Midnight Sun M

It still has huge trade value, just traded a good bit of bullfrog lambic for it. For a 9 year old beer, it is amazing. Stand alone I would say it is pretty good to almost great.

 

If you can pretend to be a reporter and are willing to travel to Alaska it might still be available.

 

I wish I knew it was your top Want a bit earlier Dave. A bit too late now.

 

Last M trade I know of was: M : Eszett + Uli Zomer and if it helps, I have seen Eszett land 3F 50th + 3F MG + CC '13.

So M ~ 3F 50th + 3F MG + CC '13 + Uli Zomer. I agree, it "should" be able to land you a ton of the new release stouts. That said, I'm not sure the old whales hold much meaning to the people ransoming the new releases and you'll likely get offers of Assassin 1:1

 

it is an interesting dynamic where my sense is that the pace of "whale production" just keeps getting faster and faster. everything that HF and TG produce is an insta-whale. similar to many of other newer breweries, Side Project etc.

Cable Car was a huge whale now it might not even land Morning Delight which isn't even at the level of KBBS.

so when this happens what happens to the older whales?

after all the "value" is a fleeting thing that is primarily based on how many people want something. if the world decided that 5,000 other beers are more desirable than Loerik, then poof it doesn't have trade value anymore.

people may realize that the amazing beers produced now are probably on par with the older amazing beers that people only whispered about. on the other hand, tickers gotta tick

 

Also it comes down to how easily someone is will to give up that older whale. As long as others don't start dumping their whales it should hold it's value because there will always be people "ticking" or if it's a legitimately amazing beer and as these things are subjective it doesn't mean a 100 rated new release is as good or similar as another 100 rated beer older whale. Also I suppose it depends on how well the beer ages. The hope is that it doesn't age as poorly or take a few really bad reviews like K13 did. Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like after a few of those bad reviews of K13 the trade value really dropped off? That one surprised the hell out of me.

 

I doubt this is true about M. Do a bit of reading about how it was made, you may agree.

 

well it was a $15 bomber on release that has a 4.69 rating. I'm sure it was expensive to produce but at that price it doesn't reflect anything too insane.

I'm sure it's great but it's ratings place it right next to BCBCS.

(note though the recent reviews all skew towards "very good/great" while the early reviews skew "amazing" so it looks like this one may have faded a lot)

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/midnight-sun-m.14198/

This is a great thread I have linked. At the beginning of the thread they chime in with the wrong OG because no one can believe the actual. Gabe chimes in along the way with the actual OG and FG, and techniques he used. Good luck to anyone else trying to get a beer to finish at 10.74 and not taste like a thick, unbalanced mess like Dark Lord does.

 

sure I get it's really high quality...but the ratings are the ratings. all the recent ones don't have it any better than other world class beers.

 

"world class beer" is something that gets thrown around too much these days. A lot of M's reviews came from an era where a 4.5 meant some real shit, and a 4.75 was mind blowingly high. Today, with the ease of "had-ing" a beer combined with the culture of flavor of the week, hype the shit out of your local release beers, a beer with an rAvg of 4.5 doesn't even give me pause. Look at R&D Wild Peach. Almost 20% perfect 5s, and more than a page of reviews that are 4.75 or above. I'm not saying it's not a good beer, but really? What does a 5 mean anymore?

Anyway, I guess all I'm really saying is that a well-cellared bottle of M would be on a very short list of beers I actually get excited about drinking, but unfortunately I can't pay the cost to be the boss.

Also, BCBCS is one of the best beers in the world IMO, which is why you see it so highly rated with so many reviews. For M to be on that caliber is in no way a bad thing.

 

that goes both ways though - there are actually far more world class beers now than there were 11 years ago, so the basis of comparison for beers now vs M. originally is much different. BCBS barely existed back then.

Probably most useful to skim the recent reviews of M. and see how these guys rated other beers. Consensus is that this is a great beer. It's just not a $1,500 beer.

I think this is pretty common in all facets of life. people get annoyed by suggestions that Lebron is as good as Jordan (or Willie Mays vs. Mike Trout, etc), but the reality is that people these days are just bigger, stronger, faster, and have better training than ever before. the bar for all players has been raised. it's probably not much different for beer. what was ridiculously good back is probably not as ridiculous compared to what people are doing now as techniques and knowledge has continued to increase and breweries constantly try to top each other. it's progress, and that's good!

I would bet @jegross2 agrees with me

 

Both cavedave and HighLowJack make compelling arguments here. Why don't we trade a BCBCS for one M and pay $1500 for another and do a side by side. Won't that give a definitive answer?

 

M is one of the greatest things I have ever put in my mouth, and I don't really even like barleywine. You also have to remember that the people who have had M are probably going to be more harsh towards other beers, because it's highly likely that they've had a million ticks. Your random BCBCS drinker probably hasn't had any crazy whales, while any crazy whale drinker has probably drank at least a case of BCBCS over time.

 

I do, actually.

 

While you swayed me to your side with parts of your argument, your comment about bigger stronger faster swayed me back the other way. There simply are no new improved, or even equivalent, "bigger stronger faster" barleywines than M that I know of, in fact the difficulty of making a bigger stronger faster barleywine of this quality in today's market makes it seem unlikely to happen. Perhaps one needs to be a brewer to appreciate this. Easy to compare BCBCS to other BA Coffee Stouts. I'll bet there are 50 on the market today with similar ingredients and comparable brew techniques and gravities. To what do you compare M?

And of course I have no evidence to offer for this, but I am willing to bet if M was released now it would be the highest rating barleywine with a rating significantly higher than the stellar one it got. And the fact that it still drinks fantastically cannot be overlooked, since that is one of the key requirements for a barleywine to have; the ability to be great over time, like a wine. I so regret my inability to offer this as my own observation.

 

I agree with many of your comments.

Of course, one thing you have not mentioned is supply and demand. The reason M can command such a high trade price is because (1) it is so difficult to obtain (only 8 Gots on BA), and (2) most people who have it can get less rare, more recently produced beers much easier and for much less.

M is also one of the all-time greats because it is such a spectacular brew. Those who rate it (only 82 reviews in 9 years) tend to be those who have consumed other great beers yet they still rate M extremely highly. Many who rate BCBCS primarily consume average beers, so it is no wonder they consider BCBCS so great - it is compared to those with which they are familiar.

 

M is rare and trade value is high thats whi I hoard that shit