LTS

And now we are talking about Drew Stafford again... let's just open up the old thread. :w00t:

That's really what it is all about. Regardless of mine or anyone else's opinion on the beer. I find Pliny's body to be too thin for my personal tastes. It's a quality beer. That said, the Zymurgy people are not necessarily your most discerning people. A lot of them engage in brewer love. They love Vinny and everything Russian River stands for. They also love Sam, they love Ed Bell, especially when he used to tell NYS to suck it because their labeling laws were stupid. The problem with so many brewers is that they see themselves as one of the big guys and immediately go fanboying all over their beers. Jack's Abby. Find them, love them. The only beer I've had of theirs that I did not think was perfectly executed was the collaboration they did with Evil Twin. They only make lagers. They are awesome. Smoke & Dagger is incredible. Jabbybrau will take you back in a good way. Honestly, love their beers.

Don't mistake my comments as saying they are not good. They are not worth the hype. People hold Pliny and Heady Topper to a different standard based on the scarcity of obtaining them. There are plenty of IPAs out there that can easily stand up to both of them. The definition of over-hyped. You know what's funny is that people (not saying anyone here) used (and some still do) to rip on Lagunitas for their use of hop extract oil in Hop Stoopid. They said it was cheating. However, along comes Heady Topper and boom.. the message changes. My favorite part of Heady Topper is the insistence of drinking it from the can. Anyway, I think what happens is the more you taste the more you become aware of the shortcomings in other products. If your first taste of an IPA was Dundee IPA and then you went to ST IPA you'd likely be dancing in the streets. You give it a few years and try a bunch of other IPAs and you begin to notice things that don't quite hold up anymore in ST IPA. ST IPA might have changed a bit, but so too have your tastes, and your experience with the style.

I like Pliny. However, I am not going to tell you that it is every bit as good as the hype it gets. I would say the same about Heady Topper. And I agree, most IPAs are truly bad. You also have to account for the variations.. is it West Coast or East Coast, etc. Now there's also the IPAs focused on New Zealand hops as well. ST IPA is a decent IPA. But I'll drink Union Jack from Firestone Walker all day long before I touch ST. I'm not hating on people who like it. One item that has messed with a lot of brewers is the contracts for hops and whether or not they secure them or have to alter recipes. There are a lot of IPAs out there that have altered recipes due to hop shortages, contracts, etc. People don't always notice it.

Yea.. it's owned by a member of the Wegman's family. White House liquor was in Brighton and was highly regarded before the Wegman's bought it and moved it. The same happened with Century Liquor in Pittsford. Century Liquor was in Greece and Wegman's moved it. Danny Wegman cannot own a liquor store due to state law. So, they have those stores owned by other members of the family and they just happen to all agree to use Shopper's Club and every other inventory system so they can obtain their operating efficiencies. There are some articles floating around about the legitimacy of it all but that was their play when the state refused to allow wine sales in the grocery stores. Frankly, I'm happy for it. I love Century. Great prices and knowledgeable staff. I don't think the Palmeri's (Marketview) would hold the same opinion but hey.. they do okay too.

I run some blind tastings with some beer industry people (distributors, reps, master brewers, etc.). The only thing people know are the style they are tasting, they have no idea what beers have been selected. Pumking ranked at the very bottom by everyone. It's an absolutely hideous beer. To a person everyone poured the remaining sample out rather than finish it. The second lowest? Warlock. ST IPA is mediocre. Unearthly used to be something special but there are plenty of DIPAs produced now that beat the snot out of it. The 2X Milk Stout was one of the worst beers I ever tasted. Just tasted Sonnet... didn't fair well in the blind tasting either for a saison. If you like the ST beers that's cool.. but I just can't get there. Other breweries that I think are at the top of the game across the board: Firestone Walker, Allagash, and The Bruery. I might also throw Three Floyd's in there as well. I've not had everything I could from Kuhnhenn's (MI) but everything I have had has been incredible. I think there are a few others out there that probably come close that might be smaller.

Swill.. SN regularly used as reference beer for style guidelines and you call it swill. There's personal taste for you. However, generally, not regarded as swill. Same with my kids on the root beer. They love always hitting up the local favorite. Was in Cooperstown all last week for baseball (will be there again in a week for Belgium Comes to Cooperstown). Stopped at Council Rock Brewpub. Their beer was fantastic up and down the lineup. I only dinged their Flanders Brown because it wasn't sour enough for me. It was good, but I like SOUR. Southern Tier doesn't get me excited... nothing about their beer lineup says "OH BOY" to me. It's fairly mediocre beer.

:worthy:

I'm one of the 3? I'd probably agree with you. That said.. since I am fast approaching my 19th wedding anniversary and I am only 42 I will say that it was definitely not a regrettable decision at age 21 to get engaged and married at 23. Didn't have a kid until 31.. But I did make some interesting decisions prior to meeting my wife.

The Vegas jersey technology is already set. It'll be a modified version of: http://www.t-shirttv.com/shop-2/ If they don't use that I will be quite upset.

Convenience is always a key factor. Better beer pricing is only important if you don't waste that savings in gas and time. :) When is it supposed to open? I've never been to the one in Syracuse as I rarely have a reason to go to Syracuse. I am in Buffalo far more often.

You should shop at AJ's Beer Warehouse.. on Clay Road in Henrietta. Huge cold beer selection, better service, and better prices that Beers of the World. I think you are thinking of World of Beer. That's a bar with a lot of beer.. one in Syracuse too. Beers of the World is a beer store in Rochester. It has history but in my opinion has been surpassed by many other bottle shops in the area. It's part of Angotti Beverage which is also in Batavia. That said... I've heard nice things about World of Beer.

It's tough. I saw the news this morning and it hit me pretty good. In years past it would have hit me harder but I've grown away from football quite a bit and a lot of it started when Van retired. It had nothing to do with him retiring mind you, but being 17-21 during a run of 4 straight Super Bowl losses really changed my outlook on sports and football especially. That said, his calls are my primary memories. I worked in a sporting goods store (Laux) through high school into college. I routinely worked Sundays and as such we always had the radio tuned to the game. As would be expected around those great years there were few to no customers traveling the malls during a Bills game. There was no traffic, people were home. So I had plenty of time to dust the shelves, rearrange inventory and listen to Van Miller paint the picture of what was happening on the field. Thought the great Houston game was not on television the crowds were still quite light. I suspect people still held out hope and were listening at home. As half-time hit and it was apparent the Bills were going to lose the foot traffic in the mall picked up volume. In the days of no cell phones word didn't travel as fast but I remember the air in the store as the Bills began scoring. It seemed that someone was always running out into the mall and yelling they scored. Every time that happened more and more people seemed to appear. Being situated right inside the mall entrance we also were a first stop for many shoppers. Perhaps they were just checking in to see how the game was going. By the end of the game the store was loaded with people. The atmosphere was unbelievable and the radio was cranked. All we had were each other and Van Miller to call the game. That's what I'll remember. There are few left these days. The regional broadcaster is being phased out as the national contracts are available to be streamed across any screen at any time. There are a lot of great play by play announcers who do those national games but none of them are tuned to deliver a message to a particular geographic area. They are stripped of their fandom and their emotions are engineered to deliver excitement regardless of the teams playing. Announcers like Van Miller had an entire fan base flowing through them. He lived in our community and channeled that energy into his calls. That's nothing any national voice could ever capture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSgfGKhYKu8

I would also scratch Buffalo Trace from the list purely on the "underrated" tag. People I know speak rather highly of it. I need to branch out more. :) Evan Williams is on my list. I should actually write these down or at least pull up this thread when I am at a liquor store.

There are quite a few pepper beers and none of them are Ed' Cave Creek Chili beer. There are much better ways of making them than slapping a pepper in a bottle. Ballast Point Habanero Sculpin is an IPA. Horsehead Hot Jala-heim was already mentioned. Rogue does make on. You'll find ancho chillies in quite a few beers as well. But that's only a hint of spice. There are also beers that use black pepper (many times in a saison). You could get Ghost Face Killah. That's a ghost pepper beer. Not sure how the beer is.. I use ghost pepper sauce sparingly at times but drinking a beer tainted with it would not be for me.

Cigar City has no true distributor in Rochester. We see Jai Alai from them every once in awhile when the distributorship that is owned by the people who own AJ's Beer Warehouse go on a run downstate and bring some up here. I don't think anything else sees wide distribution and certainly not in this area.

Saw Wooten play on the SMV Thunder tour stop at Jazz fest a few years ago. Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, Victor Wooten.. one stage... no words to describe that awesomeness. And yea.. George put on a helluva show.

Thanks for pointing it out. It was a great read. Always some interesting things that come out in those.

Totally unplanned but saw George Clinton and Parliament last night in Rochester. Great time.. great music, entertaining crowd to say the least. $5 ticket. Worth it. Victor Wooten plays in a few weeks but I'll be out of town. sigh.

I hit'em up.

It's a horrible decision. I would have considered going but I have a pre-existing commitment to help run the championship games for a youth baseball tournament. So, no chance of me driving in from Rochester. However, it'd be nice to some of the game. Oh well.. I guess I will have to go out with my wife instead.

We don't need a law for this. We need consumers and constituents to uphold their responsibility. Fans make the owners rich. Fans also elect public officials. If enough people want to support a team and enough people keep electing officials who will cater to the whims of these teams then it should continue to happen. I like to posit this test to people. What happened on the last Game of Thrones episode (or insert some other popular show, or Sabres prospect camp)? Now, what happened at your last town government meeting, state government meeting, etc.? Which are you better equipped to answer? I'll hazard a guess that television and the Sabres win out handily and until that's not the case...

Even in his avatar I swear RJ looks angrier than he did a week ago.

Jack announced his number... It is...

Sure, I think you can say they'd be hungrier going forward, but even just missing should keep them hungry and by just missing they do have a shot at the top 3 in the draft. Unless this team somehow is near the top of the league near the trade deadline there's little chance Murray is buying. This entire season is tweak mode.