Green Flash & Cellar 3

They should put all their focus on returning Alpine beers to their former glory. Smaller business for sure, but sustainable and potentially very profitable.

 

I know this may sound stupid, but the "new" labels seriously suck. Not saying it is a reason for their decline, but it can't help.

 

The new labels are not my thing either and with the Alpine beers being noticeably below their former glory it's not good. I hope they (Green Flash) can pull it together.

 

Was talking with some friends about this last night. From 2005-2011ish, GF was utterly rocking. They had THE BEST WCIPA at the time with the original recipe; then Le Freak, Pallet Wrecker; Rayon Vert, etc. They were excellent. Yeah I was pissed when they led the 4pk revolution. But when they killed original WCIPA and Hop Head Red, I gave them up. Didn't Chuck Silva leave shortly after those beers were changed? I don't think I've purchased any GF in at least 2 years or perhaps longer, too many better local options.

 

This is just the beginning. There are 100s of breweries that grew quickly during the boom which are subject to the horde's fickle nature. There was a time Black Tuesday commanded respect, but now a days it might as well be shelf turd. To be fair, it still tastes great but one can only drink so many 20% abv beasts. Once the locusts try the hype, they move on to tomorrow's hot adjunct.

I foresee a ton of "going out of business" or "dramatically scaling back" headlines over the next couple years.

 

I used to drink so many bottles of Hop Head Red.

 

No care once they left the Vista location and couldn't scale up and changed or killed recipes.
Bring back the og wcipa please.

 

Original recipe HHR and WCIPA were mainstays in my fridge. Haven't purchased either after sampling fresh batches following the recipe overhauls. If they brought back the classic recipes in 6ers, and got the Alpine stuff back to its greatness I'd happily give them both my business and an honest chance of righting their ship. Otherwise limited likelihood of either.

 

Um you guys know Soul Style is basically original WCIPA right? Or as close as you are going to get. Still I am not surprised at the level to which they had to scale back. They grew way too fast shipping GF and Alpine beers to markets that didn't properly know what they were getting. Still, I do quite enjoy their new Remix IPA and think it is made well.

As for Cellar 3 closing, I am not particularly surprised given the location and more importantly the quality of the sours which were good enough to draw initial interest but were quickly outshined by Council, Modern Times, and Toolbox. Plus with the increased availability of other sours entering the market, Upland, Rare Barrel, Phantom Carriage, Beachwood Blending etc they couldn't compete.

It will be very interesting to see how the sour space evolves over the next few years as Burning Beard, Wild Barrel, Alesmith, Stone, and others get their sour programs to maturity and start releasing bottles. Plus now CA Wild Ales has started putting stuff out there. Most of my friends who are hugely into sours have been buying quite a bit but you can only drink so much so eventually demand will scale back as cellars become stuffed and wallets stressed.

 

I haven't had it in awhile but I don't remember Soul Style tasting even remotely close to their West Coast IPA.

 

And also lets not kid ourselves here.. Many might not want to hear this but they didn't capitalize or jump in on this current haze craze-tap room- exclusive can release era. Go ahead and do your expansion but where's your tap room experience at? They didn't cover all their bases.

No can releases, no haze, no sexy stout releases. It is what it is. You have to keep your brand hot in this cut throat day and age in craft brewing. Plus you can't just expand simply to do you old lineup/core beers anymore. There's too many local breweries doing what they already do but with a fresher release date. And they're not the only brewery that's going to be facing this problem imo. Hell at worst they should simply copy/paste the Lauganitas playbook if anything.

 

I haven't purchased anything GF since they were blowing out cases of Jolly Folly for $20, haha. Just too many options these days, and they're too far from me to be a reasonable weekend pop in.

 

Cellar 3 was a nice experiment into something different but I think they failed to innovate and at least come up with one beer that would propel them forward into the modern scene, not to mention it was way in the boonies of Poway with not a whole lot to do out there. It's unfortunate but I believe they went too hard with expanding without keeping up with trends as someone else mentioned.

 

The prices kept me away from trying anything from Cellar 3.

Also, I know it shouldn't matter, but good god their labels are so fucking ugly.

 

What's close for your palate? Soul Style never had the dry finish and bitter punch I loved in WCIPA. Maybe I need to revisit, but I recall it being a more tropical/modern hop take on the WCIPA recipe.

Agreed

 

Agreed. Is the bubble close to burst? I suppose it might be a few years away.

Back on topic .
I visited cellar 3 twice. Beautiful grounds. Sad to hear.

 

https://thefullpint.com/beer-news/g...reclosed-sells-green-flash-and-alpine-assets/

Welp, looks like the end of the road. Such a shame to see this happen to the glory that was Alpine. I hope somehow they can land back on their feet somehow.

 

Wow. Interesting that the LLC that bought the assetts is called WCIPA.

Maybe it's owned by Pat from Alpine and he just bought his brand back for pennies on the dollar...

 

You can look up the license in the CA ABC system. Spoiler alert - Pat doesn't own it.