Märican Biere Bought and Drunk...

Ah, I love cask ales! I recall seeing Civil Life stuff but never got around to ordering any. Definitely noted for our next trip

 

Pick ed up a 6-pk of Full Sail Cascade Pilsner, packaged end of October. Gotta say, great rendition, a true "Märican" version of the classic beer style many of us enjoy. It's a little higher ABV than almost every pilsner I've had, but it works. If you see it, give it a go.

 

Our little lager-only operation got voted one of South Carolina's 10 best breweries by the local alt-weekly (and the industry people they interviewed). Pretty cool. Prost!

https://www.free-times.com/south-ca...cle_7039684a-2fa7-11e9-bf38-7b9c8c057915.html

 

How many people you got working for you now?

Congratulations -- and it looks like you're in some good company.

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/brewdog-acquires-stone-berlin.610681/#post-6447773

BrewDog acquires Stone Berlin

 

I tried to get a thread on this opened here in the Germany forum so we could discuss here locally without all the yadda-yadda of folks who have never been to DE. It would have been great to get local and ex-pat POVs in my opinion.

No luck though.

 

Since Stone was in Berlin, why not use the "Rest of Deutschland" thread? I don't see a problem and we'd all chime in.

 

Nice lineup at Bierstadt in Denver

Clicky—> https://ibb.co/dgK8zgK

 

Yeah, pretty sure that the founder of the brewery, Thomas Pastorius, has been quoted as saying he picked the name for its alliteration rather than beer style accuracy (and, after all, in the mid-1980s, "beer style" to most American drinkers wasn't much of a concern, when the largest selling beer labeled "Pilsner" was Miller Lite Beer from Miller).

Pastorius' beer, followed close behind Koch's Samuel Adams Boston Lager - right down to using Joe Owades for the recipe creation and Pittsburgh Brewing Co. as the contract brewery.

(A weird twist - the beer was originally released in the Philadelphia region since the contract Pastorius had with PBC stated he could not sell it in the Pittsburgh region - he later moved the contract to Jones ("Stoney's Beer") Brewing Co., south of Pittsburgh.)

Jim Koch would accuse some of the contract-brews coming out of Pittsburgh - besides Penn Pilsner, there were also 13th Colony Amber Beer (Georgia) and Old Heurich (Wash. DC) - as being copies of SABL.

“It is interesting that two other of the top-finishing beers in the Denver competition (GABF) are Samuel Adams clones. I found out too late that there is no exclusivity in the beer business. A couple other guys who liked my beer when to the same brewery and asked them to make a beer just like Samuel Adams.” [July, 1987]

 

That's actually a little place a few blocks away from Bierstadt called Finn's Manor. It's a bar with 3-4 semi-permanent food trucks parked outside. It's a little like Portland in that regard. Their bar manager always keeps a very strong beer list. It usually isn't quite this lager-centric, but they basically always have at least 2-3 central European imports and a Bierstadt tap or two. I've gotten Mahr's, Schlenkerla, Budvar, and St. Georgen there.

Bierstadt itself shares space with a cidery, oddly enough.

 

Okay, how the heck does Denver get Jack's Abby, but it's nowhere in the Chicago area? Life ain't fair.

 

That's a weird one. They started showing up as part of our yearly GABF drops 4'ish years ago. Tons of places that don't normally distro here will send bottles/cans/kegs each September. I guess they sold well and last year they just kept sending more. We mostly only get their IPL's and their Baltic Porter variants (which is what Finn's has), but a few other items show up here and there. At this point the only major distros that don't make it here are 3 Floyds, Yuengling, Harpoon, and Sweetwater. Sadly, that has caused many a good beer to turn to mush on CO shelves, too.

 

I think that epidemic is truly nationwide.

 

I recall either you guys or CA getting Lord Hobo too, which I always found to be random.

It looks like you might regularly get Jack's Abby's seasonals too. Citra Brau is on that tap list, which was their spring seasonal. I wasn't happy with this though, because it replaced their excellent Vienna lager as a spring seasonal.

Their Kellerbier series can have some of their best beers too, but I doubt you'd see those.

Look out for their summer seasonal which just hit shelves here, Sunny Ridge. It's a solid German Pils. Better than their year round Pils, Post Shift, in my opinion.

 

Not sure if my query belongs here, but has anyone had the SN/Bitburger collaboration yet? I saw it yesterday in stores, but was short on time to pick up a six-pack.

 

Yup, two bottles in and so far I don't care for it.

@steveh 's review is spot on in my opinion.

 

Plenty of discussion on it already in this thread:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...rger-brewery-on-2019-oktoberfest-beer.613608/

And some reviews already up on the beer's dedicated page:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/411545/

 

OK, so I looked up @steveh 's review, saw this and literally LOL'd

"I've often stated that Oktoberfest Amber Märzen is my favorite style of beer, so I'm pretty picky with my opinions." Reminds me of Dave Ramsey's saying "I'm an expert on my opinion."

After reading your review Steve, I'm wondering if the people at Bitburg use acidified malt in their pilsner to keep pH in check, it's also very common ingedient in German pilsner grain bills, maybe that's the acid you're tasting. Also, as you stated it's too dry...again, I believe they're using the Bit house yeast which, in order to be as efficient as possible, probably dries the beers out more than what you (or we) are used to. Just a hunch on both comments you had.

I'll give it a go as a Germanophile and supporter of SN and the folks in the Eifel.

 

Uh, what? Märzens are my favorite, I'm picky about them -- it's more like being picky about a favorite dish. But I am debt free.

I mentioned acid? I think I said tart or sour, but I'll revisit.