The Alchemist (2019)

Live in Vermont. Drink Heady or Focal every week. Visit the brewery often. Have never had one bad can of beer in 6 years.

 

I was referring to the first sale out of the Stowe brewery this year. I had forgotten they did that pop up in 2014. Good catch.

 

Had fresh Heady (day after canning) and it's def one of the better offerings in the IPA world. I had another can 3 weeks after and it had noticeably fallen off which surprised me. Usually the turbid extra dry hopped hazies fall off that fast

 

In my experience, heady is one of the most, if not the most, shelf stable beers I’ve ever had

I left a few packs in my parents basement fridge (super cold) and forgot about them for at least 8 months. When I had a can, I remember remarking how much it hadn’t fallen off

Ymmv of course

 

The Alchemist prides themselves on low oxygen uptake and they have all the resources in the world to continue on that goal. I’m calling BS on saying they got an oxidized can straight from the source. In the secondary market it is certainly possible. Heady is the best beer in its weight class 12.50 / 4 pack by a country mile

 

Been going up to VT getting Heady Topper for 8 yrs now. That beer is pretty damn consistent and hasn’t changed much from can to can from 2011. Going up next week and can’t wait to stock up on more for winter!

 

I've had similar experiences with always getting the same taste from Heady. I'm curious what the Alchemist does to account for crop variability that other breweries just can't seem to nail down.

 

There’s a lot of breweries that make very consistent beers. The alchemist is definitely one of them. But keep in mind breweries like Sierra Nevada, Russian River, etc. are also making these beers consistently. I think there’s two variables that make tree houses beers vary(as well as many others). I think the incredibly high hopping rates make it more difficult to predict the exact flavors especially when a lot of that stuff ends up in the packaged material. I also think some of the new age hops like galaxy, Citra, mosaic, etc. tend to have more variability in flavor and aroma then some of the more traditional hops that are used in sierra Nevada pale ale and also beers like heady topper.

I have been drinking heady topper for about eight years. I usually get a case three times a year. Every time I have one it tastes exactly the same. Also it holds up extremely well. My guess the flavor that some people are describing is due to very old cans and/or cans that were exposed to high levels of heat for long periods of time. I have had heady topper’s that are a couple months old that taste incredibly delicious still. In fact I had one last night that’s about two months old and it still tasted very good. It was a slight drop off but not much. The beer was kept very cold though.

I wish I could buy heady topper in a package store near me. I would grab a four pack every couple weeks.

 

Aren’t there rumored to be ~6 types of hops in Heady? Perhaps that variety helps mask variations in the individual hops themselves?

 

I believe the Heady that is canned is always blended from several batches of Heady that is brewed, which helps homogenize things. That was the case before the new brewery opened and I don’t imagine it has changed. For what it’s worth, John Kimmich says he can taste batch to batch variations.

 

Huh I haven't heard this one. Is that common for breweries that are always producing the same beer?

 

Squidgy Black... my goodness. The best Barrel Aged Stout I've had in some time. Just perfect.

 

I have it on good authority that the AB-INBEV brewery in Merrimack, NH blends 11 batches for each canning run of Bud to achieve consistency, so it's probably a common practice with flagship brews.

(John: please don't kill me for the AB comparison, just making a point.)

 

I also find Alchemist beers to be quite consistent and with very good shelf life.

For me: Alchemist in cans with several weeks on them > freshly bought Alchemist cans > draft samples at the brewery

... and, it’s not even close. Particularly found Rapture much better after a few weeks.

 

To be honest one of the things that makes Budweiser and some of the other large breweries that make the American adjunct Lager so impressive is the fact that they are consistent. I would imagine in many ways comparing anybody’s beers to those beers in terms of consistency is actually quite the compliment. It is much harder to brew consistent beer than it is to brew good beer. Those large companies that make AAL,s Spend a tremendous amount of money making their beers taste the same. It is not easy

 

Heady is a blend of 4 different ferments. John has stated this a few times. They combine those ferments into a conditioning tank. Allows for variation but also allows brewers to tweak certain variables for potential future batches. Different hop lots, etc. I also think it’s yeast derived as well. Yeast character can change when you start using really large fermenters. The static pressure of all that liquid can change things considerably.

The cans I’ve been bummed about are always incredibly malt forward with a hop presence that doesn’t stand out. To me that points to oxidation more than anything.

I’m no professional brewer but I’ve got more than 250 brews under my belt as a lowly homebrewer. Let’s just say I know what oxidized hoppy beer tastes and smells like.

 

Did you reach out to the brewery? I can guarantee they would pay your shipping cost to send them one of those oxidized beers.

Your experience seems to be fairly unique, based on some of the other feedback on their beers, so it would be beneficial to loop them in from a quality control perspective.

Please be sure to let us know how they respond.

 

Kimmich is a stickler for O2. Do contact the brewery.

Heady is the first of yeast driven new age PAs in my mind. That peach flavor is my jam. The yeast is what makes the beer. Kimmich has bragged of lower hop utilization for many years.

It's the pinnacle of consistency and longevity I the sea of new age IPAs imo.