Eclipse Worth The Price?

...but if you read the whole thread, there are plenty of people who dislike the beers independent of price. "Thin", "mess", "sub-par", "joke", "weak", you could start a dictionary of how to express disdain for the series.

And I'm glad to see you're avatar crying after my lowly Twins laid a busting on them last night.

 

Brandy was my least favorite variant, EC18 was fantastic.

As a Canadian who loves BA stouts, $35 is expensive but doable.

 

well now i feel like a schmohawk

 

nope... just too much dough at $35 a bottle. $20 is the most I'd pay for them. that said, they must make a killing hustling those beers. the "horizontal" is the best gimmick in craft beer

 

can anyone who is praising the beer confirm that bottle variation has been fixed?

my complaint with eclipse was that the bottles i had were crappy; however, in seeing that reviews are all over the place, i gave 50/50 the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to bottle variation. i was later heartened to see a few other posters say this.

but the brewer, todd ashman, jumped down my throat when i mentioned bottle variation. and i'm curious to see if he quietly fixed it (without admitting it, natch) or if he's just plowing ahead with "fuck you levitation" as his battle cry.

i mean i'm sure they'll get a pass on year-over-year qc problems unlike some other breweries... but let's put that aside and answer the fundamental question: fixed or not? (and please refrain from using the word "troll")

 

I haven't personally encountered any that was noticeable, although I also haven't had more than a handful of any given variety.

 

EC18 was indeed fantastic but I don't think it's worth more than the futures price which was around $22 I believe. I thought 4 Roses was awful...it had no barrel flavor and only tasted like a stout with honey in it. The 2011 Rye was the same way. I've heard the Eclipse bottles have a lot of bottle variation though.

Edit: I had the 2009 Rye and thought it was amazing so something was definitely not right.

 

Ditto, never noticed any when the beers were fresh. But given the relatively short life of it being excellent vs. other bigger stouts, it's hard to tell if something is bottle variation vs. losing a step due to aging. But I've had the Rye several times since it's release, from fresh to 18 months +, & it's been a pretty steady decline.

 

I honestly don't think these decline as much as people say. I had an 18 a few weeks ago and it was still great. A few months ago I had the PVW and it was among the best BA stouts I've ever had. I've heard nothing but that it's on a steep decline, so either people are wrong or that beer was a goddamn elixir of the gods fresh. (And all of the various vintages I've had have been consistently good.)

This is all even weirder because I am about as bearish on aging as anyone on this site. I just posted in a thread saying not to age CBS because it crashed harder than a freight train into a brick wall. But the consensus that Eclipse drops fast and hard is just not consistent with my experience.

 

you're also pretty new to beer, aren't you? "among the best i've had" may not be a lot.

telling people not to age a coffee beer doesn't make you bearish on aging. and fyi, cbs has a lot of bottle variation too... so that may be overshadowing any 'aging' effects.

 

Well over a year in, over 1300 beers tried. I think the only well regarded BA stouts I haven't had are Kaggen and BA DL. (Also, you seem to post this in response to something I've said every few months. How long does someone need to be at it to be qualified to give an opinion?)

On here it does. (Also that wasn't necessarily used an indication of bearishness, I just thought it was funny timing-wise.) I hadn't heard anything about bottle variation before, and the bottles I had were stretched out over a long-ish period of time so I wouldn't have noticed anyway.

 

i just don't take most sweeping / absolute statements very seriously, so it's not personal.

my impression is that you post a lot but don't have a lot of experience with beer (kind of like adamjackson), but numbers-wise i seem to be wrong on that. then again, i think most beer learning comes from experience over time and not just getting in a huge number of ticks quickly... but i'm in the minority on that.

really? i thought the two things most ba's agree on are: don't age ipas (well, except ephraim in a growler) and don't age coffee beers (unless they're rare and will make good trade bait).

 

That's fair, but how much time? I'm honestly curious about that. (Also, I've been around way longer than Adam Jackson.)

I think the average BA believes that all beers age well, or at least "turn into" other beers.

 

So you're saying those high ABV IPAs I've been cellaring wont turn into barleywines?!

 

Funny stuff. I'm on the opposite end, I love to age BA stouts, & these to me are one of the few that just don't hold up for me. On the other hand, I've never had the PVW, & the 18 is holding up really well. The drop is most noticeable in the Brandy, Four Roses, & Rye.

 

Eclipse is good...but not worth the 'bottle price'. I'll drink it if they have it on tap though. Then move on to a better Nogne O RIS!

 

I don't hear anyone talking about one's disposal income which I feel is a significant element here. $20-30 is not much money for some and quite a bit for others. That aside, IMO, most Eclipse variants are worth the original mark of $20-25 or so but not what some are trying to resell them for. Especially when you know 50/50 will burp another batch in a few months.

 

I've only had the EC12.

It was incredible.

 

Our tasting group did all of them about a month ago including the iced.

Making a super cru out of all of them was tasty, but other than that, the winners were EC 12/18, Cru, Iced in my opinion. Now when you take into account what people are trading Iced for, it becomes laughable.

As mentioned above, they certainly aren't terrible but its a tall order given the price tag.

 

A lot of folks at the aforementioned tasting seemed to favor the EC 12, EC 18 and Iced... someone can correct me if I'm wrong there. That was a few months ago. The EC 18 was my favorite of the lineup and one of the best beers I had that night. I'm not sure I would shell out $30+ for any of the other variants.