2016 Resolute Day - 11/12/2016

Epic clusterf***. Hazelnut variant ran out in the low 300s. Coffee ran out at 370 or so. Brewery didn't follow its own rules. Coffee sold out two in front of me by line cutters who missed their number earlier in the window.

Why on earth would you allow 600+ people to line up and not simply announce you only have variants for 350 or so?

Barf.

 

That's not accurate per their website. If you miss your number you get bumped to the beginning of the next window.

Nevertheless, I'm more frustrated that they have 350 or so bottles of each variant and don't announce that ahead of time. Would have saved a lot of people a lot of time. But then I suppose those same people wouldn't stand around all day buying beers...

 

Interesting to see 800 on the variants. They couldn't have released much more than 350 of each today which leaves more than 400 of each in the warehouse. A big chunk for Horizon no doubt.

I really really wish they'd indicated the counts would be so small. I felt pretty good getting into town at 8:00pm and getting a bracelet at #394. Could have saved a lot of people a lot of time. Fortunately got to try them on tap.

 

Looks like regular resolute sold out today too. I can't believe they went through 3000 (minus horizon society) bottles today. I skipped buying any regular today and not drain the bank account because I figured it would last a few weeks like it did last year. Oh well and good for them for selling out.

I will say that I really like the 2 pours per person at one time limit they had today. And just like last year it was a very well ran event.

 

I would imagine they also held a lot back for staff, friends of the brewery, cellaring, etc. Which is fine, it's one of the perks.

But they should have announced bottle counts ahead of time if they were that low. And should have followed their own rules.

Overall I had fun, but would have saved myself the drive down from DC Fri night had I known I was shutout before I got there.

 

No comments at all about the actual beers? I don't take that as a good sign...

 

The coffee is very good. Lots of coffee! For me, the chocolate hazelnut doesn't quite come together as a Nutella beer, and is more subtle and heavier on the chocolate than hazelnut. Neither are quite as good as the coconut, but I'm happy with the variants.

Now, the Resolute Andall with kona coffee, toasted coconut, and hazelnuts was insanely good. The highlight of the day for me.

 

My thoughts:

1) Resolute 2016 - had a weird cola-like quality to me. A very odd flavor that reminded me a little of A&W. my friend noted this as well. It wasn't bad per se just very very thin. Resolute has never been a super thick beer, but this notedly lacked depth.

2). Double Barrel - the best of the variants. Richer and smoother than regular, it reminded me of Resolutes past while not being particularly distinctive in its own right.

3) Choco Hazelnut - did not care for this at all. The hazelnut and chocolate couldn't cover up the cola thinness of this year's Resolute. Marginal.

4) Coffee - leaps and bounds ahead of the Hazelnut and good overall, but the coffee was borderline overpowering. Good not great.

5) Andall - agreed with the previous poster, this was the best beer by a country mile.

6) Raspberry Nitro Resolute - honorable mention. So creamy and good balance of fruitiness.

7) Choco Orange Resolute - waaaaaaay too much orange

8) Coconut Resolute - good but very Coppertoney.

Overall I think this was a reversion to form. The 2014 variants didn't light the world on fire and I doubt these will either. Other than the Coconut, which is looking more and more like lightning in a bottle, there really haven't been any "wow" level Resolute variants.

Base Resolute itself has always been a more traditional take: not super sweet, prominent Barrel presence, lighter "feel" just short of thin. This year's vintage, however, to my mind fell noticeably short. Having them alongside a KBS they had on tap was an eye opener

 

So how was the event and those resolute variants? Good, but not as good as last years?

 

Judging by the beers some are ISO for when trading their Resolute variants you would think these were even better than Coconut Resolute.

 

If people are generally in agreement about this year's variants, I think its safe to say that Coconut was a fluke. Double Vanilla was not great last year and none of the ones from the year before were really very good either.

 

I think that's pretty accurate. I would rank the 15 & 16 variants in this order: Coconut > Coffee > Double Vanilla = Chocolate Hazelnut.

The DV in '15 and CH this year are just too subtle to even compare to the Coco or Coffee IMO.

 

I think all the variants have been better since the first variant release in 2014. I'm not sure we can say Coconut is a fluke though. They made a fresh, draft only batch of Coco that is as good as ever, and the coffee variant is pretty damn good too. Both of these beers are adjunct bombs, in a good way. If it's replicable, is it really a fluke?

I do think they are still figuring out the processes and ratios on the variants though, which is probably what you are getting at here. Going way overboard on the adjuncts essentially ruins an expensive, time consuming batch of beer; whereas going too light, simply results in "subtlety." This could lead to the age old "erring on the side of caution" approach when it comes to the adjunct ratios, but I'm really just grasping at straws here.

I will say the Hazelnut and DV just aren't quite heavy enough on the adjuncts to really blow people out of the water like the Coconut did IMO. They are good beers however, and noticeably different than the base fwiw.

 

The variant count has been the same, give or take a handful of bottles. What was different this year is that we went through a lot more wristbands earlier on Friday. Sorry to anyone that didn't get one but there is not guarantee on those and we had people here as early as 8:30 to line up for a wristband on Friday.