Side Project Brewing (2024)

A Side Project Old Ale paying respect to Hair of the Dog would have me pretty fucking stoked.

Unrelated but I just finished off a bottle of Blended 2023 and it's really nice. Not too sour but has a lot going on

 

See I think they did that already, that is what langst is supposed to be, very interested in what they did for this one

 

I mean, so much of what HotD did was “barleywine style” ales, right? That would be my guess.

 

So the new Coconut Vibes will have a percentage of BA base blended in. Great to hear, hopefully it helps cut the sweetness a bit.

 

Haven't had Langst in a few years but I remember it being more fruity and less boozy than the usual SP barleywines. Interestingly B1 was only 10% ABV and every release has gone up a little to 13% with the 2023 release. Almost all of the barrel aged releases are 15% now so I wonder where this falls

 

I've seen a few breweries doing this, blending a small amount of BA stout, into the adjunct stout and I hope it reflects an admission that people are a little burnt out on the push every flavor to 11 pastry stout trend

 

I feel like more and more breweries are doing it as a way to “dump” subpar barrels that wouldn’t be very good on their own.

 

Maybe it’s both. It’s like using a subpar cut of meat to make a stew. I don’t usually eat chicken feet but I’ll put them in a stock and make it better

 

i’m leaning more towards this. plus, i’m assuming they feel they can up the price of the beer if they include a barrel-aged portion in the blend. personally, i think it’s a complete waste of barrel-aged beer. i’ve liked most of the parfaits but besides b4 (or 3 - i can’t even remember now) you can hardly tell there’s barrel-aged beer in there. and those are closer to 50/50 i think.

 

I mean, if we are being real honest, it has to be all of these things. They get to “blend out” the obtuse or odd barrels that don’t marry well for something like Derivation, and certainly probably can’t be blended into something like BBT. And, often I am sure it adds to markup.

It doesn’t have to be all negative, though. Even with these motivations, the experience may very well benefit from the addition, even if it is subtle. Coconut vibes is all about the coconut. As long as it doesn’t detract from enjoying that, and as long as the price difference isn’t noticeable, I also dont care much.

 

Thanks to all for the assist! I chose Crow's Nest given the recommendations above. The food was okay, but the service was paaaaaaainfully slow for a Tuesday night...I would not go back here for a "quick" bite. There were less than 20 people in the entire place split across 6-7 tables and the bar, with 5 servers/bartenders, and the food took almost 45 minutes to show up, so really had to nurse my one beer at the bar to save myself for The Cellar. The Cellar that night was excellent as usual, including Coexpressionalism Kriek, Biere du Pays (10-year), Derivation #18, and a taste of MJK.

Following a late lunch at Balkan Treat Box (holy he!! was this good) on Wednesday afternoon, I ventured back to The Cellar for another Coexpressionalism (so jammy) and a Rose du Pays #1 before heading over to The Brewery for opening at 4pm...great to get there for the first time. Went with a sample of Tides (decent, but brett not my jam), Laangst #3 (interesting style), Rip This Joint (a little underwhelmed), and another small pour of MJK. I would have grabbed dinner but had to get to the airport to meet my boss for a drink before we flew our separate ways.

Thanks again to all...cheers!

p.s. I live within an hour or less to three Treehouse locations. I would put my annual visit to Side Project on par with any visit to Treehouse.

 

How fast will coconut vibes go in the online sale Thursday? We talking seconds, minutes, hours?

 

It’s 2024 so hours.

 

https://www.sideprojectbrewing.com/blogs/news/loam

 

Did anyone get notified that they were picked for Silent Barrel #3 and #4?

 

Nothing here. I had forgotten about it, and now I'm sad.

 

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the last batch lasted 22 or 24 minutes (or something close). The one I am thinking of was in 2020 or 2021 (sometime during COVID, but don't recall exactly). Maybe it was 2 batches ago. I *think* that one was advertised as going live, and then when live it went as a package. I seem to recall being excited, and kind of uneasy about (but ultimately) buying 2.

If I am not misremembering, I suspect this one will last an hour or more, assuming they have at least as much available as the batch I am thinking of.

 

Have they announced what the price of the coconut vibes package will be?

 

Nothing that I have seen. No e-mail, nothing to LC, no blog post. Just the update on the "front" of the website.

I'm expecting ~$60; 40 for Coco, and 20 for the punchdown.

 

Last drop lasted a while, even the ba cocovibes lasted a while iirc. So you should be good at getting some