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| Stouts! (and one porter) |
Hey guys, I hope most of you will be able to take advantage of the three day weekend, at least those of you in the US. I'm in the midst of an office improvement project. Stage one is mostly cleaning all the crap out of my office. But, I am making time for Chrontendo 47 (and photographing recent beer acquisitions.) For non-beer nerds out there -- stouts, especially imperial stouts and chocolate/coffee stouts are very highly prized in the US. Checking out Ratebeer's list of higest rated beers, we see that 13 our of the top 20 are imperial stouts. One particular beer, Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, caused another bit of a beer freakout when it was released a few weeks ago, with long lines, instant sell-outs, etc.
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| More Stouts! |
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Not quite as insane was the run for Firestone Walker's Parabola, which hit the shelves about a week ago. While every decent liquor store ran out immediately, I was able a find a few bottles at Whole Foods (which is actually sort of a great place to buy beer, since the beer geeks tend to overlook it.) Incredibly, I found two bottles of FW's Sucaba at a Bev-Mo the same day.
Last time, I announced the launch of the
Chrontendo Twitter. Today I'll mention the
Chrontendo Tumblr, which "soft launched" a week ago. There's not much on there yet, but it will consist entirely of screenshots of games from each upcoming episode. This will allow you to preview each new episode if you choose, and sort of monitor the progress.
13 comments:
hey there Doc,
was watching an episode of anime Kannagi and was amused by the video game that one of the characters starts playing - pretty obvious which Famicom "classic" it's based on!
http://i.imgur.com/lxtBtn1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3MHBSUd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KKUSpSc.jpg
Hey Doc, do you use Untappd? It's a cellphone app that serves as a "Foursquare for Beer". Love the beer posts, as someone who is a huge fan of retrogaming and has lately been getting into craft brews.
Lately I've been trying to overcome my life long aversion to beer.
In Japan they have these canned beers infused with fruity flavours, such as grapefruit, orange etc.
So far those have been the only kinds of beer I can drink and enjoy, rather than force into myself as a crude delivery mechanism for alcohol.
Those Japanese beers are awesome because they are cheap, you can buy them in any convenience store, some vending machines, there are some with as high as 8% alcohol and they basically taste like a soft drink.
Alas there are no substitutes for them here, so currently I am trying to get used to the taste of some genuine beers.
There is a Korean beer brand called Hite that my favourite Korean place serves, that one goes down more or less easily.
The other week I tried to down a pint of Guinness for the first time and didn't really find it to my liking. It took too much effort to finish it, so not suitable for getting drunk off of.
Where to go from here. Maybe the doctor could offer some advice.
We got very lucky in our neighborhood and a beer geek bought this old run down corner store and turned it into a mini-store/cafe/espresso stand with delicious house-made sandwiches, pizza, soup and other things. The best part is his beer section which is a good 25-30 foot long cooler with a huge assortment of micros. And they always have a bunch of beer marked down 20%. I managed to pick up a sixer of Full Sail LTD series #4 Pale Bock for like 6 dollars and change. Not bad for a 7% beer. They even rotating beer on tap. The latest stout on tap is an Oskar Blues Ten FIDY, which is rated as one of the best.
One evening about 3 weeks ago I walked in to get a beer and the cashier informed me their keg tap broke and they had a bunch of beer just sitting in buckets. I enjoyed about 4 or 5 free Mac & Jack's African Amber. Good Times. I had to walk my bike home, though. LOL
I enjoyed some Lagunitas Imperial Stout last night. Another very good choice.
I don't use Untapped. I'm always a little leery of those sorts of things.
Kamiboy - Japan is not really known for beer, despite the fact that it's the most popular alcoholic beverage there. Though they did pioneer the "super dry" beer, which manages to remove most of the beer flavor resulting in what is euphemistically called a "clean" tasting beer. I've never had any of these JP fruit beers, but I can't imagine I'd like them. We are only recently seeing high-quality Japanese beers being produced, and few make it to the US.
Beer out of buckets? That is classy. But, yeah, Ten Fidy is pretty awesome. Oskar Blues has completely blown up the last few years.
Although I havent had the fruit beers. It makes me wonder if they are using beer loosely such as a malt liquor does. If thats the case then pick up some Boones Farm strawberry hill or something and it will probrably be close. (The crap I drank when I was young.) About 4 years back I tried some Sapporo Black which was a a dark beer but I dont know if it was a real stout, but was definetly drinkable and not to bad. But as far as Japanese beers its always been Kirin, Sapporo, and Asahi (although Im sure there are more.)They were the main beers you could buy everywhere in Japan when I was there. I dont really like Hite. It just seems like a really generic basic beer that only serves to deliver alchohol but little else. Id prefer Budeweiser to Hite.
Hitachino and Yebisu. No, you don't pour them down the front of your pants! You DRINK them, silly!
AFAIK Sapporo Black is what we call a "dark lager" and not a real stout. Dark lagers are a European style of beer which were pretty common in the US at one point, and they have a light body, unlike a stout. A similar style is the German schwartzbier.
Fun fact: In the US most Kirin is brewed by Bud. And in Japan Bud is/was brewed by Kirin.
The one thing about Hitachino is they make a milk stout which they insist on calling by the gross sounding name "Lacto Sweet Stout."
Kamiboy,
Not my cups of tea...err...beer, but you might try Steigl Raddler (not American, but available here), or any kind of shandy. New Glarus, in Wisconsin, makes a bunch of fruit beers now and Enigma is quite delicious if you can find it. Dark Horse Tres Blueberry Stout is also great. I'm in the midwest, so your availability may vary.
Parabola is excellent. I actually managed to snag a few bottles of Dark Lord in April, so I'm happy right now.
Ha, ha. It turns out that stuff I was drinking in Japan was actually not any kind of beer.
http://www.tofugu.com/2013/02/08/my-not-so-secret-love-affair-with-chuhai/
Shochu, huh. No wonder it went down so easy, I loved Shochu, drank it every time I found myself at a bar in Japan.
Paul - Isn't New Glarus only available in a tiny little pocket of the country? It's disappointing how regional the US beer scene is. Or maybe that's part of its charm. Maybe someday guys like Bells and Founders will get distributed out west. 90% of the beers we get in Cali are from west of the Rockies.
Yes, New Glarus is generally only available in Wisconsin unfortunately (I stock up whenever I happen to be in the area. They are, in my opinion, the best session brewery in the country). Often the problem is simply in restrictions on the ability of craft breweries to grow properly. I also love Surly in Minnesota, and they used to distribute to Chicago (where I live) but they've had to pull back to meet local demand, and just recently got a law changed to allow for further growth.
The only way I ever get, say Russian River is either visiting or trading.
I confess I like stouts and porters, but I'm a little more fond of the sweeter and smoother ones, like Left Hand Milk Stout, or the super strong ones like Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Stout or Arcadia Shipwreck Porter. I don't get along with imperial stouts and Guinness in the US is bitter, thin, and unimpressive.
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