Does Colorado have any whales?

Zeke's Belly Up Stout by Golden City Brew for Mile High was one of the best BA stouts I've ever had (Buffalo Trace version). I hope it gets made again.

 

You forgot to add "*waves hand in a 'these-are-not-the-droids-you-seek' manner*" after writing "There are no whales."

 

If they make it again, they need to remember to carbonate it. The bottle I had was pretty flat. I thought it was good, but not great. The low carbonation didn't help.

 

KBS... don't know if you'd call it a whale, but it was a hype bomb for sure. Also chalk up PtE.

But then again everyone has a different palate.

 

I gotta agree here. KBS was "meh" just like the other Founders beers I've had (Breakfast Stout, Double Trouble, got a couple Curmudgeon's in the cellar...). PtE is a good Double IPA, but honestly I had it before I even knew it was one of the most sought after beers and thought, "This is not bad, but it's not spectacular." Many apparently disagree. Oh well...

 

THERE ARE NO COLORADO WHALES, AND THERE NEVER WILL BE.

That is because CO craft brewers care about one thing...getting the best beers in the world into the hands of craft beer drinkers. Multiple brewery expansions, infinite collaborative relationships across the brewing community...

See Andy's (from Avery) quote in this thread:

http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/avery-oud-floris-hitting-the-stores.26361/

I LOVE CRAFT BEER, AND I LOVE IT IN COLORADO.

 

Yeah KBS was super underwhelming- good, but not what the hype led me to believe. PtE is a great beer that I think gets hype-train status because it is kind of an originator of the style.

 

You do realize you just necro'd a thread from 2.5 years ago right?

 

Conveniently, we kinda do have some more now. At least more of beers that aren't just rare because they're freakishly old. Some of those limited run Casey items would certainly qualify.

 

FTFY

But have you tried the KBS?
it's just OK.

 

Holy crap. You're right.
----
I have a couple bottles of KBS right now and I am awaiting 2016 to do a 3-year vert.
I am of the opinion (right or wrong) that "whalez" are often overrated due to high expectations. I think even if Colorado doesn't have many "whalez" it doesn't really bother me. We've got plenty of good beer.
I think part of it is that we don't obsess over stuff as much, heck, a lot of beers don't even get many ratings from Colorado folks. Maybe we take all the awesome variety for granted? Like when I was looking at Ctayt and it only had 1 rating from the latest release of over a hundred bottles.

 

Framboise Noir is now a whale

 

In fairness, we as Coloradans (compared to East-coast hype train engineers-> choo choo!) are typically happier and find joy in many things- not just beer, so the motivation for us to over-hype our own beers for the sake of driving up trade values and what not is simply not there.

I hate going to the post office as well, so trading doesn't appeal to me. I have one 'trading partner', my brother in Charlotte. Our trades typically consist of some Odell IPAs and a couple others while he sends me Hop Drop 'n Roll and maybe a few Westbrooks, 2-3 times per year. Generally no whalez are exchanged, only regional unicorns. We tend to save our whales for drinking together when we visit one another.

 

In addition to the production levels of most of the high-end Colorado beers (which others have already touched on, with the notable exception of Casey), I think it might be more difficult to stand out in Colorado because there are just so many good breweries. For example, if Founders was located in Colorado, would the same hype exist around KBS? I'm not so sure. There are a lot of breweries putting out similar quality IMO.

 

I tried KBS for the first time earlier this year. It was from a 2015 bottle. I was very, very happy with it and would go to great lengths to get more. Any "hype train" beer will always seem to fall a little short. If you had just bought KBS off the shelf without knowing anything about it....do you think your opinion would be different? Does hype change our taste buds?

 

Would Barrel aged Ten Fidy be considered a whale? I don't think it was released outside the state

 

IMO, the only way to truly figure out if a beer is entirely hype-based is a blind tasting. Comparisons to other similar beers can often offer context about flavor profiles and things you do/don't like. Especially ones you might not normally notice with no comparisons.

That said...I did buy KBS back when it was available off the shelf. I liked it then and I like it now. I prefer the normal version, but it's still a damn fine beer either way. In a blind from a few years ago, I recall it doing just fine. Back then it wasn't too tough to pick it out (there weren't many BA coffee beers until recently) but it was well liked.

 

It's not a whale per se, but it has "trading value" meaning people are willing to trade for it. They are massively increasing production this year so it won't be as .rar and will probably see distro out of state as well.

 

Old thread rising. I still agree with the sentiment that people/breweries are less whale-centric around CO. You rarely see releases around here for one-off beers with sub-100 bottle counts. Most breweries ascribe to the "show up and you get at least a bottle" perspective, and many of them (e.g. Avery) try to produce a lot even of their most limited stuff.

Still, definitely more whales around these parts nowadays. Despite their relative youth, I think a good number of Casey beers qualify: B1 Saison/East Bank, B1 Blackberry and Balaton Cut, Leaner (insta-whale!), B1 Seasons Past, and the dynamite Cellar Selection Blend 3 Saison...which I am told did make it into a few bottles.

The B1 AC Golden Stuff definitely counts. Others have mentioned the old CS Cellar Reserve Stuff, Persica, Whaelzblood, Batch 1, etc.

Cork and Caged La Folie and few other New Belgium beers from many years ago definitely count as whales, although the novelty/sentiment probably brings more value than the beer itself.

At this point I don't think so. OB has a pretty huge barrel program and will be releasing quite a lot of this stuff in the future. Some of the earlier crowler releases probably would eventually count (like the Heaven Hill or Wild Turkey releases), but those won't really hold up long enough (in fact I hope anyone who has a > 6 month old crowler of one of those beers drinks it asap...)