Summit has announced the third beer in their Unchained Series, an India Style Rye Ale, brought to you by brewer Mike Lundell.
Beer Specs:
Color: Amber
Malt: Harrington, Rye, Crystal Rye, Chocolate Rye Malts and Flaked Rye
Hops: Summit, Citra
Yeast: American Ale
OG: 14 Degrees Plato
IBU: 60
ABV: 6.3
The IRA, a medium bodied beer with spicy rye specialty malts, will be introduced in early March. Brewer Mike can be found at:
March 1: Jersey’s, Inver Grove Heights, 8pm
March 3: Burger Jones, 8 pm
Your first glass of IRA is on the house until the keg is fried-no strings attached!
Win fabulous prizes and try the special Unchained feature burger.
March 4: The Muddy Pig, St. Paul, 6pm
March 5: Tracy’s Saloon & Eatery, Minneapolis, 7pm
7-11 pm features 2 for 1 Summits and a $4 house-cured Tasso ham sandwich with fries
March 11: Shamrock’s, St. Paul, 6pm
Yum yum! Gimme some!
I had a sample taken directly off the primary. While still a bit yeasty it was bitter dry and spicy. Can’t wait for the bottles to hit the shelves.
What I like about Summit is they haven’t succumbed to the extreme beer insanity.
Has anyone seen Rate Beers best beers of 2010?
Seriously stupid people.
How about some numbers:
-73 of the beers are US beer
-1 British beer
-1 German beer
Hunh? Really? Two world class beers our of Germany and the UK?
Even dumber:
-44 to the top 100, you guessed it, RIS
-9 double IPAs
-7 barleywine
You get the picture: big beers dominate. Not one pils. Not one bitter.
I could be much more reasoned and eloquent about this, but let’s just boil it down to one word: moronic.
There is no wisdom of crowds and web 2.0 is bullcrap. Pure and simple bullcrap.
People likes what they likes I guess. Im curious what effect this has on any of us?
Duke-
That’s an interesting question.
First, the herd mentality. People should think for themselves and not rely on these sites with alleged beer experts. Liking what you like, not a problem, saying RB and BA mean something, other than being skewed too big American beers, that’s leaving out a whole world of beers that are great
Second, when I go The Cellars and other places they often have little signs by some of the supposedly top beers, saying things like “95 on Site X.” So these dubious rankings by anonymous “experts” are being used to market things to the average joe, thus enforcing the bullcrap.
Who are these RB and BA “experts?” You don’t know. I don’t know. They may know something about beer but having a crappy palate. Who knows. Anyone can post anything anonymously…which makes me realize I should post under my own name from now on and not some dumb alias.
It was done to piss Beerfan off
Anonimity is fun, it allows us to act like complete jackasses without any reprecussions! Im keeping mine. I hear what you are saying, but isnt all this extreme beer carziness a natural recaction to all those years of the only beers being available to us a variation of the same basic nuetral tasting lager? Given time wont we see the pendulum swing back the other way?
How long has craft beer been around? Summit it 20, right? So a while. Since the 70s I suppose with places like Anchor.
I guess when people first discover that there’s more to beer and lite beer, they can tend to go a bit off the deep end, however, that’s really no excuse to overvalue the extreme beers and write off session beers.
Why can’t a balanced session beer score well on the rating sites? Pick the best pils in the world, whatever they may be. Why isn’t that as good as or better than a RIS or Westy 12?
When Summit came out with the Kolsch in the Unchained series someone asked on this forum “What’s so special about that?”
First, it was incredible. Second, you can’t get it fresh here from Europe. Third, not many places make one state side, or a good one anyway.
What wasn’t special about that Summit kolsch? It had incredible pils malt flavor, was crisp enjoyable and eminently quaffable. I’d chose a beer like that any day over a big cloying palate wrecker of a RIS.
No argument here really. Just writing it off to human nature and the state of things in general. I guess lots of people are just way more excited about palate wrecking Souts and the like than they are of well made pilsners or bitters! I think we will start to see more appreciation of less “extreme” beers as our community continues to grow and evolve, at least I hope so.
It’s good to see you 2 getting along.
*snicker*
The last step of any kind of mastery is simplicity, in my opinion. If one can brew or enjoy a simple yet refined session, I think that shows real mastery. I’m not saying its easy to brew an RIS or a Quad, or if you enjoy those that you have a dull palate. Rather, to be able to coax good flavor out of simple ingredients and show some restraint, that is true mastery.
People are typically going to rate beers high that have a lot of flavor, ie, RIS, DIPA, quads. Its the same w/ food or other drink. You can have a plain steak, and its pretty good, but a marinated, peppered or whatever steak is going to have a lot more flavor, and be preferred by many. It doesnt seem that hard to comprehend to me. The majority of raters aren’t going to rate a beer high for subtlety. People want something that smacks ya in the face.
I don’t think it’s a matter of more flavor. I think it’s perceived rarity and exclusivity. If you could get Westy 12 anywhere, no one would care.
Now if someone only made once a year an extremely small batch of a sour, double-hopped quad RIS that would be the Best. Beer. Ever.
Flavor has something to do with it. If Westy 12 was a plisner, no one would care.
I don’t think flavor has anything to do with other than the misperception that a big boozy intense beer is somehow better than a balanced crisp quaffable beer.
If a beer is judged as a beer in a style, whatever the style, it should be able to score the max points, to be a world class example of that style. Any beer should be able to be top ranked, not just RIS, but that’s not the case.
With 44 of the top 100 beers being RIS, people are not scoring the beers as beers on their own individual merits, they’re ranking their favorites. It’s a popularity contest and not a beer ranking.
It’s a load of crap.
I think Fletty’s just as biased as all the RIS wankers.
It’s a popularity contest and not a beer ranking.
It’s a load of crap.
Really Steve? This is a topic you actually care about? Not enough going on in your life so you need to care about what beer other people enjoy?
Who cares about what BA, RB, or the BJCP thinks about any beer? Your personal opinion should be the only one that really matters. Not sure why some people are so invested in caring about what others think rather then forming their own opinions.
Agreed….I know what i like
Kyle-
Yeah, really. Load of crap.
So….what’s my bias?
Fletty: your subtlety wanking is no different than BAtards getting all a spoogey about Dark Lord. Your “incredible pils malt flavor” is their “dried dark fruits.”
“It had incredible pils malt flavor, was crisp enjoyable and eminently quaffable. I’d chose a beer like that any day over a big cloying palate wrecker of a RIS.”
Yeah, I’d take a Darkness over a DMS ridden american light lager. Let’s compare apples to apples.
And crap man, let’s take a step back here and remember that the crux of your argument is that someone else’s preference is inferior to yours. Jesus. You’re arguing about beer here. About what someone else likes even!
Wow, Kyle. You’ve got it all wrong.
My personal preference for a balanced beer has nothing to do with my argument that the beer ranking sites can’t rank a beer on it’s own merit.
As I stated, if a beer is evaluated to it’s style than any beer should be able to score in the top tier, and not just a particular style.
Also, I did not say I was a superior beer judge, just that the beer ranking sites are skewed and useless.
If you’d like to respond to the argument I made rather than engaging in personal attacks, please feel free to do so.
Oopps…should read: If a beer is evaluated to it’s style, then any beer should be able to score in the top tier, and not just a particular style.
I think you’ve got some things confused here.
1) No one on BA or RB is doing BJCP sheets for these beers. Did you forget that the style guidelines are _descriptive_ not _prescriptive? Commercial beer defines the guidelines, not the other way around.
2) Who are you to say they’re not being evaluated on their own merits? Any beer can make it to the top 100.(there’s a pils on there). Big beers are over-represented because these are the styles that people like to drink and evaluate. (see above wrt preference).
3)”Also, I did not say I was a superior beer judge” Neither did I. Where did this come from?
Kyle-
You said: “crux of your argument is that someone else’s preference is inferior to yours”
Which is not my claim at all.
I’m arguing that RIS and big beers are not better beers in general, that they’re over represented in those moronic ranking sites, and that the ranking sites are useless at best and at worst propagate misperceptions and stupidity.
Ok Fletty, I’ll bite. Why are they under-represented?
Interesting argument here. Mainly, SFletty arguing with himself, or not understanding when he’s made his point and we get it, but doesn’t catch on yet. Okay, you think pilsners are better than imperial stouts…and you don’t write reviews on those websites, so…???
Maybe there’s so many RIS’s on the top of the list because they are so f**kin’ awesome! (palate wrecker be damned!)