Overwhelmed by hype

Hype is a hard thing to quantify. |Part will depend on if it's rtuly warranted by the quality of the product, versus being the "next great thing" by whoever, and limits etc.
I don't do a lot of chasing white whales - there's only a couple releases I go to at this point, down from numbers I don't want to talk about. Same with drops to stores - I won;t chase them all over town, but I have my couple places I go to, if they have it, great, if now, oh well. And sometimes I won't even bother with it, even if it's there, I've had them, and I'll let someone else have it.
Truth is, for almost every highly rated beer that you have to chase down, there's another that's 95% as good sitting on a shelf nearby.
There are a few releases that are as much about the party and event as the beer - Dark Lord Day, for instance. |I wasn't paying attention this year, but if it does get back to how it was 'before,' |I wouldn't mind going again. I was there some time ago, though it was because I was in the area already that weekend, and decided to give a shot to get tickets. If I didn't, it wouldn't have been a huge deal. I don;t know that I'd make an express trip JUST for it, though.

 

“Hype breweries” are fun but they’re never anything I really go out of my way for. If I happen to be in a place where I can get to try some well respected breweries I try to make the effort but I couldn’t imagine paying extra cash in 2021 to get your hands on a special beer. Maybe 1-15 years ago, sure but not anymore. Every state in the country has at least a few world class breweries these days. I do enjoy trading some local beers that are sought after for other random beers I’ve never tried, but I haven’t felt the need to chase down the latest/greatest beer in maybe a decade or more.

 

In my experience the shiny new toy, always looses it's lustre.

I have seen this show so many times.

I have had some of the 'hyped' beers through much of my time, and what has changed dramatically is that there is even more good beer closer to me than ever before. Sometimes even as good or better than the top rated/traded stuff here.

Try not to lose the forest through the trees.

I see it as here today..
Gone tomorrow.

But my good beer will always be there.

 

Ack

Me and spelling sometime...

Loses... not LooSEs.... argh. Sorry about that.

 

In a poetic sense a shiny toy looses its lustre before it loses its lustre. Just sayin'.

 

Jack,

I really enjoy Dankful as well. While it’s not very fresh now it’s still better than the six of Hop Hunter I grabbed today and saw December 2019 on the bottle. I had to look again to make sure that was right. I really like HH and SN beers hold up but at 18 months no.

Enjoy

 

NEVER trust hype, just trust your taste buds and pragmatism. Half the people who a chase beer have no palate for it, over inflate the beers value, and the other half who would genuinely appreciate it get shafted by the first half watching as the beer gets either poorly rated or perfect scores that make no sense to the beer. The funny thing I always tell my customers about hype is that you can't taste it, but you'll sure pay for it. Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast. No hype.

 

Sure, I can see that, but that's a lot of maybe for untasted beer depending on it's price point and level of access to it. I've waiting in long ass lines just for some Monkish IPA (which is supposed to be i guess legendary), and it tasted like 95% of Monkish beer(they all have different labels but taste about the same overall) , I usually tend to enjoy some of their classic Belgian style offerings they don't even package anymore which was their namesake (the monk in Monkish) because it's better beer IMO. I'm not judging the breweries for making exclusive product and fans for seeking it out but the culture surrounding it tends to overinflate what is essentially, potentially a great beer deserving of due praise as "godtier" when it hardly ever is. It's usually the sleeper beers or forgotten bygone classics that blow our minds and they are all around us, no heightened cost or effort required and definitely no long lines.

 

Didn’t they used to have a giant “no ipa” sign when they started. Oh the irony.

 

Oh yea and made a huge stink back in the day about it.
"History, it seems, is not without a sense of irony"

 

And while the hypebeasts and Ahabs may rejoice, I'll just keep enjoying the beer I like and experimenting with new and different styles for a fair price and fair effort.

 

I'm about 12 years into my craft beer journey. I stopped chasing the hype train about 4 years ago, partially because you can find great craft beer almost anywhere in America now. That wasn't the case a decade ago.

 

Yeah, I couldn't even tell you what the most sought after beers are these days. But in WV 10 years ago, outside of Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada, we had maybe 5 craft breweries that were available. I used to travel to surrounding states just to find 'trade bait' to trade for beers across the country. Traded was exciting and expensive, but I rarely do it anymore. I've also added a couple of full-time trade partners over the years as well. We just send each other random boxes every few months.

 

Whoa!

FWIW I have been buying quite a bit of Fat Head's Head Hunter IPA from my local Wegmans since I have consistently been able to buy these beers less than a month from canning. I still have a couple of cans in my refrigerator from my last six-pack purchase: canned 4/18/21.

It always pays to check dates prior to purchasing.

Cheers!

 

My first experience with the hype train was about 10-15 years ago during brief period when pine forward hop flavors were in vogue.

I purchased a 16 "bomber" from a brewery in Maine for about $6, and a 6 pack from some brewery in the mid west that I don't remember for about the same price.

I couldn't tell the difference in flavor profile between the two.

More recently, I've experienced the same with NE IPAs.

Despite this, I strongly considered waiting in line for a chance to by Kate the great (back then). I ultimately decided against it.

Now a days, it's just not necessary.