450 North Brewing

The turnout for this release makes sense. It’ll be interesting to see what happens after the next one. If, like some people have said, the mules are left holding over the next few weeks or make less money, then shit could hit the fan.

regardless, they made something that tasted great. However, it was a lot of deception and now it seems they are being pretty douchey about the whole thing. Anyone says anything on social media and the mules come running to their defense to keep cash flow. I loved some of their stuff, but I’d never go back at this point on principle alone

 

Couldn't agree more after reading your post. Mules will do what they can to keep trade value and secondary prices up.

 

I could definitely be reading too much into it, but the intense fandom (mostly relegated to Facebook, thankfully) and straight up cognitive dissonance defending 450 at all costs doesn't seem to me like it's solely out of self interest by mules (although there definitely is that too); I think a significant portion of the fans who are minimizing or outright ignoring any fault here are doing so because they feel personally attack when people poke fun at or criticize 450.

It's an interesting little case study in human behavior, and reminds me so much of last year's Oscars race when Green Book started to catch some shit and viewers of a certain type went "you can't tell me what not to like!!!" and doubled down on their original fandom because they identified strongly with this corporate creation in such a way that they sensed criticism of this *thing* they identified with as a personal affront. There's obvious political factors at play here too, but we can keep them implicit to the conversation.

450 beginning to feed the fire with their rolled eyes is only going to drive that fandom further... but I think it's still up in the air as to whether the larger market will support this kinda thing.

 

Reminds me of a recent presidential election #politicsadvocate

 

Very funny that a lot of their advocates are using the "Who cares about the ABV, I don't drink beer to get drunk, I drink it for the taste" defense. If they drank beer for the taste they would drink just that; actual beer instead of unfermented fruit puree slurry cans.

 

exactly...drink fruit juice or get a real slurpees if it’s the flavor

 

If breweries like this were making some innovative juices, like some really fresh hand presses juices with unique fruits and stuff then they would actually be creating a product I could respect. That would be something with some integrity. But no, they goof off on Instagram all day and claim to be innovative "brewers" but their products are hardly beer.

 

I laughed when I read in their apology letter that they have “pushed the boundaries of what beer can be”....

 

I honestly refused to waste time reading most of it. Even before it was posted, I could tell from the previous posts from BA users what their response would be. Seems to be right on point.

 

At what point along the way did having a shitty attitude become one of the major characteristics of being a haze brewer?

 

Leave hazebois out of this. This is about cheap fruit puree berliner brewers.

 

Haze bros have officially reached “get off my lawn” status, now that the “fruit purée berliner boiz” exist.

 

Same thing in my book.

 

Anyone wonder if they also lie about which hop varieties they use?

 

I think that’s the broader issue. What else are they being deceptive on?

 

Gotta give credit to J Wakefield for breaking through the glass ceiling for shitty attitude brewers everywhere.

You could even argue sending his Kickstarter donors leaking $50 bottles of DFPF opened the door to exploding cans of fruit puree.

Truly a trailblazer of terrible trub.

 

I'm no expert either but I think its definitely possible to brew a 10% slushy style beer, though maybe not by the same method but it would probably taste like 10% not 2.5%. Couldnt you just add the puree late during the fermentation process, let it get to 10% then cold crash?

 

Fruit contains 80%+ of water. Adding fruit doesn't necessarily increase ABV and can actually dilute it depending on the base beer. If they have exploding cans, that is likely because they tried to leave extract remaining from the fruit additions or had some type of contamination (causes excessive attenuation that occurred slowly once canned). If extract is remaining after adding fruit, that would def mean the ABV dropped on the base beer they added the fruit into. If you don't let the yeast do their thing, the sugar remains and all that water for sure drops the ABV (dilution). Some breweries will add fruit and kill the yeast with additives, or just pasteurize to keep more of the sweetness.

To brew a 10% "slushie beer", you likely would have to brew a 10%+ base as puree often is in the 1.040 to 1.045 specific gravity range. It will drop the ABV even if the yeast consumes all the sugar, again, due to all that water in the fruit puree.

The trick is, lacto used for kettle sours creates a difficult environment, pH wise, for yeast to work in. Low ABV stuff is no problem, but the higher the ABV, the yeast is fighting both low pH and pushing it's alcohol tolerance. It gets tricky.

Or a brewery can simply brew a big blonde ale type beer, fruit the hell out of it and add lactic acid (what lacto creates when kettle soured) to make a 'fake' type sour.

Many ways to go about it, though.

 

I never really understood the hype behind these slushy beers. Personally, I'd rather just get or make a fruit smoothie and add some vodka and make my own cocktail. I've never tried their beer and probably never will, but from the comments, it seems that the other beers they make are pretty lackluster at best so I'd say this could be a huge hit for them. Living close to Trillium, with all their issues, I haven't really seen a significant drop in people their. I'd credit it to them that they actually make multiple styles well so they will have longevity. Either way, I'd say for those that love 450 beers (and I mean people that will drink them and not resell them), you'll probably enjoy the future with less lines and people so cheers to that.

 

What issues has Trillium had? I know something awhile back about paying their employees or something like that, but that’s all I’ve heard.