What beers outshine their variants?

I heard that very thing about Midnight Orange last week, so cracked one. The orange had faded a bit, but it revealed more chocolate flavor, which is fine for me. Orange was still there in the background. Now I'll have to crack a vanilla and see how it's doing. Past releases of BCBS vanilla reportedly aged well.

 

Nice solid beers across the board.

 

I went on their web site and asked if Bob Mullen was still the brewer and was told he moved back to the East Coast about a year ago. He was the brewer there for at least 10 years.

 

Ten Fidy
DFH World Wide Stout

 

I love the Prairie Artisan Ales BOMB, especially the PIRATE BOMB (rated 5), but the DECONSTRUCTED versions all seemed to be missing something. BIRTHDAY, CHRISTMAS were all good. I have a BA BIRTHDAY but haven't tried it yet. Maybe my New Beer Sunday?

 

I'm having trouble thinking of any examples of a "variant" that outshines the original, base beer when that base beer already is good. I'm sure there are some, but nothing is coming to mind. I can think of a few poor to mediocre base beers rescued by variants.

I'm on the record as saying that the vast majority of imperial stouts and other big beers are superior in non-barrel-aged versions, and that, while whiskey barrels rarely completely ruin beers, they do tend to drag them down to some degree. Whiskey and beer feature flavors that don't mesh together particularly well. I say this as a big whisk(e)y fan who doesn't need either of my favorite types of beverage interfering with and dumbing down the other. Most of the bourbon-barrel-aged beer fans I know are not regular bourbon drinkers.

I think the ideal use of variants is in 1.5 oz. pours at festivals -- dumb, gimmicky beers designed to mix it up a bit and that everyone knows full-well aren't likely to be as good as the originals but that are mildly interesting in small quantities as a change of pace. The idea that a beer requires flavoring adjuncts, barrel-aging, or sexy-hops dry-hopping to be not-boring is anathematic to me and demonstrably false.

 

Gulden Draak.

 

Agree 100% that whiskey barrel aging can be a hugely unnecessary and frequently destructive overplay in beer, even in big stouts.

Also feel that some of the best (or at least my personal favorite) whisk(e)ys are surprisingly often horrifying mismatches with beers.

 

Founder's Dirty Bastard is a much better beer than Backwoods Bastard and Old Curmudgeon was better than Better Half.

 

Aventinus is my answer, it is easily the most perfect wheat doppelbock I have tried. It just satisfies my soul like nothing else. The eisbock is very nice but falls short. The Cuvee Barrique is a different beer entirely, wonderful but not comparable in any way. I have not tried any other version. If given the chance I absolutely would but I doubt they would measure up.

 

Framinghammer. The variants are good, but the plain old BA version may very well be the best beer I've had.

 

I agree with that 100%.

 

The Two Hearted Ale. Way better than the Double Two Hearted Ale.

 

+2

 

Fixed that for you!

 

I would love to get a 100% definitive answer to this. The existence of the draught-style always seemed like something SN never really talked about, probably because they don't want to confuse consumers. So even if they switched all kegs to be the same as bottle/can SNPA, I wouldn't expect them to make any fanfare about it. I guess I'll ask next time I'm passing through Chico.

 

Sort of the opposite of what you’re after but Copper Kettle Snowed In Coconut vs. their OG Snowed In and all variants. The coconut is a world class beer. All the others are v good though.

 

I have to disagree. As much as I love Two Hearted, the Double more than holds its own. It’s one of the best beers I’ve ever had.