Well, I'm seeing it at dinky bottle shops around town, so I figure that and Deliverance (which is good this year too) should make it fairly far.

Hmm interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out when I'm in San Francisco in March.

Did anyone hear that Dogfish is expanding? They got approval from the mayor or something to beef up operations.

Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales | Off-centered stuff for off-centered people

Interesting, I hope this means they now have the ability to bring back some of the less common brands they brew.

Speaking of Dogfishhead, last week I was able to finally try Ta Henket, which was a bit of a surprise since last I heard it was not going to get a wide release. It is a bit more closer to the source recipe then Dogfish Head's other ancient ales, unlike Midas Touch and Chateau Jiahu they did not bump up the ABV.

It was a very light beer. Not exactly my thing, but I was happy to have the chance to try it.

It's February, so it's Pliny the Younger time...

Toronado SD tapped two kegs this morning, and they were gone in 2 hours. I hear they're tapping a third Sunday, so I'll try and get some then. It's always such a shitstorm, but oh well.

I'm hoping the place here in Philly that I got some last year will do a similar tapping and I won't have an issue. I'm not terribly concerned though.

Finally got some Younger! I actually went up to SF for SFBW, and made the drive to Russian River... only to discover they were out of Younger. I did have a completely epic flight (20 Beers) so it was not all a loss.

Luckily I got tickets to a charity event at a local bar, where I got two pours of Elder and Younger side by side. I also won a bottle of beer in the charity raffle, The Bruery's 100% Bourbon Barrel Aged Cuir!

Anyone had the new Sam Adams seasonal, Alpine Spring? Just recently had a few at a local place (I live fairly close to the main brewery in Cinci, so I'm blessed with (usually) very fresh kegs), and was very impressed. In short, an unfiltered lager -- somewhere in taste between a Pils and a Hefe; mild, but with some sweet and sour yeast notes.

Have yet to be able to actually find a keg for home, though.

I thought it was a little bready for my tastes. I remember Noble Pils being better.
*shrug*

Well, it's year-round now, so rejoice!

I did just find a keg, getting it tapped tonight, woot.

And Noble Pils is probably the only Sam Adams seasonal I haven't liked; all the rest are really solid beers.

Incidentally, get your own tapping equipment if you don't already. Per ounce, it ends up being cheaper with keg beer (so long as you can finish a keg), and my god the beer is so much better.

Edit: Following up to the keg-finding and keg-tapping. Goddamn is it good from a fresh keg from the brewery on well-maintained equipment.

Eh, most beer comes in sixth barrel kegs; a little over 5 gallons. Doesn't take all that long to drink, especially if you've got help. With three light drinkers in the household -- me, my wife, and my dad -- we'll go through a sixth barrel usually in about two weeks.

Of course, it does depend on what kind of selection you can get with kegs; I'm lucky enough to live fairly close to the main Sam Adams brewery in Cinci, so it's easy to come by and the kegs tend to be really fresh and quite good, and most varieties of Sam Adams benefit a lot from the draft treatment. I can also get some more exotic beers (although I've been trying for a while to get a keg of Franziskaner Dunkel lately, but the distributor never seems to have them...), but, really, it's nice to have a good, solid, everyday beer on tap.

Do you have some sort of CO2 setup to push beer out of the keg, or are you using the "frat party hand pump" tap? If the latter, that beer is going to go stale and nasty real quick.

C02. I've got a full kegerator setup (bought it from Sears several years ago, but at this point I think I've replaced every bit of the actual tapping equipment save for the C02 regulator itself).

A keg of reasonably strong beer (i.e., no light beers) will last close to two months before it sours -- and note that refrigerated and pressurized beer doesn't really "go bad" per se, it just changes in flavor over time; the higher the alcohol content, the longer it takes.

Ends up being cheaper per ounce if you have a reasonable distributor, but, really, I do keg beer because the flavor is so much better on well-maintained equipment. After having your own gear for a while, you realize that most restaurants (in the states, at least; when I was in Germany it was a different matter entirely) take terrible care of their equipment and the beer suffers as a result. Taking good care of your own stuff makes a huge difference.

I wish that holding onto a beer in my keggerator would sour it.

You could always try opening the windows for your next fermentation to get some of that delicious northern va wild yeast involved.

Yeah that's true but I'd have to get mostly uninteresting stuff so my wife and I would both drink it. For my situation, it doesn't work unfortunately. It is a good idea though.

A kegerator that will fit a half barrel keg will also fit two sixth barrel kegs...

Had a really great time in San Franciso. Besides the visit to Russian River, I picked up bottles of Midnight Sun Arctic Devil and Lost Abbey Deliverance. Also got to check out the Monk's Kettle which was tiny as hell but seemed quite nice. Their foreign stuff was remarkably overpriced but everything else was decent.

I recently scored a couple of bottles of Dogfish Head's Bitches' Brew. Drank one a few nights ago and it was really good, very dark and smooth. I wish I was closer to Dogfish Head so I could go to their pub a lot, and get the beer that just doesn't make it out here, because so far I've really enjoyed ever beer of theirs that I have tried.

Speaking of Dogfish Head, I started seeing their Noble Rot and Ta Henket up in NY. You can definitely taste the currants in the Noble Rot, some people might say too much. It more more champagne-like with the currents added (kind of like the black & blue/red & white, just not so over the top with fruit).

A few weeks ago I also grabbed a bottle of the Hellhound (having had it on tap and it being fantastic) and was hugely disappointed. It could have been a bad bottle but the stuff was so bad I had to just dump the whole thing.

It's possibly really old at this point. I didn't like it on tap though. I did like noble rot though I didn't realize there were currants in it. I thought it was just two different types of wine stuff in it.