What if...?

As long as you are willing to pay the shipping. I expect it would cost more to ship a case of beer than the beer itself would cost.

 

Original Alpine will always be missed, but what if everyone was still independent...?

 

What if I hadn't walked in that door of Half Acre Brewing back in 2013?
I'd still be smooth-faced, and drinking wine.

 

What happened with GF and Alpine is, and will always be, a sad story full of what if's. The hate and vitriol for GF is well established by now regarding this subject.
I will be the first to say that the Alpine beers made in the beginning at GF were not the same as what was made up the hill at the Pub. I was there during that time and it was apparent to all that the beers were never ever going to be the same. Just look at the systems they were brewing on. One was a Ferrari and one was a donkey cart. But a donkey cart that combined with well water and the talents of Pat and Shawn made the best beer in SD in my opinion. What GF should have done was make new beers under the Alpine name, refine those, and use the information to try and replicate Duet, Nelson, etal. They did not do that. Instead they chased a buck and had Sales run the ship and not the brewers. Sad but true.
My question is what flaw, off flavor, or general deficiency was in the GF/Alpine beers? What If Alpine had gotten a larger more efficient brewery and the beers changed would the hatred still be there or would people be more willing to accept the differences because Pat, Val, and Shawn still owned the place? Did people just hate GF for their success at the time?
I'm sure the GF haters will come on here and tell me how much the beer 'sucks' is 'not the same' is 'ruined'. I get it. But where are those descriptors on the Flavor Wheel?
Drink Alpine beer or go to bed.

 

what if Michael Jackson was only into craft beer and not hospital grade anesthesia? Oh wait.

 

What if you got a second opinion?

Trillium seems to be doing just fine. I think both breweries were not affected by the fermentation change. Trillium keeps expanding and is packed as usual, and Tree House would have expanded either way.

Probably not.

Name one brewery that distributes to that many states that has ratings as high as Hill Farmstead? Maybe Toppling Goliath? And they're certainly not as coveted as Hill Farmstead.

 

I've never been the biggest fan of GF. Mainly because I've had beef with their distributor Crest for their shady business practices and old stale beer. I still always liked WCIPA when fresh. Over 10 yrs ago is when I had my first Alpine Pure Hoppiness bomber. I wasn't into ipas at that time and the bomber was really old. I hated it and poured it out. Then I went to the Alpine tasting room for the first time around 2014. The freshness made all the difference in the world. Pure Hoppiness is still one of the best beers I've ever had. Ive been going there regularly ever since. I've tried almost all of their special beers. Keene Idea, Bad Boy, Expo, High Kicks. I am amazed by all of them every time. I can't really say that about any other brewery. I Agree that the six packs are not as good as the kegs from Alpine but it's probably due to freshness and storage temp. I think the hop flavor in the six packs does kinda taste like GF WCIPA but I definitely still taste that Alpine malt flavor. It doesn't seem accurate to me what some people on BA say. It sounds like people who don't even visit the Alpine tasting room are just spreading their opinion. To me these statements on BA just don't translate. I actually go there in real life. Sure the the Nelson is not going to be the same after it's been sitting in cans on a shelf but I doubt that there was some "O.G." (whatever that's supposed to mean) Nelson recipe from some 2013 batch or whatever that they somehow can't replicate anymore. They havent stopped brewing in Alpine. They actually brew their specialty beers a lot more often now instead of once a year.
I don't really know what the flaw is with the six packs except they're sitting on shelves getting stale. I can't really say that there are any off flavors but the hop flavor definitely has a hint of GF WCIPA. Also they seem to feel a little over filtered. The beers on tap at Alpine tasting room seem to be less filtered and they just tastes super fresh. I'm no expert I'm just a beer drinker. No ties to Alpine just a customer. My city has150 - 200 breweries and I still always go to Alpine. It's definitely not ruined after the GF merger. They are doing some of the best beers in the world there. Alpine ❤️ ❤️ ❤️❤️ ❤️

 

I did, Doc says I also have a bad sense of humor. Bah dum tssshhhh.

 

I was also there during that time. Green Flash made mistakes, and so did Alpine Beer Company. In their haste to distribute widely, due in large part to the incredible demand for ABC's beers at the time, they brewed beer at GF, called it Alpine, and distributed it, before working on scaling up Pat McIlhenney's recipes.

Like Pat Korn says, if they had named them differently, instead of using the original Alpine names, which customers had already learned to distinguish, and had a high level of expectation for, maybe it would have worked. Instead, they tried to sell *Nelson to people who could spot the OG Nelson in a pint glass from across the room. Kegs of *Nelson were sent, and even the brewers, in a blind taste test, couldn't tell if it was *Nelson, or Hoppy Birthday. 2 month old, oxidized *Duet kegs were sent to the Alpine Tasting room to be sold for growler fills, and the employees were expected to say nothing to customers they'd been serving for years. Sales became more important than the goodwill of the customers who'd made ABC what it was.

I disagree with Pat Korn about his analogy of the Maserati and the donkey cart. I would offer this one- Alpine was producing Maseratis on a small scale, quality crafted, unique designs, and they sold to GF, with their assembly line, mass-producing cars, some of them really nice cars, but not the kind of beauties that Maseratis are. GF was just never able to convince the real car enthusiasts that theirs were as good as the originals.

If there was any "flaw" to the GF-brewed ABC beers, I would say that it was a lingering bitterness (I believe common to many of GF's beers) that original Alpine beers just didn't have. Sure, there was the difference in the water profile, GF's use of filtration, Alpine's hop back, and some other technical differences in the brewing systems. Some of the GF brews came pretty close to the originals, but there was a frustrating lack of consistency. Again, if they had let Shawn (and Pat) keep brewing the originals in Alpine, for the pub, and tasting room, and had used new names for the GF ABC beers (while working with the original recipes, and scaling them up) it may have been successful.

So- what if?

It used to be "Drink Alpine Ale, or go to bed!" but I guess even that's changed now, too.

 

Maybe changing the names wouldn't have flown. It could be argued, though, that the vast majority of consumers that GF wanted to sell beer to had never been to Alpine, and had never had the originals, fresh, and on tap. They may not have been able to distinguish the differences. Again, it wasn't that GF's versions were flawed, per se, it's just that they weren't the same as the originals. And the originals had set the bar pretty high.

I had really wanted the Cold Spring deal to succeed. They have a water source that would probably have been a good match for the Alpine IPAs. They had a large, new facility, and distribution could have been handled pretty easily. It just didn't work out.

And, yes, I know about Cold Spring beer, and their history of contracted beers- not just Billy Beer! I drank a LOT of Cold Spring lager, because it was the beer they filled pitchers with on Thirsty Thursdays at The Red Carpet in St. Cloud. Was it a great beer? No. But their water source was. Just look at the history of the spring. I truly believe that Pat and Shawn McIlhenney could have made it work.

But, again- what if?

Cheers, Raul, and thank you for your comment.

 

Completely agree with all of this. Especially about Crest. Absolute worst distributor with shady practices and shady people.
What is being made up the hill at the original Alpine brewery is amazing. Shawn and Scotty are killing it. I still believe that they are making the best beers in SD county top to bottom.
Too bad Mike Hinkley and his gang of scumbags had to go and ruin not only Alpine, but Green Flash as well.
RIP Green Flash.

 

Great analogy on the Maserati. Totally true. Totally sad.

I will say this again. Fuck you Mike Hinkley.

 

Or even 7-ounce bottles for $50 apiece? Those little brew kettle bottles would be so kewl!

 

I do not engage in sheer speculation.

 

What if the person never took a sip of the bread concoction left out in the rain 10000 -130000 years ago? Would we have beer now?

 

A little something called Blue Moon might have had something to do with that, unfortunately...

Or Scotch...

 

Wait...so the original Alpine Brewing is still making their own batches?

If so...that's awesome!

Sorry if this is common knowledge, but I thought when they were bought out the original operation ceased to exist.

 

The Celis-Miller deal was a bit more complicated than that. Miller bought what was described as a "majority interest" in Celis in 1995. Barrelage went up in the years 1995-1997 (20k/24k/24k), above the pre-Miller capacity of 16k/bbl, suggesting that Miller did help enlarge capacity - then the barrelage crept down between 1998 and 1999 (IIRC Miller also cut back the number of states they distributed Celis to), a period when the general "craft" growth rate leveled off to 0% and 2%, respectively. According to industry reports at the time (Real Beer - Miller sells Shipyard, buys out Celis), in the Spring of 2000:

with Miller then putting the brewery on the block in December of the same year. Industry speculation at the time was that the decision to sell or close Celis was from Miller parent company at the time, Philip Morris, which was trying to "streamline" Miller (the same year, they'd sold the US distribution rights for Molson to Coors).
The strangest aspect of the deal is essentially the same thing happened to Celis' Hoegaarden - partially then totally taken over by Interbrew. So, it's not like he should have been naive about the realities of "big breweries".

How so? I don't think Coors' Blue Moon was doing much during that period - pretty sure Villa's claimed that he had to fight to keep it in Coors' portfolio in those early years, when it wasn't even brewed by Coors but under contract by F X Matt and Boston Beer in Cincinnati.

 

Yes they still brew there. Mostly one offs and the occasional front line beer. It's a small 30 year old brew house that has seen better days but makes great beer. All the Alpine cans and bottles are brewed at the GF location.[/QUOTE]