The Off Color Thread

This was the best news last week. This beer is ideal for summer, but also seems to be great at any age. I just drank my last bottle from last year, still wonderful.

 

I was surprised to see a bunch of Off Color 4 packs in Portland, Maine last weekend! Didn't know they distributed that far from Chicago...

 

I'm sure Allagash had something to do with that after coming in a few weeks/months back for Saison Day. And wasn't Ghost Lemons a collab?

 

Yep...and come to think of it, Ghost Lemons was in the shop!

By the way...there are about 30 breweries in Portland, ME.

In fact, if you like craft beer, seafood, coffee, vinyl & tattoos, just move there right now.

 

I felt the same way seeing their beers on the shelf in Portland, Oregon.

 

I love that city. It has everything I like that you just mentioned plus a great vibe, great weather (for my liking), nice people (but not too nice), and most importantly not too many people. The only thing I don't like is the generally pretty remote location and the fact that there appeared to be next to no nightlife when I was the only one on the street at 10pm downtown (granted, it was a weekday).

On topic, Off Color's contribution to Great Taste of the Midwest is insane this year. 23 beers (one of which is the sake). I'll be spending an hour there alone.

 

Yeah, everything closes at like 8pm...even on weekends. Thankfully, we found a bar open late that had bottles of Jester King, Fonta Flora & a great tap list that was nice enough to stay open until midnight!!

Literally my only complaint was how early everything closed.

 

Totally agreed. It's really weird (sorta on topic with that other thread on here about breweries closing early).

Which bar? I hung out in Novare Res because of it's reputation, and it was very nice.

 

Novare Res it was!!

 

I think this is pretty cool by Off Color

https://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-food-off-color-8-ounce-bottles-20181025-story.html

 

Just split a tiny Jerk Bird with my Mother in Law. It was two thumbs up.

 

Yeah. I’m super excited about this switch

 

I hope this catches on with other breweries. Small cans would be possible too, if a brewery wanted to go that route. There're just so few situations where I want more than 8oz. of a 10%+ beer.

 

I've had plenty of times I've looked at a 750ml sour or 22oz+ BA beer & wished I could have a pour without opening the whole bottle. Getting the extra servings will be a plus & make it easy to have the type of beer on a weeknight that I would have had to open in large format before. Definitely going to support Off Color with this format

 

If Bottles and Cans will let us split up these packs for single purchase, I see myself trying a lot more Off Color. I just couldn't take the risk on a 750 bottle for those prices. I'd rather have a 4 pack of local NEIPA for that price. Getting 6 bottles is awesome and I don't mind they are smaller to reflect the higher abv, I actually appreciate that.

 

This is very intriguing to me. When I started getting more serious into craft beer, I never understood the 750ml / bomber format. Like how did something that was so consumer-side negative take hold? Very special beers, ok, but even the nuttiest beer geek doesn’t have much more than one share a week. IPA bombers in particular are bizarre. I guess a few years ago small scale craft beer was still novel enough that the sellers could get by with something that was beneficial to them but detrimental to the consumer compared to previously normal packaging.

I guess I assimilated and now have too many larger format bottles sitting around. I’ve started favoring 4 packs as far as regular drinking beers (I.e., I’m much more likely to buy half acre or hop butcher IPAs over Mikerphone IPAs or PW bombers). It has backfired a tad with Revolution BA stuff from last year, but frankly if I drink 3 Cafe Deth over the course of 6 months and forget about the last one - it isn’t a big loss at all.

Hopefully the smaller format 12 oz becomes more of the norm, and the 8.5 oz thing is pretty cool too. I’ve never had a bad beer from Off Color and while I do buy some of their beers this makes me think they should be on my radar even more.

 

The last couple ‘17 dinosmores I’ve had have been... not great. Carbonation has been a little funky (tiny bubbles). Great beer fresh, but I won’t cellar again.

 

Staveyard Framboise and Fox in the Snow are probably the best OC beers I've ever had.