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I guess my working class background keeps me grounded, sometimes to a fault because my conscience instinctively disagrees with these figures, lol. It doesn't seem too accessible a price in the world I'm familiar with I suppose, even if my situation has since changed for the better
If you're into it and can afford these numbers then good for you (theoretically I could 'afford' to as well, I would just never choose to do so!)
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damn tect, I didn't understand much of that (okay I have had Yuzu and Eldeflower in pales before, but I'm very unfamiliar with the Lambic style - heard of it, but nothing more)
So this style is more suitable for cheese then, essentially? Interesting. I'll have to give it a go one day. I understand the concept of 'barley wines' - is this similar at all, or a completely different kettle of fish?
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@Demon, we all spend what we feel like spending on the stuff we love. For me, that's wine now that my soundsystem/listening room is done to my satisfaction. Before I really fell in love with wine, it was always the $15 bottles I grabbed. Then I tasted the 2019 Catena Zapata Malbec Argentino because the bottle is the most metal thing I've ever seen and soon realized expensive wine can be absolutely fucking divine in a way I didn't know possible. Been trying to strike a balance ever since.
It's like audio. Some yamaha bookshelf speakers are fine until you hear a $10k setup in a dedicated that was thoughtfully put together lol
Again, balance and priorities though. My whole family loves my music room and my girl adores my wine picks, so I'm not going against the grain with my passions.
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Barley wines are a completely different beast. Lambic/gueuze are typically very light/pale in color and generally have lower ABVs, often in the range of 5-6%. They are sometimes made higher, but even the larger ABV gueuze still don't taste... "heavy".
Barley wines, on the other hand, are made with a LOT of malt, malt which is darker (sometimes even with a very small percentage of it roasted), which gives the beer a high ABV and also leaves a lot of residual sugars left behind. So you've got a very strong, heavy, sweet, and boozy beer, common taste/aroma profiles are caramel, leather, tobacco, prunes, toffee, etc.
Because barley wines are strong/robust and have high ABV, they are also good suspects for barrel-aging. Whiskey/bourbon barrels are a common choice for aging, which gives the beer an even greater depth of flavor (oak, vanilla, bourbon, char, etc.). Adjuncts can be used, too (things like vanilla beans, coconut, chocolate are typical).
Basically, barley wine is the type of beer you'd open on a cold winter night, dark at 6 pm, fire place going, sip on it white eating a hunk of bitter chocolate. Gueuze/lambic is more - summertime, let's go outside and drink a beer on the patio in the sunshine with some cheese and grapes. Both beers are very complex and deserve to be nursed more so than, e.g., a lager or pale ale or whatever. But they are on quite opposite ends of the spectrum.
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ngl i have some friends who are big wine nerds and i've done some blind wine tasting and have always preferred stuff in the ~$10 range over the expensive (and obv very cheap) stuff. i suppose i need to be more ~sophisticated~ but i don't really get it i guess lol
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Ooh. I will read properly in a bit. I’ve very limited experience but do understand barrel aged / had a couple of whisky cask beers in the past. Yeah I knew barley wine was high %, just didn’t realise Lambic / Gueuze was lower %
I think you can get “complex” pales mind, I’ve definitely tried some that have ingredients you’d never expect including dates / prunes (lol, just to use something you mentioned) -although this type of thing is definitely more commonplace with dark beers, which I also enjoy
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figs in wine is where it's at. Touch of tobacco in black met- I mean, wine can be fantastic too... gotta stay on topic here
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I'm got very fine taste in gas station high gravity IPAs myself
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mmm hops
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You're right, and I didn't mean to imply that pales, IPAs, lagers, etc. couldn't be complex, it's just that generally those styles of beer tend to have tighter bumpers regarding expected flavor and aroma profiles. IPAs especially (or any heavily hopped beer, for that matter - I've had some dry-hopped Kolsch's and pilsners that were lovely) are growing to be more and more complex as brewers have been cultivating more and more hybrid hop varieties and experimenting with different hopping schedules and recipes for their beers (especially with dry-hopping which has really taken off over the last ~5 years or so). As the hops themselves evolve and grow, so too do the beers in which they're used.
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does dry hopping often lead to bolder flavours / versions of hops? Probably bollocks, but I veer towards anything labelled as such, lol
and a contradiction a lot of beer drinkers seem to dislike but I love is the “black IPA” … a ‘pale beer’ that’s as black as the night!
I should explore more. Your insight is helpful and clearly beyond my knowledge so thanks.
Same to Orb, whose knowledge is even more alien to me, but I’m already considering petitioning the wife to indulge me in one ‘expensive’ bottle of wine per month, to share. Broaden horizons and whatnot. We have a local independent stockist I could visit on my way home from work
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@Wretched, fig notes yessss, tobacco yessssss, saddle leather, forest floor and deep floral notes of violets and rose petals are my favorite tertiary notes in reds. I thinks that why I kind of lean away from Napa wines often as they sorta just seem jammy and overbearing on the fruit notes too often. Of course there's exceptions like anything else. That Michael David Hill Earthquake Cab Sauv is pretty well brilliant for being $40
I also seriously love getting those petroleum and gooseberry notes in a good riesling. White wine is a whole other world that's growing on me even though I drink probably 10 bottles of red to every white I buy
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@Demo: Generally dry-hopping has the largest effect on the aromatics of a beer. Hops are normally added during the boiling schedule of a beer. Early/mid-boil additions have a larger effect on flavor, while late additions are more for the aroma. Dry hopping, on the other hand, is literally adding hops directly to the vessel that will be fermenting/storing the beer (after the boil is done) and so you don't get as much extraction as you do at warmer temps, so again, the aroma is what benefits most from dry-hopping. Of course, though, aroma and flavor are so closely linked that a strong aroma can certainly suggest flavors to your palate.
Black IPA is actually one of my favorite styles, when done correctly. Bitter, hoppy overtones with a backbone of roasted/charred malt.
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Black IPAs are the best
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In a not completely insignificant coincidence the pub I’m in has a Lambic beer on draught which is fairly unusual around here, it’s rhubarb flavoured. Coincidentally (I’m sure) it’s also the most expensive beer I’ve ever seen, literally (I’ve gone for the Baltic porter instead, lol)
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a thread entirely about craft beer. DSO is officially hipster bm.
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…and fine wines
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Yes lambic is often quite expensive if you're not directly near the source. Though I'd imagine it's cheaper in the UK than it is in the states. It's rarely "on tap" here except for a handful of very major locations (LA or NY, for example, robertsona always sending me picks of Cantillon lambics he's drinking on tap, the fucker) or if a big beer event is going on. Otherwise, you're buying bottles, and they are not cheap. BBQ joint in Detroit somehow got their hands on bottles of Cantillon Iris (750 ml) and were charging $70 per. Sad thing is, the price isn't that crazy compared to what you'd expect to pay on the secondary market anyway. And it was an aged bottle, if I remember correctly. (Lambic, unlike many other styles of beer, can generally be aged without worry of it "going bad", since it is already inoculated with wild yeast to begin with.)
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So £11-odd for a half-pint (284ml) is potentially reasonable then? Holy shit!
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All of a sudden I’m more interested in Orb’s wine musings, almost seems reasonable now, lol
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