A nice little hefeweizen..

If you were sitting in Zum Uerige drinking that absolutely sublime alt, I doubt you'd be in much of a mood to broaden your horizons. When it comes to that beer, I'm perfectly happy having my horizons narrowed.

Heh. Sadly, no drunkenness last night. Just overly fast typist.

-Steve

the folks in the PNW only know how to throw hops into the brewkettle. East coast beers, now thats where its at.

Man, I'm not even qualified to debate this subject as I've had so very little east coast craft beers. The Michigan breweries usually please me, though...

OK. Refusing bait any further. I know the PNW has awesome beer, and you guys know it too. Nyeah. :P

fr0glet

OK, OK, you can have your gigantic east-coast beer penis. I can sit aside smugly and know THE TRUTH (which is out there). As to your fire... put that thing out!

Urgh, don't blame the whole region for the actions of pyrawidmer. :P

"Beer with yeast present". It is beer. It has yeast present. You can't deny those facts.

I'm German. I don't taste German. What's the diff?

fr0glet

Hefeweizen is to German what "beer on lees" is to French.In any language(regardless of the literal translation)it is a term used to describe beer which had yeast added after fermentation.

Eh. From the bottles I've had of it, it was, if pressed to categorize, SHITE. If, and since, they're so fookin' brill at RAF (which IIRC they are, they are), why don't they bottle condition their beers? Just short of flavorless is the bottled Tripel Crown.

From my representative six pack -- which to be fair, was purchased with a couple of sixes of ImPaled Ale that were so diacetyl-laden I may as well have bought them in the dairy case -- the Tripel was harsh, thin, and astringent. Not a keeper. I know from others it's much better at the brewery.

Witzel

I'm gonna try some Bells stuff soon...I've read very good things about them.

East coast stuff....the only(with major exceptions) way I get to taste them babies is when my Beer of the month shipment comes in and easties are in the package. Tasted some good beer that way. The exceptions include brews from Dogfish Head, Brooklyn Brewery, Ommegong, Yuengling...

Best regards, Bill

PS: The stuff from the PNW ROCKS!!!!

yes but there's no denying that using that term on a bottle of beer in the United States implies that said beer has some connection with the German versions of "wheat beer with yeast", otherwise one would call it something like what Boulevard Brewing co does: Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. Nobody expects phenols when cracking open one of those.

Glad someone took the bait.

Enough with the gigantic east-coast beer penis. Sheesh.

Surely Ms. Fr0glet has watched her share of people engage in this, erm, pissing match in the past to understand that we do take these things seriously. There are no breweries on the West Coast that offer the width and breadth (there we go again) that East Coast breweries offer.

Are you saying there are no good lager breweries in the West? Actually, there aren't any that come to mind; could be simply the lack of exposure to breweries 3000 miles away over land instead of ocean, but really, so few west coast lagers make it east that it's hard for a lifelong Easterner to make judgments.

And occasionally there's an eastern brewery that successfully pulls off the style, too. Recognize the origination but improve the recipe.

Just say Portland and get it over with.

Witzel

Surely Ms. Fr0glet has watched her share of people engage in this,

Well duh. The East coast does have a longer history of brewing and indeed micro brewing if you ignore west coasters like Anchor and Sierra Nevada.

Good lagers? I found Brooklyn Lager but...if you know of any other good lagers, from either coast or in between I'm all ears.(or more accurately, all eyes)

Are you dissing Portland Maine? You dirty dog!

Best regards, Bill

Wish I could afford to drink more of their Chicory Stout!! Scrumptious beer, $10/6 at all local decent-selection beer stores. :(

Still haven't seen the World Wide Stout available for purchase, either. :(

fr0glet

No West Coast breweries? That's a strong statement, and one that I doubt is supportable. Are there more breweries offering that breadth in the east? I'd venture to say yes. But someone like Full Sail is certainly as broad as most anything out east, with a wide range of styles, a few lagers thrown into the mix, and all pretty nicely done.

Actually, I'll top Full Sail with a more limited-distribution brewery that has as wide, if not a wider range (certainly on the lager side) and overall brew to better quality than FS: LaConner. I'd hold their breadth up against pretty much East Coast brewery.

I'm saying they're few and far between. And, more importantly, not many breweries are including lagers in their portfolios, other than the obligatory pils. The situation's been improving over the last few years, however.

Gordon-Biersch. Sudwerk.

That's all I can think of as primarily lager breweries out west.

Heh.

-Steve

You will. The Immort Ale is already available in Seattle.

Tough. JetBlue is cheap to the West Coast, so kwitcherbitchin' and get out here.

Just a sample of lagers out this way:

Gordon-Biersch: mostly-lager brewpubs and bottled beers, exept for the seasonal Hefeweizen. Basic range includes Pils, Maerzen, and unfiltered Dunkles; seasonals include pale, amber, and dark Bocks. Suedwerk Brauerei Huebsch: a range of lagers. Full Sail: Have lagers in their range, including Pilsner; at times, also Oktoberfest-Maerzen and Doppelbocks have appeared. Deschutes: Pine Mountain Pils. Maritime Pacific: Pilsner, Old Seattle Lager (pre-Pro style). Pyramid/Kemper: Coastline Pilsner, various seasonal amber lagers and bocks. La Conner: Pilsner, Vienna amber, Doppelbock. Boundary Bay: Pilsner. Elysian: Pilsner, Dortmund-style Export, seasonal pale and dark Bocks. Baron Brewing: Muenchner-style Helles.

This is just for starters. If these lagers don't make it East, perhaps it time for the Easterner to make it West.

Victory Prima Pils, Victory All Malt Lager, Victory All Malt Dark Lager, Victory Oktoberfest, Victory St Boisterous, Victory St. Victorious, Stoudts Pils, Stoudts Anniversary Bock, Stoutds Honey Double Maibock, Stoudts Fest, Stoudts Gold, Penn Pils, Penn Oktoberfest, DeGroens (4 or so great lagers, names escaping me its been too damned long),

... and Redhook, Grant's, Pyramid, and Portland Brewing. The modern microbrewery trend started in the early 1980's, and the first ones were *all* on the West Coast (and that's not counting the ones that didn't make it, like Cartwright's and New Albion).

And while the East Coast was first settled, the early brewing styles there were top-fermented ales. When the great immigrations of the later 19th century came about, there were a lot of central Europeans in the bunch, especially Germans, and with them, brewers included. Many of them moved west, and in founding the then-new wave of lager breweries, the epicenter of American brewing also moved west, to places like St. Louis and Milwaukee, and the lager breweries spread further west, all within a relatively short time, thus putting paid to the notion that, with modern beer styles, the East Coast had a longer history: the newer lager breweries became predominant across the country, and of those breweries that survived Prohition, the predominant mass of them were the lager breweries.

Modern microbreweries might have taken a cue from Anchor Brewing, which was looking like it was ready to go under when Fritz Maytag took it over back in the 1960's (yes, that long ago). But 1982 was when Redhook and Grant's started up in Washington, and a successive wave of little breweries started up in the Pacific Northwest and California in the next couple of years. The bounceback finally reached the East Coast in several forms, the most well-known (and, some would say, notorious) being Boston Brewing and its Samuel Adams brand.

Some would suggest that, in the intervening time, the late-comers back east have exceeded the quality and breadth of the originals out west. Given the appropriate two comparisons, that would be a hard case to make at all.

"Hey look! A barrel! And just my luck, it's filled with fish!"

Bet there are others, too.

This is pretty much the only non-troll point I was trying to make.

This is the "one that got away," BTW. No "Bizzare" replies.

DW