pFriem

I am a huge Block 15 fanboy, and your comparison is spot on.

 

Hmmm, may have to take steps to obtain.

 

I would say Block 15 are better than pFriem though if i see something from pFriem i havent had its in the basket pronto.

 

I can help make this happen.

 

You know what else I like about pFriem, apart from their excellent beers and superior brand design?

Their apparent lack of brewery-only bottle releases.

Hells yeah.

 

I like the diversity of IPA styles from B15 and the ones they knock out of the park (which are many) I think are better than pFriem, but not by much. really just a personal taste preference

Lager, Pils, "german" beer styles, belgian beers I think pFriem is better and has more offerings. the Belgian strong Dark is a damn delicious beer

sour/funky/fruit beers I think B15 is better. pFriem has come a long way in the past few years but I still think B15 has the better beers, although they arent nearly as available as pFriem. Frambois Black, Turbulent consequence(all of them), Peche, Kriek, Golden Canary, and on and on and on

The BA dark beers I think B15 runs away with it. B15 has had some QC issues over the past 3-4 years but when those arent an issue, they kill it. Breakfast with the Buffalo and Breakfast with Woodford are two of the best BA coffee/breakfast stouts I have ever had. Figgy pudding, imagine, cherry imagine, hypnosis, etc. are all fantastic. I thought the pFriem BA imperial stout was good but not great and Im not sure what else they have that would be considered in this category.

 

Nor do I.

Agree completely about draft. Agree rather less completely about bottles/cans, unless you're talking about reserving them for onsite consumption, like De Garde does with some of their vintage bottles. If the point is to get people to "visit the mothership," why give them a reason to show up, get their take-home bottles/cans/crowlers, and then leave?

And once again we are in agreement, although I think pFriem has great availability at the moment simply because they aren't well known enough outside of the NW for the demand to outstrip the supply.

 

I guess it is pretty much down to personal taste and having much more Block 15 fresh on draft.
But for me i have had more "misses": with pFriem. But nothing really bad.

 

Anyone spot their Vienna in PDX area? Looks like they put it out last week. A style that gets virtually no attention, but I find to be delicious. Cheers!

 

I've seen it around. Belmont Station has it for sure, I'd imagine it'll start trickling into Grocery stores this week if it hasn't already.

 

Thanks! Figured they would. And if that's the case, I'll just TRY and be patient for the grocery stores...

 

Anyone see their Double IPA on shelves yet? Looks like it's in a new bottle this year. I think it came out around the end of December the last 2 years.

 

My problem with single bottles for IPA or Pilsner is that there are so many good options for pilsners or IPAs in six packs. This makes it a lot more expensive to buy beer by the single bottle. Beyond that I wouldn't care how they were released. That size makes sense for sours and barrel aged beers a lot more.

 

Sure but then the beer in the individual bottle has to be significantly better than what I can get in a six pack to make it worth it. Pliny is not drastically better than what I can get in six packs. Neither is the pFriem pilsner or IPA so much better than what I can get in six packs up there. I am certainly looking forward to bringing back a few bottles of pFriem when I am up in Portland this weekend along with my haul of De Garde.

 

Yup. I agree completely. I can also see where their approach might no blow everyone's skirt up. Such is life. As it happens, I see their stuff on tap often enough, that grabbing the occasional single isn't any sort of deal breaker for me either. Shrug.