Firestone Walker Double Jack is back for a limited time

In 2006 I drove from Thousand Oaks, CA to the brewery tap house just to try this beer and was blown away. Giant mugs of this on draft for $4 or $5, and all you can eat fresh popcorn.
When they discontinued it the press release said that consumers palate had changed, but hopefully it would come full circle and they could "dust off the spell book". I have no doubt this will be pale 31.

 

Two months old I’d buy a case, it more like 6 months old plus on Union Jack, and I’ve seen Luponic Distortion at 8 months old. Sometimes the newer version has left Cali, and the last one is still on the shelves here. I just saw some Knee Deep on the shelf this week, first time in many years, but Cali beers turn slowly here. There’s no excuse for 6 week old beer from FW in state, at the very least their regional footprint should be strong, so I could understand older beer 2000 miles away, where no sales rep ever gets. But you cannot depend on distributors to help you with freshness issues, because they don’t give a shit, they’re there to push beer out of the warehouse. Maybe contracting area is a good idea, better to be right and small, than big and lousy.

 

The best growler I took home from FW was a Cask Conditioned Pale 31. I'm afraid we'll never see anything like it again from a major brewery as the market has changed so much.

 

Some Doubles and Triples of standard offerings like Double Two Hearted do not work as well as the standard version.

I liked Double Jack, $10 for a six pack in Vegas. Richer and fuller body and malt than the OG version, but definitely not a let down.

 

FW is a bit confusing, shelved Wookie, shelved DJ, both damn good beers that only suffer the slow death of aging on the shelves here like every FW beer. Guys want an ipa here they grab Two Hearted Ale or Pernicious, they haven’t a clue how good FW beers can be. If your distribution system is broken your pretty much screwed, and finding fresh FW beers is basically impossible, they even stopped stocking Pivo.

 

If I ever see it when it hits out shelves it’ll be 4 months old.