Huge disappointment...

Jeff, I had the Duet on draft in the Philly area. That beer was brewed by Green Flash. As others (including some folks from Southern California) have posted, there seems to be a 'decline' in the quality of the Green Flash brewed Alpine beers. The pint of Duet I drank had a good flavor but it was shocking to me how it had absolutely zero hop aroma.

Something is amiss with these Green Flash brewed Alpine beers.

Cheers!

Jack

 

I have to say most of the supposed "special" edition stuff from Terrapin. Liquid Bliss for instance.

 

I really, really hate the word "hype"- it just makes me cringe so hard- so this thread was kind of like getting blasted in the face by a shotgun

 

Wow !! You must have set your bar pretty dang high

 

Different process and equipment makes for a different product.

 

Yea verily.

Jeff, what I find to be vexing is that for the Duet I that I drank there was zero hop aroma. Green Flash 'knows' how to dry hop their Green Flash branded hoppy beers. Somehow they 'forgot' how to do this when brewing Alpine beers!?!

Cheers!

 

It's very well documented that all Alpine bottle are brewed and bottled by Alpine. GF only does kegs..see below..

 

Hopslam is certainly #1 for me. Heady was good but didn't blow me away. Big Lush is not that good.

 

Maybe I'm being too picky about zombie dust- but SMS was def subpar IMO- and if you've had previous years of KBS I'd be surprised if more people didn't agree on this one. It just seemed way underwhelming in 2014 and lacked fullness and depth.
Am I off on this one? Would like to hear what others thought

 

That was exactly my point. I've read people claim that some bottles from Green Flash weren't up to par, and other's made claims, like yours, that GF wasn't handling the bottles at all. And your source of documentation was just another BA's post.

 

Felt the same way about Duet - had it on draft at Hopcat in Detroit - fairly underwhelming to me. I did enjoy Nelson though there a few weeks prior to that - solid beer.

 

Agree. And it's still sitting on the shelf many places. Hopefully age does it well as it did the prior year's batch.

 

Finally i can get my hand on a couple of kbs, and.. I can't believe how ordinary is this beer. Not so bad for sure, but neither a great one. Standard stuff in my opinion..

 

What is a beer you worked hard to acquire or was semi-rare that ended up being a disappoinment?

 

That last one I had was French Toast Wake n' Bake by Terrapin. I love the regular Wake n' Bake and got this one in a trade and I thought it was much worse than the regular version. Everyone at the bottle share who had it felt the same.

 

For me, it was Pliny the Elder. It was decent but just didn't live up to the hype. I'll agree with you on the French Toast Wake N Bake. It was WAY too sweet IMO.

 

Dogfish Head World Wide Stout and The Bruery Chocolate Rain. Thin booze bombs.

 

I would say the biggest disappointments based off what I had to give up to get them have been:

Pizzaboy Apricotfunker
Pliny the Younger - wow, what a waste of time, just work to get Boneyard Notorious and you will be so much happier
Rum Black Tuesday - gross.

 

For me it was the first time I had Mexican Cake 2 years ago. Did it next to Abraxas and Huna found it thinner and less balanced (chili was dominant).