Hop Wallop best by question.

Grabbing a case of Hop Wallop? It falls off very fast IMO.

 

......................say wha?

 

Did you mean "advanced marketing team" instead?

 

It means they flush the bottles with CO2, I would imagine. It might help it not fall off as quickly, but it is still extremely ignorant of Victory to have a one year shelf life for that beer.

 

I love that beer fresh but it falls off fast. I really only pick it up if I find it under 3 months old.

 

Hop Wallop has more of a Pine & Grapefruit hop profile than say "tropical citrus fruits". I feel that the pine and grapefruit type of hop profile does NOT fade nearly as fast as a tropical one. Prime example...Sierra Nevada's hoppy beers.

That being said, I don't feel that ANY Ipa/Dipa should have a freshness date of 1 year.

 

This bit of Victory promotion has been repeated here on the BA forums numerous times and seems to originate from the boosterism of the brewery's tour guides (often a less than accurate source of info as far as the greater brewing industry and techniques as a whole go).

Victory, like many brewers of their size, as well as those smaller and much larger, uses a double pre-evacation bottle filler. It is pretty much the industry standard, rather than somehow unique to Victory.

Victory's shelf life for its beers of "normal/average" ABV (Prima Pils, HopDevil, etc) are given a 5 month shelf life period - the same as many craft brewers, such as the largest Boston Beer Co. I always figured Victory went with 1 year for Hop Wallop based on it’s 8.5% ABV, ignoring the somewhat “new” at the time desire for the freshest hoppy beers (remember that in that era, Dogfish Head was still printing “This beer ages with the best of them” on 90 Minute Ale).

 

That's what I've always assumed too. I think it's definitely better fresh, but I also am not a fan of the recent obsession with freshness. Some hoppy, high strength beers do in fact age very well, like Bigfoot. Sure the hops fade and the beer changes, but a well aged Bigfoot is a beautiful thing. Hop Wallop doesn't hold up as well, but the idea that any hoppy beer becomes trash after a few months is an annoying over-generalization.

 

I love hop wallop. Please no go!!!!

 

In general, I'd settle for a readable date. Almost bought some Prima the other day but couldn't read the date code so I passed.
a) It's too small
b) It was illegible (characters/numerals missing)

 

The other aspect that is different wrt Hop Wallop is that it is bottle conditioned. Bottle conditioning can lead to longer bottle shelf life. As a homebrewer I bottle condition my beers and they can still be good at one year in the bottle. Having stated that, I make sure to consume my homebrewed IPAs more quickly (e.g., in less than 3-4 months) since my homebrewed IPAs suffer from hop aroma fade.

I took note of Morey’s statement of: “I feel that the pine and grapefruit type of hop profile does NOT fade nearly as fast as a tropical one”. That is an intriguing thought. I personally have not taken note of that aspect but maybe there is something to that wrt Hop Wallop?

As regards the topic of Victory’s advanced bottling line, Victory does indeed have a top of the line bottling line from Krones (a German company) where the bottling line performs a double evacuation of CO2 per bottle. The net result is a very low amount of dissolved oxygen (DO) in each bottle of beer, which results in a long bottle shelf life.

Cheers!

 

Jack, I've had it at almost a year and it's not the same beer, not even close. To even think the hops can stay fresh that long is a crazy and putting a year date on it is even crazier. For me, it doesn't matter if the hops are earthy, citric, tropical, piney or whatever, they all still fade and the malt becomes all too rich after they sit for a year.

So my advice? If you are going to drink the case(s) of Wallop in 6 months or under, go for it. If they will sit around long after that? I'd hold off. Maybe just buy one case?

 

Just to be clear.... I wasn't saying that the hops wouldn't/don't fade. I just feel like hops that have that Earthy/Piney/Grapefruit combo going on tend hold their flavor longer than beers like Pliny, Sucks, Hopslam, White Raja,....etc. I don't buy IPAs/DIPAs outside of 2 months. It's not that I don't think it's good still, it's just not what I'm looking for that's all. If some people like their IPAs with a bit of age, more power to em'.