Very easy to get, as it is owned and imported by Miller Brewing - SAB/Miller. Any keg retailer can get one for you.
They are the tall 1/4 bbl kegs, not the short, large diameter size.
If it’s easy to get locally, then it’s not generally something I’m going to spend time brewing. When I first starting brewing I was chasing a white whale of how to cram the most hop flavor into a beer. Several years later, NEIPA has become a thing and I have brewed far less IPA’s since then. I just make a run to Treehouse when I need to scratch that itch.
I definitely brew beers that I can’t get good, fresh examples of locally, but I’m usually focusing more on flavors/ingredients and styles rather than replicating a specific beer.
I brew a lot of English bitters with high ester-producing yeasts. They don’t travel well over the pond, and seem to be a neglected style by American craft brewers. Yeasts like WY1318, WY1469, and WY1968. Hops like Goldings (East Kent and Styrian), Fuggles, Norther Brewer, and Northdown. Maris Otter malt. Invert sugar. OG around 1.045. These are delicious and need to be drank quickly, for after a month the esters fade and the wow factor is gone.
one of my favourite bitters had bramling cross hops in it. i have never been able to get ahold of them to brew with. i have the recipe ready in my mind, but that is the missing element.
Kolsch, no one brews one where I buy beer. Also, a good clean lager that doesn’t have rice/corn in it. Even if I may find one, being from Canada it is too much money. I am a cheap homebrewer you know!!
I brew great gruits, they always turn out really tasty and interesting, yet I can’t say I’ve ever tasted anything else like it anywhere else. I use restraint to ensure the finished product still tastes like beer and not an herb bomb.
Can’t say I’ve ever had good roggenbier or a Swedish Gotlandsdricke either, before I brewed these last year. Both turned out awesome. Next time I’ll use even more juniper berries in the Gotlandsdricke because I discovered the flavor is much milder than I anticipated. Like gruit, I used restraint, but discovered this was NOT necessary for juniper berries.
Anybody else brewed any of these styles, ever? My guess is [radio silence].
I made a Stjordol last year using traditional alder smoked sainhuss malt last year. Got the malt from Sugar Creek, it was fantastic. Planning on making it again soon, but my wife tells me a 7-8 %ABV smoked beer isn’t a “summer beer”, whatever that means.
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When ABInbev bought SABMiller, the EU made them divest PU. Asahi is the owner.
Potsdamer Stangenbier - made it last fall. Really flavorful. It was featured in BYO a while back:
ding ding this is the answer. now these are universally very hard to find styles. i wanted to do a gruit for so long, but was always worried about ending up with an infected, failure beer.
I brew a white IPA at least once a year, because it’s hard to find on shelves in our area, and none of the readily available examples fit the hop/yeast/lower-abv combo that most appeals to me. And I do an American amber ale at least once or twice annually, because that too has effectively vanished. (I see the discussion up above in this thread about how amber ales are bland, and I can see that viewpoint, but it’s also a style I just find incredibly drinkable when I want something that’s a step up from a blonde ale and a step down from an IPA).
Baltika #6 is one of my Top 5 all-time favorite commercial beers. There used to be an eastern Europe source in Wisconsin Dells where I would pick some up about once per year but that place changed owners years ago, now I can’t find it anymore. I would love to see your recipe, if it’s anything close.
basically anything it turns out. i know theres some other ontarians here but it is getting worse and worse steadily here. i wanted to try something new or exciting to get my brewing thoughts going. i passed some smaller LCBOs and went to the one i knew as big and well stocked in the past. its been really bad over the past few months. look at the state of it now:
hobgoblin is mediocre IMHO. the rest are pale lagers, then a single 6pack of leffe and some chimay blue (not in the mood for, and its $4.30 per 330ml).
basically the soviet union. the other wall is the canadian microbreweries which are widely awful and overpriced (imports are cheaper prices than the “set” minimum of ~$3.25 for canadian tallboys - wow very smart move to make people buy canadian) and it wasnt too well stocked either.
i brew out of necessity, there are simply very few options out there. the supermarkets do sell beer but all of it has to go through the LCBO or beerstore because there are never any different brands and the prices are again, set.
Wasn’t there a hobgoblin at one time that wasn’t an IPA I seem to recall?
I’ll post the recipe and/or send it to you when I get home, Dave. I don’t have it on my laptop in FL. I think it is pretty close to the Real McCoy Leaving Thursday and will probably be home probably late Friday depending on how I feel after getting the second Moderna shot.
The Hobgoblin I am familiar with is brewed at Wychwood Brewery. It’s a “Strong Dark Ale” described as “full bodied and well balanced with a chocolate toffee malt flavour, moderate bitterness and a distinctive fruity character with a ruby red glow”. The style guideline uses it as an example of a British Brown Ale.
There are a few HomeBrew renditions floating around the internet. My favorite is the Dave Stratton recipe via Cutter’s Choice YouTube channel. Malt Miller has a very similar recipe. https://youtu.be/VokL_3MmLwY
That’s the one. I used to like to get one of those and a skull splitter
I’ve experimented a few times with gruits, and I’m about halfway through Lars Garshol’s book on Historical Brewing Techniques. But I started brewing when I fell in love with Guiness and I couldn’t find it in Ohio (rather some time ago). Today, I mainly brew Belgian Abbey styles, sometimes crossed with bitters. The beer I need to start brewing is Orval ― my local stores appear to have stopped carrying it sometime last year.
Cal
On tap: Cluj Abbey Dubbel, and another of the same (Belgian Pale on deck).
I don’t brew them regularly, but two of my favorites recipes are for Belgian brut, and a dry hopped American adjunct lager. Those don’t have many (if any) commercial examples.
I want to figure out how to make a good Kellerbier, I don’t have anything like that near me anymore. It seems like German and Belgian styles in general have been supplanted by domestic craft beer at my local liquor stores, and with the rise of seltzer pushing craft beer out it feels like 2005 all over again.
Goose,
Please post this online if you can.
I’m always on the lookout for a good Baltic Porter recipe.