Chuck Silva resigns from Green Flash Brewing Co.

Good for him. GF is fairly bland and stagnating quickly in a city that is home to way too much great beer to care. Rayon Vert was very good until they killed it, and Palate Wrecker was good for a four-pack a year, but otherwise they were nothing special. Then they went and ruined one of my favorite beers of all time in Nelson.

My dislike of them has nothing to do with rarity or lack of trade value; it's simply because better beer is easy to find (and fresher, too).

I also suspect they are the oft-rumored big acquisition by our corporate overlords.

Good riddance to GF, though I'll give whatever Silva does next a few tries.

 

One point that people will make is that Duet was noticeably variable when it was only done in Alpine, too. I'm sure some people in the know could opine on that. LOL

I've not heard anything positive about Hoppy Birthday yet, so if it is indeed getting better then that is good news.

 

That particular rumor may have been idle speculation that started around the time of the St. Archer's buyout. But even if you do put some credence into it, "Ballast Point" was whispered a lot more than "Green Flash", FWIW.

 

that suks

 

Man, BP would break my heart, though I suppose it could've just been Saint Archer (another non-loss).

 

did you email them? they made up for it two fold.

 

isnt it conceivable they did both? raised the unit price AND decreased the count? say it went for $12 for a 6er to $14 for a 4 pack. i dont know the details but i wouldnt put it past any business to do this

 

They made a decision to go from 6-packs to 4-packs a number of years ago so I don’t remember specific prices. What I can state with certitude is that the price per bottle when it was a 6-pack was significantly lower than the price per bottle when it went to 4-packs.

Cheers!

 

No, they total price for the 4-pack was less than the price for the 6-pack. It was the per bottle price that went up significantly.

A cynic would state that the motivation for changing from 6-pack to 4-packs was to obfuscate the decision to greatly raise prices (i.e., greatly increase profit). I would have a higher opinion of Green Flash if they just simply raised the price of their 6-packs.

Cheers!

 

Not for most people that I know who communicated the C3 issues to them...

Emailed Mike immediately following a butter-bomb Silva Stout experience with my Fiancee (as a courtesy). Though Mike was quite responsive he was ultimately dismissive of my concerns stating that statistically (1% to 5% of the bottles as being "bad") the remaining bottles should be fine; and if not, then I "simply don't like the beer for what it is supposed to be".

When the same results occurred at a subsequent bottle share (with some experienced palates on hand to confirm a bad bottle), I relayed the information back and hadn't heard back from him since.

While I'm glad to hear that Mike has made this right with some people...several local purchasers I know of are simply out a good chunk of change and with no final response from the brewer. Though I never asked for any recompense, some would have been nice.

Happy to see Chuck moving on and have very little doubt that he'll be successful. However, the continued decline in GF quality over the years (with only a couple of exceptions) combined with my personal experience have prompted me to move on in what ihas become a killer beer scene over there.

 

interesting. I bought a bottle early in the year and emailed them about it once they came out and said to reach out if you had issues. told them the bottle was long gone, didnt have a reciept, but did tell them what store i got it from and when, and they asked for my address - no questions asked.

two weeks later i got a box from fedex from them, hand signed letter apologizing for the infection, and in the box 4 beers -- flanders drive, silva stout, and two cellared GF beers from 2012 (la freak and a grand cru i believe).

weird that you had a different experience and had more bottles/more info than i did.

 

Am a bit curious as to why they did this for some and not others...

I tend towards a caveat emptor approach to my beer purchases and more appreciated that, initially, Mike was receptive to my feedback and was communicative. Had that been the extent of it, I would have been happy. However, his ultimate dismissiveness and the subsequently bad experiences with the remaining beers was enough for me. Unfortunately I wasn't the only one locally who shared a very similar experience.

Don't mean this to be a continued rant and to get too far off topic: I'm looking forward to seeing what Chuck churns out in the coming year...have met him several times and think that he is a good guy with immense talent!

 

Coming year?

The article says that he has not found a place yet. Doing that, then getting it ready to brew, will take at least a year. Maybe two. Now maybe he does have things in place that weren't revealed, but I doubt it.

 

I am forever stumped on their Green Flash West Coast IPA. To me it taste like soapy bitter hops but everyone else loves the crap out of it. Palate Wrecker and their Imperial India Pale ale on the other hand are delicious.

If they stopped making beer I wouldn't miss them much. The Double Stout I had this year tasted like old burnt toast compared to the delicious chocolate stout of yesterday. Thats pretty much the last time I am going to buy any Green Flash.

 

Or keep profits relatively similar while covering increased operational and raw ingredient costs. Of course I have no idea which would be the reason, but both are equally plausible. Often times, businesses raise prices out of necessity rather than as a cash grab. Because many businesses recognize that consumers tend to react poorly to increased prices.

As far as using a format change to obfuscate a price increase goes... I know this is something that happens, but I think it is more common to do it by changing a more obscure unit that the number of bottles in a package of beer. You'll often see things like the number of ounces in a box of cereal or a bottle of liquid decrease--something the non-savvy consumer might miss because after all, they are still buying one box/bottle/package. Hiding a price increase by making an obvious change to the number of bottles in a package seems silly. I think it's more likely that they didn't want to price out consumers who have an upper limit for what they will spend on a single package of beer. Case in point: I'd personally prefer to buy four bottles at $12 than six bottles at $18.

Now if GF had suddenly decided to change their six packs from 12-oz bottle to 11.2-oz bottles, I might feel differently.

But ultimately, it's all about personal purchasing preference, as you noted.

 

This thread makes me realize how little GF I have purchased the last few years. It just seems I've seen very little beer around except for West Coast IPA, which really does little for me. I've hoped to see some "Alpine" but that has yet to happen. I really thought these guys would've made more of a splash in the Arkansas & Oklahoma markets.

 

pretty sure that was the St. Archer acquisition. Not a big name, but they do make a fair amount of beer for an upstart.

 

likes GF. Wishes Chuck the best in his new adventure. American corporate culture does not reward talent; in fact, the culture punishes unilateral talent in every phase and style.

Chuck: go forward, be fearless, brew great beer, and they will come. Ignore BA trolls, they don't buy much beer. Excellence must be it's own reward until the beer drinkin' public catches up.

All that, and thanks for the excellent IPA

 

nooooo there is still a fair amount of industry chatter

 

You honestly think Chuck reads this or any other Interweb forum? Or if in the unlikely case he did, he'd care what people thought? lolz