RIP Summerfest

Kellerweis would have my vote, as if it is still being brewed it hasn't been in my area in years.

 

Exactly. I'm.hoping it would be like the grateful dead "final concert" thing and there would be a fresh run every 6 months or so

 

Yeah, a series of retro labels, maybe? And then that ugly "baseball bat" bottle (so ugly, I'm not about to even Google a jpeg for it). Whose idea was that?

 

Batter up!?!

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack!

Cheers!

 

I was too much of a beer snob to buy those when they came out. Now I'd
buy it by the case just to stick it to the man (the craft beer man). For discontinuing Summerfest, most of the hazy crap and craft seltzer. Oh, and that fruited sour shit

My local craft brewer has this offering:



A LAGER BUILT FOR TRUE LOVERS of crisp, clean, and easy drinking complexity. Locally sourced malts, classic European hop buds, horizontally lagered for months on end, and left gently unfiltered for a rustic finish. Lightly floral, with clean cereal grain, and a spicy citrus hop zip. Savor one or sling a few, it’s all good when you’re dialed in.

$14.00 for a six pack

 

With now stout and porter gone, Bigfoot scarce for the second year, I have only Celebration to look Forward to. Dankful is already sitting with December 2020 dates. I started to buy the mix 12 pack again a few months ago but now that the price went from $15.99 to $18.99 (the two workers at Target told me the prices were raised by the people who stock the beer out)I’m out, especially with the sketchy dates on those boxes. Some of the beers in those boxes were over a month older than the packed on date. If I tell you I packed the box 26 May don’t put beer bottled in March in there. I bought stout quite recently and it was pretty fresh. Keller has not been on a shelf for years.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. SN was never priced well here most times anyhow. I can still get Torpedo for $30 a case every few months when one place runs pallet sales.


Enjoy

 

Just got back from local supermarket and saw a new or at least new to me, SN Sampler - Pale, Ale, Torpedo, Dankful, and Nectarine Ale. No date. Captain Boring just called.

 

I just did a search for SN summer variety pack and picked a random (not current) one. You be the judge.

 

I would’ve picked up two of those!!!

 

I might actually be tempted by that for all, but the Nectarine.

Although, I did try one of the SN fruit-named beers a couple years ago and was surprised at how much I liked it.

 

Yeah, would try that one too.

 

I can get any of those four easily. What extra value is being done making a variety pack out of them?

 

Just that, variety.

I don't often buy 4 different six-packs of beer to have on hand, but I like to have a variety of beers in my stash to choose from, and mixed 12-packs suit my need now and again.

Paulaner's is another example with 4 beers that are (usually) readily available as separate 6-packs, but the 12-pack offers that variety without stocking a case.

 

Same dates here. This is a bit frustrating as it's supposed to be a year round beer, too. I want to buy fresh Dankful but I cannot find fresh Dankful.

 

Out here they've got a march canning on the shelves. But it will be interesting to see what its fate ends up.being. It definitely scratches the west coast IPA itch for me

 

I think it's important to try to place yourself in the shoes of the person that it does appeal to, we can call them "the average craft beer drinker" for sake of argument. I think the pitfall of a place like BA is most people here are much more discerning or niche in their drinking or jump around a lot to different beers and styles (and so don't usually have a fridge staple like HLT) so we can struggle with understanding the average craft beer drinkers' preferences; I know I do and it's something I have to keep in mind at my job constantly. For its positives, HLT is priced well (about $9.99 for a six pack in most areas), it's reasonably sessionable, straight-forward flavorful and enjoyable, available in most places that sell beer in their distribution footprint and it's from a known and trusted brand. I think those reasons are why it appeals to the average craft beer drinker.


One of the questions that keeps popping up in my head as I read these posts lamenting the loss of beers like the SN porter/stout and so on overall and in their general area is, when was the last time any of you bought those beers? If it wasn't recently or regularly, in a community like this, then that should signal pretty strongly to you why it is seeing decreasing production/distribution.

 

I agree with the availability and affordability arguments. But to me, the thing that surprised me the most was how unsessionable I found HLT. I pretty much always have Scrimshaw in my fridge, along with whatever is freshest out of some staple ipas (including dankful and SNPA). Pilsners and WC IPA are so much easier to drink a number of than these heavy hazy beers. I just.don't see how a beer like HLT holds up against the competition from selzers, hard kombucha, and ciders. I just.don't understand the appeal of a beer.that tastes like a bad batch of orange juice

Porter was a monthly 6 pack purchase, maybe more often, and stout was purchased two 6s at a time every time I was passing the nearest store that stocked it (about 3 hours away.from home but work took me out there 4-6 times a year).

 

I have customers who will literally not spend more than $14-15 on a four/six pack of an IPA, no matter what it is or who it's made by. So these are very compelling motivations of beer purchases for the "average craft beer drinker." HLT provides value, which is what a good chunk of the market is looking for seemingly.

I've touched on this in other posts in other threads but the people who are buying seltzers, kombucha and ciders are typically not "beer drinkers" so it's not a comparison you can make, or at least not make easily. Some are, and I'd wager a good portion of those are just trying new things, seeking variety away from beer and/or being more health-conscious (which is a big factor right now). But a good portion of the people buying from those categories do not typically drink beer or do not drink the kind of beer we're talking about here; they're the crowd that would normally drink cocktails and/or wine and they too might be trying new things, seeking variety or pursuing it for health reasons. I understand what I'm saying is pretty anecdotal, based on my daily observations at work, but you don't have to dig far to find real data to back it up.

While it is a big shame you and many others will miss out on those beers, the fact that those beers are disappearing is an indication that there are either very few people like you buying it regularly and/or hardly anyone is buying it all. Those might as well be the same thing. I don't imagine a brewery like Sierra Nevada takes joy in shrinking a beer like their stout or porter down to almost nothing in their distro footprint, by their hand or by the hand of their distribution's buyers.

 

Oh ya, I'm not surprised those are going away (or summer fest for that matter based on how slow it moved around here) just bummed that they're gone. Stout especially, we have a couple local porters that'll scratch that itch even if they're not AS good IMO. But I don't know of any beer that can pull the sn stout role. Feels like it's just a beer flavor that I won't get again.

As to the HLT thing, I guess I just don't get the appeal. The whole hazy IPA thing has been hard for me to grasp. Sure, I've had some astonishingly aromatic examples, with bombastic flavor, but they're just so full and heavy. I can't imagine drinking them in any quantity, but based on what I see for sale there must be a lot of people who do drink them almost exclusively. To each their own and all, but its a trend that has really swept through a subculture that I'm a part of that I have never understood