Toppling Goliath Brewery appreciation thread...

You're all correct. The base beer doesn't matter. What a silly question if a brand new Toppling Goliath barrel aged stout has the same base as their other 4 kick ass stouts, or if it is something brand new that has never been made before.

I'm sure if Goose Island came out with a barrel aged beer that didnt use the same base as their Bourbon County beers, that no one would notice or care.

 

Well, agree to disagree I guess.
Semantics huh?

 

This thread is stupid.

 

So we are deciding what the word base means? It's pretty clear cut to me but I don't care how you want to define it I suppose. Cheers

 

No need to decide, I know what it means. Cheers to you as well.

 

Jesus. If the beer is delicious (and it is, I thoroughly enjoyed my pour), does it matter if we know the inputs and everything that goes on inside the black box? Nobody here will ever be able to brew a stout as good as Mike. Just appreciate it if you get the chance. Yeesh.

 

Challenge accepted!

 

It's time to brew a stout. What are you thinking of using for the base. Brew now, drink around new years...
I figure I'll call it one beer while it's fermenting, then add an oak spiral and call it a different name, then rename it again when I'm carbonating it.

 

Shit, we're gonna have to rename the beer we've got in our barrel. There goes all the label art I've been working on.

 

Doesn't everyone know that the base beer for every whale ever created is Unicorn Tears?

 

I thread-$h!+ and shade the TG stout worship more than any reasonable beer bro should but I'm with mothman on this one, getting a bit stupid.

We're adult chuckleboxes that argue over the minutuea of how fermented barley water tastes, not it's nomenclature.

 

Any news on King Sue dropping on Friday? Thinking about flying into Decorah

 

Clark dropping bombs on Twitter again.

Cherry term oil looks like it's coming up. Vanilla bean assassin confirmed later this fall. And the picture of chain smoker he posted looks carbed up and ready to go. All that in addition to kbbs and md.

I'm pumped for this fall. I foresee a lot of trips down highway 52 in my future.

 

Sure hope they don't do it during some idiots wedding, the Ryder cup, or ABR... or my tailgating trip. Other than that, I have prepared the wife, who I've been told "needs to come with".
Life is hard

 

RE: King Sue, it'll be ready when it's ready according to their twitter feed. I have yet to find a brewery that is worse at announcing and organizing their releases. In my experience, if you make the trip up and happen to get a release they're pretty big dicks about it all. Last time I was up I heard a staffer rudely tell a dude who was just commenting on how far he came to get the beer, "everyone drove four hours to get this beer." I've never seen people so stressed out by pouring a few beers for a small crowd. I'll probably never drink Assassin or KBBS again and I'm fine with that. Cost >>>>>>> Benefit. My un-appreciation over.

 

Sorry to be this guy, but that means you are going to start appreciating... just saying.

My guess it that staffers hear from literally everyone how far they drive. I'm 3 hours away, everyone drives to get there. If you make the choice to drive that far, you don't need to tell everyone and their mother that you did it.

 

Beer is dumb. The entitlement crowd has moved there way in - time to move out. It's not like King Sue is only brewed once a year? An organized release? My lord. Fonzie jumped the shark a long time ago.

 

They announce when the beer is going in the tank all the time so it is pretty damn easy to figure out when the release of something like King Sue is going to be. Line up and buy your beer, why the hell does it need to be organized differently than that?

 

This is the first time I've ever heard anything bad about the staff.. at all.

Clark isn't messing with you, it really will be ready when it's ready. He's said multiple times that they're shooting for Friday, but they won't know until they sample the beer Friday morning and see that it's fully carbed and ready for bottling. The same as any other brewery, really.

And in regards to driving 4 hours to get the beer.. umm, yeah, everyone does that. The Twin Cities folks that drive down are 3 hours away, the Des Moines people are 3 hours away, Madison people are 3 hours, Chicago people drive out from 5 hours away, and I've met a number of people at releases from St Louis which is 6 hours one way.

So no, you're not a special butterfly and you don't deserve advanced notice on releases or a cool prize for making it there.

 

Un-appreciaton - lazy reduction in which I meant my rant of un-appreciation was over. But it's not.

As far as how it could be organized better, how about "Our beer will be on sale next Friday" or "Stout X will be released on this specific date, here are details." That's pretty easy to do. There's a general cocky indifference as illustrated by "the beer lets us know when its ready." Examples of releases that work better, New Glarus R&D, Goose Island Nuthulu, Goose Island BCBS, anything Half Acre releases anything Pipeworks releases, anything Surly releases and countless others.
I don't understand the fan boy worship and why people don't hold these guys accountable for being dicks. Do people actually feel luck to drink their beer, non-deserving? Their brewer seems to be a really nice guy, but outside of that it's a too-cool mentality. I guess if you live in the middle of Iowa then Decorah seems like a nice place to visit, but I'm equidistant to Decorah and Chicago and I'd rather hit up Half Acre for a properly announced release than sit around hoping I'll pick the right day and time to drive to the middle of nowhere, get treated like an asshole, buy my beer and go home.