Yep. As I mentioned above I even left work early one year when my local Beer Distributor first received cases of Nugget Nectar to make sure I got my case. Back in the day Nugget Nectar 'moved' fast! Simply not the situation now (past few years). Cheers!
I’m not sure you’re wrong, but another point against this view for me is Heady Topper. I only manage to get some HT maybe once a year, but everytime I have it, it is everything I remember.
You may be charitable to accept alternative explanations but I am not. Nugget Nectar of today (and the past 5-10 years) is not the beer it was in the past. A step backwards unfortunately. And I purchased a four-pack of Head Hunter recently and I drank one of the cans last evening. Still tasty and enjoyable. Cheers!
I would also add that if it's really just US, it sure took a long time to become jaded. As late as 2012, I was still enthusiastically buying NN on tap and in bottles whenever I spotted it. That's roughly 10 years.
I struggle with this take. I don’t get blown away by NN, Hopslam, or really any old school IPA that used to blow me away in terms of aroma and bitterness, even though I still enjoy drinking them. Last night I had a fresh Union Jack, and it was just fine. Hopslam is one where the aroma leapt out of the bottle. Now, I barely get any. I feel like it has to be some combination of us changing vs recipe or quality changes. But I do probably love Heady as much as I always have, so who knows? At any rate, I’ll probably get some NN at some point but have gotten the double already.
I only bought and tried one 16oz. can of last year's batch and regretted not getting more. This year I bought a 4pk and 6pk and think it tastes good but not great like last years.
I'm in your camp regarding this. Just did a quick little statistical experiment. I looked at the first page of new ratings for Nugget Nectar, there's 14 of them. Half had an rDev higher than the current beer score of 4.32. I then looked at the median for those 14 scores, and it is exactly 4.32. Obviously a small sample size, but I lean more towards our palates are jaded by the wealth of availability in 2026 compared to say 2010-2015.
