Recently enjoyed Stone's recent edition in their Enjoy By series, Enjoy By 4.20.25 - a 9.4% sticky dank clear west coast DIPA (compared to 4.20.24 - a 9% hazy DIPA), and entered and reviewed it on the site. Or at least I thought I had, but then I went back to look and - no I guess I did not. So I entered and reviewed it again. And then - poof - gone again. So I am assuming this is not considered a new beer even though it is clearly a different beer every iteration (I look at Anchor's Our Special Ale released yearly and each gets its own spot year after year because each one is a different recipe I assume (unlike say Jubelale from Deschutes - different label, same beer)). And sure then maybe Pliny the Younger should get a year by year posting, as it does vary slightly (as does any beer with each years ingredients varying just by the "terroir"/hop selection and quality etc even if each ingredient is technically the same), but not like Enjoy By which does get a new name every time AND clearly is intended to be a different beer (how is it possible that it is by category a different style from 2024 hazy imperial to 2025 west coast imperial, and different name (Enjoy By 4.20.24 is similar in name but not the same as Enjoy By 4.20.25) yet considered same beer - sort of makes the rating of "Enjoy By IPA" meaningless I think). Just my 2 cents, I don't run the site, and I guess maybe you just don't want too many unique beers, though I could argue there are many breweries out there making especially hazy IPA after hazy IPA that are essentially the same beer with a different name (can you really distinguish?). I will stand by my assertion that Enjoy By 4.20.25 is a new and unique beer, and feel better after a good little rant.....
General BA guidance (copied below) is that recipe variations alone are not sufficient to be deemed a "new" beer. I think Enjoy By would fall into this category since the changes between releases are generally minor. There is a separate entry for Enjoy By Hazy IPA and others. Is this rule applied consistently across the board? We try, but I'm sure there are outliers. Sometimes there is path dependency for certain beers that has a life of its own. Recipe Variations Brewers will often tweak their beer recipes over the years for numerous reasons, however, don't add a new version of the beer for minor tweaks. Examples: a minor change in ABV, hop / malt variety. If there's a significant recipe change, but the brewer doesn't change the brand name, the current beer listing will still be used.
The claim about the name is not accurate. The beer’s name is “Enjoy By IPA” according to their filings. What are you basing the second claim on? Minor recipe changes without a name change are typically not considered to be a new beer on BA. The standard Enjoy By beers are (or at least were) considered the same basic recipe but will have normal shifts over time. “Variants” within the series are a different matter. Below is Stone’s description of 4.20.25. I guess it can be up to interpretation if it would qualify as a different beer, or just another “Enjoy By” with some unexceptional recipe drift and marketing behind it. Please reply if you know that Stone has done otherwise with regard to the branding of this particular beer.
This does seem to be applied somewhat inconsistently. Sometimes yearly releases are separately included, and sometimes not. If a BA imperial stout is released yearly, is it generally considered the same beer? Sometimes the barrels used for aging (bourbon vs, whisky vs. rye) change. Anchor Steam used to claim different recipes with their Christmas Sle. Not an easy topic.
Every Enjoy By release seems to be an entirely different beer, and the date in the name is different, similar to the old Vertical Epic or their Anniversary Ales.
I don't rate many beers but I will become a repeat customer of something I enjoy. As for hoppy IPA's consistency is widely varied just shipping the product, or warm storage and the hops go off not in a good way. I'm hesitant to buy anything "new" not to rip'em but brewers with 4-5 different variations can use the same malt bill. I don't get many stone beers anymore so I can't add to the differences.
Agree that there are some consistency issues with annual releases of BA beers. I think as a general rule, a different barrel without more, should not qualify for a new beer entry as long as the name of the beer and style remain the same. Usually minor changes in the recipe should be added to the Notes. But agree that this has not always been applied consistently across the board for all beers.
Well, I'm sure there are some taste variations from batch to batch but I don't think it is intended to be a different beer every time. Stone is about the only brewery to emphasize freshness by making the 'Enjoy By' date a feature of the label. I think freshness is the intent (or at least the marketing intent) and where they have had new variations they are clearly identified (Hazy, Tangerine, Unfiltered, etc.). BUT you can find other breweries where it's debatable whether this year's edition is a new beer or not. And you can go to the other extreme where Other Half's 2,000 beers have been micro-manipulated to make endless variations.
Schells Snowstorm is a great example of a needed addition every year . It’s brewed for winter and always has the same name Snowstorm. Only the year changes and the style changes each year .
Enjoy by is a weird one. I'd say most of them are basically the same beer. There's obviously batch variation, I've personally done a side by side of the same date from the east and west coast breweries and they were effectively entirely different beers. But they're all in the same vein. However, they do occasionally throw in a real variant. There were a couple versions that were explicitly hazy, there was one that was a black ipa I think, and this batch seems to be intended that same way with its subtitle (super dank modern west coast ipa, or whatever).
