McIlhenney Brewing (2022)

It's really solid but my palate has definitely changed over the past decade.

There was a three way collab that included Mikkeller () and Arts District about five years ago that I swear is the closest I will ever get to the OG Nelson. I didn't get the same feeling from Muntz but it's been so long since OG Nelson at this point that who the fuck knows...

 

Devil's Triangle....that collab was so delicious, and I believe it was done while Devon was still with PizzaPort Solana Beach before she got swooped up by Arts District.

 

I can’t remember if this was mentioned previously. Muntz is a “New Zealand Rye IPA” with Nelson and Nectaron.
It’s fairly similar to og alpine Nelson, but not an exact clone.
Not to mention imo Nelson hops from different batches and growers vary widely in taste and aroma.

 

Your opinion is spot on. I'd be curious how many different crop years were used in the OG. Nelson hops today are significantly different than Nelson hops 10 years ago. Same can be said about people's palates, as @annakarina touched on.

 

If I recall correctly pretty much all Nelson hops came from the same farm in NZ back in the day, and Alpine had an (exclusive?) agreement with that farm which would've helped keep batches of OG Nelson fairly consistent over time.

Now, Nelson is grown by multiple NZ producers making consistency much harder if not impossible to acheive.

 

The family owned hop farm is long gone. They must of had a secret ingredient in them hops. Whatever it was it was good meds back then.

 

OG Nelson was one of those first time tasting WOW!! beers for me. Every now & then you get one of those. My other WOW!! beers would be OG Citra dipa, Heady, Green Diamonds dipa, OG Citra Showers, OG Naughty Sauce. But I will never forget my #1 WOW!! Beers, The never released homebrew I had at CalHomebrewers Festival back in 2009. A guy who was the Sierra Nevada sales rep for Southern California at the time (sorry I can’t remember his name. He hung out at Naja’s. He brewed what I think was the first time using Citra hops in an ipa. He had his keg set up in his campsite for anyone to help themselves. It was simply named Citra ipa. This was about a year b4 Kern released its first batch called Citra DIPA. Pliny? I would put Pliny & Blind Pig in my “God Damn That’s Gooood!” category. Also including OG Knuckle Sandwich, Nelson Showers, Gator, Tongue Tickles, Pure Hoppiness, Duet, Hoppy Birthday, Expo Hoppiness, etc, etc. Too many to remember. You get my point.

 

Even I remember when you first had Green Diamonds

 

The first time I had Nelson was 2012 and it had a silky finish to it. Didn’t ever get that again after consuming donkey killing amounts from 2013 on - but it was still top tier. Expo is one of my few 5 star beers here… Mchilhenney, you are my only hope.

 

I thought Wizard's Wand was pretty tasty as well. Great WC IPA.