What brewery are you glad you didn't give up on?.....

Clown Shoes. I didn't have the highest respect for them at first, and being perceived as the "house brand" of Total Wine didn't help. But, wow, have they ever won me over.

 

Alpine. Before I knew a lot about them I had a Duet, it was very metallic and didn't like it. Then got some Alpine as an extra and discovered the rest of the lineup and also got Duet that tasted right.

 

Lagunitas. Thought they very average at best when I first got into craft, but that was trying samples of old and stale ones (before I learned about bottle dates). Then I had fresh Sucks, Brown Shugga and that all changed as I loved both of those. Nighttime Black IPA was great recently and revisited Dogtown Pale a few weeks back and that was very solid as well upon a revisit.

 

Tahoe Mountain Brewing

 

I had written off Shiner as a bunch of crafty nonsense, but this summer, my wife and I made a concerted effort to try summer ale styles as a counterpoint to our usual DIPAs, RISs and Belgian strong ales. We ended up liking Ruby redbird, and although it gets little overall love on here, I thought the combo of ginger and grapefruit was innovative, and the beer as a whole works well for hot weather. They'll never be up there with the true greats in my book, as its a very crowded field, but I appreciated the effort, and wouldn't write them off in the future.

 

Karl Strauss from SD. One of the breweries I got into early on to get away from macros but a lot of people didn't really care for them. Recently had their Mosaic session IPA and Big Barrel Double IPA and was impressed with their improvement

 

Evil Twin. First couple of beers I had from them when they originally popped up in NYC were fairly average (at least to my inferior pallleeett).

 

Otter Creek. Since Double Dose, they have put out some good beer. I loved Citra Mantra. Fresh Slice was pretty good. Overgrown is excellent!!

 

Blackout Stout and Christmas Ale are two of their best IMO. If you haven't tried those yet I would certainly give those a shot as well.

 

Edmund Fitzgerald just decent? What?!

 

4 Hands: For a while I found none of their beers that special or exciting but I feel they have really found their element and worked out the kinks

 

Firestone Walker. Not a fan of Sucaba, Double Jack is a pain to find fresh, DDBA is good but not worth the money. Finally managed to track down a Parabola this year, and I also had a Stickee Monkee. Parabola is pretty damn good and Stickee Monkee was great provided you can split it...closest damn beer I've tasted to King Henry and Bourbon County Barleywine.


Which reminds me...how the hell does FW get away with calling it a quad? It's fermented with English ale yeast, looks like a stout, and tastes like an English barleywine blended with a stout. Quad my ass. They specifically called it an English barleywine every year from 2009 through 2013, as you can plainly see on their website by looking through the anniversary blends.

 

Anchor
Southampton
Geary's

 

Noble in Anaheim. Early on, the beers were absolutely unpardonable. Then, after hiring a new brewer, they consistently turn out above average, and on occasion phenomenal brews.

 

Due South. First few years were pretty unimpressive. They've really stepped up their game and dialed in their recipes.

 

Clarification: Not because I ever thought them below par. I always thought they made good beers, but wasn't particularly buying much of their product. After recently making some spur of the moment decisions and buying something from each of them that turned out to be great, they're definitely back on my radar.

 

Not sure if this is just a rumor, but I heard that one of the veteran brewers at Funky Buddha (known for a number of great beers) left to work for Due South some time last year. I haven't made the trip back up to Due South since they opened but I'm really looking forward to getting back up there now.

I guess competition is a good thing

 

I had heard the same thing.