My cousins usually like somewhat good beers but both of them were like, "Nah". I should've just gotten a 32 oz of it.

Just got two sixers of HopSlam. Bottled on 12/27/13.

it'd take me ages to get through a half rack of hopslam. tapping into this tonight - been holding off since last fall. shocking surly doesn't get love in this community

1,200 lbs of hops picked fresh in Michigan and shipped to Minnesota immediately. From bine to brew in less than 24 hours. Utilizing in-house-designed wet hop steeping tanks, this IPA uses 10 pounds of wet hops per barrel, resulting in a resiny and dank IPA.

STYLE: West Coast India Pale Ale
MALT: 2-Row, Crystal
WET HOPS: Cascade, Centennial
BITTERING HOPS: Warrior
YEAST: English Ale

OG: 17º Plato
ABV: 7.5% v/v
COLOR: 6 ºSRM
IBU: 90
AVAILABILITY: September

Surly is loved, but wait... Tell me you haven't been saving a can of ipa for that long?

That Wet is going to be awful at this point. You need to drink wet-hopped beers within 2 months, max. That's a great beer when fresh.

On a related note, I'm hearing a small allotment of Darkness bottles have shown up in Chicago. There's still some on tap at a few places.

wished i peeped this before cracking into the wet last night. lesson learned - it wasn't fantastic but not entirely undrinkable. citrus & malts still noticeable but carbonation faded considerably and hard to decipher characters of fresh wet hops versus the norm. result: a flat, less fragrant & under-charged version of surly overrated. i'd still take this expired brew over much of the local 'craft' swill around here. will try again next year.

Sorry my friend. I know it's a bummer.

Hops have alpha acids and beta acids. Alphas are the bitterness you taste, and they stay pretty constant over time. The betas are the pine / citrus / etc flavors that you smell as much as taste, and they're very volatile. If you load up a beer with betas (by using hops with good betas, and by not boiling them for long or not boiling them at all, as with dry and wet hopping), then every single day the betas degrade a little into other components that don't taste awesome. Being in a can helps (no light), as does cold temps, but those guys are going to break down no matter what, it's just a matter of time.

And on that note, I had the 22oz Sculpin last night. Even being so far from home, it was delightful. Not better overall (in its present condition, having traveled and undoubtedly subjected to 24/7 light on the grocery store shelf) than even Two Hearted, but very good. Sculpin is a tiny bit more bitter than I'd prefer ideally. I tend to like DIPAs that have a little more rounded and smooth feel to them.

Curious whether you have ever had a really fresh one because I have little tolerance for the overly bitter hopbomb style of West Coast DIPAs yet I really like Sculpin. I find it very smooth and well balanced.

Thanks for the info on alpha vs beta acids. That's pretty interesting.

Surprised how many of the breweries (even a lot of the CA ones) from this article:

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2014/01/c ... -beer.html



Well they don't have CA distribution, I know that much. I only see them in one store and its pretty regularly. They must have some kind of connection or maybe they buy it in AZ where it is distributed and bring it back to sell. I'll try to ask next time. They had the Expedition too. I just decided I was going to get one of Expedition or Kalamazoo and the java stout. I had no idea which was better between Kalamazoo and Expedition and chose at random. I noticed afterward that Expedition got better reviews overall. I'll try to snag that one next time.

Hopslam is apparently NEXT week down here, not this week. Oh well. I wasnt going to go out of my way anyways and just hope to catch it at a local store.

Was surprised to see Urban Chestnut from St Louis on here. I was there during Thanksgiving, along with 3 or 4 other breweries. They were good, but ... shrug. Not "make this list" good. Ditto Jack's Abbey out thisaway. Competent, decent beer, with awful awful labels. I rarely drink it.

Yeah, I'm not sure it's a great list at all but I was surprised how few I knew below the Lagunitas/Firestone Walker/Allagash/Stillwater level. Alpine is good and Jester King makes some good beers. I recognize Modern Times and see their cans in stores but I've never heard ANYTHING (good or bad) about their beers. There has to be close to 10 breweries from CA and the Pac NW on the list that I've never heard of.

I searched the one store I buy beer from that has real-time online inventory and found none of them in stock and they both have an LA and Bay Area locations. Was curious if anyone knew and liked any of these.

I share billyG's sentiments on Sculpin. I think it has an excellent malt backbone and while it is fairly hop forward, the bitterness is still very well balanced compared to a lot of stuff that Stone and Green Flash release. I think it might have something to do with using more Amarillo than Simcoe.

I suspect mine was a victim of time and light. Those betas really balance out bitterness in a beer, making the whole thing more or less level. When they drop off, and the bitterness doesn't, then it's a little out of whack.

Shit was still very good, by the way.

I like Jack's Abby (especially their Pro-Am Pilsner). I wouldn't say their labels are awful, just kind of boring.

I've also been to that Peekskill Brewery. I think I've had their Amazeballs before but they were out of it last time I was there. Their Simple Sour was really good. Also, the ex works there so I can probably never go there again!

Brewery ruined.

Haha it wasn't all that great. The brewery was nice and everything, and they have a coolship, which is neat. I feel like almost all of the breweries I went to in NY were kind of lacking. I'd take Night Shift, Trillium and a few others we have here over them any day.

It's amazing how completely ubiquitous Sculpin has become around here. It's even at the ballpark now and it's by far the best deal in the place.

Societe is fantastic. They've become my favorite brewery in SD and their The Pupil is running neck to neck with my favorite beer, Alpine's Nelson (I love Nelson hops). And they are only about two miles from where I live. They don't bottle yet as far as I know. Easy freeway access off of 15 if ever down here.

Yep. Societe is tip top.

The Surly selection of beers is OK IMO. About half of their output is good.
There are probably half a dozen microbreweries in the Cities I would get a growler from before I paid more for an unpredictable 4 pack of Surly tall boys.

Unpredictable, eh? I've only had a few of theirs, a few years back, and recall liking them.

Their "standard" line is OK but not worth $12-$16 for a four pack of 16 oz cans.
I've never been a return customer for any of their seasonals or special brews.
There might be some bright spots outside of their standard line but I'm unwilling to gamble with at this point after being repeatedly disappointed.
There's enough new places around here with great output where I'd rather spend my money.

Sounds very, very much like Sixpoint to me. Expensive tallboy 4 packs that I don't love mean my $ always goes elsewhere.

Guess I'll have to look out for Societe beers. Still haven't seen them in LA not that I would have made any mental note of seeing one before now.

I dropped Fem G off at her gym for a few hours this weekend and hit the beach. She wasn't ready when I was so I took advantage of the extra time and swung by Smog City Brewery which I'd been meaning to check out for a long time.

Had samplers of three beers:

LA Saison - pretty respectable french farmhouse style saison. Not one of the best ones I've had or as good as some that are easy to find, but I would be perfectly happy to drink this again.

Plum Saison - Didn't really like this. The plum addition was a little offputting, and i like plums.

One of their Pilsners which was decent.

They had a bunch of other things I would have liked to have tried but I was lucky to be able to fit in those three before I had to pick up Fem G. Nothing wowed me but the Siason and Pils were enough to make me want to go back and try more.

Later that evening I opened up a bomber of The Ghost of Jacob Barley, a winter warmer with coffee, cinnamon and brown sugar which is a collaboration between Noble Aleworks, Beachwood Brewing and Portola Coffee. I'm a fan of Noble Aleworks and I've wanted to try Beachwood Brewing's beers for sometime. They are pretty highly regarded and have won 5 medals at GABF, but until recently were only available on draft. This might be the finest coffee beer I've had that wasn't a stout. The coffee worked really well with the roasted malts, cinnamon and brown sugar. The bitter notes of the coffee were a nice counterbalance to the sweetness of the brown sugar and the spice of the cinnamon. Really liked it a lot. Will probably try to pick up at least one more of these soon.