Brewski - The Beer Thread - For Our Beer Lovers!

Malted

@CothermanDistilling said: Optimist potential brewery owner: "My friends all love my homebrew and say I should open up a brewery and sell it"...

Realist: "charge your friends $6/pint and see how long they keep showing up"...

That's gold!

CothermanDistilling

@Kapea said: McGuires in Pensacola and Destin are still going strong, decades in.

yep, the few that are around found the way, but nearly no new ones opening... McGuires is great, they used to give you yeast for homebrewing if you wanted, I remember flying it back to Tampa a couple times on work trips before that pesky liquid law on the airplanes..

Unsensibel

@CothermanDistilling newest thing seems to be just a small brewery with tap room and no distribution (two here opened up over the last year). Seems to work for them but another 2 years will tell.

SN new building is awesome. As @Smaug said - you need to sell the brand as well as good product. SN in N.C. is like a Disney for beer lovers... it's magical!

rossco

@Malted said: That's gold!

True as well.
Went to a yard sale on the weekend and scored 2 corni kegs for $10.

mark85

@rossco said: Went to a yard sale on the weekend and scored 2 corni kegs for $10.

Awesome! In the UK, if you paid 10x that for two cornies, you would feel like you grabbed a bargain.

zymurgybob

McMenamins in Oregon and Washington keep growing and expanding. They must be up over 70 places by now, in old schools, ballrooms, hotels, roadhouses, Masonic lodges, and just about everything else you can think of. My personal heroes.

Kapea

The McMenamins that you and Bushman and I went to had excellent beer and food. Their beer selection was not huge, but what they had was very good.

zymurgybob

It was ok, but the dullest McMenamin's I've ever seen. I'm told they have since replaced that one with a real McMenamin's, a re-purposed elementary school. In fairness, they are not the best of the Portland breweries for beer variety, but I always love their Terminator stout.

The company was great, though.

Kapea

You're right. I was thinking of the lunch we had at the restaurant at the Woodinville Whiskey Co.

The MacMenamins we went to was in a strip center in an old Bennigans space. I'm glad to hear they moved to the upgraded elementary school.

jacksonbrown

Ours' are usually dry although I did get suspended once for drinking beer in the girls dunny.

Malted

@zymurgybob said: McMenamins in Oregon and Washington keep growing and expanding. They must be up over 70 places by now, in old schools, ballrooms, hotels, roadhouses, Masonic lodges, and just about everything else you can think of. My personal heroes.

Taps at a lodge! I think Australian lodges have a thing or two to learn. I seriously was thinking about applying to be invited to join but I pulled the pin when I discovered that you have to believe in an ultimate deity. Feck that.

Kapea

The Gordon Biersch brewpubs in San Diego were all always crowded. The one near the ADI conference is huge. It was so crowded that they had valet parking available if you didn't want to hike a half mile across the parking lot. The Stone Brewery Restaurant was crowded at lunch time even as late as 2:30. That one reminded me of a restaurant my parents and I use to go to in Hohenschwangau for some reason.

zymurgybob

@Malted said: Taps at a lodge! I think Australian lodges have a thing or two to learn. I seriously was thinking about applying to be invited to join but I pulled the pin when I discovered that you have to believe in an ultimate deity. Feck that.

Ok, for clarifications, a used-to-be Masonic lodge. It's a major part of the McManamin's business model to acquire aging buildings that are often historical sites on their way to being lost forever, and then fix them up enough to pass local code while keeping as much of the original character as possible. Then, by using beer sales (and also food, but beer's most important) for income, they not only save the buildings, but put something important back in the local tax base.

Look at them as an historical preservation society, only with beer. And a marching band. And a newspaper. They are saving the Pacific Northwest one building at a time, and with beer! What's not to love?

Kapea

I hear McMenamins has their eye on preserving this place:

zymurgybob

Could very well be. Here's what they're working on now. What you see is the training class for the beer servers.

The old dear who owned the place technically moved out, but she gets complementary beer, so she's usually helling around the place somewhere, adding to its color. She's apparently a big Sesame Street fan, but no-one understands the "Rule Bert & Ernie-a" reference she's always yelling about.

rossco

@zymurgybob said: Look at them as an historical preservation society, only with beer.

Holy shit we need that here. Except we don't really have many old buildings much. We've only been building for a couple of hundred years. :D

jacksonbrown

In places like Melbourne and Bendigo all those old buildings have always been pups

Smaug

Pups?

jacksonbrown

Pubs :D
Big thumbs on little phone screens catch me out constantly ~X( (not that my spelling was any good to start with)

SDeurope

SDeurope

Kapea

The orginal Pilsner.

punkin

In my opinion one of the best beers in the world. Certainly one of the best i've ever tasted.

TheFranziskannerNotTheCoopersPunkin

Kapea

Beer definetly has a homefield advantage. The closer you are to the brewery the better the beer.

I fell in love with Bayerisch weissbier when I first visited there in the early 80s. I could find it in the States, but it was not the same. All the esthers and phenols that make weissbier uniquely weissbier had long since faded away. They are very short lived.

However, for whatever reason, Franziskaner weissbier made the trip to the States relatively intact. It became my favorite in the States, especially on tap.

Then I started brewing my own with a little bit of yeast help from Schlossbrauerei Maxlrain.

Unsensibel

Exactly my observation. Beer from here is always better

SDeurope

Maltycultural

@punkin said: TheFranziskannerNotTheCoopersPunkin

Really love the FrAnz

SDeurope

SDeurope

SDeurope