The Beer Thread • Page 482

Big Polar seltzer guy over here, the mango limeade rules

 

I drink whatever seltzer is on sale and usually just get lemon or lime.

 

Also doing a dry January, so I went hard last night. I have mild regrets.

 

Not doing a dry January, BUT from now til at least March I’m only going to drink on the weekends. Which is going to be hard cuz I love having a beer or two on Wednesday.

 

Where you going to hit? I can't imagine you need recs but def happy to give you some thoughts if you want em.

There are almost no bad Polars, but this is especially true of the lemon/limeades. I think the blueberry or blood orange is my favorite but they're virtually all good


Didn't go crazy last night, but had a couple great beers - closed out 2020 with Very Sappy from Tree House and opened the new year with Hill Farmstead Mary. A couple partially successful attempts at maple manhattans in the middle. My brother got me some awesome TH stuff for Xmas so I will not be dry Januarying haha.

 

Hitting up tree house, trillium, hill farmstead, alchemist, and suarez family. Staying in stowe for five days so tree house and trillium on the way up. Suarez on the way back. So any recs in Stowe or Burlington or waterbury and surrounding area would be great!

 

Yess that's a perfect trip pretty much, that Suarez/TH/HF can be done in the same trip is almost unfair. Waterbury/Stowe is my favorite place in the world, largely because of the beer but it's also just got a great vibe nature and otherwise. For things not on your list, some places you might want to include:

• Lawson's Finest Liquids - About 25 min out of Waterbury. Assuming we're at least back to Summer COVID regulations, arguably best taproom experience on the list with outdoor seating, good food, and beer on par with anyone save HF. I imagine you've had Sip of Sunshine which is great imo and somewhat indicative of their quality, but the majority of their actual beer is better (in some cases significantly so).
• Lost Nation - Beer ranges from decent to very good, food is excellent. Outdoor seating I believe. Almost exactly halfway between HF and Stowe.
• Foam - Right across the street from the waterfront in Burlington, can be hit or miss but the hits are perfect IPAs.
• Schilling - In NH, potentially on the way, haven't been but heard great things. Awesome lagers.

Some of my recs would depend a bit on what's acceptable/legal as far as going out in a few months - if things were totally normal, some of these places are better to hang out (Trillium, Suarez, Lawson's) at while others are more grab cans and go (Alchemist). TH and HF are kind of in the middle as they both have a two drink per person limit, which is strongly enforced at the former and somewhat enforced at the latter.

Foodwise, almost all the popular places are popular for a reason: Reservoir, Blackback Pub, and Prohibition Pig in Waterbury, the Bench and Doc Pond's in Stowe, the Mad Taco in Montpelier and Waitsfield, the Farmhouse in Burlington. (Seriously don't miss Mad Taco - you might not expect a burrito place in VT to be noteworthy, but they're phenomenal.) The Old Stagecoach Inn in Waterbury makes a great breakfast (and is haunted and spooky and cool). Not that you'll need to buy any more beer than what you're snagging at breweries, but Craft Beer Cellar Waterbury is worth a stop and always has a ton of Drie Fonteinen. Oxbow and Allagash worth snagging almost anything if you don't already get them in distro.

If you're driving up 89, stop at Hunger Mtn Co-op in Montpelier for the quintessential VT shopping experience. And if you're going 91 it has one of the most beautiful stretches of driving in the entirety of New England as you pass through the Cannon Mtn area in NH.

Phew. I try to drive up from Boston a few times a year so I can't help but get over enthusiastic about it :) Happy to answer any other questions you have if any of that was new info to ya.

 

i took it wayyy easy yesterday. not really intentionally, its just getting to the point where i nurse my beers so much i would pretty much have to stay up for like 2 days to get proper shitty. took me like 10 hours to drink 4 beers lol im all mellowed out

 

holy shit. that sounds very very painful. glad it sounds like it will heal back to normal eventually. hope ur not hurting too bad rn tho.

not try to be captain hindsight here, im just curious. all u ppl who work in the industry, are there any requirments for wearing steel toes?

 

I don’t usually like seltzers, but I tried Spindrift a couple months ago and I’m hooked now. It’s a bit different in that they flavor it with a small amount of actual fruit juice/purée. The cran-razz flavor is phenomenal

 

Beer #1 of the new year

 

Thanks! I've bookmarked this post for further review when the time comes.

I'm going to assume covid restrictions are still in place and I'll just be doing curbside pickup everywhere. Not an ideal time to go due to covid, but my wife and I cancelled a cruise twice over this and were just like fuck it we will go hide out on a mountain for a few days.

 

I normally wear reinforced boots but I opted to wear my rainboots yesterday due to the crappy weather and having a light workload. I only carried 2 kegs total yesterday (normal day can be 50+), and as luck would have it one of them slipped and fell on me (I've dropped like 3 kegs in 4 years so that's rare too). Definitely several lessons learned.

 

ah fair play cant blame u for going w the rainboots having cold wet feet all day sucks. at the end of the day safety boots only do so much too. seems like every time i drop something it misses the steel part and hits the middle of my foot lol.

 

Had a pretty well varied beer night. Started out with a de Dolle oud Bruin last night (for you lambic people it’s a wonderful beer!), then Threes/Schilling dark lager and ended with Hill Farmstead Edward.

Good luck to everyone doing dry January!

 

Had a Sierra Nevada Celebration IPA last night around 8pm. (Went to sleep around 11p). Now on to this for today after getting in a 2 hour mountain run/hike.

I never got around to visiting the beer cave to get some special holiday brews before now. Maybe in a week or so I can make time for it.

 

HF is closing this month til April

 

So a few days ago, I tried the first of the Stave and Nail beers I received. Derive Slow, the wild ale with mangoes and peaches. Flavors were on point, medium-high acidity without being overly aggressive. Fruit-forward with a hint of funk and oak. But unfortunately, it had almost no carb. Still very good, but would’ve been outstanding with even just a bit of carb.



Also finally tried one of the beers I sent @sean_rugy , Sante Adairius’ Family Whistle, a passion fruit saison. Simply a beautiful expression of passion fruit, doesn’t really matter that there’s not much else going on. A winner.



Lastly, Saison Bernice, one of my favorite Sante beers. Inject it into my veins. Drank it with a wonderful seared ahi dinner and finished it off watching Jason Isbell’s virtual NYE show.

 

First up tonight is a schwarzbier by one of my favorite local breweries.

 

Definitely getting some of the almond joy vibes as this warms up. Not my #1 tree house stout, but they're pretty much all good and this is no exception.

 

And next is a collab the brewery I work at did with Tired Hands. It’s made with an experimental Australian hop and is pretty wild.

 

Creature Comforts is legit. Hoping that we’ll get distribution in CA once y’all open up your LA spot.

Also been really into Baltic porters and schwarzbiers lately, I’ve noticed more breweries around here making them lately too.

 

I think the plan is to distro in southern California, but that’s probably going to be it for a while. I think that brewery is going to top out around 15000 barrels a year, which isn’t tiny but probably not enough to supply the entire west coast.

 

Excited for Creature Comforts in LA, though I selfishly wish it wasn't smack dab in downtown!

 

Ah, I’m near SF, but hopefully one day! If not, I’ll hit it up whenever I’m near LA.