Boulevard opinions

Thanks for the info, and good to hear that.

Just curious, do you state that on the label so someone reading your label in the store would know? That would definitely make me more inclined to buy barrel-aged beers more freely, without feeling like I'm "gambling", as I've been burned multiple times in the past (by different breweries) and therefore usually gun-shy on dropping higher $$.

 

This may sound like a stupid question but I just gotta ask. Do you taste test every barrel of beer before transfering to the holding tank? If not, how do you ensure that off flavors that could occur due to an infection within a barrel(s) does not corrupt the entire holding tank batch?

Cheers!

 

Tank 7 and Saison Brett are not worth drinking...?

 

Boulevard just started distributing to Ohio yesterday.. I finally tried Bourbon Barrel Quad after years of it being on my radar, and I can say it was amazing.. I'm drinking 80-Acre Hoppy Wheat at the moment which seems solid.. I picked up a bottle of Tank 7 too, which I haven't tried yet..

 

Random unprompted text from a friend last week:

"I love how Boulevard is never outrageously priced and always delivers quality"

 

That's a stretch for caution, its been a couple years now, its safe to drink.

 

It was never a grudge, I had bought their other beers.

But back then, in the course of year, I think I had bought 5 different barrel-aged beers from different breweries (all for $10- $15 per large format bottle) that ended up being infected with some type of wild yeast or brett. So ever since I've been pretty gun-shy about paying higher prices for beers that statistically are more likely to be un-drinkable. Considering that I've never bought a "regular" beer that I didn't drink the whole bottle.

 

Our barrel wranglers taste each barrel and jot down notes regarding flavor profile including the presence of off flavors. Barrels with undesirable flavors are not blended in. Even if a barrel with lactobacillus were to be blended in, the lactobacillus would be killed off during pasteurization. The beer doesn't sit in the holding tank long enough for anything crazy to happen. Beer is pumped into the tank from barrels and pasteurized once the holding tank is full.

 

6th Glass and Tank 7 are two gateway beers for me that encouraged me to explore the roots and origins of the styles.
BBQuad is absolutely amazing. And I like Long Strange Tripel because of the name

Boulevard for the most part never disappoints.

 

We do not state this on the label.

 

Yeah, I edited it, poor word usage on my part. The BBQ is very, very good.

 

Well just count me as a consumer that thinks it would be helpful information, used in making a purchase decision, much like a bottling date. I think it would be a selling point.

 

I've added numbers to your questions. Answers here:

1: The beer is inoculated with brettanomyces in the bright tank. The brett does its work in tandem with the bottle conditioning yeast that we dose at the time of packaging. This process is the same for both bottles and kegs.

2: Kegs and bottles of Saison-Brett are stored in the 75 degree F bottle conditioning area of our warehouse for around 3 months. We taste the beer as it "cellars" and move kegs to cold storage when we begin tasting/smelling noticeable brett character. We also run beer through the gas chromatograph to confirm the presence of compounds produced by brettanomyces.

3: I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. Can you clarify what you mean?

4: We don't notice a ton of difference between kegs and bottles as far as the development of brett character goes.

 

Only a handful of their offerings I don't like. Not a fan of Doublewide, Nomo, & Entwined; other than that I like/love all their stuff. Rye on Rye, Love Childs ( all of them ), Saison Brett, Tank7 & 6th Glass are tops in my book

 

Anything from the Smokestack series is worth a try. They are set to release 4 new variations of their imperial stout this year, including a coffee variation and a rum barrel aged variation. I have already pre-ordered cases of each from a local distributor.

 

Just to interject another perspective, I did a side-by-side of 2013 and 2014 Saison-Brett back when the 2014 had just come out, so it was fresh vs. pretty close to 1-year on the nose. While the 2013 had definitely developed more funk, I was surprised the transformation wasn't more pronounced than it was (perhaps that's in part due to @TheJermis' note that the few months it spends prior to release puts some funk in from the get go). So if you're looking for the funk, I'm of the opinion that 18-24 months is probably where you want to try cracking a bottle.

Well... this is awkward. Double Wide won't be a part of Boulevard's 2015 lineup, so I believe anything you are seeing on shelves now is probably the freshest it's going to get. That said, I've heard great things from the beer that is effectively replacing it: The Calling IPA

 

Yes, but "freshest it's going to get" =/= fresh. The ones I saw were definitely shelf turds.

Count me fucking in.

 

Agreed. Just warning you that you might have to weigh your interest in trying Double Wide against the fact that you won't likely find it fresh. :-)

 

Oh yeah, that's true. It was at BevMo though and they regularly have old stock.

 

Always great to see @TheJermis chime in.. Not many brewers frequent BA.. I know sierranevadabill is one.. Very cool to hear from the source.. Thanks JERMIS