Just finished a Jester King Phylactery Phactory and it was phenomenal. It used Phantasm to great effect. Pillowly soft, sweet, with a nice acidic citrusy bite. 10/10
There was a wave of JK early last week at the local bottle shops in the city and burbs that included that one.
Jester King has been showing up in IL pretty regularly since last summer. It's only in the more focused bottle shops, but they've been getting both bottles and cans. Saw several of both at Open Bottle - Lockport this evening.
Speaking of Flash Drops - a bunch 3 fonteinen bottles dropped this week. Lots of really cool stuff, but muy, muy pricey. I might have spent recklessly at Open Bottle this evening. Grabbed a perzik rood, perzik geel, pruim mirabelle, pruim belle de louvain, and the schaarbeekse kriek. They also have some other ones - golden blend and oude gueuze.
The more lambic I drink, the more I love a great gueuze. Fruit is fun, but I think the real magic is in a great blend of natural gueuze
The more lambic and geuze I drink the more antacids I need to pop. Can't handle it the way I used to. Had a bottle from Scratch recently (their wild ale) and it was delicious but boy did it result in a tidal wave of heartburn.
Ha! Dont change, your wallet will thank you. I totally agree, but a well made fruited gueuze from 3 fonteinen or some of these other European blenders can be so, so good. Ive always had to pop the antacids, so I just got used to it. The trick I learned is eating one or two about a half hour before I drink them, long enough to get the taste out of my mouth, and pre-coats the stomach. (yea, its kinda weird I have to prepare my body to drink something - lol)
Just saw that Trillium dropped at a couple places by me and Cinderlands (former Solemn Oath brewer Paul Schneider) should be hitting any day now with some parties for their collab with Hidden Hand starting tomorrow.
Looks like Eliot Tower, Sprang, Stillings St., Fort Point, Cutting Tiles, Scaled Up, Night & Day, and BA Oh, Nuts! - although no store seems to have everything, but rather some combo of the above.
At the Beer Temple the BA stouts were 375's and cost $29 + plus tax. I definitely passed.* EDIT: Night & Day isn't even barrel-aged. I just love a good anti-bargain! *Fuck that, I hate money & love stouts, I bought one of each.