450 North Brewing

Ah, yes. One of the best breweries in the world because they have one style of beer (apparently a table kettle sour with fruit purée) that people like. Nothing else they produce people will touch, generally speaking. Super world class!

He’s a salesman for sure.

 

The Slushy beers I've had were mostly fun to try. They ranged from really good to meh. I've had a few of the Nugget hazy line. Same deal. Nothing I'd get in a line for. The non Slushy/Nugget beers I've had from them were mostly embarrassing.

 

450 North is like a shitty Midwest version of the Answer

 

Given the nature of the issue, i'd say its a bad comparison. They both make good smoothie style "beers." The difference is, having had a few Joose crowlers, those fuckers are definitely every bit of the alcohol they say they are...

 

One thing they really did well was sell themselves. Colorful, fun, labels that some were borderline copyright infringement (some more blatant).

mite interesting to look through their Instagram and go back before they had a sort of “rebranding”. Almost a complete 180. Or a 450?

 

I try to temper my judgment with the understanding that everyone has different tastes and preferences, but I’m definitely getting secondhand embarrassment watching people try to justify their love of 450 after this.

I understand that 450 fans feel defensive because they were typically the butt of beer culture jokes even before this, but the mental gymnastics people are performing to justify a business’s obvious missteps is truly amazing.

 

Yeah it’s reasonable to say “This is concerning and I hope they figure it out. I still love the brewery and will support them”. But the IG comments going after the “haters and trolls” are from people who make a Slushy post on a daily basis

 

Exactly. I don’t think anyone is demanding that the controversy be accepted as 100% truth at this point either (even if people have had these suspicions for a while)... but the overly-defensive reactions point towards some other emotions at play.

 

This story, and the story of 450 North overall, is fascinating to me. I have family in Columbus so I'm down there a good bit. I believe I was the one who added 450 North to this site way back in the day. Back then it was a sleepy little pizza place known more for its wine than beer.

As time went on they jumped pretty heavily into the "haze craze" and were brewing more of them than almost anyone in central Indiana. I always found their IPAs to be relatively thin and not really matching up with their perception. I remember thinking, "wait, people are loading up on 450 North beers and using them to trade for great beers from around the country???" And then the slushy beer thing started happening. You'd hear about these release events where people were lining up hours in advance for this stuff, and then people started camping out. I'm sure part of it is people just coming together, sharing rare beers they bring and enjoying each other's company.

I've never been to one of their releases, in fact I've only had 1 flight size pour of their slushy beers. It was better than I expected, but I didn't see how people could drink a full size pour of it (much less a pint). My family knows I love beer so they'd always suggest we go to 450 North for dinner, I'd frequently ask if we could go to Zwanzigz instead. Just really strange to think of where they are today (huge new expansion, people camping out for their beers) considering where they were just a few short years ago.

 

I liked a couple of their beers before they got into hazies. I quite liked the dank candy series. The hazy things have always been just OKAY, but all of them had (have?) this distinct flavor that I don’t find appealing.

 

Wut?

 

OMG how did I miss this stupid post?

 

I guess I find myself on the skeptical side of the fence here. Does anyone know anything about the impartiality of the party who did this measurement, along with the rigor of their methodology (honest question because I do not and could not easily find it)? I'd be very surprised if either of the following are true:

• 450 doesn't accurately re-calculate/estimate the alcohol content when they make their fruit /adjunct additions
• 450 willfully lied and broke the law

I don't care much for the slushies but I do think their NEIPAs are generally some of the more accurate and tasty representations of the style I've had from anywhere in Indiana. Anecdotally, I've found that this is a style that can pretty consistently expose breweries running an amateur-hour operation. It seems utterly implausible to me that they wouldn't understand the effects of dilution on alcohol content. If true, they sure did stumble into some solid beers.

 

They posted that they will have more information tomorrow. Also edited the slushy posts for this upcoming release to remove the listed abv.

 

It’s fitting really... a new-money brewery (getting notoriety for beer that doesn’t taste like beer) either can’t or won’t do one of the most fundamental measurements involved in brewing beer.

 

Believe ttb has gotten wind on this and has open an investigation.

Will most likely result in them losing license to sell alcohol, since it is the extremely illegal to do what they have been doing.

I can't imagine their business could survive more than 8 weeks with cash flow.

 

What's that based on?

 

Wtf... wrong thread....gd phone