Sam Adams Rebel Raw Double IPA

That's exactly my point. They're spending on a campaign that ultimately tells consumers "wait my local has done this for years."

 

Code dates you can read. Groundbreaking. Ok

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, who is breaking any new ground in the land of ipa? Please tell me as I'm genuinely interested. Even Stone is now copying sam adams with an unfiltered ipa that has an expiration date. SA must be flattered...

 

I honestly drank the normal Rebel IPA and thought it was a damn fine beer. Nothing wrong with it.

 

Boston Beer Co. pretty much pioneered "consumer-friendly" label date coding - with their notched months, back in the late 1980s - as Jim Koch will gladly remind any interviewer (such as in the Brewbound article linked above):

Packaging or "pull" (best by) date codes, most typically using a Julian method, were always on beer bottles/cans but Koch was one of the first, and the loudest, during the "craft" era who both made clear what it was- the wording on those Pittsburgh-era labels, which used the 'saw' method, notching the months:

- and heavily advertised the fact. His earliest advertising and promotional statements for SABL were based on competing with the big imports coming from Europe (Heineken, Beck's, St. Pauli Girl) and he often stressed how long it took for those beers to reach the US retail shelves. In 1988 Village Voice article, he is described as checking the codes on a handtruck of Heineken being delivered to the restaurant where he was about to be interviewed. Back in the '90s, when AB and a group of west coast "craft" brewers complained to regulators about BBC's contract brewing and not stating the actual brewing company where he was brewing on the label, Koch turned around and requested that the BATF mandate "freshness" date coding.

Look, Koch is a self-promoting huckster and is not above exaggerating his company's history or making claims and statements that he later reneges on (i.e., brewing a "light" beer, canning beer, using US hops, brewing hop-forward IPA's, etc.) but he is right about his long time emphasis on freshness and his company's date coding.

 

Everyone complains about old IPA on the shelves, and then when a brewery actually does something about it, at's "pffft, they just ripped Stone off". They're just copying the concept Enjoy By pioneered? GOOD. I hope every brewery copies it.

 

It was good, not great. Mission accomplished a really big hop bomb. The hops were CTZ heavy, had sweetness from the gravity, but also has a big bitter bite

 

I was able to pick up a 4 pack of cans tonight, had my first one and enjoyed it a lot.. More than the beer though, I find it exciting that a large brewer like Sams is willing to shake up what's been a pretty stale product line trying something new. And what's wrong with them competing against the likes of Stone and others, it will only make for better beer. I hope others like Harpoon, Long Trail, Sierra and some of the others will follow suit because frankly their beers aren't anywhere near what they were 20 years ago.

 

Any SE PA sightings?

 

All the PA retailers who received it are listed on BBC's blog entry - http://blog.samueladams.com/looking-rebelraw/

 

I digs Columbus, Tomahawk and Zeus. I'd grab this "if" it passes my way.

 

Lol wut? Long trail and Sierra Nevada regularly put out new interesting beers. It's kind of ironic that you're praising BBC for shaking up their line with an unfiltered DIPA while SN and LT have been keeping up with many current trends for a while now. Harpoons a bit off my radar but even they put out some interesting beers.

 

Have you had any Long Trail, Sierra Nevada or Harpoon in the past 20 years. I guess not. Lets start with say, long trail limbo. Or double bag, triple bag or space juice, nuff said. Sierra Nevada? The 24 oz series of fresh hop, wet, wild and single hop series, barrel aged big foot, BA narwal and hoptimum. Harpoon? Tried the czernobog? A great imperial stout. Any of the 100 barrel series? Been to the new (ish) tasting room? Always something new on draft there. Tried the new hoppy adventure? A double ipa. Or leviathan the imperial ipa. I would put up rich and dans rye ipa with any ipa mass produced. Dude, do you even drink beer? Wow.

 

*sad panda*
I want Space Juice.

 

He just joined yesterday. Give him time. But it was an outlandish statement.

 

^^^^ OK, Merry Christmas. Outlandish yup. Fits right in.

 

My Sam Adams salesman got me 2 cases. (also brought me a Utopia dipped stoggie) This beer is funny in a store like mine. It's far to hoppy and overwhelming for the normal "SAM" drinker. Mixed reviews from the beer geeks that come in. Not a beer I would seek out and buy again but I enjoyed it. I feel my customers felt the same.

 

My local Whole Foods (Devon) had it last week. They were only selling single cans: 4 bucks a can.

Cheers!

 

*applause*


"You're trying to tell me that Sierra Nevada makes more than Pale Ale?"

 

Sorry I haven't had a chance to log in to see if there were any replies to my post LOL. All of this is 2cents, my opinion which I don't expect everyone to subscribe to.
LT is mediocre at best, I've had the Limbo and the DB, they're on par with a hundred other beers I can get around here, haven't tried the Triple although I did have the opportunity and passed. Maybe the next time my beer guy gets some I'll pick up a 4pack and give it a try.
With the Sierra stuff , I was referring to the year round stuff in bottles and cans, Hop Hunter is on par with Limbo and DB, the Pale Ale is a shadow of it's former self before the expansion when they bottled it with yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Torpedo and Celebration are above average and I enjoy them both on a regular basis. I wasn't thinking about the 22oz bombers which are a step up. But the Hoptimium, WOW, that's some good stuff, I was only able to purchase a 4 pack 2 years ago, I haven't seen it since.
I haven't tried most of the Harpoons you mentioned, but yeah, I've enjoyed some of the 100 barrel series.. The Levithan IPA is good too. I'll pass on the IPA and their other year round beers though.
And BBC is as stale as any of the aforementioned brewers, but every once in a while they make something worth while like this Imperial Pils that came in a 4 pack a few years ago, that stuff was outstanding, and then they stopped making it.
In my opinion something changed in the 90s and my theory is brewers realized they needed to pasteurize their beers to give them a longer shelf live and to help them survive 100 degree warehouses the distributors hold the stuff in and that's what changed some very good beers to not so good beers.
Along the same lines, about 10 years ago I had an interesting conversation with Ray McNeill about distributors, I told him I'd never buy another of his beers because everyone I had purchased while he was distributing in Mass was shit, I would pop the cap and it would foam out the top, totally undrinkable. He told me it was because he packed his beers fresh and the stuff was getting destroyed by the distributors not handling it the way they agreed to, a few months later you couldn't get his stuff in Mass anymore. So I think there might be something to my theory, but Ray was so "off balance" back then who knows.
I was also jaded by a trip to Mecca this past October, the stuff I got at Hill Farmstead, Lawson's and Rock Art were some of the best I ever had. I can't say the same for the fabled Heady, although the Focal Bangers were awesome.
To each their own though, I still liked that Sam's Raw and I'm about to enjoy another one in a few minutes
Drink on.