New Mexico Beer Guide 2016 updated

Irrational exuberance is a phenomenon and an interesting one to research. We had plenty of breweries 15 years ago that were building a brand on it and things have not changed. How a producer creates it in any field is a mystery to me. Once it is started though, it is easy to see how it snowballs. NM has a number of great breweries that I personally feel can stand toe-to-toe with any in the world... in a blind tasting. As soon as you allow brand perception in, that all get's blown out the window.

Brand value
Price elasticity
Irrational exuberance

All interesting from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Without a quality product, they are pretty impossible to capture. With a quality product, it is my belief that a great deal of it is timing, emotional connection due to a perceived authenticity, and a good dose of blind luck.

I love NM and don't regret building my brewery here for one second. But it seems not to help companies that don't produce chili when it comes to brand value and "cool factor".

 

@erway good insights. Just finally getting to your website blog entry on el Jugo. Shelf stability is a scary thought.

One thing I Noticed out of beers from Trillium and River roost, yeasty slurry residue almost instantly after letting the product sit for no more than 20 minutes. Just 10-15 day old trillium galaxy cutting tiles was losing its luster very very fast. Those trillium cans took awhile to clean out when I had to get them prepped for recycling. By far the worst of the bunch in that regard.

A lot of these places are banking on product selling out every week. And it may work in some markets. I love the fresh flavor of the 'less refined' ipas and hope more places make a dedicated effort, even in smaller batches. The turbid murky yeast slurry ipas were some of my favorites, fresh.

'Technically flawed' beers that taste great fresh are all the rage. @Ma9573 Places like other half and sand city, that is mostly all they do. I can see how many production breweries would not want to do that without the crazy hype. Other than maybe heady topper, there are very few shelf stable products out there for that region.

Having millions in a five hour drive helps those guys out a lot. Other places including NM have to be more careful. So I do thank y'all for atleast trying el Jugo on a larger scale.

If there is ever a lull in popularity for the styles and some beers sit for weeks, I wonder what review scores would be at for those.

Is a technically flawed 'shelf unstable' amazingly awesome tasting fresh dipa a quality product for that brief moment in time? I guess that is what I'm getting at

I guess we're getting to a saturation point in breweries that some can specialize in that

 

Right now in Norcal, if you like hops, all the rage is the weekly or semi-monthly can releases from the big boy breweries and things generally sell out pretty quickly at best, and have long ass lines at worst (*edited to note that Cellarmaker is releasing a Monkish DIPA collab tomorrow and it may be the longest Norcal lines to date). What I have learned is that when it comes to Hazy DIPAs, this is the best way to do it. I don't ever think they should be sold anywhere but from the brewery and specialty beer shops that know they can move the product quickly. IMO hazy DIPAs fall off more than any other style of beer. One that tastes amazing on Day 1 will basically taste like straight ethanol after 25 days. Single IPAs under 7 I have had last a little longer, but my favorites are the NE style pales since they seem to last the longest before before becoming straight alcohol.

 

Interesting analysis. Do you feel that it is the texture of the yeast that you preferred about those beers, or do you feel that there is a certain flavor that comes with them when the yeast are still alive? An interesting fact about Trillium is that they are actually centrifuging their beer to dial in the haze, so that is clearly the amount of yeast in solution that they are targeting.

When I was speaking of technical flaws, I was speaking specifically of classic off-flavors. There's nothing saying that hefeweizen has to have X amount of yeast in solution to be considered hefeweizen; So long as there's more than a million cells/ml and less than... oh... say 20 million cells/ml, it will look like hefeweizen. So who am I to say what is acceptable as far as an amount of yeast... that being said, I do find that either the "fish food in a glass" or the thin yeast slurry look really unappealing, despite what the beer in the glass might smell like.

When I tried Great Notion in PDX, I got it. It was right at the limit for me as far as haze goes, and I found the ripe fruit aromas to be a bit over-the-top. But what I had in their tap room was not flawed. Those guys know what they are doing. I might not love it, but I get it.

But what I find interesting, and I'll admit, a little maddening, is that there are beers that are straight up getting a pass from consumers and the greater community of tickers due to the fact that they are making NEIPA. Diacetyl, tannins, oxydation and autolysis are still brewing flaws, and the fact that the beer inside was made by "name the hyped brewery" does not change that fact.

There are several breweries that I have tried in the past few years that have any number of really pronounced brewing flaws, and sometimes it's tied to the presence of the yeast in a beer that is past it's prime, but honestly, more often than not, I was trying these beers in a tap room, a busy one at that, where the beer is very fresh, and these beers were simply not well brewed or cared for during racking, and consumers and tickers alike thought it was all the rage.

I will admit that much of the stuff I have had in cans has been really troublesome and sure enough, our torture trials of El Jugo have been very disconcerting. I will hope that because there is no excess of this beer on any shelf, that people are not sitting on it, because like our Hefen, this beer's shelf life is not what we want it to be and that has a lot to do with the presence of yeast in the package. I would warn any brewers of this style to stay away from wide-scale distribution. It will backfire as distribution networks struggle getting beer to market in under a month, let alone a week as so many of these beers are able to do when sold solely at the tap rooms.

I have not been to the biggest purveyors of the style in MA and VT, and I plan on remedying that this fall. While the popularity is undeniable, I am hoping that I find that they are truly doing something unique and worthy of the attention. Either way, I am confident I will learn something, whether it be about technical brewing or marketing, and that's always a good thing.

 

@erway I want to say its more of a texture element that drives me to the style. I had one that had almost no co2 bite (think of when you drink coca cola for instance). It was just a very very soft and as some say, creamy mouthfeel. It didnt come off flat but it also didnt have a prominent co2 bite. Very little sweetness as well. Very little bitterness. Just a wall of juicy hops, literally almost like juice.

It's never been a flavor thing for me (in regards to the NE style and extra yeast having a flavor influence). The aroma of hops is different than that of yeast, so I dont think the yeast is having any influence there. I homebrew etc. and know what happens with yeast slurry, in regards to the smells and flavors. I never once felt I was tasting or perceiving yeast out of these better IPA/DIPAs.

There are a few out there that do have that slurry flavor pop out, and even some that taste chalky (maybe more to do with using flour than the yeast). I don't taste the yeast/slurry. I only see it when finishing pints. I'm guessing the yeast slurry has something to do with the texture without affecting the taste (at least out of the best of the bunch). It appears to be a delicate deliberate 'art'. I've had a few that were fish food floatie heaven. Taste was fine but again, I think there are quality levels to getting beers to tasting right and at least looking acceptable.

I think we've gone off topic enough. Sorry about that. Good discussion though.

 

Very interesting to get that perspective on the whole whole NE IPA fad, @erway. As someone who isn't all that into that style I am probably one of the few, if not only one, here who might actually find the potential of El Jugo only being a summer season (rather than annual) and getting rotating seasonal 4 packs a positive.

Also, that Kellerbier you guys have going right now is drinking really well right now. I tried it when it first hit the taps and it wasn't quite doing it for me. Tried it again the other day and I thought it was delicious.

 

So some of what is going on in these styles is definitely bio-transformations in which the presence of the hops affects the production of esters, and the production of esters is interacting with the hop esters creating something that neither one could create without the other. Try making this style with 1056 some time. It doesn't work.

But the presence of the yeast is what makes this a better style for tap rooms and not so much for cans. Not saying it can't be done, but you might see some of these breweries begin to pasteurize unfiltered product, much like many German breweries do with Hefeweizen, to get that haze stability and keep the beer from getting too funky in the package.

 

Don't tell the hop heads, but Alan, Daniel and I are total lager geeks.

 

It shows; you guys do lagers better than anyone else in town.

 

How's 'bout a canned Oktoberfest?

 

The Helles would be my preference as well, but I'd be down with an Oktoberfest.

 

What we brewers and the hardest core of beer fanatics might like is very often NOT what the general public wants to buy... Of course I am not a market analyst...

I'll keep the Helles in mind for maybe a Spring seasonal... But more than likely we'll brew an early recipe of Southpeak Pils.

 

Regarding your first point....I totally get that. I find my personal tastes often veer left of the mainstream to many of the beer fanatics, let alone larger drinking population.

Second point.....your most recent Helles offerings at the taproom have all been fantastic. And while, as a style, I much prefer a helles to a marzen (as that original post alludes to) I think your South Peak Pils trumps all. If that makes it as a Spring Seasonal I can guarantee that that beer will be a staple in my fridge for as long as its available.

 

Fyi, Marble has a fantastic wild ale on tap.

 

Unbeweavably Marblelous

 

Im actually down at Sister Bar catching a show drinking that right now. Very good call.