Tröegs Nugget Nectar - 2021 Release

Has anyone tried NN on tap anywhere? I’ve seen that the Boathouse in Conshy has it. Hoping to try on draft soon.

 

Not this year, no. I always enjoyed it more on tap though especially at Tröegs where they have it on nitro. Talk about 2 different beers in regards to taste and feel.

 

My first Untappd check in was 2013, I did have the beer a few years prior to that. I was originally turned onto this by a friend and then my wife bought an old case that was hyped up by a beer distributor. It was still a nice beer but the hops had really fallen away. In 2016 my First check in complains about this beer not being what it once was. I remember one year, 2010? Buying multiple cases it was so good. There have been batch issues and I remember people posting here of good batches and bad. I will not buy this year and have sparingly purchased the last 3-4 years as I’m just disappointed. At the price of around $13-15 a six I’m not spending the money on what might be bad or at best ok. In general I have not been in love with beer from Troegs for a few years.

This was a beer that I loved. Once it was scaled up and supply was good it seems that was the point it went downhill.

Anyone else remember having to pre order this beer or just luck into it?



Enjoy

 

My receipts show I usually bought two or three cases a year, 2008- 2010 (priced at $34.99- 38.99 depending on retailer). In '11, a friend was working at a local liquor and told me they were in. "Great, put two cases aside for me and I'll pick them up later." ($40.99 that year)

The next year I went to the same store but my friend had moved on. Asked a different guy about Nugget Nectar - "Yeah, just came in, like a whole pallet of them - they're still in the back."

"Great. Gimme two cases."

Took 'em to the cashier, handed over my credit card (pre-chip days, I guess) but then up ran up the manager.
"No, no, no - You can only buy one sixpack. "

"Huh? Well, in the case, I'll buy----- none..."

(Left. Drove down the highway to the next store I knew got their Hunterdon delivery the same day, bought 2 cases and drove home...)

 

Dang. I haven’t had this beer (or ANY beer) on tap in almost a year.

 

Bottles, bb 5/04. It’s ok. No nose to speak of. This used to have the most incredible hop smell to it. Taste is decent— not particularly hoppy. Never know whether to chalk it up to “lupulin shift” or the inconsistency problems documented here...

Will never forget having a fresh NN at the old brewery in Harrisburg. One of the brewers poured himself one too, took a sip, and said to me “That’s a bit of heaven right there”. Indeed.

 

I do think it's a combination of Lupulin Shift and Time rather then off batches from Troegs. We live in a intensely hop focused beer world today. I mean hell even Sam Adams is considering changing Boston Lager to make it more "Hoppy".

 

Has Nugget Nectar changed, or have many people's memory of it changed due to the ever growing wide varieties of beer? I also loved it, and couldn't wait for it to be released annually because it was one of the OGs of beer. And I still like it, but it's just one of many beers nowadays so the excitement is a little more muted for me. I'm looking forward to trying their Double Nugget as I was fortunate enough to snag a 4 pack.

 

Yes, a few years ago if you lucked out and purchased a good batch Nugget Nectar it did indeed have an incredible hop smell.

I personally do not subscribe to the "lupulin shift" stuff. My olfactory senses still work and I pick up notable hop aroma in 'old school' beers like Two Hearted, etc. Two Hearted had a very noticeable hop aroma 'back in the day' and the Two Hearted beers of today have it just the same.

There is no doubt in my mind that something is amiss with Nugget Nectar. There were batches of Nugget Nectar in the past that lacked hop aroma (i.e., the bad batches) and many BAs posted in this thread the Nugget Nectar beers they purchased this year was also lacking hop aroma.

IMO if Troegs sells Nugget Nectar beers with no hop aroma they really should update the description of this beer on their website. They should nix the verbiage of "Excessively dry-hopped, Nugget Nectar is an explosion of pine, resin and mango."

https://troegs.com/beer/nugget-nectar/

Cheers!

 

The beers we don’t get here is a mystery. We get distribution from these vendors too, we used to get them now zilch. Most retailers are leaning hard local which in fine to a point, but imo it’s being overdone.

 

Another one of those beers we used to get here, always liked that beer. All we get now are the Monkeys.

 

I first had this beer in 2019, the first year I lived in Troeg's distro area. I thought it was pretty good. I must have gone through three or four six packs. The shift from 6x12 to 4x16 is a negative for me, so I bought less in 2020. It didn't seem to have the same hop bite as it had a year earlier, either, though I still enjoyed it. I bought a four pack of the 2021 batch last night, dated best by 5/12/21. It's good! But not a particularly hoppy beer. I'll enjoy this four pack but I'm not certain I'll seek out more.

I'm a little confused by the idea that we're somehow all more accustomed to massive hop bitterness now than we were in 2013, though. Back then, I could go into any store and choose from several fantastic west coast style IPAs with firm hop bitterness. Now, most beers labeled IPA don't much taste like hops at all, at least in the way IPAs used to and Nugget Nectar seems to aspire to. Instead they taste like fruit sherbet. I enjoy some of them, but they're not bitter.

Point being, if a beer like Nugget Nectar tastes less hoppy, it seems unlikely it's because our palates have gotten too used to bitter hops for it to stand out. If anything, the average IPA is less hoppy now than it was five or six years ago, because brewers are trying to reduce bitterness instead of enhance it.

 

Not always. When I was in the biz and a finished tank of beer had a higher than normal dissolved oxygen level, we would knock a couple weeks off the BB date.

 

Had some this past weekend (Ambulance Brewhouse, Rockland County, NY) and thought it was great.

 

I can't quite figure out why you're invested in defending this so strongly, or, more to the point, why you don't believe in batch inconsistency/mediocre quality control. Why would "lupulin shift" account for tasting only certain beers differently, but not others? I've drunk a lot of NN over the years and am just as sure there have been "off" batches (this year's less than others) than I am that other beers remain incredibly consistent. Hopslam is another consistently-inconsistent beer that happens to have a pretty great batch this year. Pliny and Heady, on the other hand, are beers that I've literally drunk hundreds of times and have tasted pretty much exactly the same every time I've tried them (minus some factors like age and refrigeration). In both of those cases, you have extremely hands-on head brewers who have kept the scale of their operations strictly controlled. Are you saying you really don't think beers can change, often for the worse, when a brewery scales up/broadens distribution? I can't exactly remember the last time NN tasted like the first few years I had it--maybe three or four years ago. But it definitely filled the mouth with a big, rolling flavor that made me think, "yeah, this is how it's supposed to taste." Also, I'm not quite sure how you're using the terms "hoppiness" and "bitterness," which aren't interchangeable. How would you discriminate between the two?

 

I purchased a 4-pack of 16oz cans on Friday. Something is definitely "off" compared to previous years. I actually thought the wrong beer got packaged. Tasted more like Hopback Amber than Nugget Nectar. Little to no aroma, and hop flavor lacking.

 

Plenty of others have posted similar thoughts in this thread.

Cheers!

 

I agree with all of this. When I got really into craft back in 2012 I distinctly remember NN when I first had it a few years later - absolutely loved it. I did not have it the last couple years as it is not distributed here. Today I got a 4 pack and just had one. It is absolutely not the same beer as I had and gave a 5.0 to in 2014.

 

Ok so I was able to buy one 16 oz can from my store and drank it this weekend. I enjoyed it but like others have said, it doesn’t really have much of a punch. Count me as one who agrees there’s definitely batch variation with this beer but I do also think my palate is a bit worn out and doesn’t get wowed by the old favorites like it used to, which is not to say I don’t still enjoy them. Hopslam knocked me off my feet the first few years and now my reaction is, yeah it’s good.