Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

Lowe's Foods, popping up like weeds in the Carolinas, have beer bars and beverage holders on their shopping carts.

 

Trust me it does. Pic is the pub inside DeCicco's grocery store, Brewster NY Better tap list than almost every other pub in area.

 

I don't know if this applies where you are, but I just visited a friend in Pennsylvania and his local grocery store recently added a bar just like you describe. I thought it seemed quite strange just as you did. My friend told me that it was explained to him that it was a way for them to work around some sort of weird alcohol licensing issue where you could only sell alcohol to go if you also sold it for consumption on premise.

I'd be interested to hear if any of our numerous Pennsylvania posters might be able to confirm that my friend's explanation was correct. If it is, maybe Georgia has a similar thing?

ETA: the drinking area they had at the Giant Eagle I mention above was EXTREMELY half assed compared to the sort of thing CaveDave posted above!

 

The funny thing is about all these grocery stores that sell beer like that: I've never ever bought anything but beer in any of 'em. They've definitely got the goods, so I just think of them as beer stores.

Then again, none are remotely close enough to be considered a regular grocery store for me, so it might be different if one ever opens up here like that.

 

If you're a cheese lover and can make it out of DeCicco's without buying cheese (as well as beer) you're a better man than me.

 

Actually, the cheese counter at Gary's Wine has been calling me lately but hasn't broken me yet. That will probably change before the weekend's out, though .

 

Here's a good one:

1) It has become harder to find good West Coast IPAs since the haze craze took off, even in the West Coast.

I'm having a top notch one in Mosaic Showers by Noble, and it has made me realize how rare it has become to find a proper WC ipa. I remember when even Enjoy By, was a reliably fantastic WC dipa.

As far as widely available shelf stuff goes in the LA area, I can't think of anything other than fresh Beachwood Citraholic/Amalgamator cans tbh.

 

It's easy easy to find amazing WCIPAs almost anywhere if you aren't looking for Nuevo WCIPAs using the new fashionable hops. Nothing about a single hop mosaic DIPA is "proper" west coast.

 

I'm with sweatshirt on this one, if you can't find solid wcipas in LA you must not know where the beer section is. It only seems like all the IPAs are neipas when you keep your head in sand like ours, the reality is that most IPAs that I see available to me lean toward the classic american IPA

 

I have almost the opposite experience every time I'm in London. Tasteless light lagers dominate most pubs in London and certainly not true that "every pub has cask ale" either.
The best thing to do is make sure the pub is a CAMRA pub. Those are the ones you find the proper ales in.

I do agree that it would be awesome to see more places serving cask ales here.

FYI My favorite beer in London was Old Speckled Hen

 

Agreed!

 

I wasn't really speaking of London proper, but there are plenty of great places to drink. I was speaking of across England, Wales, and Scotland where there was a culture of good decent, easy to drink beer that was affordable. There were plenty of the Scandinavian and Belgian lagers, and shandies, but I knew better than to mess with those. CAMRA is a good guideline, but then again the local brews to any locale were always of the greatest interest to me.

 

This is true strangely enough. In PA, the grocery store has to have a spot for onsite drinking in order to sell takeout beer. Some (Wegmans) are really nice. Others like the Acme near me have the ambiance of a fraternity basement. There’s also volume limit on what you can buy at one time.

PA is a weird state.

 

Just as an FYI, the requirement is that a store must have a location for both onsite eating and onsite drinking before they are allowed a license to sell beer to take out. So that buffet table you see is critical to them getting a license.

 

I didn't say most ipas were NE style, but that it's become harder to find good WC ipas. Saying needlessly confrontational things like that "I keep my head in the sand" is just a sad thing to do online.

 

I'd like to hear some of your widely available faves. I used to love Enjoy By and Go To by Stone, and Alesmith is always solid. I think Stone has hit a slump in quality across the board, Sculpin hasn't been there for ages, Alesmith has become harder to find, particularly fresh...

 

I don't know about London which I only visit every 10 years or so. But in our local CAMRA Branch area every single pub sells cask ale.

 

You need to hop in a Delorean to enjoy some of those beers you just mentioned.

 

Enjoy By is still around, but it has dropped in quality to the point of being unrecognizable. Alesmith is also around, but much harder to find. Which is a shame, because they were pretty damn consistent.

I am asking which widely available WC ipas are of that quality. I mentioned Citraholic and Amalgamator, and whenever Lagunitas Born Yesterday hits I'm joyous, but other than that I am mostly letdown with what I've tried. Oh, and El Segundo Mayberry is very good. The latest batch I had of Fortunate Islands by MT was also very nice, but I don't know if it will be an anomaly or if they changed the recipe.

 

Someone please put this thread back on track.....OK I'll go.
This years SN Fall pack is probably the biggest letdown of the year.