What's your old reliable?

I saw where he ( who he is I forget, the owner, head brewer) felt like the beer was too filling to allow him to comfortably drink 5-6 beers. That’s the story I believe that I saw.

Now why the need to down 5-6 beers at a sitting is a bit beyond me, especially fir a beer as dialed in as this beer was. Huge risk based on whether you can pound a sixer or not. Brew a different style of beer, or maybe try it as a brewery only effort at first to see how it flies. I love Prima Pils fresh it was always amazing.

 

My old reliable is Third Space's Happy Place. It's such an approachable/quaffable Pale Ale, it's priced decently and it's readily available in my area. Happy Place also seems to have really good shelf life... without question fresher is better but I have drank 3 month old happy place on occasion and am always taken aback by how bright the hops still are considering.

 

Dale, that is essentially correct. Below is what I posted as a reply to you in a previous thread:

"Because Ron Barchet (former co-owner of Victory) thought it was 'broken'.

Sometime in 2019 Ron Barchet of Victory Brewing made a decision to reformulate Prima Pils:

“Barchet noticed that he wasn’t able to drink the same quantity of Prima as he used to—by the third beer, his palate felt a little tired. He and the brewing team decided that dropping the beer’s bitterness level ever so slightly—from 50 bitterness units to about 45—might do the trick. Victory’s brewers also changed their process to incorporate Prima’s hops at a different point in the brewing process—almost entirely in the hopback rather than the brew kettle—which gives the beer more hop aroma with less hop bitterness.

“We’re really happy with how it came out. It’s a little more of a modern take based on where taste buds are and where the market is,” Barchet says. “We felt that if Prima was going to carry on, we need to get it a little more modern.”

“But there will be no massive announcement of the change, no “New Recipe!” label splashed across six-packs. Victory isn’t trying to hide the change, Barchet says, but they’re also not trying to scare away long-time Prima Pils drinkers. It’s a delicate, calculated risk to take with a venerated beer: in making changes that aim to improve the recipe, there’s a chance some of its steady customers might now like the change. Barchet, for his part, is confident in the new Prima, and he says that as a long-time fan himself."

“I don’t think people will necessarily be able to pick out the change,” he says. “I hope they just think ‘Wow, this is a good batch. This is a Prima batch I really like.’”

https://thetakeout.com/how-often-do-breweries-change-a-beer-recipe-1833330451

Well, if I was a brewery owner I might be motivated to make a re-formulation if I thought it would result in increased beer sales (e.g., my customers drinking more of my beers in a drinking session)?

I personally wish they would have left Prima Pils alone. I enjoyed drinking the old version and I am not a fan of the new version. Not a major hardship for me since there are plenty of other high quality locally produced Pilsners in my area; right now I have Sterling Pig Shoats Pilsner and Mainstay Poplar Pils in my refrigerator.

For completeness I did recently purchase another six-pack of Prima Pils since there was a 'rumor' in a BA thread that they went back to brewing this beer the old way. IMO they are still producing the re-formulated Prima Pils. This recent six-pack did have a pleasant, vibrant hop flavor/aroma to it but the mouthfeel was lacking (for my palate).

Cheers!

 

I just had the perfect pint. A 5 rating for that glass is indisputable by me.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. So juicy, so hoppy in a way that reminds me of hop oils. Wonderful!

Not at our Old Chicago, which has to use a nitro mix.

 

Thanks Jack, id take mouthfeel over nose any day, all that for 5 ibus which is a dicey standard of measure in the first place? The old wasn’t broken it was well loved, so he reformulated it to his preferred taste, wonder how sales supports that decision? If he’s changing it back I suppose there’s the answer. Perhaps?

 

FWIW, I am of the opinion that a difference of 5 IBUs (if this indeed true) is the least of the changes made to brewing the re-formulated Prima Pils. In the above quoted material they changed the hopping method/schedule to add most of the hops to the hop-back vs. kettle additions. What steps they took to change the mouthfeel aspect was not specifically discussed in the article but for my palate that is the biggest difference between the old and new Prima Pils.

That is a good question, I wonder as well. I can only report that they lost me as a customer as regards Prima Pils. For completeness I should state that I am a BIG fan of the new lager they introduced in 2020: Victory Classic Lager. While Victory lost my Prima Pils money they more than made up for this wito me purchasing four 15-packs of Classic Lager in 2020. Victory is very much a net winner here.

As I discussed above, IMO they are still brewing Prima Pils with their re-formulated recipe.

Cheers!

 

The 6packs were canned October 22nd. Yay!

 

Just as satisfying as it was in high school. I'll spare you with how long ago that was.

 

Bells two hearted. I tend to gravitate to whatever is new on the shelf, but every time I grab a 12 pack of two hearted, I remember how much I love it. I also agree with many others that say it always seems to be fresh here in PA.

Second I would say Daisy Cutter, but it has to be fresh.

 

D.C. Brau - The Corruption and The Public
Founders - Imperial Stout, Backwoods Bastard
Dogfish - 60 minute, 90 minute
Pilsner Urquel
Maine Beer Co. - Lunch
Sierra Nevada - Pale Ale, Torpedo

 

Stone IPA or FBS. I could drink only these two and be very content.

 

I would also have added Raison D'etre from Dogfish but the beer is retired. I drank my weight in that more than 100 times over in the past...

 

Lighter ones: SNPA and Eliot Ness
Higher ABV: Backwoods Bastard and CBS. When CBS disappears, Panther Cub will be a short-term replacement.

 

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is one of my go-to beers. I still check dates but I'm able to pick it up pretty fresh and it is almost always refrigerated.

Another one is Torpedo from Sierra Nevada. I prefer to buy it in a can but I might take a bottle over a can based on either date or whether one or the other is refrigerated.

Recently Bell's started distributing (again) in my area so I've been buying Two Hearted (again). Unfortunately they aren't winning the battle on refrigerator space in any locations I've been to. I've also experienced "new brewery takeovers" in the past where you get a lot of fresh beer in the beginning, then over time they stop getting new beer and it sits on the shelf forever. Time will tell if this stays on the "go-to" list, but I'll enjoy it while I can.

In the past Jai Alai from Cigar City was an old reliable, but it seems like now all I can find is old beer. I keept checking and it never seemed to get replaced with fresh beer. I'm so used to old beer at this point that I rarely even check it anymore; I simply skip over it.

 

With all the bizarre, at times unpalatable (in my opinion) concoctions in the craft beer industry, I find myself enjoying this pale ale more often. I never grow tired of it, even after all the years.