Most inconsistent beer you've had?

Yes.

 

Strongly disagree with that. Stone might make the most consistent hoppy beers of any brewery that I can think of.

I would say two of the beers I find most inconsistent are Westbrook IPA and Jai Alai. Those are two of my favorite breweries, and I generally very much enjoy both of those beers, but they tend to have significant batch variation with some batches being not nearly as good as others.

 

I agree with you on Jai Alai. I just recently had a case and the consistency varied dramatically. It was my first experience with the beer and I would have to say only about a third of the case was worth all of the hype with the rest being a malty mess. It was all dated the same and needless to say it left something to be desired, which is a shame because I really had high hopes for it.

 

Like I said, I wasn't being negative. I too "Enjoy" stone beer. Definitely among my favorites. The inconsistency is just my perception.

Cheers!

 

I'll second westbrook IPA. When I was in SC last year, I found some that was 5 days old at a piggly wiggly. I grabbed two sixers and it was a top 5 IPA for me, just perfect and everything I was looking for. A few months later, I was in NY for work, saw 3 week old cans and grabbed a six and it wasn't as good. Found it again, loved it again, found it once more, it was a letdown. Maybe it was my taste changing, but I don't think so. Everytime I bought it, it was less than a month old. When it's at its best, it will always be a favorite of mine......

 

One of the most intelligent, well thought-out posts I've ever seen on this site. Bravo.

 

You make a good point if you're talking about year-round releases, but for special releases that are done once a year there's almost always a difference from one vintage to the next. Take a look at any "This year's X isn't as good as last year's" thread. Breweries like Avery even go so far as to post each vintage's precise ABV on the BA listing because it's different every time and they want the drinker to know that the flavor is therefore going to be slightly different every time. In the wine world, you always hear people talking about which years were bad years for a particular wine and which were good. I know that the wine analogy is a bit unfair because winemakers are at the mercy of mother nature more so than brewers but, if you look at @--Dom-- 's detailed post about the many ways nature slightly affects the brewing process, brewers are also at the mercy of natural variances to a certain degree. And, even with year-round beers, until the brewers get the recipe perfectly dialed in on the brewing system they're using, there's going to be inconsistencies up until that point, so young breweries are going to have more issues with that than well-established ones. I just feel we as craft beer proponents should be more patient with breweries showing batch variance from time to time. I know I've been patient with a certain local brewery's star beer *cough cough* NoDa *cough cough*

 

Hunahpu seems to be the biggest variation if any beer I've had and it's not close. Often nothing but a chocolate sauce bomb (still delicious), but when it's got that cinnamon going strong it is one of the best.

 

Orval may not be consistent, but at least your posts are.

 

I've found Dirtwolf to range from exceptional to undrinkable in the 20+ or so I've had.

 

Agree with mostly everything in your post, but I have to question the "beer gets clearer as it ages" comment. This may be some general rule of thumb that I am not familiar with, but I will saw I've consistently noted quite the opposite, particularly with maltier IPAs and DIPAs. These IPAs/DIPAs become much more hazy, occasionally even opaque as they get a few months out. Its a pattern thats been so consistent that I can usually guess a beer is past its best by date from the pour alone; I have tried this several times and have confirmed that I have been right by then looking at the bottling/canning dates. Perhaps this varies by style, or maybe I just live in some beer anomaly bubble; a twilight zone where the opposite rules of the universe apply. Again, this is particularly for malt forward, and munich malt IPAs (such as Westbrook IPA).

 

Most recently: Griffin Claw Brewing's Norm's Raggedy Ass IPA...sometimes it's spot on a fantastic IPA from an up-start brewery, and I've now had it on more than one occasion (both in distributed cans and on tap) where it's borderline undrinkable.

I hope this is a quality control deal that will progress with time.

 

Heady Topper it's fluctuated from mind blowing to just a solid DIPA depending on when I've tried it. In fact I find most ipa's do this unless it's made by Sierra Nevada those guys are the model of consistency. One of the reasons I find it hard to have an IPA be the "best beer" in the world

 

Stone Double Bastard and Ballast Point Victory at Sea. For Double Bastard, I remember reading that Stone tweaks the recipe each year. Someone already covered VoS. Both seem to be slight changes in recipe, but it could be other factors (such as my memory!)...

 

How did they all taste?

 

Dogfish 120!

 

I believe they change the hopping rate on this beer based on the freshness of the hops used. Just what I've heard from those with close ties to the brewery.

 

Gotcha.

Gotcha. Had the one on at the brewery and it was really delicious but believe it was accidentally filtered 100% so lost some of that mouthfeel and the vinous quality you get from that the unfiltered portion.