Fiddlehead Mastermind Release

I'm getting to Burlington Friday night so I can get to Fiddlehead as early as necessary. I've been trained at Tree House to arrive way too early for very little beer. Fiddlehead should be a piece of cake with a 2 case limit, or even 1 case sounds good. I'll be watching this thread to adjust my arrival time, but I'm thinking 9:30.

 

Would be nice if they just dropped some of that batch in MA to coincide with the Microbrew Invitational. I mean, they did drop some Second Fiddle for ACBF last year. Fingers crossed.

 

Apparently at the last release on Halloween there were about 100 people in line at 9:30 with the earliest arrivals at 7:15 according to a previous thread. I'm assuming it will

 

The first mastermind release last year was a little rough, it was the same weekend as the Burlington beer fest. I showed up about 30-20 minutes before they opened, there was probably somewhere between 2-300 people in line already with people still rolling in. There was no cash line, it took me about 2.5 hours to get up to the bar, and they had about 4 cases left. There was probably 75 people behind me that left with no beer. There was also a 2 case per person limit, i felt that they should have dropped limits to a case and allowed multiple trips through the line. Hopefully they learned a few things from that release, i know following mastermind releases went alot smoother, but i have a feeling the first release of the year will always be the busiest.
I think mastermind blows second fiddle out of the water, one of the better vermont IPAs in my opinion.

Edit: (disclaimer) this was the VT brew fest weekend, which is probably one of the busiest beer tourist weekends in the burlington area. It might not be as busy as it was last year, but I would still expect a big crowd, and i would recomend being early. Matty O was there in the morning as the sale started, it was pretty obviuos that people were going to get shut out and they never adjusted limits.

Here is the thread from last years first release if you want to see how it went down:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/fiddlehead-mastermind-coming-july-18th.312646/page-3

 

I guess I was fortunate last year that I just picked some up at CBC. Went to Fiddlehead later while my wife and daughter made a teddy bear, and grabbed some more. I think there were 5-6 people in the place.

 

Definitely a minority opinion.

Second Fiddle is too great of a beer to be blown out of the water by anything out there.

 

Ya i guess that is a bold statement, but it seems to me that the majority agrees that mastermind is fiddleheads best IPA.

 

Mastermind lives in my memory as New England's best IPA. But I've only had it once, a year and a half ago, and it was basically at my first experience having Super-Duper Beer(TM) alongside Heady and Pliny. I'd love to try it again, now that I've managed to sample more.

 

Was that the first year they did mastermind? when it was $10 a 4-pack for those black and white cans. That was one of my favorite beers ever at that time also. Last year it didn't quite live up to what I remembered, but it was still fantastic, comparable to treehouse green IMO.

 

I think so, yeah. December 2014. I didn't make the trip - I was introduced to Advanced Beer Drinking for Refined Gentlemen by a @bostonwolf who made a run up to the release (and got some Heady whilst up there).

 

The entire purpose of this site and others like it is to establish consensus so we never have to wonder about that. Just check the rankings. And one look at the rankings, here on Beer Advocate or Untappd, tells us that in fact the majority agrees the Second Fiddle is Fiddlehead's best offering.

Either way, saying the Mastermind blows the Second Fiddle out of the water is an exaggeration at the very minimum. It definitely does not blow the Second Fiddle out of the water.

 

While I prefer mastermind, both are very good IPA's I'd have to disagree with the ratings comment. While both are limited to small brewery releases, much more second fiddle is brewed and it is year round (almost) creating more attention/hype, which influences ratings, psychology 101. On another note some of reason for the price increase is a good percentage of sales $ go directly to charity. Thank you Matty O

 

You really want the Focal Banger also. Make sure to add that somewhere near the very top of your list.

 

I'll

I'll agree with @Evmo31 that Mastermind definitely blows Second Fiddle out of the water. I know @NickDrista agrees too.

 

yes it does! It isn't even close in my mind!!!

 

Agreed. And that is not to say that Second Fiddle is anything but top notch.

Mastermind is my favorite beer, period.