Cycle/ccb bottle releases

They have been staying open all day this week.

 

Still had them all this morning. Walked in and grabbed what I needed no line whatsoever. Kinda miss the days of waiting all morning for 1 bottle pp and seeing all the craziness.

 

I will be flying into the Tampa/St Pete area tomorrow to visit an ailing family member for a few days. Anything other than these releases at Cycle (assuming they are still available) I should be looking for at breweries or in distribution?

 

CCB has vanilla hazelnut Zhukov and raspberry grove in the cooler

 

Very nice. I'll make sure I stop there for Zhukov, how much per bottle?

 

$20

 

Thanks, from reading this thread sounds like there is some saturation going on down there right now? Bodes well for random visits to the Tampa Bay area, I suppose. The challenge will be keeping my luggage weight below the maximum allowed on my return flight

 

Coconut is GONE

 

So for those that have had all 5 this week...whats your favorites ?

 

Coconut.

 

Haven't had &+ but vanilla is ridiculous and a clear winner of the other four

 

Ya people really loved that coconut.

was hoping they'd have it left friday afternoon...so i could grab a second bottle. ah well

 

Amazing Beer Week in Tampa for sure...Best Cycle Releases in a long time with Hazelnut..Coconut..and &+ being particularly noteworthy...some of the small batch stuff they did for The Friday Night Party was outstanding as well...even CCB which has had a meh couple of years IMO released one of their best beers in a long time (ever?) with their Vanilla Hazelnut Zhukov...had a few drafts at the Brewery and it was just great..ended up buying several bottles I liked it so much

 

That Vanilla Hazelnut Zhukov is nuts. I've been a big penultimate push guy for years and I think in the bottle release it got its doors blown off by vanilla hazelnut. Ready to start breaking into my Cycle set and see how those compare to each other.

 

I've seen others express this sentiment, so this isn't an argument so much as an observation. And a curious question - did you have it on tap or from the bottle? And for @NoleBeerNoleFun , have you opened a bottle yet?

A buddy and I cracked a bottle of Penultimate and Vanilla Hazelnut the other night. The Vanilla Hazelnut bottle had minimal vanilla flavors and little if any hazelnut in it - for either of us. I dunno if it was just an "off"* bottle...but it rather tasted like regular ol' Zhukov. Which is to say, still pretty good. But not what I expected. And Penultimate was the clear winner for us.
I'm sure we'll open another bottle here soon, and maybe there will be a different experience.

*By "off", I do not mean infected. Just very little in the way of adjunct flavor.

 

I like this version of PP better than the VHZ. And that's for both VHZ draft and bottle which I felt were similar. And by this version, I mean it's better than the recent tappings of penultimate last year at the brunch and mz release.

 

We did a side by side at Thanksgiving out of the bottle. I felt that the VH Zhukov was smoothed out and sweet. The PP was still great. I had it for the first time years ago at a Red Bannet dinner and on and off over the years. This bottling is good but perhaps doesn't live up to my memory of it. That could also just be me.

 

VHMZ I got very little hazelnut until it was room temperature and then it was minimal. The vanilla started to come out as it warmed and ended up tasting like a vanilla/chocolate milkshake.

PP was all bitter chocolate and coffee to me.

 

A buddy and I split a bottle of PP and VH Zhukov and let some of our "non beer centric" family try each as well. Most preferred the PP and said they got a ton of Hazelnut but couldn't really get the Vanilla in the VH one. Both tasted great and were very enjoyable but Penultimate was by far the winner for us as well, unfortunately it's the more limited of the 2.

 

I got tons of hazelnut flavor from VH Zhukov. Not much vanilla though. I still thought it was an outstanding stout. I had it from a bottle.