I dreamed up a thought experiment and in my own group I've enjoyed seeing people's answers, so I thought I'd post it broadly: If you woke up tomorrow and could only ever again have beer from breweries you'd already experienced (or at least have on hand), what breweries would you be the most sad about missing out on? Put another way, what breweries are highest on your hit list? Not individual beers, but breweries.
I'm not sure I can tell, do you like this idea enough that you want its own spot; or do you dislike it enough that you want it out of sight? Hopefully the former, and I'd be interested to hear your answer.
Some breweries I would be really upset to miss out on are Terrapin, Cigar City, La Cumbre, Lawson's Finest, The Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, and Toppling Goliath. Man I really need to get moving.
So you're asking which breweries that we haven't had yet would we most miss out on? I'm not sure I can miss out on something that I never knew. It's like saying, "I haven't heard this band before, but I know of them." I wouldn't really miss hearing them since I never heard them. But I'll bite: Hill Farmstead, The Alchemist, Westy, and whatever else is on the must have list that I haven't had.
Most of these are pretty obvious! Hill Farmstead, Tree House, Alchemy, Toppling Goliath, Tired Hands, Alpine, Kuhnhenn, Jack's Abby. I'm sure I'm leaving off plenty of -- allegedly -- great breweries that I've yet to have the privilege of tasting. Lucky for all of us, this scenario is not the case, so I look forward to eventually getting to try all of the breweries mentioned at some point.
I'm sure anyone that's done much trading has a "hit list" of beers they'd like to try (formalized or just mental notes), and these are beers not yet experienced; why is it harder to conceive of the same concept at the brewery scale?
I can't imagine missing something I have never had, and I find most expectations fall short on the must haves anyway.
Well, just speaking for myself, the beer scene now is an embarrassment of riches, so if I had to stick to the breweries I've already had, then I'd be well off for the next 200 years!
Still have yet to try anything from the Rare Barrel and Side Project, those are definitely high up on the list. Jacks Abby would be on there, but I have a few BA Framinghammer variants and some Kiwi Rising headed my way soon via trade, so I'll leave that off. De Garde I definitely need to try though. Honestly there aren't many "top tier breweries" I haven't had at least one brew from, a great perk of having some great buddies and doing monthly tastings (and trading of course). So that would be my top 3, in no particular order; De Garde, Rare Barrel, and Side Project.
For me it's not so much breweries as it is beers. I love BA stouts and I would love to try BA stouts from all over the country. I would miss that. There are some BA stouts that I want that I believe I will never have, but hopefully I will.
Not sure that I would be sad about it, but I have never had anything from Treehouse. Would like to try Julius.
The breweries to be born after I die? Is that the right answer? Do I get a gold star? At least a cookie?
