What's Up w/ Pliny?

Send me a case and I'll let you know...

Seriously, though, it's most likely just your palate being a little burned out.

 

I think its because you are pouring it into a standard pint glass. Vinnie does not approve and he is punishing you for it.

The Pliny I have had recently tasted pretty much how I remembered. I am not a regular consumer so take that for what its worth.

 

Never been to Santa Rosa Kevin?

OP, there are a couple things that can happen. Your nose could be off - happened to me once with a sinus problem and all I got was bitterness. The other could be a shipment of hops that have less oils, the same variety of hops vary from year to year, farm to farm, and field to field.

 

Pliny may have just lost some of it's luster to you by now. Another reason could be the source/quality of ingredients isn't the same every time. It's probably not easy to nail that beer every single time on a scale that size and you might have a palate good enough to pick up on it. I get Pliny so infrequently I wouldn't know if it was off or spot on.

That's all I got on this fine Easter morning. Ima roast that bunny for not bringin' me any Pliny!

 

Anything that relies that much on dry hopping lays its fate in the hands of Mother Nature. Such is true for many beers, as hops can sometimes be dramatically different from batch to batch. Hence, so can the beer. For years, I was in the situation of having some of just about every single batch of Pliny, on tap. And at this local bar (Beachwood), there was a set of regulars like myself and sometimes the whoever came later, would ask who ever was there earlier "How's the Pliny?" To which you would either hear; "a little off" or a very enthusiastic "it is on!" But what I figured out after a while was that different people had different ideas about which batches wee on or off. For example, Pliny was on for me, when the malt was very present, as well, and the beer was far more balanced. For others, a batch of Pliny was "on" when hops took over and packed a bigger punch; almost a slight bit astringent to me and pushing the malts further back in the flavor profile. And none of this had to do with freshness, as Beachwood seemed to always have kegs less than about 10 days old. So I have seen Pliny swing back and forth probably hundreds of times and I doubt that it is Vinnie changing up anything, it is just the swings that Mother Nature hands him in the hops. For me that means that it can swing between an awesome beer to an even more incredible beer when it hits that perfect balance. But then again, I think that we all, individually, have our own understanding of where that perfect balance is.

 

Not yet. Pliny served in pint glasses out there?

I would find that humorously ironic after seeing Vinnie and Natalie stating something close to pint glasses being the worst possible glass to serve beer in on a Brewers Assoc. video regarding glassware.

 

If I remember correctly (and I verified on some google image searches) they serve in more of a nonic pint, not a shaker pint.

http://s3-media3.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/ciV9ZWZWVAFwP3YIjDaxqA/ls.jpg

 

I'm fortunate enough to get to have Pliny here in Colorado about once a month, and I buy nearly every batch.

My conclusion: your palate is probably fried. When compared to hoppier IPAs like Heady, Abrasive, and even Sucks, Pliny seems pretty tame. But I don't enjoy Pliny because it's the hoppiest beer around. I enjoy it because it's damned near perfect and refreshing. Hard to find any flaw in it. That soft mouthfeel is hard to find in any other beer of its style.

 

It is at Monk's cafe in Philly where the owner is drinking buddies with Vinnie.

A bar in Montpelier gave me a heady and a shaker, but then the label on the can suggested a better option...

 

How old are you? The older we get, we start to lose some of our intricate abilities to define taste. Sadly.

 

I have been there more than a few times, and the attention has been on the beer. Yeah a nonic, but not that much different as far as the delivery of the aromatics. The Belgian styles are in tulips/snifters.

 

If not palate evolution...

I recall RR was front-lining a well project to abate the water crisis in their area - not just for brewing but the community as a whole. I'm not researching into this to confirm progress, but perhaps new well water is now being used and compared to the original water source, there is a difference in mineral content - such that the flavor profile has been altered. I'm sure they would have checked things out first but in light of the looming crisis may have no choice but to use the well water. Certain minerals may subdue the hop profile but at an acceptable level to RR?

 

You can chemically fix this. This is how AB-Inbev and MillerCoors achieve their fantastic same-ness across their nationwide breweries.

I honestly doubt that's the case. If RR noticed something like that, they'd work to fix it rather than just shrugging and continuing to bottle one of the best IPAs in the US though they know something has changed.

More likely a case of the OP having palate fatigue, as other posters have pointed out.

 

I tended to give little creed to the common notion that ultra fresh Pliny was so much better than bottles that were a couple weeks/months old, that is until I had a bottle that was 1 week old. Freshness is key with Pliny, and my experience with RR Blind Pig is that it travels better than Pliny and retains it's hoppy beauty longer.

 

Ive only been tasting Pliny here and there for a little over a year and a half, but I don't remember ANY sediment in any of it. I assumed its been filtered since day 1. I was wondering how someone would have a blind taste test with an unfiltered (HT) and filtered (PtE) IPA? I mean, they aren't that hard to differentiate in a glass from about 50 feet away.

 

I went to RR this past fall and they definitely serve Pliny in a pint glass?

 

I think the beveled/nonic pints are much better than shakers for aroma. I thought that Pliny was great out of it when I was there a few months ago as well. Focusing on the beer makes sense to me though. Sometimes you just need A glass to have your beer out of, even if it's plastic.

 

Dead on.