Need New Glarus Recommendations (and bottle shop)

Oā€™so is my newest brewery I track down when Iā€™m in Wisconsin. They have a porter called Night Train thatā€™s pretty good. They also do 12 pack samplers with a variety thatā€™s not disappointing. This spring, I got their beer called ā€œGrandpaā€™s got a gunā€ that was amazingā€¦ it was brewed with maple sap. I think they had it in 750s someplace.

Apple Ale is certainly available. Was in Madison and then New Glarus (for their ā€˜hard hatā€™ tour) last weekend.

Ok great replies, thanks. I was going to have him grab me (if they are readily available) more of the wild ales/sours from New Glarus. I have had Spotted Cow before and yeah, its good I guess, but you have to understand that I live in Genesee country, and there is only one Cream Ale for me (other than mine of course) :mrgreen:

So are NGā€™s large format/sours pretty widely available? I was just going to have him grab me 12 of those or so, worst case I can trade for other stuff with some of the fanboys in my area.

Apple Ale really doesnā€™t sound appetizing to me. Is it any good?

I think youā€™ll need to direct him to a specialty bottle shop for their larger format bottles. There are a few in Milwaukee, but most of the offerings youā€™ll find at the corner stores, and theyā€™re everywhere, will be the ordinary 6-pack varieties. Woodmanā€™s will probably have everything, though. Of all places, I found some of their large sour bottles at Seguinā€™s near the border between Wisconsin and Michigan. Havenā€™t opened them yet, saving them for a special occasion. When I was in Milwaukee earlier this summer, I didnā€™t find any of them, although I only looked moderately hard.

Woodmanā€™s was a good suggestion or a Whole Foods would be a good choice. Not too hard to find the large format NG bottles in any sort of real liquor store. Know Whole Foods has a good selection of beer in Wisconsin since I was looking where to pick up some 3 Floydā€™s down there and they are listed as having a good selection.

The Apple Ale is actually pretty good, really just tastes like tart apples.

I will fly in the face of typical beer mulery and hoarding and post this:

I ended up sending him to Avenue Liquors, who I called beforehand to check on inventory. Their beer guy said they typically have Wisconsin Red, Raspberry Tart, and Serendipity, but they do sell really quickly. My coworker said it was super easy off of the interstate, and they gave him a discount on a full case, 12 bottles for $128 with tax.

Score!

Nice! I really like Serendipity and Raspberry Tart. Very well done. Try not to drink them all in one sitting!

Wish I would have seen this post earlier. Lots of hype with New Glarus but IMO those big bottles taste little like beer and mostly like popsicles! The small 12 oz bottles have all their better stuff. Next time.

Dave are you generally a fan of wild ales? Iā€™ve heard they are sweeter than say Rodenbach, but (God I hope) not as sweet as Lindemans or something. I definitely donā€™t mind sweet/fruity up front, but need it to be dry with some subtle funk on the finish.

Serendipity, Wisconsin Red and Raspberry Tart are all on BAā€™s Top 20, to your point. As I said above, if I REALLY donā€™t like them I can definitely trade with some local BA sycophants for something I like :mrgreen:

What are your favorite small-format bottles? I like Spotted Cow, but Iā€™m in Genny Cream Ale country :mrgreen: Heā€™s picking her up again for Xmas, and as long as I throw him an occasional growler/bomber of my stuff, he said he will be happy to continue to mule for me.

Iā€™m interested in this, too. Iā€™ve had quite a few of their 12-oz bottles, and while theyā€™re generally solid offerings, they are nothing that I would seek out. Iā€™d choose them over BMC, but thatā€™s about it.

Whenever I go home to Wisconsin I always seek out Sprecher products. There is only one store in all of New York City that sells them. With New Glarus I always buy what catches my eye to sample them but none have ever stuck in my memory like Sprecher has.

[quote=ā€œPietroā€][quote=ā€œdmtaylo2ā€]

Dave are you generally a fan of wild ales? Iā€™ve heard they are sweeter than say Rodenbach, but (God I hope) not as sweet as Lindemans or something. I definitely donā€™t mind sweet/fruity up front, but need it to be dry with some subtle funk on the finish.

Serendipity, Wisconsin Red and Raspberry Tart are all on BAā€™s Top 20, to your point. As I said above, if I REALLY donā€™t like them I can definitely trade with some local BA sycophants for something I like :mrgreen:

What are your favorite small-format bottles? I like Spotted Cow, but Iā€™m in Genny Cream Ale country :mrgreen: Heā€™s picking her up again for Xmas, and as long as I throw him an occasional growler/bomber of my stuff, he said he will be happy to continue to mule for me.[/quote][/quote]

I love wild ales. The big bottles are NOT wild ales IMO. Too sweet, too big on the fruit, donā€™t taste like beer at all. They do make some great wild ales and oak aged stuff but these are not them.

By the wayā€¦ recent research of mine has reached the conclusion that BA donā€™t know sh**.

I am tapping on my Kindle currently but remind me later and I promise to followup with a far more detailed post. :slight_smile:

Hey cmon, if its not 100+ IBU and 9.5% abv, its GARBAGE!

Its not much better, but a little: Iā€™m generally more of a Ratebeer fan.

I may be trading for some Canadian Breakfast Stout or Cantillonā€¦

That there is a worthy tradeā€¦ Iā€™d make that any day!

I certainly hope to read this synopsis. I do agree that sites like this are a total waste of time for the following reasons:

  1. taste is subjective. It could taste good to you but bad to me.
  2. anyone can post their thoughts and raise or lower a score without training.
  3. some people rate styles they donā€™t even like (I hate stouts but am drinking and scoring this one)
  4. I find it difficult to rate a beer thatā€™s only available in one small region.

Loopie, you pretty much nailed it on the head.

As promised, hereā€™s some detailed raw unedited tasting notes from my personal file from the past 15 years, in order from awesome to ho-hum. Ratings at the end of the lines are on a 1 to 10 scale. If I said BEST OF FEST or BOF, it means I went to a beer fest (Iā€™ve been to a LOT) and this was my favorite beer of the whole day. Disclaimer: These are my opinions, which means they are the right answer and anyone who begs to differ will be ignored. :mrgreen:

Coffee Stout BEST OF FEST - excellent 10
Cran-Bic BOF - sweet & sour, nice Brett 10
Alt vanilla, caramel, hi alc, awesome 9.5
Hop Hearty IPA BOF - Cascade & EKG, 6.1% abv 9
Black Wheat unique black malted hefeweizen! Yum 9
Oud Bruin oak & cherry Flanders - nice! But too much oak 9
Snowshoe Red Ale artificial grapeiness! complex 9
Moon Man piney Chinooky APA - WORTHY! 9
Edel Pils excellent German pilsner 9
Imperial Hefeweizen spicy, sweet, Belgiany, not clovy 8.7
Blonde Lager German pilsner 8.5
Crackā€™d Wheat bubblegum 8.5
Spotted Cow easy going, corny 8
Fat Squirrel sweet, nutty, funky finish 7.3
Staghorn Octoberfest too hoppy, pretzely, dry 7.3
Organic Revolution (Pale Ale) just O.K. 7
Serendipity tart cherry popsicle! Not beery 7
Belgian Red HUGE cherry, not much else 6.2
Two Women Bavarian Lager Spaghetti-Oā€™s?? 6
Stone Soup grapey fruit but not a Belgian 5
Cabin Fever Honey Bock sweet honey, DMS 5
Apple Ale way too sweet! Whereā€™s the apple? 5
Thumbprint Berliner Weiss sour but very very plain 5
Uff-Da Bock yuck, caramel?, not great 4.3
Raspberry Tart tastes like soda, NOT beery 4

EDIT: And hereā€™s another way to view a guyā€™s opinions in a more fancy fashion:

https://untappd.com/user/dmtaylo1/beers ... rt=brewery

NG raspberry tart and belgain red are way way sweet almost medicinal cough syrup. Never understood the craving for those. You will have no problem finding them though if you like them they are everywhere in wi.
Serendepity is not as bad it has a little more balance but not much.

some of their one off sours are much better but you have to catch them in season, they go quickly.
Even at the brewery for all the beers they put out they is not a huge selection on tap at the brewery, since a lot of it is not around long

Had their scream iipa recentlyā€¦loved itā€¦apple ale wasnā€™t bad either.

I love their apple ale. Surprisingly I found their scream DIPA underwhelming.

Your taste buds must be backwards :wink: