Bottle Logic Brewing (Q3 2018)

That's like every hard/low allocation thing though, that has a trading circle.

Like Angry Chair and Cycle Stouts.

 

Very true. Cycle has the online ordering now which makes it a bit easier.

 

In the long term, I’d love to see something like The Bruery does. A dedicated website and shipping within the state. I’ll be driving down from the Bay Area to pick up my bottles, and it’s just a little more hassle than I’d like it to be.

 

BOOOOOO. No proxies, never! Orange County bois for lyfe!!

 

this would be a dream come true. Id hate to do the work of packaging all the beer to ship but as someone driving down from bay area I would love it.

 

Alright, who has had a 2018 from the bottle already? Seems like a bunch of reviews out there, are they locals hyping this batch?

 

Some lucky SOBs had it at the FO Beer Dinner on Saturday night... The reviews should be legit. I'm not bitter.

 

At a 4.86 right now from 30 checkins...no....I am very skeptical, especially when one review is "the undisputed king of craft beer".

I do like the beer quite a bit....but these reviews are to increase the hype. Although I do see one ranked at a 5star with an actual tasting note attached.

 

If anything, the beer does rate up there amongst several others however, this is no 5 by all means. I'd say anywhere between a 4.36- 4.5+ but that's just my opinion. David, let's just say this is almost on par to BAVSaltSS or pb version but not quite the CCSS (choco chip) yum.

 

That chocolate chip SS was a surprise. I am excited to have the new batch of FO, again it is quite a good beer but I agree not 5 star worthy. Of course I think I have maybe rated 4 beers ever a 5 star...and yes... 2014 bavss was one of them.

 

Ratings are a pretty arbitrary measurement.

 

They are until you start adding hundreds or thousands of said "arbituary measurements" and come up with a collective rating.

Individual ratings should be taken with a grain of salt, but a collective rating should be taken a lot more seriously as a general perspective of what you can expect from a beer

 

I'm more referring to nitpicking between a ~4.5 and 5 rating from individual people.

 

Hey, there are a couple with actual tasting notes... mine was the one about there being a lot of dark chocolate this year, which reminded me of Number Crunch from last year...

Sorry I'm not at Cassidy's level, but here's what I remember if going in his vein:

Served a little colder than ambient temperature in BL's new FOb4 glass, along side of a Dark Chocolate Budino, which was similar to a "deconstructed" s'more. FOb4's aroma appeals to the nose and has that oh-so-familiar vanilla bourbon smell that those of us who have the pleasure of savoring more than just a sip at a bottle share have come to know and love. Pitch black with virtually no head upon receipt from our lovely hosts, with very minimal lacing as a result (although I will add it was also nighttime, so I wasn't able to let light shine through to get the specific coloring). The "vanilla bomb" of prior releases seemed to have taken a bit of a backseat with this year's batch. To me there was vanilla when it first hit your tongue that then converted into more of a smooth dark chocolate flavor, which in turn lingered in the mouth after the liquid made its way to your stomach. As I said, it reminded me a bit of Number Crunch from last year, with its dark chocolatey-ness, but not necessarily in the "Crunch Bar" way the NC was advertised as. Mouthfeel was smooth as always, with very minor-to-no alcohol burn. In comparing it to my recollection of FOb3 from WoL, b4 had less vanilla and more dark chocolate than b3. To me, FOb4 is excellent, and I scored it as such.

I will add that it was paired with a chocolate dessert (after an amazing meal), so that might have put my tastes buds on a bit of a chocolate kick, however the initial few sips were had before the dessert.

I can't tell you which version of FO has been best at this time, but we are doing a blind vertical and variant tasting next week, so I can report back then if you like.

 

A friend of mine was at the dinner and had the draft. Gave it a 4.75. He opened a bottle the next day. Gave it a 4.75. I trust what he says.

 

No brownie batter?

Not to take away from your experience, but in my personal experience, that's a really bad move and very detrimental to the taste of any beer, but especially a sweet or semi-sweet pastry sort of beer. It amplifies the sweetness of the dessert but takes away from the nuances of the beer and highlights less desirable characteristics. Sometimes significantly negatively impacting the enjoyment of the beer, again in my experience. I frankly hate eating any kind of food with almost any craft beer anymore, besides super light or basic ones, especially those I've had plenty of before.

 

A-1 on your steak?

 

Eh, I've never really gotten the "brownie batter" aspect, but I haven't actually had brownie batter since I was a kid. It's always been more of just a perfectly sweet sublime vanilla to me. This year would probably more "batter-ish" to me since there was more chocolate this time around.

Yeah, my thoughts usually as well, that's why I tried to make sure my palate was as clean as possible, and try the FO initially before actually eating any of the dessert. The dessert itself did bring out more chocolate in the FO as well.

I would say it's probably more of a 4.9 on tap (which is "excellent" in my book), but I'm comfortable with my 5.0 rating since Untappd doesn't do 1/10's. I'll have some of the low fill bottle pours tomorrow, so I'll see if the same flavors from Saturday come across with a clean and more sober palate.

Either way, to each their own regarding beer taste. You either like it or you don't. I hope everyone gets to try as much of it as they want, and enjoys every sip.

 

Exqueeze me?
Come again?