Green Flash Distributing Alpine Bottles

I had my first GF Nelson bottle and it had the same hop profile that I find in stones enjoy by, thunderstruck and avery's raja, which are all good beers. For me it has a dank onion like flavor. I got zero tropical notes that I am used to geting from Nelson.

I've had GF Nelson on draft before and drank that without complaints but I missed all the tropical notes that I love about Nelson hops in the bottle version. Seemed dominated by the other NZ hops used in the beer.

Also, the beer was crazy bitter!

 

Batch I had bottled ~ late September was not overly bitter at all -- and "close enough" to the prototype that I was super encouraged. What's the vintage you speak of? Recent-- this month ? A Nelson that tastes like enjoy by or raja ? That's just way off and sounds like where GF was earlier in the year.

 

Brand new bottle. I just picked it up. I've had the draft versions before and tasted much better. I kept thinking this is Bitter! I had enjoy by 10.31 the night after Nelson and they were very similar on the hop profile.

I've heard good things about the bottles so I was looking forward to drinking it, as I haven't had any bottles by GF.

 

Got some high kick on the way to NE along w gf Nelson bottles -- will report my findings!

 

Be interested to see whatcha think.

 

Well, I just clicked a banner add, here on BA, and is announces 6pks available Nov. 15th.

 

Is it just me, or is this a thouroughly confusing utterance?

 

Nelson was done very well and Hoppy Birthday. Duet is just meh, west coast style IPAs are blech.

 

I 100% agree with you on this, yet earlier in this thread folks were stating that scale ruined everything and it seemed to be commonly accepted. Much like yourself, I simply can't fathom how scale comes into play to a noticeable degree.

 

No, he just clearly meant to say Green Flash {insert whatever Alpine beer} is good but the original is better.

"thouroughly" is thoroughly confusing though.

 

HAHAHA Got me.

 

Yes, seeing all three Alpine in bottles and on draft in the Denver/Boulder area

 

It was only 15 months ago that my consulting job took me out to North County; once a week I would make the 1 hr pilgrimage from Oceanside to Alpine to get the "real thing". Great beer, it is intentionally understated to say it is one of the best IPAs using Nelson out there. It was like Christmas every other Friday to bring it, Duet and Pure Hoppiness home in my suitcase, attempting to keep it, the Pliny bottles and the Societe growlers I would buy cold on the flight back East so I could share with my now fiancee.

Last week I traveled to NoDa, then Asheville...had Hop, Drop and Roll at the brewery; excellent. At Revolution Ale House just a mile down the road? it was a completely different beer, probably victim to bad line cleaning of some prior pumpkin beer. Wicked Weed's Pernicious? Again fantastic at the brewery, a beer I wanted to drink all afternoon, better than what I had bottled in Wilmington, NC a few weeks before. Beer is funny like that.

We all can get fresh beer these days; I consider myself very lucky. I can go grab a growler and head down to Trillium and Night Shift or sit down with a Framinghammer at Jack's Abby's new Beer Hall. I can drive out to Tree House and swing by Armsby Abbey on the way home for Hill Farmstead. I can make a Thursday Vermont Beer Run and pick up Heady Topper, Lawson's (another parallel tragedy to this thread), Hill Farmstead, then grab lunch at Parker Pie or Schilling. Portland is 90 minutes away with its' loop of brewers.

This is not that situation. If you want that experience of driving 30 minutes from San Diego up into the mountains and enjoying a few pints with their smoked wings, I highly recommend the trip...bring a driver and understand the bottle limits. But Green Flash did a wonderful thing to provide brewing space to Pat and Alpine when they had openings in their production schedule. It's only 40 minutes between the two, so I have no doubt Pat stays involved. I'm a Lean Sigma manufacturing consultant; sure, maybe there are issues of scaling or transportation. But if I can buy a bottle of one of the better Alpine beers at a price comparable to other bombers (actually 6 in Philly last week) and it puts more money in Pat's pocket, I'm happy to do it. If he can share risk, keep improving the product at GF and not have to invest in the capital equipment to go it alone, that's just being a smart businessman.

Now if Green Flash would just go back to their original West Coast IPA..

 

The Alpine magic isn't in the GF bottles....

Tragic....but not unexpected.

 

In Minneapolis weve seen GF(alpine) Hoppy Birthday,Nelson,Duet on Tap 1st then just recently all 3 in bottles ,i thought Nelson was the best on tap while Duet was the best bottled of the 3, None were outstanding as the Alpine versions, but they were still very good

 

I had a bottle of Duet with an Alpine label and Green Flash bottle etching last week and to be honest, I could not taste any difference between this one and the last one I had maybe 3 -4 months ago. However, today I had a Hoppy Birthday on draft [first beer of the day] and it was definitely different than the last draft I had 3 - 4 months ago. The last Hoppy Birthday I had was an absolute hop bomb [and I really like hop bombs] and this one was just meh. Very little of the hop smell and taste that makes me remember a beer like Hoppy Birthday. I thought I read somewhere that Alpine was still brewing and filling its own kegs at its own brewery but I cannot chalk up the difference to just time, taste buds or recollection and the only other reason for a difference would be that the keg is old or was mishandled.

 

Jack

I actually picked up a Duet bottle and also a Nelson.

Nelson has never been a beer I have particularly go into... I think it's the Rye malt...

However, I have a bottle of Duet and we shall see how this goes.. memories and passions of some of my favorite beers are hard to duplicate but we will see if this is worthy for sure.

 

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

A 'reminder': close your eyes and breathe in BIG TIME!!

Cheers!

 

I had both Duet and Nelson a couple weeks ago. Very disappointed: Duet was nice, but it was just a bit dull, lacking in the aromatics the bright tropical edge it used to have. As for Nelson, it is even worse: the rye malt used to give it this delicious rich, smooth body, and the hops were bright and pungent. Now, the beer drinks like a resiny mess. The aromatics are far subdued, and the beer is WAY too bitter.

It's a real shame, but these beers are practically unrecognizable as far as I'm concerned. Next to something like Noble Ale Works in SoCal, they have nothing to do. Nelson has joined the ranks of DFH 90 Min, Sculpin, and Lagunitas Sucks for saddest fall from grace in beer for me, alas.

 

Would you care to share with us why these beers have fallen from grace for you?

Cheers!