Saturday, May 28, 2011

Recurring Fridge Fillers

Most of the posts up until this point have been my articles for The Triangle, Drexel's student-run newspaper. I try to find either interesting and fairly accessible beers to review for these articles (with the occasional Russian River beer tossed in because I like them), but I haven't really talked about my drinking habits. Now, while I love sour beers and lots of different imports, but as a poor college student I can't drink these all the time. So, here are my standbys:
Yeungling Traditional Lager: I love this beer. Its one of the few (if not only) remaining examples of a pre-prohibition American lager. Its clean, got a hint of corn (think high fructose corn syrup, but not horrendously sweet), full bodied and an all around good taste. Two other points: its local (Pottsville, PA), and dirt cheap: $19 for a case of cans.
Troegs Variety Pack: Troegs actually has at least 3 different variety packs on the market at different times of year. All contain Dreamweaver (Belgian Wit/American Wheat style), Pale Ale (well, its a Pale Ale) and Hopback Amber (American Amber, nice hop bite to this one without going over the top). All three of these beers are very good, clean and consistent; I've never had a bad bottle of any of them (except some Dreamweaver that I froze and killed the yeast, which doesn't count). The fourth bottle rotates with the season between Rugged Trail Brown Ale (an American Brown, not really my thing but a good beer none the less), Java Head Stout (a coffee stout, quite good) and Sunshine Pils (a nice, crisp Pilsner). I usually keep a case of this stuff in the fridge, as it provides enough of a variety of choices that people can find something they like, as well as letting me recommend beers that I know are good to people who are looking to try something different. I pay about $36 per case at my local distributor.
Victory On-Tap: I view Victory as my home town brewery, and I have been incredibly spoiled by them. They consistently turn out clean, to-style beers in a huge variety of styles. They have 20 taps and 4 hand engines, and generally all are full. The most impressive thing to me is the fact that I've seen 4 different pilsners on tap at the same time, and all tasted both very good and distinctly different. The growler prices at the Downingtown brewpub are insanely low, starting at $7.50 for a 2-Liter of their normal-test beers (pilsners, etc). Here is the catch, though: I only buy growlers from them. I have had inconsistent luck with Victorys bottles (Stormking tasting astringent, Festbier tasting funny, Victory Lager being just foul, Golden Monkey lacking the smoothness that it should), so I currently have 5 growlers and periodically drive to Downingtown to get them filled. Another nice thing about victory is that they have a growler filling station, which purges the growler with CO2 and fills from the bottom. This prevents oxidation and contamination, which makes the beer last longer (current record is a month, compared to the normal week for growlers filled off the tap).

So, that's what you will most frequently find in my fridge. I vary these from time to time, but I keep coming back to these beers, as they are cheap and fantastic.

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