Hill Farmstead in NYC

Agreed. All these kegs seem off recently.

 

I went to HF a couple of months ago expecting to be pleasantly underwhelmed - they had been so hyped up that I just didn't see how they could be that good. Alas, I went, filled up some bombers and bought some bottles, and I was just completely blown away. While their S&S #4 keg had kicked the day before I went, the S&S #4 is possibly the best DIPA I've ever had. While I only caught the very end of the keg, the S&S5 I had yesterday wasn't even in the same ballpark. I mean, a tasty beer, but certainly not worth chasing or the high price tag. Would I turn it down? Definitely not - super quaffable, dry and crisp and subtly fruity. But not up there with anything more memorable.

 

I thought in terms of taste and mouthfeel, the SS#5 kegs in NYC were fine and similar to what I had in January at the brewery. The major difference to me was the nose. Didn't get much at all with the kegs here.

 

I hate hate hate! the "this beer wasn't as good as last year" "this brewery expanded and now it's not as good" type threads, but... I have to agree that Abner and SS5 were not the beers I remembered having up in VT. But until I've had them down here multiple times, and had them back up in VT, I'm going to put it down to inflated expectations / setting / various specifics to do with me at the time.

 

I never had Abner till this past Friday night. I have no basis of comparison to any prior tasting of it but I felt it was a solid beer but nothing "exceptional" and certainly nothing to get excited about.

 

Yeah based on what I tasted I'd have to agree. I was at the BGH 8th anniversary event and Tesseract was my clear favorite of the two.

Edit - so I guess what it leaves me wondering is:

1. Has the HF expansion taken the edge off their beers? I mean if any brewer would pay OCD attention to that not happening, it would be SH.
2. Have NYC breweries really just stepped their game up that much?
3. Is setting even more of an influence on enjoyment than I originally thought.

 

Or it could be just as much to do with the NYC side of things.

Unclear how "fresh" the kegs are. Everett is a completely different beast than the Pales and IPAs, but the keg of Everett that went on over the weekend out here in LI was kegged 7/21. I have no idea how long things have been sitting (maybe not at all) but I do find it a bit strange at the incredibly variety of kegs that are being tapped around NYC. It just seems unlikely that they're all "days old" whereas up in VT there was a pretty good chance they were way closer to that.

And I'm sure drinking them at the source, or Pro Pig or Res etc. waiting in line, taking in the "hype" induced a bit of confirmation bias. It certainly did with me.

 

Definitely a valid point man, but the SS5 tapped at Owl Farm last week was an 8/3 kegging. Without getting into the "SS5 really drops off at 14 days, 6 hours and 34 mins" gags, I don't see how freshness, at least on that occasion, was an issue. But definitely valid nonetheless.

 

Fair enough. Just throwing out the single data point I had. I wouldn't go into that 2-week nonsense either. Seems like a pretty regular leaking of kegs into the city then

 

it seems to me that most (although not all) of us who have had beers in the last little while in vermont think this ss5 was not up to what we expected. something just wasnt the same about these kegs. what it is, who knows

 

I'm guessing the S&S #5 kegs were all kegged on 8/3 - at least the one at Cooper's Chelsea was per their instagram. I had it on Friday, so it was 17 days old, and can attest to the fact that I wasn't blown away. Never had it at the source though.

 

If that's the case, then it's a problem with the distribution line somewhere along the ways, possibly at the HF end of things. Those kegs all went on this week because they all got distributed this week. I'm guessing SH still expects bars to put his hoppy kegs on ASAP - if I remember correctly, the fact that bars weren't doing so is why the kegs stopped showing up in NYC some time ago. My buddy works at Union Beer and showed me the order sheet - those kegs all were up within 2-3 days of being delivered.

 

Yeah does my owl farm anecdote not back the same thing you're saying?

 

Maybe I am missing some logic here but the whole "these kegs are dated" argument seems to fall flat given HF is still pouring the same beers (e.g., S&S 5, Everett) at the brewery at the same time that we are getting them down here. Same goes for the bars in VT still pouring these beers. I guess HF could have made newer batches that they held up there but doubt it.

 

S&S #5 is up at Broadway Dive.

 

Makes sense to me. I doubt it has to do with the age of the keg. It might have something to do with what happened in transit to NYC, or maybe just a bad batch... who knows? It was still a good beer, just not mind blowing.

 

well this thread got funny in a hurry

 

Susan at Threes in Brooklyn was pretty durned tasty today.

 

Not that I'm looking to encourage or discourage the "(blank) was so much better (blank)" talk, but could someone who tried Dorothy at Blind Tiger this week chime in? This was the first time I had it and I thought it was fantastic.

 

So, so correct.