What are you drinking in this weather?

[Isis]

The local appears to be doing Norwegian beers tonight? Of 22 beers on tap, we have 5 Nogne beers, 2 Haandbryggeriets, 1 Lervig, 1 Aegir, and 1 Lervig. (Lest I sound more worldly than I am, I've never heard of any of these.) Drinking a Nogne #500 Imperial IPA now, not bad.

Lervig are pretty good actually. They did a great collaboration with Magic Rock, a farmhouse IPA. They also do a REALLY good double rye IPA which you'd never guess is about 8-9% from drinking it. I hear their lager is good. But most of their stuff is solid.

Nogne are a little hit and miss for me. They did an impy stout (with a London brewery called Crate) which I thought was less than mediocre.

And Aegir - are they the ones with the cool labels with the mythological creatures on them? I'm not sure. They did a nice double white IPA with Beavertown recently, but that is all I've had from them.

[Hoppy Hour]

The local appears to be doing Norwegian beers tonight? Of 22 beers on tap, we have 5 Nogne beers, 2 Haandbryggeriets, 1 Lervig, 1 Aegir, and 1 Lervig. (Lest I sound more worldly than I am, I've never heard of any of these.) Drinking a Nogne #500 Imperial IPA now, not bad.

I've never tried Aegir, but I have tried several times and I like all the others. I've even met some of their brewers (Nogne & Lervig).

[Red Tiger]

Aquarius and water, cutting out the Aquarius

[Isis]

I've never tried Aegir, but I have tried several times and I like all the others. I've even met some of their brewers (Nogne & Lervig).

Ironic story: I once went to a MTB event for Lervig. It was a ticket only beer and food matching meal, limited to about 25 people as it was a really small venue. The brewers went around and spoke to every single other person in the room but never bothered to speak to my boyfriend and I. When it finished we went to another infamous beer bar in central London and randomly bumped into the two brewers from Arizona Wilderness who had literally just flown into town to do some collaborative brews with Beavertown and Buxton. Those guys are the most fun ever and we plied them with Buxton's Double Axe (a 13.4% so called Double IPA) for the rest of the evening. We refer to that as our Meet The Other Brewer event.

[FuzzydaBear]

Vodka and gatorade. One has to at least try and stay hydrated in 95 degree weather. It is almost officially summer time.

[Piccolo_Snow]

Crown Royal Apple, Perfection in a glass.

[MinDonner]

A makeshift not-quite-Kir-Royale involving champagne and raspberry liqueur with fresh raspberries in - this may be an official cocktail but I don't know what it's called if so. Anyway it's awesome.

[wolverine]

Its hot. Switched from beer to vodka lemonade.

[MercenaryChef]

Mirror pond pale ale. We are in the California Free State where a 12 pack of a good craft beer is available at rite Aid for just a little over a dollar per bottle.

Fuck I forgot how great this state is.

[Isis]

We booked our flights yesterday. Woooooooooo.

[Hoppy Hour]

Ironic story: I once went to a MTB event for Lervig. It was a ticket only beer and food matching meal, limited to about 25 people as it was a really small venue. The brewers went around and spoke to every single other person in the room but never bothered to speak to my boyfriend and I. When it finished we went to another infamous beer bar in central London and randomly bumped into the two brewers from Arizona Wilderness who had literally just flown into town to do some collaborative brews with Beavertown and Buxton. Those guys are the most fun ever and we plied them with Buxton's Double Axe (a 13.4% so called Double IPA) for the rest of the evening. We refer to that as our Meet The Other Brewer event.

Quick question, since you & your boyfriend seem quite up to date with the english/london beer scene.

What do you think of Fourpure? An italian importer has just started selling them and I was wondering if they were any good. Looking their ratings on untappd and ratebeer they don't look like anything special, but I'd love to hear from you.

[MercenaryChef]

Fresh pints of pliny the elder were certainly the winner yesterday!

[kairparavel]

Fresh pints of pliny the elder were certainly the winner yesterday!

Yes. Close second was Vict'Oreos at Sea.

[kairparavel]

We are at the Ballast Point tasting room in Little Italy. It's magical.

[ElizabethB.]

Lukewarm Magners. Dont judge!

[all swedes are racist]

Fresh pints of pliny the elder were certainly the winner yesterday!

Yes. Close second was Vict'Oreos at Sea.

We are at the Ballast Point tasting room in Little Italy. It's magical.

I hate you guys

;)

[all swedes are racist]

On the other hand, I bought a 6 pack of 60 Minute IPA from a Walgreens in Downtown Crossing. Anyone familiar with Massachusetts' shitty vestigial blue laws with realize how awesome and confusing this is.

[Isis]

Quick question, since you & your boyfriend seem quite up to date with the english/london beer scene.

What do you think of Fourpure? An italian importer has just started selling them and I was wondering if they were any good. Looking their ratings on untappd and ratebeer they don't look like anything special, but I'd love to hear from you.

Interesting question!

The most notable thing about Fourpure is that they were one of the very first UK 'craft' breweries to start canning their beer and they did this pretty much right from the get go - as soon as they started brewing, they started canning. The other breweries that canned already had a market and had done plenty of experimentation. Not to mention that a canning line is very expensive and most of the breweries who have bought one needed to build their business first, outgrow their starting site (or sites) and level up to bigger and better premises. Fourpure obviously had an absolute shit tonne of money behind them from the very start. I can't think off the top of my head what size their brewery kit is but it's big. Maybe 30bb or more. Quite ballsy for a start up brewery.

The next most notable thing about them is that their beers aim for a certain part of the market which most other breweries have ignored or at least not focused on. If I had to choose one word to describe them it would be accessible. Whereas most breweries keep wanting to stretch themselves with ever more hops, higher ABV, weirder ingredients, beers brewed on the moon or up a tree or using crazy yeast scraped off a beard or whatever, Fourpure have kept it simple. Their beers will NOT blow you away.

Once they got settled in, their session IPA and IPA were pretty good (if unexciting). I hear that people also like their pils. For me, they are just not my cup of tea. If I went to a bar and that was all they had on I would drink it. But I would hardly ever choose their beers over another London brewery which makes more interesting beers.

And finally, we recently tried their 'west coast saison' and thought it was fucking horrible. It tasted like someone brewed a beer using a US ale yeast, and added artificial sweeteners, plus the dried up scrapings from their spice rack. URGH. So, look out for that one, eh? :)

[Hoppy Hour]

Interesting question!

The most notable thing about Fourpure is that they were one of the very first UK 'craft' breweries to start canning their beer and they did this pretty much right from the get go - as soon as they started brewing, they started canning. The other breweries that canned already had a market and had done plenty of experimentation. Not to mention that a canning line is very expensive and most of the breweries who have bought one needed to build their business first, outgrow their starting site (or sites) and level up to bigger and better premises. Fourpure obviously had an absolute shit tonne of money behind them from the very start. I can't think off the top of my head what size their brewery kit is but it's big. Maybe 30bb or more. Quite ballsy for a start up brewery.

The next most notable thing about them is that their beers aim for a certain part of the market which most other breweries have ignored or at least not focused on. If I had to choose one word to describe them it would be accessible. Whereas most breweries keep wanting to stretch themselves with ever more hops, higher ABV, weirder ingredients, beers brewed on the moon or up a tree or using crazy yeast scraped off a beard or whatever, Fourpure have kept it simple. Their beers will NOT blow you away.

Once they got settled in, their session IPA and IPA were pretty good (if unexciting). I hear that people also like their pils. For me, they are just not my cup of tea. If I went to a bar and that was all they had on I would drink it. But I would hardly ever choose their beers over another London brewery which makes more interesting beers.

And finally, we recently tried their 'west coast saison' and thought it was fucking horrible. It tasted like someone brewed a beer using a US ale yeast, and added artificial sweeteners, plus the dried up scrapings from their spice rack. URGH. So, look out for that one, eh? :)

Thanks for your reply, that was most helpful. At the moment they are selling IPA, oatmeal stout, pils, session IPA & amber ale.

What do you mean by 30bb?

Anyway, I thought too that a canning line was very expensive, then some friend told me it was not that expensive (he used to be a sort of intern at a small brewery who started canning before Brewdog did), although I agree that most brewers would want to invest that money in other stuff first.

In Italy nobody is canning at the moment, but I think that the first one to really try and sell cans could get some easy spotlight just by doing so.

[Mr. X]

What do you mean by 30bb?

It's a measure of the brewing capacity of the brewery -> 30 barrels is 945 gallons or around 3600 L (in the US, anyway -- not sure if UK and Europe have different standards for a barrel).