Grimm Artisanal Ales (October 2016)

I'd be willing to bet either a can or bottle will be release when you're here. Follow them on instagram for updates.

 

Hey all . . . new to trying to chase down Grimm beers and curious how the can releases work -- how do you figure out when cans will be released and who will have them? thanks!

 

follow this thread and use beermenus.com. Maybe follow some beer shops/bars on twitter. Simple as that.

 

Lots of bars/stores only post on Instagram, a few on Twitter, so if you really want cans I'd be watching there too.

 

Its a full time job. You have to have 3 computer screens, one loaded to Beer Advocate, one loaded to Twitter, one loaded to Instagram and refresh all every 2 minutes. Also have your phone next to you to see the beer menus updates. When you see something pop up drop everything you are doing and go!

 

I wish this was a joke. It's not.

 

rarer than the elusive black unicorn

 

Top Hops at Essex Market has Grimm Splish cans as well as Maine Lunch bottles .. they tweeted that about an hour ago

 

I think we are very far from saturation. There are 8 million people in NYC and 20.2 million the metro area. On beer advocate I feel like we are in a little bubble where we overestimate the reach of craft beer. I dont think craft has even scratched the surface in NYC. Today if you want to drink craft out you still have to go to a craft beer bar. That is very different than many place in the country with a great craft beer scene. For example in Portland Maine you go to any restaurant, fine dining or casual and you will have at least a few craft options to choose from. Same thing in San Diego, its actually a rare sighting when you see a bud miller coors on tap. NYC is nowhere near that level yet. Heck, besides Other Half I still have trouble finding many of the other NYC breweries on tap consistently.

 

That's definitely a valid concern. I don't believe we've reached a level of oversaturation, locally, but we're already paying anywhere from $14-20 for a 4-pack for single IPAs (in some cases) but for me...the biggest thing is quality. The brewers know we'll pay premium price for a product that's worth the price. The onus is on any new brewery to step their game up, right away. Because if you put out your "flagship" beer regardless of what style that beer is (most likely an IPA or a DIPA, though) and you try charging $15-plus for a 4 of tallboys, and that product is average to mediocre...see ya! If you don't step it up by your second batch, you might be dead in this industry (especially is our area) quick.

 

To be fair, Portland Maine is basically the size of a single popular neighborhood in NYC population wise (or smaller), so it's much easier to do that.

I live in Astoria, and I am noticing that almost every bar/restaurant here has at least one of if not multiple taps of SingleCut/LICBP/Rockaway/Big Alice/Finback on ~always, especially the newer places, which is a great thing IMO. That is an interesting point you raise - even though there are a lot of breweries in a small area, there's just a much higher population than other cities so it's tough to say when a bubble will be reached.

 

Splish finally hit WF Union Sq. At least 2 cases left from what I saw.

 

Hate to admit but I wasn't a fan of any of the latest IPA's by Grimm dating back to frou frou and that batch of cloudbusting. Magnetic & lumen were both very good but at this rate I'm find it to be increasely difficult to tell which beer is which easily. I remember the characters in lambo that made it very distunguishable when it was the draft only version and same goes for terrseract and cloudbusting, something I'm having a hard time doing now. This is solely my opinion about their IPA's I'm still a firm believer that they are some of the best dry hopped wild ale producers and a big part of why that style is popular. Much respect to them they are great. I'm not sure if this is coming from equipment from beltway sizing or just ingredient availability

 

I completely agree Velez. Grimm has some really great ipa's (Lambo, Lumen, Tesseract, Magnetic Compass, Afterimage) and I am excited to try anything from the brewery. But a few of the more recent offerings (Frou Frou, Splish, Cloudbusting, Catch Wave, Pulse Wave) just haven't stood out from the crowd like Grimm usually does. Maybe I just don't dig the australian/nz hops as much or maybe I was a victim of the hype train. I am glad that there are quite a few places in my area that get kegs so I don't have to try and hunt these down can by can.

 

There was an APA by Tuatara Brewery in NZ that stood for American Pale Ale because they put American hops in it (can't remember which ones). Years later they were unable to acquire the same American hops so they started using NZ hops and changed the name to Aotearoa Pale Ale. The American Pale Ale was far superior in my opinion.

Long story short, I don't like NZ hops either.

 

I didn't see Grimm in the participants for this year's GABF: https://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/breweries-beers/beers-at-the-festival/

Was that a typo? Didn't they want Double Negative to try and medal for the third year in a row?

 

They definitely made a post about it in a previous month's thread. Not sure what happened. Love that beer every time I try it.

 

Bottle drop this week?

 

Looking forward to Tesseract being back. One of my absolute favorites. @Grimm_Artisanal_Ales do you know when the next round of cans will be dropping?

 

IMO, Tesseract is by far their best hoppy beer. And easily in the top 5 NYC beers. Very eager for its return.