Most Overrated Brewery...

The Alchemist

 

I clicked on this thread thinking "oh great, another overrated thread".....but you nailed it with Greenflash. Don't understand the hype. Especially in San Diego, where there are SO MANY better options....

 

...so why do you love Bells?

 

I was pretty pumped when Bells finally started distributing in MD about a month and a half ago... So far, I haven't been impressed.

Stillwater is another that comes to mind.

 

I agree 100%.

Personally, I tend to hear the hype and I track down some of the hype beers and then I try to dispel the myth by tasting them personally. But the same thing keeps happening: I tend to like the beers until some beer geek (who is 99.9% of the time local to that beer) claims his local beer is the best beer "ever." Go look at the threadshitting. It is almost always some local guy trying to blow up the value of his local beer. I had someone respond to one of my FT:ISO telling me I am way-off and then accuses me of trying to increase the value of the beer I have. Considering I had never tried to trade that beer before makes it pretty difficult to accuse me of inflating. But his trolling of the FT forums and immediate defense of his local beer meant he was more easily accused of doing the inflating.

I just wish every person who swears by their local beer (or favorite whale) could be forced to do a blind taste test. I think Degarde, Trillium, Alchemist, HF are great breweries. But I just wish the local cheerleaders for those beers would sit down for a blind taste test and put it on YouTube so all of us could have a good laugh.

...especially when they find out the beer they chose was a homebrew.

 

Founders, Balast Point, Stone,

 

Intuition and Bold City...pretty sure they use the same base ingredients for all of their brews....also Green Room, but they don't sell in any stores, so you'd have to go to the taproom to drink anything (not worth it, in my humble opinion)

 

^^^Agreed^^^

An overrated brewery, in my opinion, is Jester King. I have not tried any of the special releases; however, I felt the shelf beers tasted watered-down.

 

I do like a lot of Stone's offerings. That said, I refused to drink their stuff for the longest time due to their lame aesthetic and try hard nature. It seems like they've toned that down over the years.

 

Oskar Blues. For me, they have 1 beer: TenFidy. The rest I don't particularly care for.

 

There beer is that good though. Also I love how they handle their releases. Always announced, always a fun bottle share, and they dont determine bottle limites untill right before the release time so eveyone gets beer. The last point really seals it for me. If you make the trip you get beer.

 

FFF

 

Here is the problem. Heady Topper isn't overrated. Lawson's Double Sunshine isn't overrated. Trillium double dry hopped Melcher Street isn't overrated. Instead, a wide range of other beers, getting less notoriety, are underrated in comparison. Those who think that the gap between the highly sought after beers and other excellent beers is a wide one are the problem. That includes some from tiny breweries and some from large ones.

I gave up on trading, except with a cousin in Missouri for fun, because nothing I could get was actually better than anything I could pick up locally. Not Pliny the Elder not Zombie Dust, nothing really. In some parts of the USA that may not be true, but there are really good breweries all over the place.

 

Gotta agree 100% with the OP on Green Flash, haven't had a beer of theirs I've liked.

Also for me: Rogue, Victory, and locally, Flat 12.

And for you guys saying Three Floyd's is overrated are crazy. The ONLY overrated beer they have is Dark Lord. ZD, Permanent Funeral, Alpha King, Robert the Bruce, Dreadnaught, APW, Blot out the Sun, Broo Doo, Apocalypse Cow, are all amazing beers.

 

I would agree on Rare Barrel. They certainly have some misses. Societe is slightly overrated, but not by much.

The others I disagree. I have not had a beer from HF, SARA or RR that I would categorize as a miss/ bad beer and msot are excellent.

As for my experiences on overrated breweries, for me, CCB makes tons of misses. They only make good stouts and brown ales and white oak jai alai. Bruery is another for me that most of their beers are misses for me. Terrapin's bomber releases have been disappointments.

 

Bell's for sure, beyond Two Hearted and Expedition.

 

3F, Stone

 

Prairie is totally overrated.. How long do they barrel age their stouts before release? A week? Not to mention every one of their farmhouse ales all taste the exact same. Oh.. And at least in Kansas City.. Boulevard. Everyone here loves them but so much of their beer is just totally mediocre at best IMO

 

Marketing =/= hype.

I mean, yes, marketing is technically a form of hype, but hype in the way we think of it around these parts goes beyond the standard sales activity that every business that ever had a product to sell engages in.

The overwhelming majority of hype is a function of consumers because consumers are the ones with the credibility to promote a beer without the skepticism that comes from marketing (i.e., a brewer promoting their own beers). Side Project isn't in demand because of anything Side Project is doing, other than making good beer. It's in demand because consumers drink the beer then talk to their friends about it, trade it, etc.

If brewers could manufacture hype, then they would all do it, because hype = sales.

 

Because Expedition Stout, Black Note, and Two Hearted are in my top 50, but I literally don't like one other beer they make.