East Coasters don't know what beer is! Do they?

[tiberiusaquila]

Enjoying a Cadillac Mountain Stout as we speak.

Damn fine brew made in Maine.

[Neoteny]

your friend was probly goin to gas stations and shit all he had to do was go to a beer distributor

yeah, your buddy couldn't possibly have seen an accurate sampling...

at the beer distributors in Pennsylvania or the liquor stores in Jersey, you can find beer from all over the world, including the local micro-breweries, like Flying Fish, Brooklyn, Yards, etc.

and that begs the question. can you get those beers in Washington state? what about Yuengling Lager? is that sold nationwide?

i'm curious... cause within the last few years, i've been seeing Yuengling in places where you'd never have seen it before, like in NYC, and even up in Connecticut or Taxachussetts.

Apparently Yuengling is hard to get ahold of down here in the south. An acquaintance had me try one because he had looked for it for so long... I was unimpressed...

[Jenos Ridan]

Yeah, your lucky, the PNW is the beer capital of the US. Several years ago, Portland actualy took over, as the city with the most brewery's in the world. (it used to be Colonge, germany I think).

Being in WA, you get lucky, you get stuff like Mac & Jacs, that is really only availavle localy, being from Portland, I am in the same boat. Even when I travel to Cali, or other western states outside of the OR/WA section, you just can't get the high quality micro brews that you get in OR/WA.

Cheers!
John

Ever hear of Deshutes(sp?) Brewery, out in Bend? They have some good stuff too.

BTW, If I say Cider I do not mean to say Juice.

To answer the questions regarding my friend's crediblity:

A good friend of mine got back from a trip to Tennesee(sp?) and North Carolina, and he says that he couldn't find a store that sold anything other than the run-of-the-mill Bud, Miller, Coors, Steel Reserve, Michelob and other third-rate swill. Apparently, not even a high-end country club had anything decent.

Looking everywhere, from roadside gas stations and diners (possibly a Cracherbarrel or two. He tells me that the food at a Crackerbarrel is not very good either, so) to a pricey country club, he couldn't find a thing. I'll own up to the statement that the East Coast is clueless as to what beer is, and rephrase that to "the South". From all the talk about moonshine, I guess that in the course of it all they forgot that you don't have to distill everything that gets fermented.

[AndrewLC]

Where in Washington? I live in the Tri-Cities

[Jenos Ridan]

Where in Washington? I live in the Tri-Cities

Little town about twenty miles north of Vancouver, straddling the I-5.

[AndrewLC]

Where in Washington? I live in the Tri-Cities

Little town about twenty miles north of Vancouver, straddling the I-5.

Ah, I don't think you could get much further away (while staying in washington of course)

[tzor]

Good, quality hard cider is indeed hard to find; but that's just simply due to "demand side" economics. There simply isn't a large enough demand for it, hence the lack of a quality commercial product.

In addition prohibition hit the cider maket exceptionally hard. People didn't make cider just to get drunk and when pastrization came about it took over the industry. New immigrants didn't bring their love of cider back to the country with them as did the Germans with their beer and the Italians with ther wine. Mead has a similiar problem ... there was never a demand in the US for it. There is one medery on Long Island and it in an industrial complex.

One of the oddest things is the wine maker wannabes, who developed a vibrant fruit wine industry in the areas of the very warm and the very cold. Florida is good for a number of fruit wines, even vegtable wines ... their carrot wine has a very chardonay taste to it.