TLDR Beer Club

[RunDownHouse]

Wookie,

Are these beers using grain that's been grown without fertilizer, or hops without pesticide, etc? Otherwise, the whole concept of an "organic" beer is so asinine I have to roll me eyes when I pass that Stone Mill stuff that's recently come on the shelves everywhere.

Maxx,

"Honestly, I'm not sure I could make the distinction, based on how blurry the boundaries are these days between some styles. I imagine the difference lies in the brewing."

Depending on how much you care, you could probably dig around and find some clone recipes and take a look at the differences. Then, you could go to your local homebrew shop, buy some equipment, and brew them up yourself. Highly recommended (even though I started a small electrical fire this week and had to throw out 6g of wort and almost three hours of work).

[Skjonne]

Wookie,

The Aventinus isn't technically a dunkelweizen but a weizenbock. A Wheat beer with a high ABV.

The Aventinus is absolutely wonderful, but even better is Avery's Thirteen (brewed to celebrate their 13th Anniversary) You just have to try that one!

[MrWookie]

Skjonne,

Yeah, I know it's not a Dunkelweizen, but the flavors are related. I found that I wasn't all that impressed with the Dunkels, preferring the Hefes. However, the Aventinus is just plain good. Also, Avery put out a good beer? I reviewed a lot of their beers in the days of the old Alcohol forum, and found them wrought with mediocrity (or worse). If you say this one is gold, though, I'll look it up. Beers of the World has a huge selection of Avery beer, so I bet I can get it.

RDH,

It's not entirely clear from the packaging. However, both organic beers carry the USDA organic seal, which as best as I can discern from Wikipedia, requires that 95%+ of the ingredients that went into it were grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. There's a chance, though, that it means that the beers just don't contain preservatives or something, which would be pretty dumb and the farming practices for the grain are nothing special. I think it's the former, but I can't be 100%. Maybe if I bought a 6 pack, it'd have said more explicitly on there. However, I won't be buying a sixer of either any time soon [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img].

[Skjonne]

[ QUOTE ]
Skjonne,
...Also, Avery put out a good beer? I reviewed a lot of their beers in the days of the old Alcohol forum, and found them wrought with mediocrity (or worse). If you say this one is gold, though, I'll look it up.

[/ QUOTE ]

O rly? Avery is one of my favorite breweries. Granted, I don't have access to that many US breweries, but I've still sampled 1,700 different beers.

I have two Avery's in my Top 10 (The Beast Grand Cru Ale and The Czar Imperial Stout) and another 5 in my Top 200 (Thirteen, Elli's Brown Ale, India Pale Ale, The Reverend and New World Porter)

Apparently we have very different tastes on Avery, so don't trust me on the Thirteen then [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[MrWookie]

Of those, I found the Grand Cru to be pretty good. I didn't care for the Czar. You can do much, much better. I found Brooklyn Brown > Ellie Brown. The Maharaja IPA was solid, but it wasn't in the same ballpark as the DFH 90. Is the Reverend the Quadrupel? I don't think I liked that one at all.

[MaxxDaddy]

Hey Skjonne, I have a bottle of the Czar in my fridge now (2006). I've heard from others that it's generally pretty hot to start and that laying it down for a while is a good idea. What are your thoughts, since you seem to like this one a lot?

Also, I noticed you're from Denmark. I hear there's all sorts of awesome stuff going on in the microbrew scene over there. Have you had much Mikkeller or Olfabrikken?

[The X-Factor]

We have a cool little beer joint in Nashville called The Flying Saucer it has lots and lots of different kinds of beers. Its a must go for anyone that is coming to Nashville. I am a VIP member there and if you drink one of each beer that they have then you get a plate on the wall with your name on it. Pretty sweet place if you ask me.

X

[Spy Dog]

Skjonne,

I'm an American living in Europe (Ireland to be exact) for the last 3 years. How are you getting microbrews from the US?

The only microbrews I can get at an off-license or supermarket is Sam Adams Lager. Oh, and some swill called Route 66 that's obviously marketed to unknowing Europeans.

I can special order Sierra Nevada Pale and a couple of the Anchor beers, but that's it!

BTW, anybody traveling to Ireland and expecting good beer will be hugely disappointed. I think they drink more Budweiser here than the US, if that's possible.

The good news for me is that I am visiting the US in March and will be heading straight for my Mother's basement, where I have a stash of high ABV beers aging (Bells Expedition Stout, Bells Batch 6000, Bells Old Coast Ale, St Bernardus Abt 12, Rochefort 10, and a couple of other Belgians).

[Skjonne]

Wookie, Maxx, Spy

Yes The Reverend is a Quadrupel. India Pale Ale is not the same as The Maharaja. I’m not that big a hop head as some, so I actually prefer the former of the two. Just to illustrate how big a fan of Avery I am, I checked my ratings. I’ve tried 16 different Avery’s and the lowest grade (on a scale from 1 to 5) is Hog Heaven which I gave 3.35 – well above average!

Maxx, As a matter of fact, The Czar I sampled four months ago was the 2005 edition. The appr. 1 year of cellaring could obviously mean a lot

Yes the microbrew scene in Denmark is out of its mind at the moment. 6-7 years ago there were 10-15 breweries in the country (population 5.3M) of which 3 were owned by Carlsberg and 4 by the other big Danish brewery (Royal Unibrew). I don’t know how many breweries there are today (probably a new one opening as we speak), but we’re approaching 100 with the speed of lightning! Ølfabrikken (Øl=beer in Danish, Fabrikken=The Factory) is my preferred brewery of them all. I’m even a shareholder there. They do an exorbitant amount of experimenting. They have existed for just under two years and have sent 64 different beers on the market! I’ve unfortunately only been able to try 48 of them

Mikkeller is another great brewery. Well, it’s not a brewery per se. It’s two guys with normal day-time jobs experimenting with beers in their spare-time. They actually brew at other breweries.

I can get my hands on a decent amount of US brews thanks to importers who want a piece of the exploding beer business in Denmark. In Copenhagen (the capital, population ~1.2M) there’s somewhere between 5 and 10 beer shops where you can buy lots and lots of good stuff from around the world. Regarding US breweries, I can relatively easily get my hands on Anchor, Avery, Boston, Brooklyn, Great Divide, North Coast, Rogue and Sierra Nevada with Hair of the Dog being the newest addition in our shops. Of the 1,700 different beers I've tried 99 is from the US.

Carlsberg. Probably the best beer in the world holla…………

Beer is good! Denmark is good!

[kidcolin]

Guys,

I'm at work so I don't feel like posting a whole review... maybe later. But I don't think there's a finer American Amber Ale than Anderson Valley's Boont Amber Ale. It is now officially my standard buy. It's a solid 3.75 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]'s.