Top 50 PA beers

Make the drive. Judge for yourself.

I doubt you will be disappointed, though.

 

where is this list?

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/lists/state/pa/

 

I was. I had 6 or 7 from there, and granted none of them are on the top 50. I thought they were all average to good. Nothing above good. I found them to be mostly boring and one-dimensional. I'd still like to go back and give them another shot but my first experience wasn't mind-blowing like I was lead to believe.

 

Your mileage may vary.

I'm surprised, but palate variation happens.

 

I went recently and only really loved one out of the six beers i had. None of them were bad, but the bread was better than half the beer I had.

 

I know they do so many beers that it's impossible to have a home run every time. But, of the ones I had, there were 2 saisons, 1 pale ale, and 3 IPAs. I didn't dislike any of them but there was only one that I could have gotten a second glass of.

 

The fact that one brewery represents more than half of the top 50 beer in PA is a joke.

 

I worked in research. I would love to see the results of the old blind tasting. Even knowing about sample bias I have been amazed at how much hype affects my perception when confronted with results from blind tastings. Now if I only knew a sure fire way of gaining hype I would be very very rich.

 

I'm a big TH fan, but my problem with the list (and I guess them) is a lot of these have only been brewed once. I wish they'd brew the homeruns more often...maybe they will with the second location opening up.

Sunny Side Up should be #1 IMO.

 

Vermont has the same thing going on with Hill Farmstead having 32 of the top 50.

 

^ Though Vermont is a lot smaller and probably doesnt have as many breweries as PA.

Note: Ive done zero research to back up this claim. ;-)

 

Tired Hands hype is out of control. Yes, they make some amazing beer. Not all of their beer is amazing. Not even most of it is. And unless you live close enough to go there very often, their IPAs are hard to distinguish from one another. Except for the ones they add fruit to, but those mostly aren't very good.

 

If there was a bling taste-test of Tired Hands beers would there be much of a difference? (eg most IPAs or saisons) I sometimes think that all of their different beers is to drum up bringing people in because something "new" is on tap.

 

But isn't that what US craft beer drinkers want? It seems to me that Tired Hands is delivering what their customers want: the next new thing.

Cheers!

 

Craft beer drinkers maybe. Craft Beer Geeks yes.

I'm not saying Tired Hands isn't successful at what they're doing but from the few replies to what they're making above it sounds like some of their beers aren't memorable and the ones that are memorable are made once and gone.

But if a brew pub made for tickers is what the "US craft beer drinkers want" then this is it.

 

I keep nagging Jean to rebrew Alien Church. He said that he will and very likely when the new location opens up. By the way, many of the beers on the Top 50 have been brewed more than once: Mago Tago, Uyawa Pog, HandFarm, Infinite Energy, Extra Knuckle, and Pineal. Interesting enough, I did not like Mago Tago and told Jean so. We had a long interesting discussion about the expectation of "mango". The other repeaters are outstanding, some aren't on this Top 50 like "The Light that Spills out of the Hole in Your Head".

I have had A LOT of Tired Hands and I have had A TON more of awesome beers around the country (197 of the Top 250 beers on BA). I LOVE Tired Hands. I'm 30 mins from there and go once a week or twice every 3 weeks to drink and get my growlers filled. I also trade a lot of TH to many happy trade partners around the country. While I usually find something I really enjoy, there are a few times when I found only 1 beer that I consider to be good. However, more often than not, I thoroughly enjoy/love at least a couple of the beers available at any given time. Nearly any beer that was brewed for the 2nd time or more often is a MUST get/try so I always try to make it there when I see a particular beer being released again.

Tired Hand brews so many beers, 90%+ at the time new beers, you simply cannot expect everything to be amazing/mind-blowing all the time. You can't go there once or twice and judge it either. If they simply stop brewing new ones and just brew mainly the ones that most people love, bottle/can and go distro state-wide/regional-wide, they would easily have many beers on the Top 250 and would definitely get a lot more fans.

 

Dear God! The idea of Uyawa Pog in cans makes me drool.

I'm in total agreement that not everything is a homerun. But, they are swinging for the fences, and when they connect... Look out!

 

I do not go toTired Hands as frequently as @mythaeus; my guess is I have been there 8-10 times. On every one of my visits I have had at least 1 of their beers that I think was very, very good and for the majority of my visits I have thought there were 2-3 beers that were very, very good. I like that you can purchase 4 ounce glasses so you are not always committed to drinking a pint of a beer you have not had before.

I should also mention that I have never found any of the Tired Hands beers to be bad; I simply like some more than others.

IMO, Jean is a very, very talented brewer and I personally will continue to visit Tired Hands (and Tired Hands II when they place opens up).

Cheers to Jean Broillet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!