Destroying a beer's legacy...

A quick thought if I may?

Have you factored into your thinking that what's affecting your enjoyment of SNPA and some of the other SN beers from NC is more an effect of maturation and disappointment at the newer stuff that is responsive to market demand?

Our tastes and enjoyment of certain flavors changes over time as our bodies never stop changing, slowly, but changing. My personal tastes have changed a lot over the last ten years.

Also, honestly there is actually reason to believe that a beer that's fresher than where our sweet spot for enjoyment is located, won't taste as good. I've been there and done that. e.g., Troeg's Nugget Nector is just a bit harsh for my tastes during it's first two weeks in the bottle.

So think about the possibility that changes in you or younger freshness of beers from NC might be having an effect? (Shipping across country does have an effect, thats part of why SN built in NC.)

BTW, Opinions are always of value except when they are claimed to be facts...

Enjoy.

 

Taken into consideration,thank you.

 

So lets assume it is true, what else might be going on..?

 

Hm..., well, I've had both NC Oskar Blues and CO Oskar Blues beers, and they can taste different (believe it or not). I know early on, OB struggled with the water quality/mineral difference in NC water.
Can't think of another reason - except the mersquiters and humidity overcoming taste buds. That's a joke folks. It's OK, I grew up in the Southeast.

 

Real possibility in the earlier batches but in breweries that big it usually gets corrected as a result of using highly trained tasters tasting blind as to batch, etc.. DFHead has a small crew that evaluate blind a new batch of beer in a "side-by-side" with the last batch to help maintain consistency and reduce batch variation.

Edit. That joke about humidity isn't a joke undercertain conditions. That's part of the reason that foods don't taste the same when eaten at 30K feet on an airplane as when eaten on the ground--humidity.

 

Agreed, except that the scarcity of CBS was not artifical it was natural. Back in the day, Founders production of CBS was limited by the number of barrels they could find that were former Bourbon barrels that then had aged Maple Syrup before being acquired by Founders. The interesting question for me is what did they manage to do to be able to produce as much CBS as we expect this year.

 

Would you say the quality of those three brands is the same for Mills River and Chico brewed beers?

So, is the bigger 'disappointment' that you are not a fan of more recently developed brands?

I appreciate the continuing discussion on the topic since over the past couple of years my drinking experiences of SN beers has been more limited since I have difficulty finding fresh versions of their year-round beers - those beers are frequently rather old on my local beer retailers shelves. My beer purchases of Sierra Nevada beers are seasonal and one-off releases. Below is some discussion of the Sierra Nevada beers I have purchased in the last 6 months (or so):

I purchased a 6-pack of Brut IPA and within the context of that beer style this purchase was a disappointment. There were no technical brewing flaws of this beer but it just did not 'hit the mark' stylistically IMO. I will not be purchasing this beer if it is produced as a seasonal next year.

I purchased a 6-pack of Resilience IPA since I wanted to contribute to the Camp Fire relief effort. I enjoyed these beers since they were fresh and this beer tasted very much like Celebration Ale to me.

I purchased one bottle of Sierra Nevada Trip In the Woods: Tequila-Barrel-Aged Otra Vez. I thought this beer was excellent but this would not be a repeat purchase in the future (if made available) at the price that is being charged for this beer. I discussed this beer in a past New Beer Sunday thread:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-719.597361/#post-6288425

I purchased a couple of 6-packs of Celebration Ale last fall. I enjoyed the 2018 batches. This beer is variable from year to year due to the nature of using what SN terms of "Fresh Hops". I have found these beers to vary from good to very good to excellent (mostly very good).

I look forward to continuing the dialog and learning more from you.

Cheers!

P.S. I would have purchased last fall the SN Oktoberfest beers but by the time I wanted to drink these beers (in the fall) all that was available at my local beer retailers were beers packaged in early July. These beers were too old for my tastes by the time I wanted to purchase/drink them.

 

Jack, nice summary, etc.

BTW been meaning to ask for a while, what approximate ages are the "old" SN beers you usually see? Reason I ask is there seem to be some varability around here that I don't understand. Some stores/shops have fresher than other in a pattern that is not easily explained simply by it being unsold longer. Thanks.

 

If i push back on the notion of hoppy beers not standing up to the "geometry of huge fermenters" as a reason for lessened quality, would you have any examples? Without question, geometry effects fermentation, but there are large breweries (from a craft beer perspective) that have long brewed some high-gravity, super hoppy beers. Avery. DFH, Stone SN to name a few.

 

Tom, I will share my thoughts here with the caveat that this information is rather dated. About 6-12 months ago I just stopped looking at the year-round brands since they were consistently too old.

Before I get to the 'answer' I think it is worthwhile to address the topic of "too old". For many of their brands (e.g., SNPA, Torpedo,..) Sierra Nevada recommends a best by duration of 150 days (5 months) if those beers are stored properly. Part of the 'definition' of "stored properly" is the beers should be stored cool (i.e., not at room temperature or hotter). The Sierra Nevada beers at one of my local Retail Beer Distributors is being stored at non-air conditioned temperatures (i.e., hot in the summer) and the other Retail Beer Distributor stores the beers at room temperature (e.g., about 70-75 degrees F right now). So needless to say these beers are not stored at what Sierra Nevada deems to be "properly stored".

So, back to how old were (are?) these beers.. I would typically find SN year-round beers with an age of 4 months or older. I refuse to purchase these beers at this age and with these storage conditions.

Cheers!

P.S. And on more than one occasion I was at a local retailer who was stocking SN beers on the shelf and those beers were older than 150 days. These retailers do not have a large allocation for beer storage 'in the back' so FWIW I am personally convinced they just received shipment of these old beers.

 

Actually no, I can't say I can point to any. And saying there is different geometry doesn't mean that a talented brewer can't overcome it. Budweiser, for instance, is brewed in different size fermenters using different water in many different parts of the country and is made to taste the same. I can say I have heard the complaints from others in past, and there is reason to believe scaling up may have been behind it in at least some of those cases

I was told by professional brewers that scaling up massively for a hoppy beer is more of a challenge than for other beer styles. And IIRC this involved the geometry, as well as the difference in hop utilization. I won't speak to the nuts and bolts of it, maybe one of the pro brewers here can tell me if I heard right, and if so what the additional problems are with scaling up to huge tanks?

 

Perhaps folks like @honkey , @erway , @SierraTerence , @SixpointMikey , @brianhink , can provide some further insight here.

Cheers!

 

Tastes the same to me. I don't buy the assumption or the premise.

 

Just a guess, but I see an awful lot more barrel aged maple syrup out there than I did in 2011, so I assume there are more of these barrels now.

 

Thanks, did not know that. So I’d bet dollars to donuts that’s what happened. If I was buying Barrels to age syrup I’d sure listen to Founders wanting to know if I’d sell barrels after I used them....

Note: That’s how they got the barrels used for the first batch ever released. (Locally too, low cost on one side unexpected income for the other.

 

Thank you for pointing this out.

I'm sure there's a way making less of your best-selling product is good business, but generally speaking, it's not. And until I see proof a brewery brewed LESS of its best-selling super-hyped beer to drive up price/hype, I'm not buying it.

*runs from the conspiracy theorists while trying not to spill his Atrial Rubicite*

 

As I explained previously, intentionally low pricing is an aspect of artificial scarcity. All resources are finite; shortages occur only when demand exceeds supply at the price of the good in question. Founders easily could've rendered the truck-chasing irrelevant by jacking up the price it charged distributors for CBS. It chose to maintain unnaturally and inefficiently low prices to build up a buzz about its product that buoyed the reputation of its entire lineup.

 

Thanks, Jack

That helps a bit. The 2-3 Grocery Stores where I buy things like that (6 packs) have chill cases that work to keep it fairly cold and there's not a we can do about the wholesale distributors. But the age situation is similar. But just as there are seaonal releases we can buy while they are new I think I'm starting a pattern when the two I know best will be getting a re-supply and which beers sell best. Seems like eventually the resupply has to be a fresh drop. Still speculation, but I figured I'd just make a habit when grocery shopping that take advantage of the Beer entrance, check the dates on a few, go on with the shopping but pay attention to see if there is a cycle for staples such as the SN PA. Still speculation, but... (low cost effort/excuse to go check out the beer section and my wife sometimes asks if I want to go look at the beer.... )

 

Well that's just fine since it's a "What if..." sort of game. So neither assumptions nor premise have to be true to play. But lots of folks don't want to play, "What if..."

Curious, in your youth did you read much Science Fiction or Sherlock Holmes?

 

Thanks.

So you are suggesting that Founders engaged in predatory pricing and that they should not use their own judgement for the price they want to charge and only sell at the highest possible pricing thereby increasing the value of their entire line of beers? Just look around?

With regard to CBS,would they know that pricing in an uncertain market for a product without meanginful sales history? Just look at other stuff and gamble?