Side Project / Shared (2023)

While I agree that barrel can affect hype, having finally tried VW BBT on-site (btw, you StL guys are crazy fortunate lol!), I thought it was as close to a perfect BA stout as I’ve ever had. Of all the beers I had last week, that was definitely one of the most memorable…oh, and pH1…and Fuzzy b1

 

Yeah, I meant the difference in actual taste most likely doesn’t justify the hype.

 

Balaton samples at the cellar. It is delicious, but it is tart.

 

I thought so too but for years Fiftyfifty would make the same base aged in different barrels and it’s surprising how different some of them where. Now their basically pastry stouts, but in its heyday (2013ish) they were fantastic

 

Is everyone forgetting BBT and BBT Rye? No bigger discrepancy in price or hype exists that I am aware of for “take the same beer, but now…rye barrels”.

 

I'm pretty sure those were the same price from the brewery. I can't speak for everyone and I guess it could be my mind playing tricks on me, but I feel I could definitely taste a difference in the two and prefer the RBBT to regular BBT.

 

I was talking secondary/trade value, since we were talking hype.

I’ve not had the pleasure to try RBBT (still), so maybe it is other worldly by comparison. I was just pointing out the obvious example analogous to the “barleywine” discussion.

 

I've had them side by side, (actually twice now, the second time being unplanned), and had a very difficult time detecting the differences.

And I'm one who usually loves the contrast a rye barrel brings that a regular whiskey barrel doesn't. I do believe it can impart different characteristics that, to my palate, are more enjoyable.

 

Anyone who says there isn't a difference between barrels and especially types of barrels is trippin. I have no idea how you could have those two beers side by side from the same year and not say there is a difference.

Let's even just take a non-SP local STL example with Heavy Riff. They release their Dear Agony stout in like 8-9 different barrels every year and some of them taste like completely different beers, even staying within just bourbon and not comparing to the rye aged ones.

I feel like people also like to "reverse hype" themselves and try and convince themselves that a beer doesn't taste any different because they get too stuck up on the inflated secondary value that has nothing to do with the brewery.

 

First, I most certainly agree that barrels definitely change a beer.

That said, your statement is really getting into apples and oranges here. There's a big difference between a Bourbon BA beer that is a blend of 2-4 different brands vs. a single bourbon BA. For example, looking at a BA beer that was blended from 4 different brands within Buffalo trace won't be the same as a BA beer aged exclusively in Blantons, or ER, or VW, or Weller, etc. -And that contrast gets bigger when you start crossing distilleries, and blending them all together.

That's why I thought the idea of people mentioning VWBBT was a little out of left field; a more apt comparison is BBT vs. RBBT, since they use a mix of distillery barrels in each (well, confident in BBT, but since I've never had RBBT, less confident that is the case there). I assume (but did not check) that riverbent is the same way.

 

Not to belabor this further, but the difference in barrels will increase the more specialized the product. VW is a brand that is extremely choosy about it's barrels, much like WLW. Compare that to Weller SR, and you don't have quite the same consistency, and neither will the BA beer. The more you muddy the waters, the less distinguishable the BA beer will be. So, when you blend barrels together, whether it's bourbon or rye, you're rounding out those differences. If you have low-rye Ryes (like Sazerac) compared to high-rye Ryes (like Redemption) (and conversely, low-rye vs. high-rye bourbons), the difference between bourbon and rye can become awfully muddled, especially when there's a blend of distilleries in each, rather than it being a single-product BA stout (e.g. VWBBT).

 

I think the point about them being a blend is definitely fair, and I believe it has been shown since they started making these rye focused versions of their beers that they select for a different flavor profile in the recipes that they choose to blend to accentuate those characters from the barrels. Whether they could have made the beer taste similar to the non-rye version or not, the blends are clearly different, and while it may be a palate difference I think there is a clear difference in flavor with the rye version pretty much every time tasting better for me (and apparently many others). I think there's a reason beyond rarity that they are consistently receiving better rankings (at least comparing BBT to RBBT and Terminus where there are direct comparisons) and it shouldn't be surprising that people would think that would hold true for Reverberant.

 

Nitro coco vibes when?

 

Before the next batch of BA coco most likely

 

So sometime in the next decade? Got it.

 

So when do we get them to use smaller cans akin to the affinity series by Phase 3?

 

Wish they would bring back All Dougs Are Heroes and Base Weight. Loved those beers

 

Base Weight is most likely gone. that was Brian’s recipe wasn’t it?

 

ah shit you might be right. The one with cocoa nibs and vanilla was sooooo good

 

All Dougs was Megan’s beer but she worked on the recipe with Brian. No idea how that would work for brewing it again.