo's love Fat Tire (aka Flat Tire). the Goose is only half ok because we clean our lines weekly, have a high turn over, and had ten extra taps so figured we'd stock them with something good.
There are worse beers than Fat Tire, namedly that one Russian beer that gets passed around at Beer's on the occasional Christmas eve send off and that Vietnamese beer 33. Oh, how I wanted to love a beer named 33, I really did but it tastes like pee. Having said that Fat Tire is grody and yet at work everytime I prattle off the beer menu people always say "Oh, you have Fat Tire? Well, I'll have one of those." WTF?
As for the Safeway wine selection I'm hot for the Bolla vineyards Sangiovese. It's in the Italy section and it's on sale right now for under $7.
I would also like to say that I second pre-noon camping cocktails and Smitty you are the only person I know who has unsolicited beer delivered to your house on a somewhat regular basis. How you manage to work that out I'll never know.
Before I pass out from it being late and partaking in this post's favorite passtime, I'd also like to at least bring up beer from india. I was at an indian restaurant once and decided I'd give Taj Mahal a shot. It was like 4 o'clock in the afternoon, so my date looked at me like I had to be an alcoholic, but whatever, dude. Anyway, it was good. I kind of don't remember it well enough to describe it, but I do remember liking it.
Eyh, just stick with scotch.
I guess I don't see how money is the genius behind why something like Fat Tire is everywhere. It's not like there was some huge demand for Fat Tire & all these bars just cashed in on it. Hardly anyone knew what it was & then suddenly it was everywhere. NOW it's about money because people equate it with quality or think they're drinking something a cut above - and also, for some inexplicable reason, I think people like the name Fat Tire - but really, when it comes to beer, I think most people don't know what to look for so they like what they think they should like - and some genius must've convinced someone that FT was the best.
miller
Oh man, 33 and most especially Saigon are two of my current favorite beers!
-Connie
What about Beer Lao at Vientiane?
I heard that it is not imported into the USA at all, and that the people at Vientiane must bring it in themselves? Is this true?
Contraband Brew?
Ella
I just answered my own question, Nope, not contraband brew. It can be imported.
nevermind!
It's still real good, even if I'm not breaking the law.
Ella
I will have to look for this Vientiane, especially if it is of the Vietnamese ilk.
-Connie
oh my god, this thread is great! you are all beer geniuses! that sucks that slopdawgjr. got the Dreaded Triple Post (DTP). Sheaf stout whither art thought? Safeway used to have 20s of it and in my early twenties I think it was the first good beer I ever drank regularly. I was still coming out of my mickey's shit beer phase. And smiller, what frat girl would have the good taste to pick build me up buttercup to karaoke? Have you really seen that?
Yeah, last time I was there in fact.
miller
Where'd my comment go? I think it's lost. Sorry if it ends up shaking out, making this a double post.
1. Speaking of New Belgium brews again. What is up with Frambozen this year? This is their seasonal raspberry nut brown ale. It's way sweeter than last year's batch. I can't stomach it, but maybe a cider fan could.
2. A great pilsner and my personal favorite is DAB (Dortmunder?). Not the low carb one you see at Safeway, but the original you get at Beverages & More. Light, crisp, very clean taste with the tiniest bubbles. Refreshment, bottled.
3. Kiuchi brewery's white ale from Japan. Besides the cute owl on the bottle, this white ale runs circles around Hoegaarten. Whole Foods sells single, small bottles and BevMo has the large, painted bottles. Coolest caps ever. I gave one to G-bomb for her coffee table.
Niki
"Eyh, just stick with scotch."
I don't think I'll ever drink scotch again for the rest of my life, or even so much as shine a light through a sealed bottle of it in a direction towards my mouth.
I also think scotch is foul.
Good; I don't need ya'll people making a dent in my scotch supply.
I like scotch, but not to get drunk on, that can be rough...and I strongly 2nd Niki's endorsement of Kiuchi's white ale, although I think it's pretty different from Hoegaarten which I also really like.
I guess it's kind of a chicken and egg thing whether the the consumer, store/bar, or distributor is to blame for the weak selection of beer and wine. I do know that the wine and beer (and spirits) industry is owned by an increasingly small amount of companies, and that can't be good for the diversity of what's available.
I didn't mean to say that I think the distributors are lazy, at least no more than anyone else. And I'm sure there are more interesting distribution companies than others...but the portfolios for the major companies I've seen do not reflect the amazing amount of wine there is!!!
-michele
oh, i'm sure it's both.
it is amazing how few companies are represented by distributors!
i just know though that every time we've requested a specialty beer (within reason), our distributors have gone out and gotten it for us.
so, it makes me think a lot of bar management is lazy/uniformed, etc. too.
bummer.
That's cool that you usually get what you ask for from the distributor. I think I underestimate the "what sells" philosophy of the owners. I have a lot of faith in my fellow people, and I just think that if they had more to choose from they'd choose more. But, as a bar or shop owner, it's seems hard to gamble on that.
-michele
Sorry to break the magic number 69 and log in the 70th post but my Thursday-after-Knock-Knock Saigon is the most delicious drink in the world. It tastes so good cause it's well deserved.
I don't understand you Guinness haters. I'll drink one right now. F off.
Heckasac, I'll get that DVD to you if it KILLS me.
-Heckamax
bring it! leave it in the mailbox maxwell! also come to lyme regis tonight i can give you a ride! and your lady can come, too as long as she provides gas, ass, or grass
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