Fieldwork appreciation thread

I am going to need some strong Triple IPA to watch this game tonight. Must win for Houston, so you know the Refs will have a quick whistle anytime Harden or CP3 drive to the net. Looking forward to most of the Warriors being in FOUL TROUBLE all night...lol...

Draymond is all but certain to get a couple Ts.... He better not even look at a ref...haha!!

You know the NBA does not want a sweep here....

 

I have a question for you guys

why do you think fieldwork's beer is rated so low on untappd? it blows my mind that there are zero hoppy beers rated 4.3 or above. are we our biggest critics? when i look at other breweries they have ipas in the 4.5 and 4.6s and they are not as good as some of the fieldwork beers ive had.
eastside motel is a perfect examples, 4.13 , but that one to me is far better than 90% of other hoppy stuff ive had.

i had DDH ghost in the machine and thought it was damn near the same beer as east motel, and that guy has a freakin 4.68 score!

thats a score id see with something like Pepe the Shark and that only has 4.21 which by fielwork standards of rating is fantastic

makes no sense

 

Other than Monkish, are there any breweries making IPA's in California that regularly score over 4.3? I don't think it's endemic to Fieldwork.

 

I dunno... I rated Pepe a 3.5, and I think I was being generous. (Not one of my favs from them, which would be Galaxy Juice, Green Rest, Orchard Street, Eastside Motel - but even those depend on the batches)

 

Not rare enough.

 

Yeah, you lose 0.25 if I can just walk right in and drink it.....lol...

 

I have Eastside Motel as one of my highest rated IPAs on untappd. That Oct 2017 batch was insane.

But really, I hope the hype stay low for Fieldwork. They already have enough of a line to deal with sometimes for cans.

 

Untappd isn't easy to distinguish what you consider on a scale that's bad to good. I've seen some people who rate a whale a 3.5. So yeah no rating scale would be accurate unless they specifically tell you the ratings on what they believe it is.

IMO I haven't been blown away by alot of fw beers so I'm usually a 3.5 which is good but not great that I'd seek it out again.

 

I've wondered this myself. Harsh critics here in the Bay lol

 

i think it has something to do with fieldwork trying to appeal to a broader audience maybe? they have so many taprooms and taps at restaurants and bars that people see fieldworks as a baseline rather than a ghost whale. it takes much more legwork to get a monkish / treehouse / trillium ipa even if youre in those breweries areas. basically i dont think people will rate something they drink any time they want at any bar they go to as highly as something they have to go out of their way for

 

This is an excellent question. I think the beers are fairly rated in a global rating scale. Untappd ratings have a bias towards beers that are rare, so Fieldwork doesn't meet that criteria. But secondly, and most importantly, and I'm sure I'll take flack for this, I don't think Fieldwork beers - their IPAs for example - are as good as some of the top breweries in the country. I love Fieldwork and when they're "on" I think they produce amazing beer but I don't think they have the consistent "wow" factor of a Trillium, TreeHouse, Hill Farmstead, etc...

Producing so many styles seems like a huge factor in this and they really do so much so well but at the top? Some beers for sure (St. Thomas, Pulp, Parfait series...) but I feel like what they're producing most often is fairly rated.

On the other hand... I can't imagine the glory that would be a Fieldwork beer rated 4.5+... Back to my Centennial Was Dead, cheers!

 

yea i agree on a lot of this, including not being top tiered brewery.

but i’m not pointing out that they should be trillium/hf level, i’m pointing out that their ratings should be higher than they are

between two pines was a sleeper hit for me, hitting everything just right, but untappd has it at 4.03.
it is what it is i guess

 

I just had Between the Two Pines last night down in Los Gatos. Very pleasant. I do agree that Fieldwork produces consistently solid beers, but not necessarily "knock your socks" off. They produce so many beers, it is hard to keep up. I like that they are focused on California only with numerous local taprooms. Good pedigree (Alex Tweet come from Modern Times) and money (Barry Braden cashed out of high tech).

No doubt that Untappd ratings favor hard to get beers and high ABV beers. Also, certain styles get panned, try to find a Kolsch above 3.5.

 

I guess the point is that Fieldwork does produce knock your sucks off beers (there are at least ten I'd put up there with the best Nationwide), but they are more infrequent since they also do tons of beers that are experimental and fall flat - it drags overall ratings down.

Trillium for instance does great beers, but if you slapped a Fieldwork label on some rated above 4.40 on untapped, the score would drop about .2 points I'd wager. And likewise if you put Eastside Motel, the Saint Thomas beers, or Destination Unknown, etc under the Trillium brand it would be way higher. I think it speaks to the different approaches the two breweries take with their business, and it's not like either of them are hurting right now lol

 

excellent example

speaking of which we need eastside and st thomas in cans soon!

 

Had Between Two Pines at Beer Rev today and it was really really good. Waaaayyy better than Murker Junkies, and they are only .06 apart according to untapped (I liked Murker, but B2P was great).

Just another example of the uniqueness with Fieldwork hops. There's not a person out there that could say Fieldwork has a "typical" profile to their IPAs and pales. Whereas on the other hand, for example, Cellarmaker has a very distinct style to their hoppy beers. In fact, I often find myself having a beer from Temescal, Cloudburst, or Sante and thinking, "that reminds me of Cellarmaker". I personally think both approaches are great, since I go to CM knowing I'll think every beer I try is at minimum going to be decent, but at fieldwork I may hate 2 and love 2. I just love the NorCal hop scene, and Fieldwork is a huge part of why it's so great (along with a great beer bar/bottle shop scene and an improving can release scene by guys like Alvarado, 7S, Bare Bottle, New Glory, Moonraker, etc, etc, etc).

 

I disagree, I think Fieldwork has a very recognizable profile in ALL their beers. It's what makes them Fieldwork and frankly, it's what I love. They really do have a recognizable "base", be that a malt profile or a hop mix but I can celebrate that it's Fieldwork. Weirdly enough I think this is why I like most Fieldwork beer. Cheers!

 

What I got from his post was that there's some type of commonality between Cellarmaker hop-centric beers that leads to less variation in outcomes. That's not to say that their beers are all the same, just that there's less of a gap between their stellar beers and their "average." Fieldwork has more of a gap in outcomes so I typically ask for a splash first before I buy cans.

 

Ah word. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Way to bury the lede…Strawberry Parfait!