Bottle Logic (2023)

Happy New Year everyone!

Scatter Signal 2022 is delicious. There seems to be no fall-off between 20, 21, or 22 in terms of taste disparity. They all taste pretty much exactly as I remember them (wonderful).

 

Had my one bottle of Somniphobia on Xmas day, it's drinking excellent right now. I learned from Umibozu not to sit on those Panama Geisha beers too long or they fade away significantly. At this point it's what, 15 months or so old? Recommend popping them if you got em.

Also opened my one bottle of Deprecophobia on New Years Day and split it over 2 days, what an awesome beer from the bottle as well as on tap. Would love to see more of those mixed in with the regular releases BL does.

 

Gotta be honest I thought nearly all of the Harry Potter beers were not good, I tried 3-4 of them and couldn't convince myself to gamble on the 15% selzter. The 2 they bottled were particularly offensive and I didn't much care for the stroopwaffle stout either, though thats not a Harry Potter one itself.

That's ok though, because DSN, REN 21, Aurum Orbitals, and Scatter signal are still on, as well as the Smoke Sting cocktail beer.

 

In OC basically every liqour store with a craft beer section has some BL on the shelf. Even better if you go to an actual bottle shop. I imagine it's not too different in LA, as I've gone to similar places in San Diego and there's 3-10+ Stasis on the shelf. Hell even Total Wine or BevMo has a Stasis or 3 these days

 

Thought b3 of Space Trace was real nice. It had been so long I forgot what it was like fresh. Last time I had it was a 2018 bottle I opened near the end of 2022 and it had fallen off significantly. Creamy fresh and toasted coconut with not a whole lot of burn. Had to snag a bottle to take home.

I'm hoping Hypermash Hydra b2 is coming up soon though. Down to my last bottle of b1.

 

Opened an FF '21 and FOCOCO this weekend. FF '21 is definitely better than '19 imo. Not as hot for sure. Still a bit thin but overall pretty good. I never got to try the GOAT 2017 version unfortunately so I don't have a great basis to compare it to.

FOCOCO was really, really good. Smooth, thick, velvety coconut when cold. The toasted coconut comes out more as it warms. Felt like it could still age if you wanted it to, but its pouring great right now.

I also got to try JtR '23 today on tap, still as good as ever. Felt like this years had more raspberry/jam flavor than in the past.

 

It's been a few releases but Jam the Radar was great as always Thought it was more raspberry jam than fresh raspberry this year which I kinda liked.

Was excited they got Space Jam back too, that was a great beer before the infection issues started popping up. I got one of those and it reminded me of b1 a lot. Really, really good.

I also thought the straight BW they made, Phase Shift, was also a solid BW.

 

And I have like half the posts!

Personally I think its pretty quiet around here because they've scaled up so much without sacrificing quality in any significant way that the hype has completely dried up. I can walk into the liqour store near my house and still get 2021 releases off the shelf. In 2020 I was buying max allocations of nearly every single beer they released and I had my WoL 2019 perk still too. In 2021 I was still buying half allocations on a lot of their releases.

I still love going in and trying everything and buying direct from them whenever possible. but I certainly don't have nearly the FOMO I once did when they released something like Jam the Radar, Space Jam, Ghost Proton, PCC, etc..

An aside, but in 2020 there was like a 4 month period where Hypermash Hydra, Weight Ratios, PCC b2, Cryopreservation, Distant Messenger, and Ghost Proton b1 released and my lord was that hard on my wallet mid-pandemic.

 

Not a peep, usually they would have put a teaser out by now I think, or a save the date sort of thing on IG. I hope they do one this year, or at least consider bringing it back in the future, those were always a ton of fun even with the crowds.