Side Project Brewing (2025)

The saisons and wilds make way more sense to me for a vintage tasting. Those imperial stouts (especially the heavily adjuncted ones) don’t last more than a year, if that, but the non-fruited sour ales age wonderfully.

 

I'm with you! I expect it'll be a blast, and I have a feeling they'll go right back to doing malty stuff for the next one. I'm eager to see if they end up busting out any old Fermiers/Tetes for the to-go options or bonus bottles (and I believe they already confirmed that the Library Vol. 1 stout will still be one of two that are guaranteed).

Also just generally interested in the other "themes" that they come up with. Barleywine night, collab night, vanilla night ... Library lagers, anyone?!

 

Yea but the flippers won’t be able to max profitz on the sours they’ll get to buy

 

The Black & Wild B1 from Library Tasting #5 was absolutely amazing I thought, for being 10 years old

 

Was lucky enough to get the last of the Anabasis b1 pours at one of the tastings. That was just about worth the price of admission.

But agreed that not every stout was a winner. Some had really fallen off.

 

I find barleywines age much better than stouts, especially as you get into the 4+ years range. Had a 2018 VSOJ the other day that was magical

 

lol @ the cinnamon mixup. It honestly sounded good with the vanilla beans in it

 

D12 has the 4th highest rating of any SP beer on Untappd. I figured people would be more excited for a remake, even a non-BA one.

 

I know @TNCraftBeer is

 

I like the idea of making more non-BA Derivations. I’ve long felt a vanilla vibes or cinnamon/vanilla vibes would be great. I know that’s not Derivations but just expanding the Vibes lineup.

No nitro and 12oz cans though please.

 

I’ve not had a single nitro can that i enjoyed.

 

There are so many styles I would rather see them do than more variations on dessert inspired stouts, especially if they don't have any barrel aging. For example:

Belgian Dubbel/Triple/Quad and a traditional take on it not a sour
Doppelbock or any other -bock style
West Coast IPA or even more freuqnet big Hazy IPAs would be fine
If you wanna do bourbon barrel then maybe try an Old Ale or a Scotch Ale or a big barrel aged Quad

Feels like 90% of the releases are stouts or saisons this year

 

I’d love some different type of barrel aged beers. The adambier was good but it may as well have been a stout.

 

The last four i've had contained some unwanted goo in the bottom of it. I made a mess trying to strain it out.

 

It was a good explanation in the video as to why they can't do more barrel aging than they are. 30% evaporation rate is pretty high. If that limits their BA production, at least they're trying to give us more of what we want - stouts.

 

Wow, tickets are STILL on sale.

If you're resourceful, you could buy a ticket, enjoy a lovely night of tasty, well-seasoned saisons... and then just sell off whatever heady sour(s) that they'll (probably) have to-go to cover the cost of the ticket + you get to buy the Library Stout

OR you could unload the Library Stout and cover the cost of the ticket, plus the other to-go beers, plus some extra walkin-around money lol

 

Who is even buying the sours for cost anymore?

 

Having been to a library tasting on the stout side, I would prefer the saison side for this type of event due to aging capability and, frankly, the palate fatigue with sweet stouts. If they could only schedule them around my availability.

 

I don't even have my proxy send them anymore. If it's an included bottle in my membership he keeps it because I don't want/drink it

 

I'd estimate that I buy one out of every ~four or maybe five sours that they release. I've learned by now which ones I like, and which ones just don't do it for me.

The new Quetsche is great. Is it worth $35 for a 750? Probably not, but I'm already holding my nose to pay $50+ for tiny bottles of stouts — so I'd say that my relationship with Side Project in general is more about whether I enjoy it/can afford it, vs. whether it's a good value.