The Bar Towel

beerstodiscover wrote:THAT's a calendar I'd go for. I wish I'd known.

Sales are a custom order usually in October. Was posted here last year, but not this year. Keep an eye on Reddit at /r/torontocraftbeer for updates, or you can try emailing BeerAdvent@Craftbeerimports.ca to see if you can be added to their mailing list (they send reminders to existing customers).

beerstodiscover wrote:THAT's a calendar I'd go for. I wish I'd known.

Yeah, you gotta preorder it in like Sept/Oct. So most likely missed it, myself included.

Masterplan wrote:

beerstodiscover wrote:THAT's a calendar I'd go for. I wish I'd known.

Yeah, you gotta preorder it in like Sept/Oct. So most likely missed it, myself included.

I missed it too. I recall there being more of an announcement last year, whereas this year I completely missed that it'd be available in Ontario.

Anyone get any accidental dupes? Got a second Hofbrau Dunkel today...

Napalm Frog wrote:Anyone get any accidental dupes? Got a second Hofbrau Dunkel today...

That's unfortunate. No duplicates for me so far but I have had a Hobrau Original, so I guess your calendar got a second dunkel in its place.

I had both Hofbrau already, so this makes three total. Looking online I'm missing Wacken Baldur (2 other bottles were in slots not matching others). On the FB page for this calendar, seems a few people have complained about this problem, with some people having multiple duplicates.

Napalm Frog wrote:I had both Hofbrau already, so this makes three total. Looking online I'm missing Wacken Baldur (2 other bottles were in slots not matching others). On the FB page for this calendar, seems a few people have complained about this problem, with some people having multiple duplicates.

Brutal, have the makers of the calendar responded? Considering the cost I feel they should offer some sort of compensation. Knock on wood, so far so good for mine. For what it's worth Wacken Baldur certainly wasn't one of my favourites, though with that said most of the calendar has been average golden lager type beers. Still fun to try new stuff, but next year I think I'll try for the craft calendar.

No sign of responses, but I don't care too much. As for the other advent calendar, Nickel Brook's Half Bastard turned out infected, but they are actively helping people out who reach out to them, good customer service for sure.

I got a second Dunkel too...

seangm wrote:

Napalm Frog wrote:... some people having multiple duplicates.

Considering the cost I feel they should offer some sort of compensation. Knock on wood, so far so good for mine. For what it's worth Wacken Baldur certainly wasn't one of my favourites, though with that said most of the calendar has been average golden lager type beers. Still fun to try new stuff, but next year I think I'll try for the craft calendar.

Well Lagers and Zwickel, Helles, Festbier and all the rest, but yes. There's no excuse for a single duplicate, they were clearly getting lazy in the product integrity department if they were running out of Baldur and swapping in a beer we could all get down the street any day at an LC or TBS.

It's funny, I paid so much for these Advents biers but there's stuff at the LCBO I've been too lazy to try singles of. So that's my mission - try singles of anything. Most are cheaper or at least offer greater size / higher gravity & ABV. Do you guys get blasé about trying every new beer? We have it fairly good right now compared to 2007.

Belgian wrote:

seangm wrote:

Napalm Frog wrote:... some people having multiple duplicates.

Considering the cost I feel they should offer some sort of compensation. Knock on wood, so far so good for mine. For what it's worth Wacken Baldur certainly wasn't one of my favourites, though with that said most of the calendar has been average golden lager type beers. Still fun to try new stuff, but next year I think I'll try for the craft calendar.

Well Lagers and Zwickel, Helles, Festbier and all the rest, but yes. There's no excuse for a single duplicate, they were clearly getting lazy in the product integrity department if they were running out of Baldur and swapping in a beer we could all get down the street any day at an LC or TBS.

It's funny, I paid so much for these Advents biers but there's stuff at the LCBO I've been too lazy to try singles of. So that's my mission - try singles of anything. Most are cheaper or at least offer greater size / higher gravity & ABV. Do you guys get blasé about trying every new beer? We have it fairly good right now compared to 2007.

I just feel as if most of the beers have been safe or underwhelming examples of the styles, even if there has been a wide variety. Germany makes some excellent beers, and I love a great helles, but it's winter so I was hoping for some more robust offerings. No altbier or schwarzbiers yet, although I was pleasantly surprised to see a rauchbier and of course Celebrator. Störtebeker was quite nice too. At the end of the day it's been fun trying (almost) completely new beers to me, so perhaps we are just spoiled for choice.

That said, I thought that O'zapft is! from Höss was god awful. Tasted like it was aged on a bag of old coins.

seangm wrote:I just feel as if most of the beers have been safe or underwhelming examples of the styles, even if there has been a wide variety. Germany makes some excellent beers, and I love a great helles, but it's winter so I was hoping for some more robust offerings. No altbier or schwarzbiers yet, although I was pleasantly surprised to see a rauchbier and of course Celebrator. Störtebeker was quite nice too. At the end of the day it's been fun trying (almost) completely new beers to me, so perhaps we are just spoiled for choice.

That said, I thought that O'zapft is! from Höss was god awful. Tasted like it was aged on a bag of old coins.

Thanks for the LOL!

German beers can definitely have weirdly steely Noble hops character, depending on the regional taste & yes it's an uptight but popular flavor profile IMLE. I personally did not note any oxidized metallic or 'off' flavors in Höss. All of these beers do remind me of random beer findings in Europe, it's fun because beer samplings over there do vary from mediocre to pretty tasty and (sorry Nickel Brook) not a single beer in this German Bier Advents Kalendar was stale or infected. I don't think I've had a sour or bottle-gusher German beer in my life.

I do think it's bizarre (or inevitable) that the best few beers were probably the few familiar Hofbraü and Ayinger, plus maybe only 1 or 2 others I've not had previously. Still I'd do it again if next year's are all different. We will see. Is this company really likely to throw in a few Andechser, Ettaler or Rothaus or Pinkus Müller or Maisel, or any really iconic beer style examples we've no had, no I am certain the goal of this beer hobby kit is to appease the curious masses, not educate our lot on the best Germany really has to offer so I'm sure it comes town to their € cost per unit & economies of distribution (if they can get multiple brands from one supplier.) So it is in the spirit of fun I accept this limitation 'für was es ist.'

Belgian wrote:We have it fairly good right now compared to 2007.

We do indeed!!

Belgian wrote:

seangm wrote:I just feel as if most of the beers have been safe or underwhelming examples of the styles, even if there has been a wide variety. Germany makes some excellent beers, and I love a great helles, but it's winter so I was hoping for some more robust offerings. No altbier or schwarzbiers yet, although I was pleasantly surprised to see a rauchbier and of course Celebrator. Störtebeker was quite nice too. At the end of the day it's been fun trying (almost) completely new beers to me, so perhaps we are just spoiled for choice.

That said, I thought that O'zapft is! from Höss was god awful. Tasted like it was aged on a bag of old coins.

Thanks for the LOL!

German beers can definitely have weirdly steely Noble hops character, depending on the regional taste & yes it's an uptight but popular flavor profile IMLE. I personally did not note any oxidized metallic or 'off' flavors in Höss. All of these beers do remind me of random beer findings in Europe, it's fun because beer samplings over there do vary from mediocre to pretty tasty and (sorry Nickel Brook) not a single beer in this German Bier Advents Kalendar was stale or infected. I don't think I've had a sour or bottle-gusher German beer in my life.

I do think it's bizarre (or inevitable) that the best few beers were probably the few familiar Hofbraü and Ayinger, plus maybe only 1 or 2 others I've not had previously. Still I'd do it again if next year's are all different. We will see. Is this company really likely to throw in a few Andechser, Ettaler or Rothaus or Pinkus Müller or Maisel, or any really iconic beer style examples we've no had, no I am certain the goal of this beer hobby kit is to appease the curious masses, not educate our lot on the best Germany really has to offer so I'm sure it comes town to their € cost per unit & economies of distribution (if they can get multiple brands from one supplier.) So it is in the spirit of fun I accept this limitation 'für was es ist.'

I definitely get that metallic character from time to time, and don't find it unpleasant, but for whatever reason the Höss was very off-putting to me. That is a good point regarding quality though, except for the Höss (which is more subjective anyway) not a single beer was flawed, every one of them poured with a good head and proper carbonation. As much as I love our local craft beers, I find those sorts of basic quality issues are present at a level that Germans would consider absolutely unacceptable.

This advent calendar was also $50 cheaper than the local craft option on offer too, so that considered it is quite the offering. Today's beer is a weizenbock, I'm looking forward to cracking that open as we haven't had one of those yet.

I see that the LC still has 11000 of these available (!)... hope they try to clear them out at a big discount soon.