Hoptimum vs. another DIPA

Agreed. I had Hoptimum on draft last week and it was way better than I remember it last year. And I liked it a lot last year.

Sierra makes some solid hoppy beers. Period.

That said, I will take a wild guess and assume that the diacetyl bomb was an Alpine beer. If so: yup they occasionally have that problem (intermittently) , but when their beers are up to shape (tap mostly) they are exceptionally awesome.

It’s true that brewing a great beer and packaging it well are two different things. As I’ve grown as a brewer and beer drinker, packaging has only become more and more important in my eyes. It’s really sad, but many great beers are just not packaged well.

couple points in response.

as a lay consumer with only minimal home brewing experience it’s great to read the opinions of professional brewers as your knowledge adds to the site for the better. and i’m really looking forward to getting my hands on some cans of elevated ipa in the future.

batch variation is more of a problem for some brewers than others. while you may have been taken aback by the flaws in your bottle, it’s not fair to assume that everyone else that rated the beer drank equally flawed bottles and simply overlooked (or could not detect) those same flaws.

and yeah, you’re right that certain breweries and beers from those breweries get a pass (or at least some padding in scoring) to a certain degree based on reputation alone . . . but in the end i do believe that the rating system as a whole is a valuable tool in sussing out what beers are worth buying/trading for and which are not.

Hoptimum is awesome, but can’t hold a candle to Boneyards Hop Venom DIPA.

Originally posted by BMan1113VR
Sierra makes some solid hoppy beers. Period.

That said, I will take a wild guess and assume that the diacetyl bomb was an Alpine beer. If so: yup they occasionally have that problem (intermittently) , but when their beers are up to shape (tap mostly) they are exceptionally awesome.

some good reading here...

I really dug Hoptimum last year and can’t wait for it to hit shelves by me soon!

IMO, those driving the high end craft market today just don’t seem to know or care about quality indicators (or indicators of non-quality ie. obvious unintended brewing faults), and only care about big flavor. Justification of bad beer of known rock stars are just passed off as "a bad bottle". This attitude, and knowing most bottled high end craft beer sales seems to come from one time sales, allows brewers to get away with it.



One of the reasons why I looking forward to craft demand diminishing - the newbs interested mostly in the peripheral aspects of drinking beer (whale hunting, trading, limited release parties, etc.) will go away when beer isn’t as trendy anymore and we will be left with more connoisseurs who value the beer and its consistent quality more than the tick or the rarity.

Originally posted by erway

Originally posted by BMan1113VR
Sierra makes some solid hoppy beers. Period.

That said, I will take a wild guess and assume that the diacetyl bomb was an Alpine beer. If so: yup they occasionally have that problem (intermittently) , but when their beers are up to shape (tap mostly) they are exceptionally awesome.

I have experienced this too with Alpine. That being said, it was not Alpine that I spoke of. What is troubling to me is that SOOO many of the top rated beers and breweries on this site and on BA are incredibly inconsistent because of the brewers complete inability to package their products in a competent way.

Marble brewery here, a competitor of mine I might add, is incredibly consistent. I have NEVER had diacetyl in any of their packaged products and it’s because they know what they are doing. In addition their DIPA is VERY hop forward, clean and bitter as all hell. Last I checked it was in the 60th%ile for DIPAs. It is WAY better than well over 95% of the DIPAs I have had, and I have had a shitload, I would bet as many as anyone on this site. Why is it not rated higher? Simple, no hype. I only pray that when we start packaging that we are capable of packaging our beer as successfully as they have.

From a commercial brewers standpoint, it is frustrating. From a consumer standpoint, it is a disservice. This site and BA at this point do steer sales for a certain clientele. I am very directly trying to appeal to that clientele. So are a great many "higher end" brewers. The hype is antithetical to the market that all of us are trying to create.

Originally posted by Oregonknwsbest
Hoptimum is awesome, but can’t hold a candle to Boneyards Hop Venom DIPA.