Victory Brewing (2020)

For what it's worth they did announce this one a while ago and I am not surprised to see this with the recent trends and with spring around the corner. But this is quickly becoming a crowded segment and I wonder how many of these beers will have staying power? All Day is still doing well but I think a lot of that has to do with its value because in comparison to modern IPAs it can be a little harsh.

 

Love your avatar! Eat shit PITT! Horns down! Let's GO!

And I don't know what your preferences are, but give the more traditional Victory styles a chance. They are typically their best beers, i.e. Prima Pils, Golden Monkey, etc.

 

So I checked back in on Victory over the weekend, to try Golden Monkey for the first time in a long time, as the selection of tripels was very limited. I have to say this beer is so much better now than it was 5 or 6 years ago. I used to find it to be a bland, over-spiced mess of a beer, where now it is extremely yeast-forward and very much in line with a classic Belgian Abbey tripel. The spicing is subtle enough that I didn't notice it. A very pleasant surprise.

I will be buying a lot of this, even though the cans were 3 months old, because it's a tripel and thankfully that doesn't matter much.

 

What's your opinion on the balance of it now? I haven't drank it in years either, I had always thought it was too sweet compared to something like Tripel Karmeliet

 

It's not sweet at all now, it's dry the way a proper tripel ought to be. They must have switched yeasts somewhere along the way, possibly to the Westmalle strain because that's what it reminds me of.

 

I had it a couple years ago for the 1st time in years and really enjoyed it. Much drier than when it 1st came out. It used to be the beer I always had left from variety cases because I used to hate it.

 

GM had another formula change somewhere? I know of a few along the way but haven't heard of much change since around '08. If it's been recently updated I will need to try it, as I haven't had the beer in at least a year now, was never really my favorite and a little too sweet/spicy for me.

 

Same here. Basically was why years ago I switched to buying Yards and Troegs variety cases instead.

 

Golden Monkey was the beer you'd drink if you wanted to get drunk, because it was widely available and cheap for a 9.5% ABV beer. It was bad because it didn't need to be good, and I too had a very strong dislike for it.

It seems like a pretty rare thing for a long-established mid-size craft brewery to futz with a recipe and make a bad beer into a good one, so credit where it's due.

 

I always wonder how often recipes are tweaked and were not told across the board. Like how many times does a small (or large) brewery run out of x, y, and z and improvise? It's gotta be pretty common I would guess. And what goes into telling us about it vs. not? I guess that last question only applies in the age of social media really...

 

I always found this interesting also. You'd think that being transparent about this would work in their favor because it would drum up more sales and if people love it or hate it, it's great feedback for further tweaks or going back to the old recipe.

I wish breweries would put out a side by side pack with beers that have changed over the years. I am sure that would be logistically difficult but it would be fun.

 

Probably not much for Macro Lager brewers. But I would think that at all levels of craft breweries, this type of thing is pretty common. Especially adjusting hop blends to account for availability but also flavor profile of each year's hop harvest. And I would hope that if they think they can make minor tweaks for the continued bettering of the beer, they would.

I would think most regional-level breweries would just see making an adjustment as normal operating procedure that would not require re-branding or alerting their customers. Then I think there is the other extreme of places like Tired Hands or Hidden River that every minor change up of hop variety/amount/method is released as a "new" beer.

 

How the hell did they abandon those beers??? They are the forefathers of the whole damn pastry stout movement!!!! I'm not a fan but damn at least rebrand them!

 

Some of those were not really that sweet, just good flavor. Inequity was hoppy.

Creme Brulee, on the other hand was definitely a pastry stout before those existed.

So they still have that one, a "Chocolate Milkshake" and "Hot Cocoa", all in Nitro cans. I think they had a Cinnamon Roll beer or something last year, so definitely embracing the trend.
https://stbcbeer.com/beers/

 

The problem back in the day was ST packaged all those in large format bottles and most of them it was a struggle to put back an entire bomber. Most were really good (I was not an Inequity fan) but it was hard to finish a bottle of Choklat for example. Loved it, but in small quantities.

 

Had lunch at Victory Kennett Square today. Nice mix of classics and new stuff on tap. The biggest revelation was four taps dedicated to Sixpoint beers, no Southern Tier. First pic is Braumeister Pils, second is their new sour NEIPA, Heavy Drop, which I was pleasantly surprised by. Not really sour, reminded me of grapefruit Sculpin.

aplikasi keyboard test

 

If you're curious I tried the Easy Ringer Lo-Cal IPA and surprisingly I really enjoyed it even after going in a little biased and thinking that I wouldn't, will be drinking this one again:

New Beer Sunday (Week 785)

 

Curious about the price point on Easy Ringer, is it in line with other Victory core beers?

 

I just picked up a single this time but I did check the shelf price for a six pack and yes, $10.49 in my area (SEPA) so the same as the others.

 

Drinking a storm king right now and this beer should at least be seasonal again. It’s such a good beer, it’s got all the roast and bitterness then the hops give it such a nice little kick.