What brewery were you most wrong about?

DuClaw.

Tried one of their one offs (X-1 Imperial Chocolate Rye Porter), and one of their bombers (Misery) and I was pretty damn impressed.

Then I started trying their 6 pack offerings. Stuff like Oz, Serum, and Old Flame flat-out sucked, while stuff like Sweet Baby Jesus (WHY IS THIS MD'S MOST HYPED BEER.) and Mad Bishop were hardly anything special. At least their bombers (i.e. Retribution) are pretty damn solid - which leaves me to wonder why you guys can't put a similar effort into your 6 pack beers.

STOP BEING SO FRUSTRATING DUCLAW

 

Three Floyd's for me. Zombie dust, Dreadnaught, permanent funeral and Robert the Bruce were always solid beers and then I started driving there to get their special releases. Drove out there for Bully Guppy and that was not a good beer. Then I drove out for battle priest and that was even worse. Finally I drove out for Tiberian Inquisitor and it was horrible. What ever is broken fix it ThreeFloyds!!!

 

Hill Farmstead. Ephraim was par for the course for a "T" IPA. Everything else has been truly mind blowing.

Maine Brewing Co. I had Lunch and wrote them off. Then I had Zoe...

 

Noble Ale Works. I'm from Anaheim so I heard about them not long after they started. Didn't particularly like any of their beers at first. But I'll be damned if Naughty Sauce, Citra Showers, Nelson Showers, and now Bean Bump haven't tickled my fancy. Currently drinking a Bean Bump. Shocked this is 12.7% abv

 

Probably Lagunitas. Not because some of their stuff doesn't suck, (I still think it does) but because I was SO wrong about one beer of theirs: coincidentally, "Sucks." The Sucks Brown Shugga Substitute Ale is better than I ever gave it credit for. A solid offering and one of my favorite hoppy brews. Lagunitas, I'm sorry for misjudging you and counting you out when you do indeed have good things to offer us. Cheers.

 

Full Sail. I find myself buying it more and more, the Session Lager and Black Lager and especially the Sessionfest somehow keep hitting my fridge for the rotation.

 

Ror me its Southern Tier. Everybody raves about chokolat and to me it was just ok. Everything else I have had is the same...ok. The only beer I really enjoyed from them is the barrel aged backburner.

 

Sam Adams. I always had this mindset that it was bad beer just for the fact that they are gigantic. They have several beers that I enjoy

 

Three Floyds. Biggest expectations (hype), biggest let downs. I thought everything they made would be magical based on how everyone talks about them, but once i tried a fee of their beers i thought they were only slightly better than an average APA or IPA.

 

Minneapolis Town Hall.

Before I visited, I was convinced their beers would be good.

 

Lagunitas, but in the opposite direction. I used to love their beers, particularly the IPA and Sucks. Now they're too sweet for me. Shutdown and Pils didn't do it for me, and I found Hop Stoopid to be pretty middle-of-the-road. I thought Sumpin' Wild was an odd mix of flavors. Haven't had Sumpin' Sumpin' in a while, maybe I'll revisit.

Not sure if I was ever "wrong" about Lagunitas, and I still recommend it to a lot of people, I just don't drink it anymore.

 

Yep...good beer...and credit for help pushing the craft market. Big doesn't mean bad and anyways percentage wise, their market share is minimal to entire product sold.

It's easy to bang on the team that's on a roll...I'd prefer to roll with the team who's banging!

 

Carton. They looked "cartooney" to me. Then I tried Boat and several others since and this brewery is legit. If they start to distro outside of NJ watch out. Regular coffee, ridiculous.

 

Smuttynose - I've tried a lot of their Big Beer series and have mostly come away disappointed

 

Concur. I went there before Darkness Day and was not that impressed. Fortunately they had Mango Masala and that was pretty good.

 

For me my evaluation does not any of the larger breweries but it is for two small ones here in Michigan, both new in 2012. I visited both of them in a small town while on a pub crawl, and I felt that one was sub-par and the other was way better-than-average, especially for being a new brewery. (I didn't even do a BA review on the bad one, allowing for the brewery being so new and that a review would be unfair at this point.)

Since the time of those visits I've read comments and reviews about both of them, and it would seem from others' opinions that the quality ratings are the exact reverse of mine, even to the point of some reviews being dramatically opposite of my opinions. Could I have been wrong by that much? (I've visited over 200 breweries and have tasted a lot of beer, so I think I know how to evaluate a beer.) I'll have to go back to see for myself, which is what my plan has been all along so that I could hopefully find better beer at the one that I rated bad, and could finally give that brewery a positive review (or warn others).

 

Jack's Abby. I passed judgement before even trying their beers, but after having one now I can't get enough of them.

 

Oskar Blues. I had four of their renowned beers out of the can that I felt were only okay, so I stopped trying more for a long time... I decided to pick up Ten-Fidy last week and it has quickly become my go-to stout. I'm sorry Oscar, don't hate me.

 

Bell's, specifically Two Hearted; reminded me of a HopDevil knock-off. It's not bad, just didn't live up to the hype