Beer Super Bowl IFollow

A lot of disappointed Falcons fans here in GA.

American football is more entertaining if you're deaf apparently.

Mmmm Rye beers, tough to come by and damn delicious when you find it!

Oh and I love Terrapin, their Moo Hoo is comparable to Left Hand's Milk Stout.

A Dutch brewery that's fairly well distributed started making a Rye Pale Ale last year. Given that up til recently this was still an IPA wasteland it's amazing. Pretty damn good beer too.

I have, unfortunately, never had the chance to try any Terrapin beers.

I've had several rye-derived IPAs over here in my neck of the woods. One of my local breweries makes a pretty good one. The Sierra Nevada one is okay if memory serves.

I don't think I've tried anything by Terrapin yet. I've had Hennepin though which is a really great Saison.

Terrapin's distro is primarily up and down the east coast. I think they've spread as far as Vermont and as west as Ohio. Any further out, though, you might be hard pressed to find it. Part of the problem is that like most craft brewers, they just don't have the volume to handle the current demand. (Terrapin sold out to Imbev for a stake in the company a few years back, just so they could afford more tanks. Thankfully, Bud hasn't stepped in to tell them to change anything yet.) They'll send kegs and barrels to beer parlors on request, though.

This is an excellent idea.

Cigar City is an eight hour car trip away

(And yet we've gone there twice. Fortunately Lahurah lives an hour away so we make a vacation of it, visit her, and get some good beer.)

One of the local beer parlors has a good friendship with them, so they get experiments as well as having a line dedicated to the occasional keg.

Last weekend they had the "Bell's Bowl" but I'm a bit tight on cash so I stayed away.... because I'll easily drop fifty dollars on beer when I go there. And their beer is pretty damn cheap for craft on tap.

I have a liquor store nearby with a great selection of craft beers and imports. I think it's like four shelving units, front and back, organized by region. Plus the lady who is there now gives me the 10% you usually get for a mixed six-pack even when I only buy one beer. Still wish Dogfish Head didn't cut distribution to RI. I should find the closest Massachusetts liquor store that carries it and stock up on some 90-minute IPA.

I had some Traquair House Ale the other night, which I was very pleased with. I could really taste the influence of the barrel-aging process, and it was pretty crisp and clean. It wasn't overly sweet like Innis & Gunn can be.

What's sad is that some of the best breweries don't even ship anywhere at all. There are two micro breweries I visit that produce amazing stuff, but don't serve it outside of their restaurants. If you are ever in Atlanta (if you ever visit the states), try to go to dinner at a Five Seasons brewery. You will not be disappointed. In Athens, there is Copper Creek, which incidentally is right across the street from both the board of elections and city hall. I think more politicking goes on there than it does inside the actual government buildings sometimes.

Incidentally, we have talked of a trek to the EU at some point in the next year or two, and also talked about emigrating to Denmark if Mitt Romney won the election/something horrible happened in the states. I'll be sure to bring some beer along in either scenario.

Edited, Feb 5th 2013 9:54pm by catwho

I can count on one hand my average beer consumption per year. And around Christmas was the first time I had any liquor in years.

It's a great time to be a fan of craft beer in America. Thank you, Jimmy Carter!