The Bar Towel

Well, I think I did. Or at least, I said it would be interesting to try a few blind and see.

I hear what emjay is saying, sure - I wasn't singling him out either.

A certain element of 'hype' on this forum is A) a rare style brewed for Ontario that has promise and B) any scarcity of quantity, such as some Jack barrel aged RIS you have to scramble in exactly the right 3-hour window to get a few of .

I'm sorry if I've pissed any of you off. It really wasn't my intention.

Not even remotely upset. More, you've piqued my interest. It would be fairly simple right now to put together a line-up of Tempest, Brooklyn Chocolate, Lava, SA Russian Imperial, ST Mokah and Sinha/Lion. Going to be in the Beach area of Toronto anytime soon? I could set it up at Castro's pretty easily (we have half of those as it is).

Hello Folks,

Yeah I gotta weigh in on the Westvleteren hype,

With all the online peddlin’,
Of that fine elixir, Westvleteren,
You don’t always get what they say,
On Craigslist, Kijiji, and eBay,
Remember someone might, drink, refill, and recap,
With any manner of cheap, Bud Lime crap,
All that Spam, yes, you can guess,
Viagara, Viagara, 50% or less,
Don’t forget the adage as I’m sure you’re aware,
Buyer, Buyer, Buyer BEWARE.

That's it. I prefer drinking it bars in the company of friends, I'll take the hit on the markup!!

I know, Welcome back!!

Enjoy your day pass!

chris_schryer wrote:Not even remotely upset. More, you've piqued my interest. It would be fairly simple right now to put together a line-up of Tempest, Brooklyn Chocolate, Lava, SA Russian Imperial, ST Mokah and Sinha/Lion. Going to be in the Beach area of Toronto anytime soon? I could set it up at Castro's pretty easily (we have half of those as it is).

I'd be interested in that if I could get off work, and if it wouldn't break my bank account - I'm a recent grad, so money is tight. It would be pretty amusing if I wound up drinking my own words.

There could be an element of batch variation at play here as well. I've only had the LCBO released batch, but the hype is based on how good peoples experiences with the brewery-only batches were.

Bytowner wrote:... am I in the minority in not wanting anything like a DLD in Ontario? Do people actually enjoy this kind of hype? I just find it annoying, and get a bit out of joint with breweries who spin the beer buying experience around to the point that they're allowing us mortals to purchase their barrel-aged imperial sour old stouts.

Yeah, I feel the same way. Lineups have already taken the fun out of amusement parks for me. (DLD may not be the best example though... it sounds like there's a lot of fun that goes along with that).

Now that said, I'll throw Great Lakes Unicorn Ale out there as another local rarity that could be hyped.

On two strands in this thread:

1) Nothing will top this, not that it shouldn't - the hype, the story, the once-off nature won't be topped. But I am glad about that, we need good beer imports, not insane overnight lineups with the bandwagoneers who may chug it from the bottle.

2) Though I'd love to go to a DLD, the whole thing pisses me off too. If your beer is so good, let people drink it and acquire it! Yes, Westy gets bumped a bit (and probably DL too) by excess hype for example, but Rochefort does fine without it to beer people and I can get it without too much hassle or way too much money. If Ontario brewers simply hit the standards Russian River, DFH, FFF, etc hit, they'd get their credit. They are, simply, good, but not great (with momentary rare one-offs from Beau's and perhaps Tempest IMHO). Case in point, both Zombie Dust and Heady Topper receive much love despite regular production, and same for Peche and Corne du Diable.

chris_schryer wrote:I've heard a few folks "meh" at Tempest, to which I say, What?! Tempest is incredible... while I would never say I would pick Tempest as the top in any blind tasting, I would also never dream that I could pick it out for it's inferiority. It stands eye-to-eye with some of the best beers out there.

I bought some but I haven't yet cracked the latest batch of Tempest so I can't comment on that specifically. I think it is partly relative. The bar for "amazing" gets higher as time passes. What was superlatively good last year is this years very good. We shared a bottle of a highly rated Imperial Stout at a tasting last year and my first thought was that it tasted almost identical to a homebrew that I had made. (And I don't think my homebrew was that great, though I was pretty pleased with it!)

mintjellie wrote:

chris_schryer wrote:Not even remotely upset. More, you've piqued my interest. It would be fairly simple right now to put together a line-up of Tempest...

I'd be interested in that if I could get off work, and if it wouldn't break my bank account...

Funny I was thinking a 'vertical' of 3 bottlings of Tempest - original 2011 and earlier 2012 from brewery and later 'small wax' 2012 from LCBO. If these could be all bit different, who is to say for sure what beer we're disagreeing about (setting aside draft and aged versions!)

Might make sense to establish that correlation, then go on to compare whatever decided-upon version Tempest to other RIS and Stouts.

Weebay wrote:Enjoy your day pass!

Actually they've let me out for good or I escaped!

Cheers,

mintjellie wrote:

chris_schryer wrote:Not even remotely upset. More, you've piqued my interest. It would be fairly simple right now to put together a line-up of Tempest, Brooklyn Chocolate, Lava, SA Russian Imperial, ST Mokah and Sinha/Lion. Going to be in the Beach area of Toronto anytime soon? I could set it up at Castro's pretty easily (we have half of those as it is).

I'd be interested in that if I could get off work, and if it wouldn't break my bank account - I'm a recent grad, so money is tight. It would be pretty amusing if I wound up drinking my own words.

Hi Mintjellie,

You hail from Barrie? Where are the good beer bars in Barrie? Do tell, I've just moved up here.

Thanks,

Liverdie wrote:Where are the good beer bars in Barrie? Do tell, I've just moved up here.

According to a review on beer advocate, you have one option: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24297/view=beerfly