Best good beer made by mediocre brewery?

I wouldn't fess up either! lol In my experience with 21st, I just like the art on their cans...beer has been subpar IMO

 

BA Shipwreck Porter by Arcadia. That's one of my favorite beers out there, and IMO pretty much everything else Arcadia puts-out is terrible.

 

Yup, great RIS I'd have any day of the week before Ten Fidy.

 

21st Amendment Bitter American, now year round, a great low abv canned pale ale.

The IPA is ok, Black IPA bad, Hell or High Watermelon just disgusting, and Monk's blood I'm on the fence about. I wouldn't buy any of those again, except Bitter American of course. I want to try Hop Crisis though, it should be out in a month or two.

 

Marin Brewing- freshness is always questionable without bottling dates, and most of what I have had has been forgettable. Their White Knuckle DIPA however, is my favorite DIPA of all time.

 

Appalachian is a pretty mediocre chain of brewpubs, but I still love their Celtic Knot irish red ale. One of the first craft beers I ever had, and not very highly rated, but I still love the toastiness of it.

 

Miller- Frederick Miller's Chocolate Stout is quite lovely IMO, although they stopped making it years ago.

 

Old Fezziwig

 

Is 21A considered mediocre?

 

I think their Flagship IPA isn't bad. We don't have many IPAs in the state but this one is an NC beer and it comes in a can.

 

Perhaps I should send you the one I can't make myself drink.

 

Sebago Single Batch BBBW immediately comes to mind. I caught on to this too late or I would have bought a ton more. Really impressive considering I've never really had anything else memorable from Sebago.

 

Kate the Great?

 

I haven't had much from them that I consider to be astounding. They have an 85 rating on BA and most of their beers have mediocre ratings (of course taking the ratings only for what their worth).

The case may be that 21st Amendment makes some great beers that are only available in SF and/or CA that we will not likely see on the east coast.

 

Sam Adams/Boston Brewing Co. make mostly mediocre beers. But some of their seasonals are great. Old Fezziwig and Black & Brew stand out in my mind right now.

 

I was thinking this, too - except for Badder Elmer's and barreled versions of Winter Warmer and Ard Ri, which I also really enjoy whenever they are on tap. Upland can do a good malt-bomb when they want to... it's the hops that I wish I could get more of there.

 

wouldn't have thought of this one - i've had a number of portsmouth brewery offerings that i thought were really good, like their imperial ipa and most recent batch of saison l'hiver

 

Buffalo Bill's beer is bad, and they should feel bad.

 

This was the first thing that came to mind for me, too. It's such an incredible beer, and I never would have bought it based on my prior experiences with the brewery's offerings. Good thing a friend of mine was more willing to experiment and convinced me to give it a shot.