Alpine, you have a problem

Freshness matters

 

Good thing they bottle date. Oh wait...

 

Can only assume it was super fresh. Got and drank it the first day it hit SD shops a couple months back. It was a mess.

 

Shared two bombers of Nelson last night at Urge in Rancho Bernardo. While the flavors were good, the carbonation seemed unusually low, the lacing almost nonexistent. Mouth feel was more on the "buttery" side, and there was a fair amount of sediment. Mind you, this was the first Nelson I've had in months, but I recalled this thread.

 

What that suspect Nelson looked like. Pretty bummed, as it's my favorite beer.

 

I had a bomber of Pure Hoppiness over the weekend that was a little on the flat side. I was hoping this had been fixed but apparently it wasn't. Might have to just make periodic trips to have it fresh or hope O'Briens has it because if it's not on tap it just isn't the same. I don't have any personal experience but is it really hard to bottle beer that's properly carbonated?

 

I had a bottle of Nelson and pure recently that were both "off."

 

For some breweries, it is a perpetual problem.

 

Hopefully there will be no problems once they start to can. Also I do not know of these bottle issues because I only drink Alpine straight from the tap...life is tough.

 

Their beer always seems much, much better from the pub. Even the tap's at O'briens usually taste a bit flat to me (though that might be their issue, as other non-Alpine beers have also tasted that way to me.)

 

Considering Duet won bronze at GABF and it all comes off the same bottling line...I wonder about the quality of the reports here.

 

I imagine they'd made damn sure that the beer they're sending to GABF is properly carbonated, be it bottling by hand or doing a special small bottling run.

 

Sorry - I'm sure this has been asked before, but this seems as good a place as any to ask.

How many days will an Alpine growler typically keep, unopened? Refrigerated / Handled carefully / etc.

I generally try to not let them go more than a handful of days, but just curious what the typical shelf-life is w/ the style of growler they use.

(AKA...hoping my growler of Nelson from the other day is still nice and crisp.)

 

I've never had any problems at all with their unopened growlers. I'm not sure why that is but for some reason they have always held up better than other screw tops (Lost Abbey, Pizza Port, Green Flash) and even better than some flip tops (The Bruery, Stone) for me. I guess maybe because they fill way to the brim and then crank down on the cap. I'm not sure if I've ever gone longer than a week or two (mostly cause I found a time to drink them anyway) but anything in that range should be fine.

 

I got a bottle of Duet a few weeks ago from Bine & Vine, pretty much fresh from Alpine (Geoi had made a run to Alpine that morning). I thought it tasted fine, but it definitely was low on the carbonation - as was the bottle of Pure Hoppiness I got at the same time.

 

The judges' samples were poured from a bottle?

 

It was. All judged beer at GABF is from the bottle.

 

Interesting. I didn't know that. To be sure, the bad Alpine bottles are somewhat of a rarity. But regardless of the bottles being bad or not, Alpine still seems to struggle with filling them properly. The volume of even the good bottles is very inconsistent. I still love Alpine and will continue to go as often as I can, but I think I'm going to stay away from their bottles for a while.

 

Fill growlers, taste it before you buy. I live 20minutes away from Alpine and am there at least once a month. I rarely buy bottles and thus am rarely disappointed.

 

I'm in the same boat but I happen to get bottles from time to time as well, which you clearly can't taste beforehand and, frankly, shouldn't have to.