Your Epic Whale Fail

I don't go out and seek whales but when you are a recognized regular at a good liquor store sometimes they fall in your lap.

Is Dogfish Head 120 considered a whale? Maybe because it was given to me in the same tasting as HT and PtE, but it was kind of meh.

 

FTFY

For easy reference

http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/the-white-whale-list-2012.57581/

 

I notice one I don't see on here Dirtwolf. It's an awesome beer.

 

This.

Also Jai Alai. It might've been the fact that it was probably a bit older, but t was $15 a sixer and I thought it was way too sticky and sweet.

 

B1 Atrial. Seemed out of balance to me. To be fair I have not had B2 or B3 for comparison purposes.

 

Not sure you guys understand the term "whale".

For me, it was Cable Car. Very underwhelming.

 

Arrogant Bastard. I guess I wasn't worthy.

 

I have had a lot of Pliny the Elder (and a fair amount of Pliny the Younger) but only on draft. I wish I could state that every one of my drinking experiences was sublime but there were not. The majority of my experiences were excellent but not all.

IMHO, the challenge with hoppy beers such as Pliny the Elder is getting a beer that is not ‘damaged’ by age and/or storage/transport. If you get them fresh (young and undamaged) they are great beers for me. Maybe even a ‘fresh’ Pliny the Elder is not to your liking but maybe it is?

I personally have not had many Hop Slam beers that I thought was excellent. I had the majority of them in draft; draft should be fresh, right!?! I had a bottle last spring of Hop Slam that I thought was AWESOME! Yup. hoppy beers can indeed be mysteries wrapped in a riddle!?!

As the old Nissan commercial would say: enjoy the ride!

Cheers!

 

A few made me question whether I was drinking the same beer people reviewed.

Bomb - "what is this, week old 7/11 coffee stirred with a jalapeno?'
New Glarus Fruit beers - "Does this come in juice boxes?"
Westy 12 - "Huh, why am I not having an orgasm"

 

Agreed 100%, though I've only had it on tap. Way too coffee forward, barely any chocolate, if any. I'd surely get a 4 pack to age like I'm doing with my last 2 KBS bottles.

 

I totally get what you are saying. I also accept it every time I open a bottle from a trade. I've traded for a lot of zombie dust. I've probably traded for a case of zombie dust in total in the span of two months. (I just started trading two months ago.). Yes, I got a few just 4 days old. I've gotten a couple that were in someone's fridge, shipped to me on the hottest day this summer, and 2 months old. Yes, I could tell a difference, but they were still zombie dust and tasted good.

I honestly don't like the flavor profile of Pliny. No other way to say it. Yes, I gave it a good score. I respect it's a good beer and some people would sell their first born on the black market for it. That's cool. It just doesn't float my boat. I'm not going to bomb a score because it's not for me unless it's just an awful beer and I can tell is just a weak attempt at the style. There's probably a list of 15 or 20 IPAs and DIPA's I would drink before I would think about Pliny.

I like to use my wife as a gauge also to see if my taste is off. She is all over the board. She loves sours, saisons, some wheats, and she tries all my ipa and DIPA's I get. But she is not an everyday ipa drinker. Something that I like that is off the charts I can give to her. She tastes it. Smells it. Looks at it and gives the approving look and says, that's actually really good. (I had to split my first heady with her she liked it so much. ). I tried Pliny. I handed it to her. She puckered her lips out and said, "ewe that tastes like a mess. What is that flavor? Is that malt? Way too much of that." That was kind of my reassuring gauge for my taste experience. LOL. Cheers man.

 

They did use habanero and not ancho peppers so I'd guess the idea was to make a wee bit of a pepper burn. I like it a lot a but it's best shared, no way could I enjoy 22ozs at a time.

 

Old Rasputin XII, wasn't cellared and left out in the heat

 

It's kind of a local whale as the brewery only releases the bottles to pubs and not liquor stores but Saint Arnolds has a barrel aged series and their 6th batch was their heavy pumpkin stout aged in rum barrels. I think I hyped it up in my head more than the actual hype of the beer. After months of searching I finally found one and was a real let down with a frown.

 

the moment I read the initial post I thought of 120 min. way too boozy for me to enjoy. waste of $. Ended up cooking with it

 

For me it was Speedway Stout that did not live up to the hype. I was excited to try it because of its reputation but was it was really missing something.

 

I thought this said whale fail? Why are Pliny and other beers like this being mentioned?

 

Fuzzy.

 

There must be a more modern list than that one! I wish Eszett was as easy to get as Deviation. Also id guess Soleil B1 is top of the list due to the sale of more Daves and Selectie C must be pushing top 10.

(I felt I had to mention some actual whales since no one else has done so...)

 

Ommegang's Take the Black Stout. It was downright bland. My friend and I tasted it on a trip to Cooperstown and shot a tasting video. We were not impressed:


(Yeah, now that I look at it, we attributed the beer to Brooklyn in the title. WOOPS. Ignore that glaring typo please.)

Also, Brooklyn Black OPS was pretty good, but I still much prefer their BCS.