Why wouldn't a brewer remake a highly rated beer?

If your bacon splatters, you are cooking it too hot. Just sayin'.

 

I know that in the case of a local brew-pub, the brewer left and took his notes with him - thus their best beer was no more.

 

True enough but the recipe without the brewer is just a list. The printed page doesn't pass on the knowledge and technique of the professional who created the beer around their set skills as well as the ingredients.

 

I think we're dancing around a valid part of the answer here. Today's beer drinkers are much more interested in the next new "shiney" than they are in something they have already had. Therefore recreating that "one hit wonder" phenomenon is difficult. I think, in part, the consumer tendencies to be "one and done" and move on to next is a big factor.

There are a lot of beers that were eagerly anticipated every time they were released that are now hanging about in stores and relatively easy to obtain. I never SAW a bottle of KBS in a store until this year, for example. Some have become year round, some are no longer made, some stick to the limited release schedule. Assuming that these beers take extra time and resources to produce, why would a brewery bother? People used to get in a frenzy waiting for Nugget Nectar...another example. New is automatically better and how many threads are there about "well, it isn't as good as it was in 1987" or "there's way better beers for less money" or "I can get a better beer from the guy next door brewing in his basement" locavorism.

I'll throw another log on the fire here. You have a brewery that is constantly releasing one offs. Are they all really substantially different beers, or are they re-makes of the same beer (minor tweaks to the recipe/process) with a new name and new label to maintain that "one time only" excitement?

 

Youa re talking about my regional genesee right now. Their twelve horse ale is a tap favorite and only available at the brewery. I think that the idea that remaking a beer is a lot like remaking old tv shows. Those three brady bunch movies are enough and same with the dukes of hazaard etc . . . It's also a smart idea to encourage foot traffic in your establishment. So I admire genesee for keeping the twelve horse off the shelf where it might sit forever unnoticed.

 

1. Highly rated refers to a niche group of a subsect of the overall beer market. Very few highly rated in that subset find their way into the collective consciousness of craft as a larger market. This is like when a BA says they think Stone sucks and is overrated then thinks that lots of BAs agreeing means Stone must be suffering as a result. Outside the BA bubble Stone is prospering and expanding regardless.
2. Some brewers hate this because they'll look at another beer they thought was amazing and gets no accolades and they love the beer in question, but don't understand the hype train around it. Look at Pliny/Blind Pig. You'll find far more brewers that love BP over Pliny and BP gets a fraction of the love in the MUH HIGHLY RATED category
3. Is it worth the trouble? Do they want to get mobbed by traders, sellers, etc or do they want their normal steady business? Maybe you make some extra money for a few days but is it worth the experience of all your steady customers? Do you want to feed the hype beast?
4. Regression to the mean. Ever notice how the more a beer becomes available the more the score goes down? Not always true, but when you go from 200 ratings averaging 4.6 to 2000 ratings, you often see that number normalize more down to the 4.4-4.5 range because you have more than just the brewery fanboys and people who want to justify their crazy trades for it rating it. Some withstand this, many do not. That's why you see flashes in the pan and on release 2.0 where way more people get it, suddenly it's not as magical. Release 1 wasn't better, it just wasn't subjected to as much scrutiny.

 

If like wine, sometimes the conditions cannot be duplicated.

 

Why wouldn't a brewer remake a highly rated beer?

1) They lost the recipie
2) they didn’t write it down and forgot how to make it.

Signed, Capt. Obvious
Ok Evenmorejesus . Activate your 12% stout powers. And bless us all.

 

Highly unlikely on both counts. Have you ever seen a brewers log?

Everything is recorded.

That said, there are famous mistakes which occasionally result in a great beer...but the odds are slim....very slim.

 

It's so much harder to source the hype these days.
Seriously, there's as many reasons not to rebrew something, and as many reasons to rebrew it as there are brewers. Even with exact notes, sometimes, things just happen that seem to be accidents, and not replicatable, for any number of reasons.
Sourcing of strange ingredients, time and cost...
but that said, I have noticed more high-hype beers that are remade than not. Not always, not even every year, but occasionally.

 

Recipes are the ingredients and the process to assemble those ingredients. Most process lists are lacking in details that can make the beer better. A better brewer will have details and data throughout the process from grain to glass.

 

I wonder if a brewer ever did try to replicate one of these beers and failed. So they just gave it a different name.

 

Rename it and increase the price as well because, uh, it's new 'ya know.

 

That has to be a constant of the industry. I don't brew but I love cooking and I do that all the damn time.

Whenever I make really great food I don't even admit it's the same recipe until the fourth try. It takes that many tries to figure out why the first batch was so good. I'm sure conscientious brewers do the same. Truly great things are hard to reproduce or everyone would do it.

 

Don’t have the exact quote but as far as a Good Morning from Treehouse, Nate is on record as saying the brewday for it is ridiculously long (like 20 hours) which plays a part in why we haven’t seen it in years

 

If they did repeat it, they would have to deal with a plethora of comments in beer forums such as it's not as good as the original, they changed the recipe etc. Leave a sleeping dog lie.