What beers outshine their variants?

East End Gratitude > BA Gratitude

 

Oh my goodness, how stoopid of me. Thanks!!

 

Avery Mephistopheles. It was my favorite imperial stout for a long time, and I could never get into the variants (even less so at the prices I find them at). The barrel-aging and vanilla, chocolate, etc. always overwhelm what I love about the original, especially its Belgian yeast character.

 

I wouldn't go that far, but I think Double Two Hearted is great, much better than I expected for an 11% ABV beer, and quite worthy of the branding. I rank it above the also great Hopslam among big Bell's Double IPAs. But I still prefer Two Hearted in the end.

That said, I wouldn't call Double Two Hearted a "variant." It's a significantly different recipe from Two Hearted in that it uses largely the same ingredients (I think) but in very different proportions. In contrast, actual variants tend to add or substitute an ingredient or two to an otherwise similar recipe. Double Two Hearted does piggyback on an established brand for marketing purposes; I don't think anyone would call it or think of it as a "variant" if it went by a different name.

 

Draught (kegged) beer in the trade is 5.0% ABV, slightly sweeter, darker, less bitter and tank conditioned with CO2 than the 5.6% bottle conditioned Pale Ale.

 

And how I love it! It's my go to at the local Old Chicago. Only thing is, they use a Co2 Nitro mix.

 

I mostly agree, although Espresso and Oak Aged Yeti are also great.

Completely agree. I've been gravitating further away from barrel aged stouts anymore. I'd rather just have a non-barrel-aged imperial stout.

 

I guess I'm part of the minority.

 

We did. We took the parts and mixed them together. The combination was better than any of the component variants, but still clearly short of the regular. To be fair, there was no scientific method involved -- after we'd all had our samples of the component versions and agreed it would be interesting to try them mixed together, we dumped them in the same glass.

 

That's a bummer.

 

Bo & Luke from Against the Grain. To my mind it is the best bourbon barrel stout I've had. the variants just take away from what's great about it

 

Strongly disagree. Baptista and Quadruple BBL are insanely good IMO

You mean Coffee, Vanilla and such? Or the Proprietors series? If the former, I understand but if it's the latter, I don't.

I agree with this one

 

I generally agree with both of these. Sometimes adding flavor doesn't actually enhance the base beer nor make it more complex

 

I haven't had the good fortune to have drank any Proprietors series beers.

 

Stone Enjoy By

 

All BBBs are great. IMO, BBB > Triple Barrel > Baptista. My ratings:

Big Bad Baptist (BBB) = 4.5 - 5.00, usually 4.75 - 5 (have had 15 of them total)
Triple Barrel BBB = 4.75
Baptista = 4.50

After having the variants, I've kept buying the regular version and it's still my favorite of the bunch. Haven't had Quadruple BBB because I decided to stick with regular Still interested in Reserve - didn't seem to make it's way out to San Diego.

 

I typically only like variants of big imperial stouts. For nearly every other beer style adding additional flavors only makes the base beer worse.

 

One of my favorites was Six Point High Res. Last year, instead of the classic standard, they released a Double Dry Hopped version. IMO, it ruined a great beer.

 

Yeah, I'd agree that in most cases variants are, at best, interesting side journeys as opposed to inherently better.

However... Epic's Brainless on Raspberry is fantastic, whereas the base Brainless is decent but unremarkable.

 

LOL (sorry I'm not dissing you but it's a little funny), it was a draft thing WAY before it was a bottle/ can thing. Keg of beer- use nitro "Guinness Gas" to push the beer out: makes it more creamy, somewhere between a cask ale (which is not able to be distributed easily) and a normal keg.


You just need to find a bar that has a dedicated nitro line (different type of gas and usually a different kind of tower). When a place has a dedicated nitro line, it's hard fought as to who gets it there's a couple legendary nitro only beers (Old Rasputin is one, Founders does a few) but LH should be in the running. The nitro capture in a bottle, and then the investment in the can "widget" (which is what Guinness used but their scale was probably bigger than all craft brewers combined in the 1990s) is actually the new thing.

Check out untapped you may be able to track someone down near you. In VA I'm always on the lookout for Nitro Rasputin and Nitro Hardywood GBS which is an awesome beer.

http://lefthandbrewing.com/about/nitro/
http://lefthandbrewing.com/the-history-of-left-hand/