Great Notion

LOL! Sounds like I stuck a nerve.

This is probably the first time I've heard anyone complain about an inability to find hazy IPA's from Modern Times. You can find their beer all over town (even my local Trader Joe's carries their stuff), on tap and in bottles/cans, and they also do crowler and growler fills out of the brewery downtown. So you really should have very little difficulty finding hazy IPA's from Modern Times in town. As I have no idea what you personally feel is their best stuff, it's pretty hard to address your "concerns" otherwise My impression is that most of the beers on tap at the Fermentorium are available in crowler format. Personally, I'm a huge fan of the Orderville, which is easily obtainable all over town.

Growler Nation is a unique situation, and is a poor example for you to use I think. The explanation for the current "demand" on GN crowlers is contained in this thread, but it's buried at this point. As you probably know, GN is in the process of building a production brewery on the West Side, and roughly a year ago, GN announced a conscious decision to cut back on crowler sales at the tasting room until it was completed. They indicated that they felt it was important that customers coming to the tasting room be able to always find a good range of GN beers available to purchase by the glass, and so they were cutting back considerably on crowler sales (at one point I think the number was 200 for each release, but that was a while back, and I have no idea what the number is now). As mentioned elsewhere, crowler sales have now become very, very limited, and at one point I think they discontinued announcing crowler releases in advance (but I believe they're back to announcing them again on Instagram now, as well as in their Friday afternoon email news letter update). The result is that demand has now skyrocketed. That being said, before they made the decision to cut back on crowler fills, there was generally very little problem getting a crowler of GN IPA. If you checked the online menu (back in the day), the beer menu typically listed a crowler fill price along with the glass price for usually 4 or 5 different beers. Some new releases would sell out more quickly that others, but generally, you typically could get a crowler fill of just about anything for the first couple of days after a release. Hopefully, once the production brewery opens, lines to obtain crowler fills of GN IPA's will become a thing of the past.

As for "other" hazy IPA's available in PDX, pretty much any taphouse you go to will have at least several hazy IPA's, and any halfway decent bottle shop will likely have dozens. Are they comparable to what you can find at MT or GN? That's obviously a question only you can answer. Personally, I can't say that I find there to be anything uniquely wonderful about the hazy IPA's put out by MT and GN (though the GN adjunct IPA's are pretty interesting). They're definitely good, but I don't find myself heading over to either GN or MT any time I have a craving for a good hazy IPA (there are simply too many other options in town, usually at a better price point than what you'll find at GN or MT).

As for my comments about the Virginia beer scene, I stand by those comments (which were mostly made from an historical perspective). As I mentioned, it's obvious the beer scene has improved considerably over the last 7 or 8 years, but I think it's still pretty mediocre (sorry if that offends you). When I was last in Front Royal, I didn't confine myself to the area around there of course, which is why I was willing to drive out to the Fairfax Whole Foods to find a decent selection of craft beer (I like the Fairfax store, and have visited it several times). I don't particularly enjoy having to drive that far in order to find a decent beer selection, but after running a pretty extensive "places" search on BA, that seemed to be about the best that I could find that was "close by," short of having to run into DC (which has a great beer scene, but also is a ways away and has HORRIBLE traffic). Ehhh, hick town or not (have no idea what the definition might be in Va,, though everyone tells me that Front Royal is now a thriving DC bedroom community), the beer scene has definitely improved in the area. Still wouldn't call it anything great.

Obviously, I don't live there full time (and never have), but I feel as if I've visited Va. often enough to at least say that I find it a bit strange (or at least disingenuous) for someone to say that they feel spoiled by the Va. beer scene (when compared to what's available in PDX).

"And for a person who moved from Baltimore five years ago and has never seemingly lived in VA to comment with any authority on the VA beer scene, it's laughable"

I don't believe I ever held myself out as an authority on the VA beer scene, but I'm glad you got a laugh out of my comments. I'm happy to tell you that I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waiter, and be sure to try the veal. I hear it's excellent (and goes particularly well with hazy IPA's). Cheers!

 

Jesus H. Christ. You are nothing if not at least consistent.

No one "bashed" MT as you say, and no one has written them off as an inferior brewery. My understanding (based on a post from someone at MT) is that MT beers are doing very well here, which I assume is one of the reasons MT decided to open the Fermentorium here. At least the one time I visited, the bartender said things were going well, and sales were brisk.

Like GN, I'm a little unhappy with the pricing there (which is a bit high for PDX), but the beers they make (particularly the hazy IPA's) are undeniably very good.

(Oh damn. I just "bashed" them again, didn't I?)

 

While this likely won't do you much good, there's very good chance the current "scarcity" of GN crowlers will be a thing of the past very soon. Knock on wood, but it shouldn't be too much longer before GN will be opening their production brewery on the West Side. I'm hopeful and optimistic that once that happens, GN crowler fills will be much more readily available.