Boom Sauce

I was at Julio's in Westborough a few weeks ago and noticed this too. The cynic in me was immediately thinking this was a change specifically because of how long stuff is sitting on shelves. Hope it's not the truth.

 

Marty's in Newton had stacks of Boom Sauce from August when I was in last week. Steal this Can was fresher. Had a StC sampler at Brewers Coalition on Friday and wasn't impressed. It reminds me of a bigger version of Saranac Pale Ale and their IPAs from back in the day, which I'm sure isn't the goal.

And I've stopped going to Lord Hobo the bar. The attitude annoys me and I agree with others that the value for food and beer is non-existent. I tend to stick with CBC if I'm in the area where I'm rarely disappointed.

 

Yes and imagine the horror of heading down to the local bar only to be confronted by... a guy wearing a sweater. Or perhaps a woman wearing glasses.

It's tough out there.

 

With Rebel Raw about to hit shelves I would opt for that instead of Boom. Not a success IMO. Dusty cans on shelves is evidence of that. Even with Be Hoppy being less than it was originally. I still but it when I see it.

 

Let's actually get back to the beer being discussed in this forum because it's sad to see stacks of boom sauce cans in every liquor store in the greater boston area. I've seen can dates from 09/03 and 09/21 with no prior improvement of these batches and I'm sure a lot of customers have felt burn of wasting $15 bucks on Boom sauce. Remember when Daniel visionary plan was to create a local double IPA beer that would compare to the likes of heady topper and what happen? I mean sure his other part of the plan is working, in which you see it be available in every liquor store. But this beer gets nothing but bad review compare to good ones on beer advocate, ratebeer and untapped. If anything as some of you guys have mention, their other beers; steal this can and consolation prize are quite better than BS. I wish nothing but the best for Daniel and I'm not saying that because I fear him of lurking out the shadows on to beer advocate and give me crap or tell me to screw myself and start my own brewery. I understand it's a difficult process to come out the gate and attempt to make a world class IPA that can hold to heady topper or julius or any other of the top new england IPAs in the market, but he should have took time into mastering boom sauce and not be overly confident about a product that many people were already skeptical about. This is coming from someone whose in the beer industry and gets frustrated to see boom sauce sit in stores and watch beer buyers attempt to persuade customers to buy it when the distributor sends them older batches. You know what's the irony folks about Boom sauce sitting in stores? I've heard from other reliable beer buyers that the distributors strongly suggests them to take in boom sauce because supposedly other stores are crushing 10 cases a week of boom sauce or 5 cases of steal this can. Maybe they fell into the hype and decide to take a gamble on Boom Sauce with hopes of it selling out as Night Shift Brewing cans do nowadays. Honestly walk into your next craft oriented liquor store and asked them which sells faster; Boom sauce/steal this can or Night shift Whirlpool, Santilli and awake cans? Without a doubt stores are easily selling 5 cases of Night shift cans in a day compare to Lord Hobo stuff. It probably doesn't help Lord hobo about their dating can issue when you now have stores such as Fort Point Market going on twitter posting 2+ month old boom sauce. Maybe Lord Hobo will take it in their hands to replace older batches of Boom sauce cans out in every store.

Well I think my little rant is done over here.

 

I was surprised to see that when Total Wine opened in Natick (around 11/20/15), they had the 9/7 Boom Sauce batch (STC was dated at least late October). So I guess there's stock accumulating at the distributor. At least the price was right...I think it was $13/4pk.

 

I paid $9 for a 12 oz pour of whirlpool the other day at Babbo. It bummed me out, but it was the only beer I wanted on the list. Also this other place I go to see bands in Somerville called ONCE Lounge (cuisine en locale) usually charges $8 for craft draft IPAs, (most recently Meadowlark and Finest Kind.)
I don't usually complain about beer prices because it's kind of a waste of energy, but when normal stuff creeps into the $8-9 range it's a little tough to swallow. I still pay it though, as there's really not much I can do about it, and if it keeps another music venue from closing in the town, I'll pay it happily.
Anyhoo, haven't had Boom Sauce in a while, but I don't think it's as bad as people say it is. As an off the shelf 16oz IPA/DIPA I'll take it over a lot of other stuff. The consolation prize is my favorite of theirs, by far, though.

 

Someone just posted to Facebook that Boom Sauce is on tap in Colorado for $6/pint. Laughable that it's that much cheaper there than it is in Mass. or at Lanigans own bar. But I guess now we know who is drinking it: former Boston residents/college students that live outside the area but recognize the Lord Hobo name.

 

I really don't think Boom Sauce is a bad beer at all. I prefer Steal This Can, but both are decent. Totally agree with the person earlier in the thread who spoke of Boom Sauce as more of a hoppy Amber.

I think the problem here comes from all of the hullabaloo from the get go. When Babe Ruth called his shot, everyone would have been disappointed if instead of hitting a home run, he roped a double to the gap. Thus far, everything I've had from LHBC is a double in the gap. Solid, but not half of what they said it was going to be.

 

I work in Worcester and live in Norton. I frequent stores on rte 9 and the on thr 495 corridor and all cans I see are Sept.

 

You also have to remember that he admitted the beer wasn't that good when he started sending it out. 65 or 75% of what he was aiming for, but the beer prices at the top of the local IPA market. Rubs people on here the wrong way. Average consumer doesn't see that quote and doesn't know they're drinking a suboptimal product.

 

I don't completely agree with this. Actually, I think the sales thus far have largely been BECAUSE of all of the hullabaloo and people wanted to see if it is the next Heady...etc. It was great advertising.

Think about all the crap Sam Adams, and more specifically Jim Koch, has caught on this board because of how he bashed the IPA. And then the article came out about the dinner at Row 34 and how he made a waitress cry.

Consolation Prize is Lord Hobo's highest rated beer (granted we don't have a huge sample size of ratings overall yet) at 3.89.

Rebel Raw is a 4.12 at the moment.

For the most part, I think reviewers are honest with the IPA style and simply rate based on if it tastes good or not. As you said, "it's not a bad beer at all". I had it, I thought it tasted good, but it's not Heady Topper, or even Be Hoppy. The bigger issue is the price point for a beer that's rated a 3.77, or as you also said is, "decent".

If his recipe is truly 65 - 75% of what he wanted, and the the beer improves over time, I actually think it will sell quite well even at its higher price point. Especially locally where it will be fresh. But the combination of the two is a tough sell in an already super competitive and overcrowded IPA market.

As I said earlier in this post, if anything hype can help a mediocre beer sell in the short term. I wonder how much poorly brewed, overpriced Green Flash/Alpine beer is being sold in Mass at the moment due to the Alpine name alone?

 

Based off their facebook it looks like the most recent batches are being sent out of MA. Seems like they are spreading Boom Sauce far and wide while local stores are still trying to get rid of old stock. Sounds like a good way to burn bridges with local stores.

 

He's facing a very harsh reality. He's got to be a few million dollars in the hole based on the size of the brewery, and after the first few batches where people went curious -> disappointed -> forgiving -> disappointed again, product stopped moving. He's in no position to 'make it right' and send fresh stock to local stores. If people wanted it when it was fresh, it wouldn't still be sitting there now. Opening new markets out of necessity rather than opportunity is a bad position to be in, and overall doesn't bode well for this endeavor.

 

It's similar to the path Spencer took. The next steps are 1.) flooding new markets so the beer can rot there too. 2.)Drop the price to try to squeak out a bit more sales. 3.)Realize what you are doing isn't working and feverishly trying to change course far later than you should have.

 

You're not getting fresh cans down there in Mass because LHBC's distribution partner won't take anymore product from them. They're sitting on too much old stock which is why they keep sending out 4 month old cans. Supposedly the recipe is getting better but you'll never see those cans in Mass stores. My brother in law owns a liquor store and said he can't give the stuff away and the distribution company is still trying to sell it to him.

 

So what's supposed to happen here? Is Atlantic stuck with the stock? Can they just keep pushing it on their stores to take it? I know Fort Point Market complained on Twitter and LHBC responded that they'd correct the problem, but surely FPM wasn't the only store that got September Boom Sauce stock from Atlantic on that day.

I don't know how this normally works, but can anyone in the know comment about what happens in these situations? Do they sit on the shelf until someone buys them? Does the distributor ever buy back old beer from stores or is it just "lesson learned" and the store doesn't take delivery of that beer again? Would the brewery ever buy back old beer from the distributor so it doesn't go into market and disappoint people, turning them off to the product?

I'm generally curious how this works. If this is the wrong place to be asking, mods can feel free to delete/remove the post.

 

Your brother is right about the distribution company trying to push Boom sauce down his throat and the same occurs for other stores. It's funny that sales rep for this distribution company will argue with store owners about boom sauce being one of the current fresh local beers in the market besides Trillium or Night Shift.

Then again who really is buying hundreds of fresh cans of Boom sauce from November? Unless the people from Burlington or Woburn are somehow secluded from buying Newburyport Green Head, Cape Ann Dead Eye, Captain Daughter, Jack's Mass Rising, CBC Flower Child or Brewmaster Jack beers from their nearby store, then the fresh batches probably end up in Maine or some other states where people must buy it off the hype because it's a "new england IPA style."