NB Lips of Faith Brett Beer

Reads 3569 • Replies 70 • Started Tuesday, March 19, 2013 10:19:20 PM CT

The forums you're viewing are the static, archived version. You won't be able to post or reply here.
Our new, modern forums are here:
RateBeer Forums

Thread Frozen

Message cquiroga beers 371 º places 11 º 16:55 Thu 3/21/2013 Originally posted by Steve_0 Originally posted by beastiefan2k again, its not just your opinion about "what is better." Even the at large RB community rates NB poorly. And these aren’t super rare, small release beers, that 15 folks to a bottle split and rate. These are pretty unbiased reviews. My underlining point is that Lips of Faith is pretty much a let down line at this point. Please advise. They have a plethora of beers at 90+ in both style and overall and as discussed previously, 90 is just an arbitrary cut-off. Drop it to 85 and you have even more. Everybody knows that you cain’t fuck with anything below a 95 rating on RateBeer (overall or style, preferably both), ever since the scores got adjusted a few years back. Honestly, even below a 97 is mostly scroll past territory, with so many readily available and wonderful options in the 97+ range. 90 or less is for the peasants and fishermen and backyard kiddie pool parties with neighbors you just met. Water is almost always the far better option.
Message 3fourths P beers 9492 º places 1576 º 17:05 Thu 3/21/2013 yep. poll people at a RB tasting and see how many people think a 90 is a 3.4. a 90 is a 3.4 here. and given that RB tends to LIKE beer (crazy, I know), that means a 3.4 for the RB crowd is about a 2.9 for me = average beer. ergo that 90pt beer sucks.
Message Trev beers 2023 º places 24 º 20:51 Thu 3/21/2013 Originally posted by 3fourths Originally posted by Trev The Lips of Faith stuff has been (especially recently) a lot more adventurous and inventive than the Smokestacks. wow, sorry, I disagree 100% with this. New Belgium has a talent for throwing things together without putting any thought into the final product. Random spices, fruit and vegetables added without reason to poorly-made base beer. New Belgium beers are also force-carbonated and pasteurized, while the Smokestack series are unpasteurized and bottle-conditioned (and Boulevard remains one of the few American breweries doing bottle-conditioning right). you use the word inventive and I think that’s a poor choice. NBB is throwing darts at the wall and hoping something works, but few of their beers do. Boulevard, meanwhile, offers a brett Saison with actual live brettanomyces in it, they make one of the best Belgian-style imperial stouts in the world, and even the over-done ho-hum wheat wine style (Harvest Dance) shows they are at the top of the game. Fair dues. Would completely agree that Boulevard does a fantastic job of bottle conditioning, and the smokestack stuff is all quality. Sure LoF may be a lot of flinging stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, but when you’re collaborating with quality brewers then I don’t think it’s quiet as slap dash as that. Regardless of what the outcome seems. Maybe inventive is the wrong choice of wording. Maybe it should have been adventurous, or free wheeling. It’s been shown in the market place that people seem to want those crazy beers, so why not just keep messing around and see what you can put out. It’s not something that I hold against them. If people are willing to buy them, why shouldn’t they have fun inviting friends to their brewery to muck about a bit? I honestly hate that whole attitude of elitism in the ratebeer community. This whole 90th percentile is such and such to me is just stupid. There is nothing wrong with drinking decent well made beer.

Message beastiefan2k P beers 5013 º places 294 º 23:22 Thu 3/21/2013 Originally posted by Trev It’s been shown in the market place that people seem to want those crazy beers, so why not just keep messing around and see what you can put out. It’s not something that I hold against them. If people are willing to buy them, why shouldn’t they have fun inviting friends to their brewery to muck about a bit? I honestly hate that whole attitude of elitism in the ratebeer community. This whole 90th percentile is such and such to me is just stupid. There is nothing wrong with drinking decent well made beer. My point is that if you keeping make a crappy product people will eventually stop buying it. I like experimentation as much as the next guy. But how many bad experiments will one buy before they quit. I have quit bottles of LoF, and Brett Beer was a perfect example of why Not sure what elitism you are speaking of, we are just talking numbers. How often do you go out and buy beers that you rated 3.4? So, the percentile is telling us what the average rater thinks (unless there is some crazy variance). So, on average half of the LoF series is something that the average drinkers will not want to drink or buy again.
Message Trev beers 2023 º places 24 º 07:11 Fri 3/22/2013 On one hand I have kind of agreed with you the entire time. I didn’t like Brett Beer...and the new ones around here right now are the Cascara Quad and the Heavenly Feijoa. Neither of which I am interested in trying. Even though I do love DDC brewery. On the other hand, the cocoa mole was pretty darn good, and the Kick they did with the guy from Elysian was awesome for me. So I don’t get the hate. I think I need to just swear off the internet for a while. I’m just sick of the entire internet culture of being overly critical and all that.
Message jake65 beers 4400 º places 158 º 07:51 Fri 3/22/2013 Originally posted by beastiefan2k My point is that if you keeping make a crappy product people will eventually stop buying it. I like experimentation as much as the next guy. But how many bad experiments will one buy before they quit. I have quit bottles of LoF, and Brett Beer was a perfect example of why Not sure what elitism you are speaking of, we are just talking numbers. How often do you go out and buy beers that you rated 3.4? So, the percentile is telling us what the average rater thinks (unless there is some crazy variance). So, on average half of the LoF series is something that the average drinkers will not want to drink or buy again. This I can agree with. I would assume their goal is to generate repeat purchases, so if a consistent stream of poor beers continues, a customer would tend to not only skip re-buying any given product, but also (at some point) shy away from new products. My stance from the beginning has been NB makes a lot of good brews. I have skipped over a few of the LOF beers when I don’t care for the style or some special ingrediant. I will take a chance when it’s a style I really like or an interesting collaboration. I haven’t cracked the Brett Beer yet, but when I bought it I thought "Hey, a collaboration with Lost Abbey and a style I like, this should be fun."
Message beastiefan2k P beers 5013 º places 294 º 09:03 Fri 3/22/2013 Originally posted by jake65 My stance from the beginning has been NB makes a lot of good brews. I completely agree. I think they make the best dubbel and tripel for the cost. I am a big fan of 1554. I like the mothership wit. The make a ton of new beer and seasonal which beer geeks love. In general NB is great for the craft beer movement and I would take 100 NBs over any macros. However, just being stellar in one area does not make the brewery immune from criticism in other areas.

Message Denverdiv beers 30 º places 12 º 09:06 Fri 3/22/2013 Originally posted by beastiefan2k Originally posted by jake65 30+ beers in the 90th percentile or higher... NB makes a lot of good stuff. there are 53 lips of faith beers, only 26 bottled (as best I could count). Now lets leave out the beers that were made before the LoF series. Meaning, that La Folie, BdM, Trans Kriek, Le Terrior, Eric’s Ale, Abbey GC, are going to be biased from earlier ratings. We now have 20 beers. 10 of those beers are below the 90th percentile. Now why use 90? no idea why that is considered a good cut off, but lets go with it. So... You have a 50/50 shot of getting a good beer [by RB scores] when purchasing a LoF beer. those are not good odds for the price point. Indeed. We all get excited about the "Specialty" beers that anyone makes, we all get excited about trying new beers in general. I live 45 minutes from New Belgium and I would not make that trip for the track record of their "quality" and "unique offerings" Granted, I would do nearly anything to get a case of Le Terroir, they do have a handful of quality beers - but for the VOLUME that they put out, they are putting out more "sub par" beer than anything.
Message NobleSquirrel beers 3437 º places 209 º 10:56 Fri 3/22/2013 Originally posted by beastiefan2k Originally posted by 3fourths Originally posted by Trev The Lips of Faith stuff has been (especially recently) a lot more adventurous and inventive than the Smokestacks. wow, sorry, I disagree 100% with this. New Belgium has a talent for throwing things together without putting any thought into the final product. Random spices, fruit and vegetables added without reason to poorly-made base beer. New Belgium beers are also force-carbonated and pasteurized, while the Smokestack series are unpasteurized and bottle-conditioned (and Boulevard remains one of the few American breweries doing bottle-conditioning right). you use the word inventive and I think that’s a poor choice. NBB is throwing darts at the wall and hoping something works, but few of their beers do. Boulevard, meanwhile, offers a brett Saison with actual live brettanomyces in it, they make one of the best Belgian-style imperial stouts in the world, and even the over-done ho-hum wheat wine style (Harvest Dance) shows they are at the top of the game. again, its not just your opinion about "what is better." Even the at large RB community rates NB poorly. And these aren’t super rare, small release beers, that 15 folks to a bottle split and rate. These are pretty unbiased reviews. My underlining point is that Lips of Faith is pretty much a let down line at this point. Back before they started bottling the Lips of Faith stuff, it was better beer. Pre-bottling Tart Lychee, Eric’s Peach Ale, La Terroir were all fantastic. They definitely fell off once they started doing the sterilization thing for consistency, imo.
Message gunhaver beers 1030 º places 13 º 13:31 Fri 3/22/2013 i don’t think ratebeer users reflect New Belgium’s audience as a whole.