Biggest Dissapointment in CA Beers for 2017

Smog City. Was always part of the one-two Monkish punch for me but now it's a pass.

Still have high hopes for Infinite Wishes though

 

Yeah, but they are by far the minority. Offshoot has only released one West Coast can... on the other hand, practically everything else is haze.

 

Yeah, I agree. Although they had food trucks in the beginning (nov. 2016), they just stopped coming. I feel like it was the food truck who decided to stop, and not BW asking them to stop. Just not enough business for the food truck. It was always slow anytime I saw a food truck there.

 

Add me to the list. I used to have 6-10 Stone bottles in my fridge. Today, I have only two WootStouts. I'm especially pissed about Double Bastard which is one of two beers that got me into the craft beer movement.

I love barleywines and Scuba is one of my favorites. Add that Hellderado was OK to good, but not the normal FW great.

Year after year, my biggest disappointment is that there is not one good brewery in the Silicon Valley area. Just a lot of average breweries with some a few good beers. Sigh.

 

No disagreement, but Sante Adairius is a hop, skip and a jump away. And what a brewery that one is.

 

Still not sure if im happy or unhappy with FW switching from 22 oz to 12 oz format.

 

Maybe I'm over thinking it but I swear ever since the switch, every beer has been alot thinner bodied and just bland AF regardless of the ingredients. Even merkin was even worse than prior batches and that beer sucks enough already. At least cancel making that beer rather than sucaba

 

Firestone Walker in general. From outsourcing Parabola to Boulevard, the stout/barleywine with ginger and lime as their black friday release (not like 2016's BA weizenbock was any better), canceling Sucaba for a year, discontinuing bombers, etc. I cant believe this is the same brewery that once made amazing beers like PNC and Maltose Falcons.

 

I like the 12oz format for practicality, but I agree. the ones I've tried so far have felt more thin and bland, less barrel character etc..

 

True. However, I really have to make an effort to get over the hill. In my younger days, I would make the journey a couple of times during the a week. For work and other reasons, I find myself in SF or East Bay far more often. Need a place less than 30 minutes away.

 

The recent Kern Citra batch...

 

I just moved here in April and I still haven't found anything I really like and can get as my regular beer. Didn't help that I moved to Sonora.

 

I'll second this. Hopefully Camino will buck the trend, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Alvarado St. Lloyd Christmas. They've set a high bar lots of times so I went ahead and got 8 cans, which was 4 too many.

It was ok, but a chore to drink, very heavy on the palate and with too much citrus.

Here's hoping to see more "Lazy" and "Growers" cans coming soon!

 

Fieldwork San Mateo? That might not count as it's in the Peninsula, but at least it's up the 101 and not over the 17 for SARA.

 

Also:

The Bruery. Maybe I just tried more misses this year but they seem to have lost their mojo. Friendsgiving was great and made me think that everything Offshoot was going to be awesome. But then I tried Shaken and spit it out. Also, Share This: Mint Chip was not very good at all. I finally tried 10 Lords which was fine, but it did not knock my socks off like 6, 7, and 8 did. Or maybe I've just gotten too jaded.

Faction. Used to be one of my all time favorites in the area. Their taproom is still nice. The beer tastes good. But it's like the exact same taplist from three years ago.

Drake's. Also used to be another one of my very favorites in the area, but does anyone know what they're doing anymore?

Fieldwork, which I'm afraid is turning into another Monkish in that they're releasing a ton of beers that are like the same IPAs and DIPAs over and over again, with one or two small tweaks. And, more frustratingly, their can releases are becoming like Monkish too. At least their beer names haven't gotten out of hand...yet.

 

Yup, there are a couple hits right outside the valley but no destinations actually within the valley. Also, while I highly appreciate Fieldwork's SM outpost, I still have a hard time calling any other than the Berkeley OG a destination.

 

The only time I've ever seen a line at the Berkeley location was the first can release of Pulp. Every release after that has been fairly easy to come by as long as you didn't wait till late in the day.

 

Possibly. Fieldwork has been hit and miss with me (IPAs good, everything else "meh").

 

Then Berkeley is probably the place to be...San Mateo runs out of most of the goodies too quickly.

I love their big stouts too, but their saisons and belgians have been more miss than hit.