Nugget Nectar non-hype

I totally agree, and I see this changing, in a small way, but it is obvious to me at least it is the next logical step in craft beer's evolution in this country. I am motivated to reply by having visited Suarez Family Brewers, (he was co brewer with Shaun Hill at Hill Farmstead), yesterday, and tasting the absolute cleanest most balanced perfect beers imaginable. He calls them "crispy littles" this style of low ABV, perfect fermentation, high flavor and balance beer, and he does top fermenting, lagering, saisons and other farm styles, all "sessionable" and it is catching on.

 

It tasted the same to me this year. But let's remember it was fresh 6 weeks ago when I had it.

 

Sly Fox has been doing this for over 20 years. Beers like Helles Golden Lager, Chester County Bitter (on cask),...

Needless to say but in SEPA Sly Fox gets very little 'buzz' from the Beer Geek crowd; they are over at Tired Hands waiting in line for the next can release of the so called 'NE' style IPA. Tomorrow Tired Hands will be releasing Alien Church (Oat IPA) and Brain Teaser (read description below):

"Brain Teaser is our Double Dry Hopped Blonde Ale. Brewed with a touch of Vienna malt and oats. Hopped heavily with Motueka, Simcoe, Crystal, and Centennial. Then dry hopped again with heavy amounts of Citra dust (we hit right around 5lbs hops/barrel). Conditioned atop just the right amount of fresh lemon purée to propel all of the delicately drippy flavors deep into your frontal lobe. 4.8% abv."

Cheers!

 

For me the switch to can has made it better and nugget nectar will always be a regular in my rotation of beers.

 

No worries, take me at face value. You bring up a good point, and one I hadn't thought of. And now that I think about it, no, not really. It's kind of its own thing. Technically isn't it INFECTED beer? I kind of see it like milk "going bad" and turning into cheese (probably not a perfect analogy).

When I said what I said, I can see how people would get offended and think it's ridiculous (I didn't get that sense from you). And I'm certainly not one who needs 87 different sub-styles. But I think at some point you're creating something that is far from what the original product was. And I definitely won't argue with anyone who says a lambic or a "New England-style" IPA is beer. Actually you could argue something like a lambic is less "beer-like" than a hazy IPA.

There are people who ONLY drink these types of IPAs, and didn't care for beer before, or craft beer at least. Sour beer is also a popular beer-geek style, that while potentially polarizing, for the most part is easy to enjoy. Personally I don't think the fact that these two styles are less "beer-like" to me than say, a Pilsner, and the fact that they're more popular, are mutually exclusive.

 

I find your use of "original product" curious here. Are we talking about ancient Gruits here? Or are we just talking about beer as it was sort of known and accepted around the time that you became familiarized with it?

 

The latter. But if you would like to use Gruits as the original description, then Not Your Father's Root Beer is more "beer-like" than any beer we're discussing in this thread.

"At Small Town Brewery, we are dedicated to crafting gruit-inspired beers. Gruit–German for herbs–describes the ancient practice of bittering ales with roots, spices, flowers, and berries. Tim Kovac, founder and brewmaster of Small Town Brewery, uses a proprietary technique to infuse a specialty blend of herbs and spices into his brewing process to create gruit-inspired beers with the unmistakable taste of nostalgia featuring classic American flavors."

 

Yeah, I don't think you want that analogy. For two reasons. One is that then all lambics and gueuzes would also not count as beer. Similarly no other beverage that relies on spontaneous fermentation, which used to be the only way beer was made back in the day, would count as a beer. The other reason is that there'd be no beer without yeast whether wild or carefully selected. The original motivating reason for the introduction of hops to the fermented beverage was to ****** spoilage.

 

On tap this beer was stellar IMO, I liked the cans better than the bottles I used to get. Doesn't age well though, it turns pretty quickly IMO, so for me dates are important.

 

I'm pretty much with you, CaveDave - I grabbed my customary case this year, and have been drinking it, but the last two years I've been modestly disappointed. I thought it was a case (pun intended) of my taste buds having changed, but it's also possible it's the beer. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying it, but it doesn't seem to be the "Nectar of the Gods" that I thought it was just a few years ago. Next year I will likely buy a sixer at first instead of a case. . . .

 

Living in the Albany area, I've had the opportunity to try a couple of the Suarez beers and have always been very impressed. "Clean" is a good description, and I've also had "smaller" beers from there that have been well done. I didn't realize the Suarez brewer had brewed with Shaun at Hill Farmstead, but now that you mention it, I can see the similarities in basic presentation.

 

This post makes me think they should've named it "Not Your Father's Gruit Beer."

 

It may also be a batch to batch variation issue? FWIW I made two purchases this year: a 12-pack of bottles and a 6-pack of cans. For my palate the 12-pack of bottles was excellent. I would not use the word "excellent" to describe the 6-pack of cans.

In both situations the beer was fresh so it was not an age issue between the two.

Cheers!

@cavedave

 

Hate to derail the thread this way, but-

"In a 2013 Ask Me Anything Q&A for Reddit, Hill called Suarez his “creative sounding board,” noting that “nearly all [Hill Farmstead] beers for the last two years have been born out of creative discussion/sampling/obsession/interplay with Dan.”

 

It's always been batch variation with NN, for whatever reason. In years past I even remember threads alerting BAs of which dates to get, and which ones to avoid. It's crazy how susceptible that beer can be to the slightest tweak, but I guess it walks the line by design, and some batches wind up on the wrong side.

 

5-6 years ago I went through 5 cases Btwn two of us. So good. Last two years I had a case and it was just ok. This year I passed and had a bottle and can from a friend. Glad I did not buy any. It just tastes mediocre. Not bad but not making me want another. I don't know if the recipe changed or not but it really tastes different to me. Sure it's my taste but I don't even think about this beer. Years ago it was a fun time of the year waiting for release of NN

Enjoy

 

I'm willing to bet that they are making just as money on NN this year as they did in past years, or more. Don't confuse hype with success. Hype is certainly useful for getting free advertising, but having a stable customer base is way more important. Troegs best end customers are the guys who drink a six pack of Troegenator each week, not the craft beer enthusiasts who seek out a six pack of NN once a year and ignores everything else they put out.

You seem upset that the hype over specific beers changes, but what is the alternative? Spending decades talking about Heady Topper and Pliny the Elder and Zombie Dust? People still love all those beers, but theres only so much you can continue to say about them after awhile.

 

Drank a fresh one the other night. I disagree. NN is a victim of its own hype. 9 times out of 10 when you expand your distro footprint and increase production quality will suffer. Was better 3-4 yrs ago. Still good though.

 

I agree completely. We are so fortunate to have all of the great new beers emerging constantly, keeping hype AND nostalgia front and center. Beer history takes a while. Still remembering the old hype of NN is a testament to broader recognition.

 

But Nugget Nectar isn't really a balanced beer (and I don't mean that as an insult). Speaking of which, Suarez has no interest in brewing an IPA... he wants to brew what he likes to drink. The last time I heard a brewer refuse to brew an IPA because he wanted to brew what he liked to drink, his brewery went out of business (no joke). I'm really loving Dan's stuff, but if a brewer needs more than just good beer to survive, then what Suarez has that gets patrons coming in is his resume. Earlier, I mentioned sexiness in regards to Nugget Nectar and its buzz or lack thereof. The brewery that went out of business had zero sexiness with the BeerAdvocate group. Suarez has it. The styles aren't sexy, but the brewer used to be in a big relationship and now he's looking more attractive to some as a result. So in other words (and this relates to the thread topic), if Suarez was brewing IPAs, there would probably be even more interest... and if an unknown brewer was brewing equally good "crispy littles," there'd probably be less interest.