Add as new beer or ???

Minor changes to the recipe such as ABV and different barrel usually shouldn't be listed as separate beers. Please see below.

I would just note the minor variations in the recipe in the Description/Notes field.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-to-add-beers-on-beeradvocate.193134/

Recipe Variations
Brewers will often tweak their beer recipes over the years for numerous reasons, however, don't add a new version of the beer for minor tweaks. Examples: a minor change in ABV, hop / malt variety.
If there's a significant recipe change, but the brewer doesn't change the brand name, the current beer listing will still be used.

 

If the barrels are different, it can be a new beer. If only the ABV changes, which happens a lot with beers, then no new entry is needed.

 

But different barrels would count as a new listing (from previous discussions).

 

To me, these are different entries. Plenty of beers are different entries specifically because of different barrel aging. Can change a beer drastically, and it's good to keep those as separate.

 

Is that settled law? Honestly, can't remember where we landed on this. I thought as a general rule different barrels are still considered minor recipe variations.

 

Pretty consistent, but it depends. Terrible answer, I know.

50/50 Eclipse variants are considered just that: variants. The different barrel treatments result in different entries. Those beers are designed, off the jump, to showcase different barrels.

Some breweries make anniversary beers that, each year, are different and feature different barrels. Those normally warrant new entries.

However, let's say the focus is "Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout," and that's it. For three years, it's aged in Heaven Hill. But then one year, they couldn't get their hands on HH, but had some Buffalo Trace. They don't advertise it differently; it's still just, "Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout," and you'd probably only know the difference because you heard some backstory, or maybe they mention it somewhere on the label (but not prominently).

That case ... probably doesn't warrant a new entry, IMO. It should be a note in the description (which is also how one should capture year-by-year ABV fluctuations). But I admit, it's squishy.

For the above case, each year is a different blend of porters, and a very different selection of multiple barrels, so I agree with @Beersnake that this easily qualifies for separate entries. If they didn't give it the same name, and called it, say, Anniversary 2023 and Anniversary 2025 (I know these aren't anniversary beers, it's just an example), there wouldn't be any question that they deserved separate entries based on the significant differences. But this is very intentionally a different treatment, from blend to barrel aging, and I would suspect the resulting beer is quite different.

 

...beer production ambiguity plus fuzzy math sort of stuff (this is a theoretical beer physics term): a BA mod's bugaboo...

 

...because the BA parameters are fuzzy, I am solidly on the fence with this one...on a more serious note, if the difference is only an ABV one (per your OP), then I lean towards @cryptichead s position...I see @Beersnake's point of view, too...

...for perspective, we need to look at the basic Goose Island 'Bourbon County Brand Stout'...now there's a can of worms...the basic BCBS seems straight forward, but then we have (at my count) a bazillion or so variations based on barrel brands and adjuncts used with associated individual BA entries...

...I don't know...I'm willing to bet @Todd would rather pursue Enegren-equivalent lagers in Finland and sleep soundly without wrestling with questions about how many drunken angels can dance on a variant pin head than to come up with a definitive answer for this...

...my direct answer to your question: if it's an ABV difference only, it's essentially the same beer ...if there are other factors such as barrel variants - well, a new entry may be warranted (ala GI BCBS barrel / adjunct varieties)...

...you can always add the beer as a new entry and, pending the super secret online cabal conferences and esoteric symposiums between El Supremo (aka @Todd) and his Merry Minions of Mods, things will either stand as entered or merged...it don't hurt to try something on BA...

...the short answer: your call as to what to do...

...see, it's all so simple ...

 

Removed.

Sounds like its basically the same beer, so we'll run with that to be consistent with how we've treated similar releases in the past and avoid opening up the can of worms that's allowing any form of slight variation for beers using the same branding name to be added as a new entry.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-to-add-beers-on-beeradvocate.193134/

Thanks, all.