how difficult is this to get? Had it once at a share and loved it. Would i be off trading an abraxas or backyard rye?
It wasn't terribly hard to get, a limit of 12 per person, yearly release it seems. It would be much easier right now to get its sister beer, Estival Dichotomous, a strawberry/chamomile second runnings saison which recently released at the same bottle limits. I'd say Abraxas or BR are nice offerings for them.
Some of your facts are off here. They're not 12 per person. The bottles are/were $12, and they are/were 3 per person. The latest batch is 3000 bottles, similar to Hibernal. There will be 4 beers in the Dichotomous series - 1 per season, each using seasonal fruits and herbs. The one thing I'm not sure about, and I can ask the Brewers, is whether the recipes will be repeated each year, whether they'll change, or whether this is a 1 time series. But to get back to the original post, I think what you're offering is more than fair, and personally I'd throw in more on my side for a backyard, but I wonder how many bottles of Hibernal are still around, and whether some of those very delicate flavors from when it was fresh have fallen off by now. The Brewers were very clear that the dichotomous beers were meant to be drank fresh. Anyway, good luck with your search. If I still had 1, I'd just send it to you.
I asked the staff there whether Estival Dichotomous was a second use of the O&P strawberries and they said that it wasn't (that the Estival strawberries were from the same supplier but that they were used fresh).
A buddy drank one last week and said some of the flavors came through even more. If someone ask for your backyard with one, they should also add a nice plus.
FWIW, I had some with some buddies (they had bottles at Hay Merchant) last week, and I thought it was drinking better than when it was initially released. Still a lot of watermelon, rosemary, and spearmint to it...it was delicious. Good luck finding some OP, it's definitely worth seeking out. And no, I'm not the guy mentioned above.
OP, I think I've still got one I can trade you. Let me know if you're interested. I cracked one a month or so ago and it was still drinking really well.
I'd say you should be able to get 2 bottles of Hibernal for a Backyard. It's dead-on as far as cost too.
Backyard was $18.99 here in SA. 2 Hibernal was $24. Though I'm guessing other places charged more for Backyard than we paid. It's probably a fair trade.
