Beers That Have Varied by "Vintage"

N, I will bring a 2012 WC to the next Clusterfork or a tasting, when you invite me to one!

 

Speaking of The Bruery, Black Tuesday 09 was fantastic, fresh and a few months ago. Any year besides that and its weak sauce. The 2 different years are not even the same beer. Different malt profiles and ABV definitely means its a different drink.

But the beer I'm thinking that has changed the most per vintage is Sea Hag by NEBCO. Bear with me, 6 weeks is vintage for IPA's. Years ago Sea Hag sucked eggs. Even the brewers would say so, as well as my thirsty drain. Now its absolutely fantastic, and for 9 dollars a sixer fresh, pretty good deal. The recipe changes every "vintage" now. Great great stuff, but the bad reviews of the past will never let it be highly rated again.

 

According to the threads on BA, it would seem every vintage of every beer varies wildly. Usually with a trend that implies the original batch was heaven in a bottle, and the quality has been decreasing ever since.

One that is actually legit (IMO) is BCBCS. I loved both this year's and last year's, but the coffee is much more pronounced this year. But with the different coffee used each year, I guess this shouldn't be a surprise, and the variation is more intentional on the part of the brewery.

 

Each vintage of Trader Joe's Vintage Ale (brewed by Unibroue) is totally different. 2006/2013 are probably my two favorite years so far!

 

Not really "vintages", but Nugget Nectar is a notorious one that comes to mind.

 

Everyone always complains about variations in vintages, but i really just think its all a play on perception and how taste varies over time as with preference

 

That's my thought. There could be variations in vintages, and in some cases that variation is intentional by the brewer, but I know for a fact that my tastes have changed over the last couple of years. Beers I've really enjoyed in the past have been just okay, beers I've disliked I now appreciate better. Styles I didn't appreciate I now enjoy drinking. Maybe there beer has changed, but more likely I have. Or, I drank beer when sick or just after eating food that changed the flavor profile for me, or any other variables that we talk about when tasting beer.

I'm pretty sure I'm not a special snowflake, so maybe many of the vintage variations are likewise more about the drinker than the drink.

 

Considering that the beers mentioned often in this context are quite hop forward, variation is definitely to be expected on the quality of crops and what can be obtained. The same goes for other ingredients. A couple of beers mentioned have been known to suffer from infections in known years. Recipes change & the kind of beers that people are interested on this website are always going to have some batch variation.

Beers do actually change over years sometimes in a notable way, sometimes in minor ways, sometimes in major ways. Obviously part of these observations is going to be palate drift, perception, bias etc.

 

Anchor Christmas Ale. I mean, what the fuck? Never tastes the same to me. The can't even keep the same tree on the the label! Poorly done, Anchor...

 

To be fair, there are once-a-year releases that actually do change (i.e. different ingredients) year to year, and brewers do sometimes alter recipes. I'm not saying perception can't be/isn't a factor, but sometimes a beer is objectively different from one year to the next.

 

Half Acre has a DIPA called Navaja that they brew differently every time. And by differently, I mean that 2 vintages ago it was my favorite DIPA ever (and one I can't directly compare to any other DIPA), and the current vintage is a slightly more thin-tasting Permanent Funeral (great beer, but a little disappointing).

 

Gratitude. The "Flatitude" years clearly show that it can vary wildly from year to year.

 

oh definitely. thats for sure true

 

Every vintage will be slightly different unless the brewers used malt that was grown and malted in the same year and held in cold storage. I think the odds of this are close to zero. When you use different batches of malt there are lots of different variables, weather conditions, the exact roast of the malt may change based on humidity even if it's roasted to the exact same temperature, how long its allowed to sprout during malting before being killed off, breweries expanding and using different equipment, I could go on. All of this and more assumes they used the exact same recipe and brewing methods which the brewers sometimes change, say due to a shortage of a certain hop for example. So if you find a batch of a beer you like buy lots of it.

 

all beer pales in comparison to the first. they all continue to get worse until all become undrinkable.

i believe this is known as Roger Moore's Law

 

Not disputing any of the above, and I already alluded to intentional changes. But on the unintentional side, I don't think it's happening to the extent (at least not at a noticeable level) that a lot of BAs would like to believe their palates can detect.

Every popular seasonal/annual release is accompanied by a thread detailing why it is not as good as last year, and no-one in those threads is saying things like "clearly the malt used this year grew in an environment that faced a humidity differential of at least +/- 2%, in relation to the previous year's batch, which actually makes it slightly tastier to me this time round". Instead it's "last year's FBS (that happens to correlate with my join date) was rich and absolutely perfect, but this year's is artificial and thin (and I'm also neglecting to say that I've been crushing BCBS for the last month)"

 

Fuller's Vintage Ale varies from year to year , changes in malt and hop varieties make life interesting.
This might be of interest;
http://www.pencilandspoon.com/2011/10/fullers-vintage-ale-15-year-vertical.html

 

Abyss changes every year and Black Butte Anniversary does too.

 

I'm unsure if you're being facetious here, but having them different each year (and that is Anchor's intent) is like getting a new and different Christmas present each year....we like the anticipation and the surprise. Getting a re-run each year of any Christmas present gets old quickly. As long as each Christmas Ale is a winner (and all of them that I've had, have been), then I'm okay with it.