Hudson Valley Brewery (2019)

The main FOMO that post generated for me was leading me to Death & Co's instagram which had me hankering after some of those cocktails on a 90F evening

 

I don’t get any of the hype or lines this brewery generates. I was fortunate that my wife was going right by there one night after a release and she picked my up 2 sour DIPAs and a farmhouse ale crowler. I enjoyed the beers for what they were and appreciate a brewery not just cranking out NE IPAs over and over but she picked them up at night right before closing. What’s with wristbands getting passed out almost 4 hours before opening?

 

Na this is the best beer they've released

 

Their best beers are their true barrel-aged farmhouse sours. Those are the only ones I would make any effort to obtain.

 

About time Demiurge came back. I had the 2018 can last week and it has faded from its glory days

 

Agreed. See my previous post.

There are only 2 reasons I can think of. Either people are trying to inflate the hype for trade value which imo is completely unnecessary since the beer speaks for itself or it's because they cut the limits down pretty quickly and people want to get as much beer as possible. I never buy more than 1-2 4 packs of any beer at a time, so this never has never affected me personally.

 

I didn’t get the lines-and-wristband level hype either. Was there the other month when they happened to be releasing cans of those strawberry and blueberry beers with long names. For what they were, they were well made, but ultimately too close to tasting like a sweet-sour soda for me. To see people lining up and hauling out cases of these beers at $20 a 4-pack... one of those moments that made me scratch my head a bit about the modern craft beer scene. Would like to try their barrel-aged sours, though.

 

Heard this was mayhem with 300+ people already there an hour or two before open. Really want to try this on tap someday to see if it warrants such craziness.

 

Pretty sure nothing warrants such craziness, but maybe it’s just me.

 

Heard there were dozens of chairs before closing last night. I'll just wait until cans are at Death and Co.

 

So I stand corrected on demiurge hype.

The front of the line was a real shit show with rampant line cutting and people trying to get multiple wristbands. Chairs were thrown down as of last night.

Back of the line was chill, but the demi sold out really quickly once they got past the wristbands. I feel lucky to get half a case with no wristband.

Demi b2 tastes very similar to Demi b1 for what it's worth.

 

What the hell is wrong with people!? Glad this type of scene is practically extinct in craft beer scene. I rolled up to Other Half at 10am yesterday, no line life and walked away with enough DDH ACE for me to bathe in.

 

I've been debating a trip down (3hr:06mins) for a while now but after reading this, I'll just stick with HF (2hr:59mins) for road trips till the shit show dies down.

The last thing I want to deal with after a long drive is having a "grown" children throwing chairs and cutting the line.

Grow the f up kids

 

Go to Hill.

Supposedly, the line cutting happens with every release. Calling it out is met with "just deal with it bro" because all these people know each other.

If you're just looking for a couple 4 packs, you usually can just show up after the line dies down with little to no wait. I usually don't need to max out, but my wife really really likes demiurge. Plus, I went early to hang out with some friends that I haven't seen in a while. It's only nasty if you have to deal with the mules/resellers/traders that are typically at the front of the line.

The brewery itself is pretty good otherwise. It gets really busy on weekends, but it usually isn't that bad to get a spot and have a few pours.

All that being said, I vastly prefer going to Obercreek or Plan Bee or making the drive to Suarez. So yeah, go to Hill.

Also, after splitting a can of Demi with my wife and having a proper taste, I have to ammend my initial take. It's a lot more sweet and acidic than I remember b1. It's very molasses and lime forward and not getting too much of the almond.

 

B1 was honestly one of my favorite beers of 2018; smelled and tasted like a marzipan cookie, which is pretty distinct in a world of increasingly indistinguishable IPAs . Obviously by collaborating with Death & Co., they were going for something that tasted like a premium cocktail and I thought they succeeded perfectly. Drinking B2 now and the marzipan has been replaced by an overpowered pineapple/lime and molasses profile. Not bad, just not exciting and not nearly as amazing as the OG. I'll the rest of the cans mellow out and hopefully the fruit and molasses mellow out and let the almond shine a bit more.

 

Has anyone else felt like the past few HVB releases are not on the same level as HVB of the past? It feels like every release since Demi B2 has not held up to expectations. The lager was by far my favorite can of the 3 from the most recent release.

 

For a while I thought I was just getting burnt out on their style, but I've heard a few people echo that sentiment.

 

Hudson Valley has probably had the biggest nosedive in quality of any brewery in recent history.


It’s a shame.

 

Jesus Christ thank you. Peopleare still rating these beers highly on untappd and nobody is saying anything on the Facebook group. I thought I was getting bad cans, but I'm assuming people are trying to keep the beers highly tradeable.

 

Most of their beer still isn’t offensively bad, but the only one I’d even call memorable this year is Red Currant Gylcerin.


Demiurge is arguably the best example of “B1 was better” ever brewed.