Eh. It’s not bad. It’s not awful. Kind of lingers in that awkward area of not fully juicy and without a legitimate bitterness. Not dissimilar to most of the hazy beers they’ve made over the past year or so. I’d gamble on a four pack and see if it hits me differently.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was expecting. I’m going to pick it up when I see though, I generally trust Troegs enough to always give them a shot.
Locally, other than Victory Cloud Walker, have any of the larger breweries really tried a wide release? That beer sells retail for like $12 a six pack of 12 oz cans - it's just a different target market than the people lining up for $22 4-packs. Victory and Sly Fox have done taproom only releases of NEIPAs, I assume Troegs has probably done Scratch beers. I think they know they can't put a beer that's focused all on late hops into their distribution network - both from a freshness perspective and a pricing perspective. Which is fine - I'm happy to stock my fridge with a variety case from Troegs or Yards for everyday drinking, and then occasionally hit up Stickman or Hidden River if I am in the mood for a hazy IPA.
Generally agree about most of these type of places not wanting to do a year round, wide distro beer of that style. I do like Cloud Walker more often than not, and like that it is an option if I find myself at Victory or a place with a more low key list of offerings. Troegs has definitely done a lot of hazy beers over the past year. Honestly, the very few that stick with me were a few attempts at a Brut IPA, rather than a traditional hazy, hop forward beer. They've done can releases, too. While I have to credit them for staying in their lane as far as price (I think all of them have been 11.99 for a 4 pack of pounder cans), they just haven't merited buying more after the initial purchase. Not a big deal, because in case you've been actively avoiding life in craft in 2019, there are a plethora of options out there that I'm happy to buy and still go to Troegs regularly and enjoy what they do well.
I have said the same thing about Dogfish, Troegs, and others. I was at Troegs a couple weeks ago and had Golden Thing and Nimble Giant which were pretty good DIPA's and had some juice.
I think the price of hops legitimately hinders breweries like Victory and Troegs. A brewery of their respective sizes and their distribution imprints would have to pump out 3 or 4 times the amount of cases than, say, a distro only brewery like an Other Half or a Tired Hands. Unless a brewery like Troegs wants to go brewery only and produce 100-150 cases of an “omg, EXCLUSIVE!!” juicy DIPA it’s gonna be really tough for them to pump out a NEIPA the likes of OH or TH. Another factor here, completely throwing shit out there, could be that the brewers aren’t completely interested in brewing that particular style. It’s a rather uninteresting style to brew for some. I know the guys I work for reluctantly make them because they know that it’ll sell. They also regard it a boring style to brew, where most of the work is done by the hops. When you’re pumping out enough beer to supply distribution to multiple states, or an entire region, it probably doesn’t make logistic sense to put all that money into securing enough Citra, Vic Secret, Idaho 7, *insert new hot Hop here*, etc when you’re selling your WCIPA aka old school IPA, lager, stout, whatever beer you’re known for already. It’s completely a guess, but that would be a reason I think for the question at hand. Born Yesterday (a few years ago) is the best “big brewery” NEIPA-style IPA I’ve had and I’d be interested in seeing what money went into it, and what money was made out of it. The last few years they made it, I tasted a noticeable difference and it could be because my palette changed or, maybe, it’s because the recipe was tweaked because the profits weren’t quite where Lagunitas expected. Again, a guess.
Meh. It's OK but there's better local stuff out there. PA has a lot of excellent micro-breweries, Where in PA are you?
Scranton area. There’s definitely a couple good locals but Troegs is generally priced right and I can grab it anywhere. Sometimes you just want to grab something quick at the grocery store. I kind of figured this beer would be just as everyone has described, I was just hoping otherwise. I’ll give it a go anyway when I see it,
