reading over some beer stuff this morning, and realized i should finally open it up and discuss it.
i have never tasted almost any of the most iconic and famous american craft brew beers, even ones that have been out for 20 or 30 years.
ive never had a single product from russian river, 3 floyds, bells,
i’ve had 2 or 3 stone beers, one sierra nevada ¶, 2 or 3 DFH
etc. they were just never available in canada, or perhaps some of the lesser beers of these breweries were available in toronto/montreal for higher prices, anyway i didn’t have them.
i will admit ive had a lot of famous european beers and a lot in general, but it used to frustrate me a lot that despite being so close geographically to america, ive never had so many famous examples of certain beers.
it’s definitely impacted my brewing, as i’m pretty sit in my ways now about which hop varieties im familiar with and use, though i do occasionally try out some newer american hops.
from what i’ve read and from occasional visits to the states though i think i did get some better experience to decently-transported/stored european beer than americans. though as well, i haven’t been to europe in person yet.
Don’t be too surprised at not being able to get Russian River. I’ve managed to get my hands on Pliny through some back channels, but many have never had it. I think their distribution is something like 3 blocks in either direction.
For some reason, here in NE PA, I can’t find any Fuller’s. I need to drive at least an hour to find it.
I’m in Northwestern Nevada and can’t find any Russian River beer at all. Evidently, they don’t distribute in Nevada. I did finally get to try Pliny the Elder at a restaurant in Northshore Tahoe. IIRC, it was $16 for a pint. Great beer, but I wouldn’t pay that price for it again. Outside of that, we’re able to find most anything in Reno. Here in Fallon, we have a convenience store that stocks ~250 craft beers too.
I have tried almost all the iconic beers which were available 5 or more years ago. With the craft beer book it has been impossible to keep up so I stopped chasing the dragon. Back in the day with diligence you could try or obtain almost anything. I remember when Masala Mama IPA was the rage and I had a growler in NC despite the beer only being available at the time on draft in MN.
Today I really only chase a handful of Belgian breweries and often have them shipped to me from Belgium to save time and energy hunting for bottles. I also try to get everything I can get my hands on from Zebulon, an NC brewery.
I also don’t get influenced by the hype. Back when I first became a beer geek we had roughly 25 breweries in NC. Today we have over 350. Enough it would take a year to visit them all if you only visited one per day. If I see something I want, I snag it when I see it.
Now the flip side is with Sierra Nevada being located in NC I get fresh SN all the time and keep something from them it in the fridge all the time.
the european imports situation has gotten a lot worse. the ontario beer monopoly used to use their huge buying power correctly to get in-demand belgian and top quality british beers, but theyve completely neglected that now. i used to be able to get fullers london porter, ESB, LP and seasonals all the time for excellent prices. i cant get any fullers ATM though.
ha, yeah basically im talking about never having had a pliny the elder. i rememeber when everone was trying to create the truest clone. it seems like a fairly straightforward brew now.
i do like the idea of being inspired by some really special/new beer -ie. heady topper (never had it)
Russian River has hugely expanded its distribution footprint in NorCal, where I live, since it opened a production facility in Windsor. I can find extremely fresh Pliny the Elder–just a week old at times–and about a half-dozen other RR beers in any grocery or liquor store in my area, no matter how small or obscure. Even better is that the bottles are priced at $6-$7 each.
Hopefully you will get a chance to try fresh Pliny someday. I never waited hours in line for this beer when it was only available at the brewpub, which I don’t live far from, but IMO this is a beer that lives up to the hype. It is true IPA perfection, AFAIC. It is impressive to me that RR beers are still incredible despite their production being stepped up to a much larger scale.
I actually thought that Heady topper was a revelation when it first came out but I feel Treehouse and others blew it out of the water. I haven’t had it, or looked for it, in years.
For the record, I enjoy Heady Topper. And I enjoy Pliny. Both beers I would never refuse. But I personally don’t find that either are way above and beyond many other beers of the same style.
Mrs R had us booked into a B&B just uo the hill from there. I was excited walking down to the brewery. Then i tasted the beers on the serving tanks. They were fresh, too fresh,! I realized the hop burn the fanboys talk about was over the top astringency.
Exact same thoughts here. Now that everyone has taken the ball and run with it, NEIPA has evolved far beyond what it started as, but that’s no slight on Heady. It just about singlehandedly began a new beer style that has become far spread. That being said, I’ll take a Julius or Haze over Heady any day.
To get back to the OP, as much as I love lambic I’ve never been able to get my hands on any Cantillon or 3 Fonteinen. I’ve also never had any Russian River. I know that there’s a lot of other great US beer out there, but Pliny is really the only one that I’d like to try just to see what it’s all about.
also, a lot of the extremely good and renowned canadian breweries like unibroue and dieu du ciel used to have their stuff stocked in ontario, but for some reason they are almost completely shut out. its crazy. the lcbo lists dieu du ciel stuff but they havent actually had it (at all, it didnt sell out) in years and years.
I remember the first time I had Heady, the guy at the share who poured it for me seemed offended I didn’t think it was the greatest thing ever. This is probably back in… 2010-2013 time frame… I honestly don’t remember the share I was at.
I’m wondering, for those that don’t care for Heady Topper, is it because you don’t care for Hazy IPA’s in general or because you think Heady isn’t a very good NEIPA/Hazy?
Full disclosure: I’m not a big Hazy drinker, but I do think Heady is pretty good.
For me, it’s not that I thought the beer was bad. I thought it was good. But I’ve had many better beers, IMO. The guy looked at me with disgust and was like “THAT’S FRESH HEADY” I was like, “Yeah man, it’s really good…” Then he stormed off… I’ve never heard of it at this point and I googled it later and I was like oh … ok. [emoji2377] I don’t care for Hazy/NE but I didn’t hate Heady. I’ve had it since then but still it never hit my OMFG button. I respect that beer for what it is but what evolved from it needs to go away in most cases.
