Craft Beer: What are you drinking now?? | Page 17 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Craft Beer: What are you drinking now??

Thx! Nice stuff. Time for another update.

How about this? Opened up another one of my cellar beers, and I had been thinking about it for a long time. Tonight, it felt like the right time. Kriek de Ranke. This bottle has been cellaring for about 6 - 7 years or so. An amazing, rare and highly rated belgian lambic sour; a fruit lambic in this case.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/739/4924/
De Ranke Kriek is a mixture of two blended soured pale ales and Girardin lambic, all steeped in whole fresh cherries from Poland and then aged for six months.
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Cheers!
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Had another Belgian beer :). Duchesse De Bourgogne, a flanders red ale. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/641/1745/

On a separate note, I was able to get some blood oranges and enjoyed them. Very different from normal oranges. I also used one to make a blood orange martini. In this case, gin/vodka, fresh squeezed blood orange juice, cointreau, west indian orange bitters, and fresh squeezed lime juice.
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Cheers!
 
Looks good. Color is amazing.

Drank the 5 paddles Juice Campbell ipa.
Average at best. They tried to make their version of the Bellwoods milkshark series but it pales in comparison.

Also had the 5 paddles Coconut cream pie ale. Different, but good.
 
Tried some Beau's Strong Patrick, but I'm not sure either if it counts, or I like it, so I'll probably pass.
 
Nice!

Sometimes a great Canadian std in a world-wide beer style is the way to go. Unibroue La Fin Du Monde, a belgian style tripel. Nothing in the tripel style can touch it on BA for number of reviews and rank. Great great beer for availability and price to us Canadians, even if I find there are better belgian tripels (from Belgium) that aren't reflected as much in the ratings. Check out the BA info.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22/34/
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Cheers!
 
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kwtoxman said:
Nice!

Sometime a great Canadian std in a world-wide beer style is the way to go. Unibroue La Fin Du Monde, a belgian style tripel. Nothing in the tripel style can touch it on BA for number of reviews and rank. Great great beer for availability and price to us Canadians, even if I find there are better belgian tripels (from Belgium) that aren't reflected as much in the ratings. Check out the BA info.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22/34/
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Cheers!
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Every Unibroue beer I’ve tried has been excellent. One of the few canadian brewers that gets the Belgian styles down just right as far as I’m concerned. Raftmans beer by them is really good but harder to get hold of recently for some reason.

On another rant carrying over from what I mentioned in the cocktail thread. I’ve gotten down to about 5-6 Canadian craft regulars now as I’m finding some of the many many local craft offerings to just be very so-so and with high prices. I was in the LCBO today and bought a bargain 750ml Belgian abbey triple for $6.50 and looked over at some $10 plus local offerings that wouldn’t touch it at all for quality. Also bought a few $3.50 Belgian saisons too. There’s some excellent Canadian craft brews but I’m getting tired of being disappointed when trying new ones at inflated prices.
 
Was recently in Halifax and hit up a few pubs for some local beers.
Pikaroons - Winter Warmer. Nice dark full of flavour brew. Not quite a full stout. Delicious.
 
jc100 said:
Every Unibroue beer I’ve tried has been excellent. One of the few canadian brewers that gets the Belgian styles down just right as far as I’m concerned. Raftmans beer by them is really good but harder to get hold of recently for some reason.

On another rant carrying over from what I mentioned in the cocktail thread. I’ve gotten down to about 5-6 Canadian craft regulars now as I’m finding some of the many many local craft offerings to just be very so-so and with high prices. I was in the LCBO today and bought a bargain 750ml Belgian abbey triple for $6.50 and looked over at some $10 plus local offerings that wouldn’t touch it at all for quality. Also bought a few $3.50 Belgian saisons too. There’s some excellent Canadian craft brews but I’m getting tired of being disappointed when trying new ones at inflated prices.
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Cheers. I used Unibroue as a stepping stone and forget just how good they are in their class because they are easy to obtain. As for trying local craft, I agree on many levels but am softer in delivery. Much of my collection is enthusiast world-class world-sourced beer; and because it's consistently the best beer I've had. Some great and rare international beer is fairly available at the LCBO, and even more-so when you plug into a number of local specialty suppliers :agave:. I drink 5-10 standard-bearing international and recognized beers in their class for every new and/or local craft beer offering I try. At that level I find my optimum experience. I know what I like, there's variety and it includes some new beer. For me that's about 10-20% variety in trying completely new beer. It works for me. YMMV. Find a level that hits your sweet spot.

Sounds like you are having too much new beer that is entirely avg compared to what you know you like and can get. Get more of the good stuff and try less new stuff. And do more research on new beer before you buy. In that combination you should find a nice sweet spot.

Cheers!
 
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kwtoxman said:
Cheers. I used Unibroue as a stepping stone and forget just how good they are in their class because they are easy to obtain. As for trying local craft, I agree on many levels but am softer in delivery. Much of my collection is enthusiast world-class world-sourced beer; and because it's consistently the best beer I've had. Finding great and rare international beer is fairly available at the LCBO, and even more-so when you plug into a number of local specialty suppliers :agave:. I drink 5-10 standard-bearing international and recognized beers in their class for every new and/or local craft beer offering I try. At that level I find my optimum experience. I know what I like, there's variety and it includes some new beer. For me that's about 10-20% variety in trying completely new beer. It works for me. YMMV. Find a level that hits your sweet spot.

Sounds like you are having too much new beer that is entirely avg compared to what you know you like and can get. Get more of the good stuff and try less new stuff. And do more research on new beer before you buy. In that combination you should find a nice sweet spot.

Cheers!
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I don’t go by beer reviews and never read them these days. They’re like film reviews, too personal for everyone and as such pretty meaningless. The only way to find out if a beer is decent (for you) is to try it, much the same as wine. Unfortunately that means trying some poor beers but occasionally you find a diamond. The problem here is that lately there’s been an explosion in the number of breweries as people jump on the craft bandwagon so the number of sub par beers has increased too unfortunately. I personally know a couple of breweries where the owners just wanted to start a brewery but had zero brewing experience and unfortunately it shows. Hopefully they will be quick learners though or they’ll lose their investment. Another brewery I know used to be excellent when they had a German brewmaster, he left though and things changed quickly.
 
jc100 said:
I don’t go by beer reviews and never read them these days. They’re like film reviews, too personal for everyone and as such pretty meaningless. The only way to find out if a beer is decent (for you) is to try it, much the same as wine.
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In my experience on BA (beer) reviews or sites with general posted wine reviews, I find that I pretty much always enjoy the highly rated and highly reviewed beers/wines in any class. And I know those reviews have statistical robustness in them from the sheer numbers reported. My taste buds definitely agree as well. Plus, when I drill down to the more subtle reported feedback, especially on the ASTMO scale for beer for example (https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-to-review-a-beer.241156/ ), I find additional beer feedback even potentially more suited to my specific tastes and preferences (outside of the scoring). There's great qualitative and quantitative feedback in those posts. Combined in my experience is a powerhouse of information. In my experience I have a great beer collection because I more actively sought out the great beers in the class by the BA #'s (and related information), amongst a few other considerations. It's shown me great variety as well as great beers over and over, and over and over.

Cheers
 
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kwtoxman said:
In my experience on BA (beer) reviews or sites with general posted wine reviews, I find that I pretty much always enjoy the highly rated and highly reviewed beers/wines in any class. And I know those reviews have statistical robustness in them from the sheer numbers reported. And my taste buds definitely agree. Plus, when I drill down to the more subtle reported feedback, especially on the ASTMO scale for beer for example (https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-to-review-a-beer.241156/ ), I find additional beer feedback even potentially more suited to my specific tastes and preferences, outside of the highest scores. There's great qualitative and quantitative feedback in those posts. Combined in my experience is a powerhouse of information. In my experience I have a great beer collection because I more actively sought out the great beers in the class by the BA #'s (and related information), amongst a few other considerations. It's shown me great variety as well as great beers over and over, and over and over.

Cheers
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Fair enough but you'll always miss something potentially good when relying on others to curate things for you. There will always be followers of fashion but not everyone starts a trend.
 
I have an aquaintance that owns a pretty successful local 'craft' brewery. He's gone to the next level and turns out a nice product.

I've also had the conversation where a beer was just not selling through, they re named and relabeled the product and it all sold. And thus is the state of 'craft' beer. Cool art and name, interesting contrived history and back story and away we go.

I have friends making beers in plastic pails at home that I'll put up against $3.05 a tin Ontario product all day long. I'm with jc100, the industry has become that, industrial.
 
I had a Cascade Brewing Manhattan NW. If you like sour, this is pretty sour... and tasted like dark cherries mixed with a tasty sour ale, as you'd expect.

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Another one, got it during the conference at Lac Remy last week.

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Which reminds me, I don't need to drink for months now. I think I had my share until at least July. lol
 
Pineapple Milkshark from Bellwoods.
Good, but the mango version is still the best in my opinion.
 
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