Blue Moon variety pack question

I'm guessing there is some sort of sales data, profit margins, and future speculations surrounding their decision of what to include or not to include.

Also, I had no idea these things existed. I didn't realize there were any Blue Moon Variants (yeah, I said Blue Moon Variants)

 

Short Straw is a totally acceptable beer in my opinion.

 

definitely this. They probably decided that some of those brews were more profitiable than others.

 

Don't get excited to try the Caramel Apple, honestly. I bought the box just for that beer, and it is beyond underwhelming. I don't get much of anything from it, just an ale with a label that says it has a Caramel Apple flavor.

The Pumpkin beer was better than the alleged Caramel Apple.

 

Or just sitting around in a warehouse..... nomsayin?

 

There are, and most of them are drain pours, even for my mother. Their "Agave Nectar" is best used as a marinade, not a beverage.

 

I bought the pack just to get the caramel apple one because I remember having it last New Year's Eve party and liking it but now my palate has changed and I was underwhelmed. rounder, pumpkin and short straw were decent enough and only paid 1$ per

 

Pretty soon you're going to be saying Blue Moon Variant Vintages, just wait.

 

I don't get the hate, most are just as good as Fat Tire IMO. Agave, not so much, I liked the Blackberry tart though.

 

Although I never tried it, I broke up plenty of these mix packs at work because people really wanted to try this caramel apple. They put these out as sort-of "test market". A good example is the Leinenkugel's summer can 12 packs. People wanted to try the orange shandy and they went crazy for it so now their making the orange in six pack bottles and 12 pack cans. Maybe bottles? As far as the agave goes, my boss (for some crazy reason) thought it would be a monster hit and ordered a ton of it and we still have 6 cases of 12's lying around and not a single one has sold in a month.

 

Yep. and variants and vintages of crap are still crap

 

A long time ago they made a raspberry cream ale that was fairly tasty.

I had the caramel apple in a mix-6 and it was pretty bland. I wouldn't think it would be worth the cost of an entire variety pack.

 

Wrong. Fat Tire outclasses all of them. Besides, Fat Tire has nothing to do with Blue Moon blowing

 

So a bit of background for you then. Blue Moon is the name of both a brewery and a line of beers. Blue Moon Brewing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Miller-Coors who let the Blue Moon brewmaster run his own Brewing operations independent of the Coors line. As do many brewers he likes to experiment and so they periodically release a variety of different beers. The most widely known and sold Blue Moon beer is a Belgian style Witbier in which the brewer has substituted Valencia orange for the variety of orange traditionally used in Belgium. Blue Moon does produce a few variant versions of that Wit beer but they also produce a line of several other different styles sold under the Blue Moon label.

 

Actually, there is already a blue moon vintage. Sorry to make your worst nightmare come true

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/75810

 

Did your background come straight from their PR department?

 

No.

A good bit of it comes from looking at the Beer Advocate database and reading a few reviews written by BAs who've lots of experience reviewing.

Edit: Another portion of it comes from looking at BA threads and information contributed by a variety of BAs.

 

I think you are confusing Blue Moon with Coors' in-house "AC Golden" subsidiary. The Blue Moon line was created in the mid-1990's, the "Belgian Ale" based on a beer Coors employee Keith Villa brewed at the Coors Field brewpub, the Sandlot Brewery, that was originally called Bellyslide Belgian White.

When it was first released, it was brewed under contract by F. X. Matt, and later production was moved to BBC's Cincinnati brewery, Coors' Memphis brewery and a Molson brewery in Canada. It is now brewed at MillerCoors breweries around the country. The Sandlot brewpub's name was changed retroactively to the Blue Moon Brewing Co. a few years ago, but no nationally distributed production beer comes out of that tiny facility, which does act as a pilot brewery Coors.

Here's a picture of Blue Moon being brewed at what is clearly Coors' Golden brewery, captioned:

"A worker pours granulated orange peels into a brew kettle for Blue Moon beer​

at the Molson Coors brewery in Golden, Colo., in 2009" from Businessweek​

​

 

Didn't intend to bust your balls too much, but while Blue Moon/AC Golden has been given freedom to experiment, the Coors PR line about it has been a lot of puffery. Interviews with Blue Moon's Keith Villa make it sound like they should rank up with Anchor, New Albion and Sierra Nevada as pioneers in the craft/micro beer movement, and Mr. Villa has practically taken credit for resurrecting wit beer (credit/blame for putting fruit slices on the rim) It's self-promotion, and they're good at it. They jumped on a developing opportunity, and had the fortitude to stay the course when Blue Moon wasn't an instant hit. AB wouldn't have done that.