Half Acre (2019)

Yeah, I consider myself to be a perfect example/case study on this. I was buying a new NE beer every week, chasing down any HB "must-haves," running to Corridor for most of their new tappings, etc. Now I grab a 4-pack of something I really like, like Modern Times' Critical Band, and it takes me weeks to get through it. But I'm constantly thinking about the next time I can have Metropolitan's house helles.

After a certain point, even the best-made local NE beers start to run together for me, so it starts to make less and less sense to go out, chase them, and drop $16-20 for a 4-pack of the same thing.

 

I think you're right, though the unsaid reason I think is that there are just too many breweries. Given that, making tons and tons of different SKUs seems like a short/medium-term way to be successful, but possibly harmful in the long term. There's a breaking point. Not everything can be special.

The brewing industry is really reminding me of what happened to baseball cards more and more. At first, variety seems great, then it became so ridiculous it wasn't really variety any more.

 

Mixed 4 (or 6)-packs is really just the ultimate logical extension of what's long been a "problem" in the industry: People like to try/chase new stuff.

With more and more good offerings of every type being available, you're basically left with 3 choices:
1) Buy packs of all of them
2) Skip some
3) Try to get singles of each

I've personally always tried to get a full 4 or 6-pack of any new beer I think is going to be worth it (so that I can drink as much of it as possible), but with so many good beers being available (as others mentioned), it's less and less worth it to me to drink the same NE IPA or even lager a bunch of times in a row.

 

By the way, I will say I love what Half Acre did last year with their stout 4 pack that was variants of the same beer. Like one was the regular stout, one was vanilla, one was cinnamon, etc. It was a bit more expensive, I think like $20, but I gladly bought it because I loved the concept.

 

That is much easier to pull the trigger on after seeing the price point of Prairie's deconstructed BOMB 4-pack awhile ago.

 

I readily spend $7 or $8 on 1x Hop Butcher can at Ovie on the train ride home. It's ridiculous of me to do that if you look at it in a vacuum when I could generally pick up a 4-pack w/o too much hassle for less than twice that. But it's worth it to me. I don't think I'm a huge outlier there - Point is, they can upcharge alot of us to break those 4-packs up.

 

Original Reaper

 

Anyone excited about Orin? I had a bottle that I left at a friends house (after a share) and it was consumed at some point after the share...so I never got to try it. But the base and variants sound interesting.

 

Yes liked this milk stout release a lot, also Hostile Harry Four pack stout variants from Spiteful which was excellent (i still find some ransom cans lingering on shelves). Hope both are released again down the road.

Also have the Drago four pack variants in the cellar. Should be another great winter!

I’ve also really like the Orin releases in the past, looking forward to the three options.

 

Pretty sure you can still find Orin if you want it...

 

Last year's bottles are still in the cooler at Balmoral

 

Right on, thank you!

 

I don't buy Orin over and over because I honestly can't even get through the BA beer I already have, but the fact that Orin sits on Binnys' shelves mostly year-round now is one of my favorite developments in the Chicago beer scene. It's a great, unique BA beer, and I love that in a pinch it's just sitting there waiting for me.

 

Orin is amazing. These variants almost sound like an April fools day joke. I mean Thai Iced Tea and Cherry Coke!! Easy pass

 

Those actually make me want to try them.

 

What? Shouldn't that nelson be going into Vallejo?