Sipping Beer - WTF?

Has anyone ever heard of "sipping beer"?

My wife brought me a bottle of this a couple of days ago. I haven't tried it yet, because one apparently needs a brandy snifter to properly imbibe.

Has anyone ever drunk anything like this? I'm more familiar with "chugging beer."

No. Its not fucking tea.

Quote :

This barrel aged barley wine beer is a sipping beer best served in a brandy snifter. Complex malt flavors framed in oak, with hints of dark chocolate, vanilla, coconut and a touch of dark cherry.

Sounds fucking delicious!

I had an Irish dark ale one time at Kell's pub that was so thick you could almost stand a spoon in it.  It came in a schooner, but it would have been better served in a brandy snifter I think. Half a beer was a full meal.

Coupled with Kell's famous soda bread it was divine.

It's a barley wine. I've never heard of that particular one, but in general, barley wines are richer (and stronger) than regular beer, putting them in a different category altogether than American piss-beer. The brandy snifter comment is the over the top, but you usually do buy barley wine in smaller bottles and drink them more slowly, so I guess the publicist is trying to make the point.

I'm familiar with the term barley wine to denote beer with a high alcohol content; I just wondered if anyone had ever heard it referred to as sipping beer. This particular one comes in a rather large bottle - 22 ounces. Looks much like a wine bottle.

By the way, not all American beer is piss (though the biggest brands are exactly that). There are some really excellent beers made in America. You just don't see them advertised on football games. My rule of thumb for beer is, "If you see it on television, don't buy it."

Is it similar to a malt liqour?

Malt liquor is typically a pale lager with a higher alcohol content than standard lagers.
This is an ale.

At almost a dollar per ounce it had better be damn good.

_Howard wrote:

By the way, not all American beer is piss (though the biggest brands are exactly that). There are some really excellent beers made in America. You just don't see them advertised on football games. My rule of thumb for beer is, "If you see it on television, don't buy it."

Even some major brewers make drinkable stuff. I'm rather fond of Blue Moon's seasonal pumpkin ale, which a beerdrinking friend of mine pointed out is made by Coors. Normally I wouldn't touch Coors.

Blue Moon makes some nice beer. I like their wheat ale; thankfully it's very light on the wheat which I normally don't care for. Their Mountain Abbey ale is also very good, but hard to find around here during its seasonal production run.

Not to make too fine a point of it, Coors does not make Blue Moon. Blue Moon is now owned by Coors, but they continue with their own brewing practices.

Quite a few  small brewers have been bought by large companies, but they are mostly left alone when it comes to creating their product, the big guys realizing that if they turned the small brand into the standard big-brand crap, they would lose the small brand's customers. The big companies just skim off the profit.

NoCoPilot wrote:

At almost a dollar per ounce it had better be damn good.

One would hope so. I buy other ales from this company and they're only about a buck fifty per 12-ounce bottle.
Then again, at 13.5%, this bottle has almost as much alcohol as a standard six pack.

Thanks, that makes me feel better about the short case in my fridge.

I just did a little research, and it seems that I was wrong and that Blue Moon has always belonged to Coors. Blue Moon Brewing Company is owned by Tenth and Blake Beer Company, which is owned by Coors. Tenth and Blake also owns some beer companies that were originally small, independent brewers, and they also distribute some imported beers, but it seems that Blue Moon was a creation of Coors from the start.

I fucking hate the Coors company, but Blue Moon is still good beer.

What about some of the other small labels / big distribution, like Butt Face/Bighorn, Big Sky/Moose Drool, Samuel Adams, Alaskan, etc.?

Don't pop that "sipping beer" until you buy a suitable vessel.

NoCoPilot wrote:

What about some of the other small labels / big distribution, like Butt Face/Bighorn, Big Sky/Moose Drool, Samuel Adams, Alaskan, etc.?

Can't include Samuel Adams in this list. Boston Beer Company is the largest American-owned beer company in the United States. It sells a lot of beer. I've tried a few of the Sam Adams brews and found them very boring.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Don't pop that "sipping beer" until you buy a suitable vessel.

Those are lager glasses. Are you trying to kill me? You know you can't safely sip from those things.

_Howard wrote:

I've tried a few of the Sam Adams brews and found them very boring.

Seems to me their Octoberfest is pretty good. Hazel Brown too. Actually it's been a while since I tasted any, so what do I know.

Now that you've mentioned their seasonal beers, I do recall enjoying their Summer Ale. Unfortunately, when the next year rolled around it was not available here. I've experienced that problem with summer seasonal beers from other brewers. They make them for a few summers and then drop them. Maybe I'm the only one who likes them.

Not available in the West but the only independent brewery larger than Boston is Yuengling, and they're supposedly pretty good. Only had their beer twice, and it wasn't a fair taste.

For the past few years, Boston and Yuengling have been running neck and neck in beer sales, with Sam Adams getting the top place once or twice.

Yuengling isn't available here, but I probably wouldn't buy it anyway until I learn to pronounce it.

According to their web site, Yuengling is the oldest brewer in the country.

And, they're not Chinese.

Leinenkugel is available here, but I can't pronounce it either, so...

I'm drinking a Cherry Wheat that is to die for.
I'm sort of meh on small or local operations. We have Lazy Magnolia here and I'm not all that fond of theirs the more experience I have. I'd prefer a Heineken.
I've also learned that I'm not a stout person, beer-wise anyway. I like a pale crispy beer. Shocktop makes a Honeycrisp apple I like.
I have also learned that I am a champagne person. The Argentinians are making a dolce that I love and am having a hard time getting.

Edit: Oh, you know who is a good local is NOLA's local brewery's Abita. Now, the Turbodog was too much for me, but the Amber is excellent.

Who makes Cherry Wheat?

I'm not a stout person either, in order to drink one you have to set aside a whole afternoon and skip at least two meals. A nice pale ale is much more of a "sipping beer" that you can consume with food, while doing something else, without ruining the whole afternoon.