After years of trying various other beers, microbrew and not-so-micro brew, I have come back around to Guinness Stout. It was my main buy for home consumption back in the late 90s and early 00s. I switched to other beers over 10 years ago when Guinness' price in local stores rose alarmingly, first by 40-50%, and eventually almost doubled. But recently I noticed that Costco sells 24-packs locally for $27.99. That's equivalent to $4.66 per 4-pack. a price level I haven't seen routinely since the mid 00s. I'm working my way through a case of it now-- I just had a pint this evening while reading FT, in fact-- and I'm enjoying it as much as ever. It's like reuniting with an old best friend who hasn't changed and remembers 15 years ago like it was last yesterday. ��

I'll keep my eye out for all of those! Going to Portland sometime this summer so at the very least can try then!

Unfortunately we don't get many of the top tier NEIPAs down here in NC (at least that I know about but I'm sure there are a few I'm overlooking / don't know about)

Cool, let me know and I can at least give you suggestions of places to go.

Oh, can't forget Rising Tide as another great local brewery. I love their Daymark rye IPA.

There are a lot of breweries here. We have an embarrassment of riches...

Visiting a friend in CPH, I was surprised to find his new partner worked with Mikkeler, a major Danish craft beer player.

Under her careful guidance, we visited a pub to sample a quartet of the M production. We drank:

1. Mikkeller Nelson Chaucin (blond ale)
2. Mikkeler K:rlek 2017 (APA)
3. Mikkeler Junius Brutus (Barrel aged Belgian strong ale)
4. Mikkeler Black Bear (stout)

All were great beers, the latter two were my favourites

Awesome will do!

Couple new ones to add:

Alpine Brewing Pure Hoppiness (inspired by CMK10 was able to find it nearby in NC)

On deck tonight:

Revision IPA
Sierra Nevada Hop Bullet DIPA

The conventional beer wisdom now appears to be that IPA aficionados keep the craft beer industry afloat, as IPAs have the highest profit margins going. And that truly discerning beer drinkers don't drink IPA.

Whatever. Drinking The Scientist IPA from Seventh Son right now. It's damn good.

Two radically different beers tonight (apart from both being higher on alcohol %):

-Otter Creek Backyard Berner IPA (had at local beer store, pretty good from VT but not quite top tier VT beer)
-Triple Karmeliet

I wouldn't drink craft beer if it weren't for IPAs.

IPA is the "it" style right now. I'm not sure how it's the highest profit margin unless brewers and retailers are able to charge a premium on it because of its popularity. Also because of that popularity, craft beer hipsters-- which you might mistake as "discerning beer drinkers" because that's certainly how they style themselves-- have moved on. They're all drinking sours now, I believe.

I'm not sure where the thought that truly discerning beer drinkers don't drink IPA comes from, FWIW; almost all the beer snobs I know have been onboard the IPA bandwagon for years and years and sneer at folks who don't/won't drink IPAs.

These days, they've moved from the San Diego-style uber hopped IPA to the cloudy, unfiltered New England-style IPA (which even CA breweries are making now), but they're still on IPAs.

Speaking of IPAs, I had some of Aslin's Man-eating Toaster today, which I believe uses their house yeast (so a ton of mango-y esters) and brewed with milk sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Like most of their IPAs, it's the cloudy sort. And darn good indeed.


Well, sours and IPAs. I happen to really like well-made sours, but also IPAs. The bleeding edge hipsters are onto sours full-bore, but as yet, they aren't on the menu at enough craft breweries to really be "it" yet IMHO.

I would drink some craft beer, but I'm not a fan of most Belgian beer.

Gumption hard cider last night. Although technically I'm not drinking, it being Lent and all.

Red Truck Ale from Vancouver's Red Truck Beer Co.

Deep copper colour more than a rich red hue but nice first taste with hints of caramel. Good to try something new. :)

A few new ones:

Revision Whole Lotta Ruckus (really liked this one)
Revision Jewel Box (didn't like this one at all - didn't finish)
Revision Glitter Moon with tiny unicorns (didn't love it, didn't hate it)
New Belgium Juicy IPA (liked the up front taste but weird after taste)

We had lunch for the first time yesterday at a local Caribbean restaurant. The server asked me if I wanted the dollar beer. Cheap won out over taste and my jerked mahi came with a couple mugs of Rolling Rock. And it really was a dollar: $0.93 plus tax.