DiS Beer Wankers 2019

Urgh. Feeling well grotty today.

Had a couple of hours to kill after work so popped down to Cloudwater finally. Really liked it, but not great on your own. On your feet, lose your seat - it’s ruthless in there. Some lovely beer though - Affirmation and Affection both great.

Then schlepped over to BrewDog. Bloody hell - it’s enormous. Like, bigger than the nearby ‘Spoons. All very efficient though. Sank a few pints of BBNO Keller pils. Very nice.

Rocked up with a bag of tins to dinner. Not a great look but hey.

2 Likes

Not always necessarily a change in ingredients (though they do change the hop bill according to availability on the quiet regularly: I remember Punk having about 6 or 7 different variations whilst I was there), but there’s been a huge change in process with the rapid expansion and a removal of the human element as things get increasingly automated up there, which improves the consistency but not necessarily the “quality”.

When that’s coupled with a reluctance to innovate or experiment too wildly with recipes on the stuff coming from the main brewery (part market pressures, part lack of ability to do much on a small scale), and the loss of a lot of talent elsewhere on the brewing team (losing Stewart Bowman was huge)… all adds to to a fairly uninspired set of beers nowadays bar the occasional special or the Overworks stuff (which is completely separate to the main brewery anyway).

Also, the senior management are mostly pricks and don’t actually care about the beer anyway now.

8 Likes

I’ve got 2250 uniques on Untappd. At a very conservative £4 each that’s £9,000 on beers.
I don’t even check in stuff if I’ve had it before so that’s no where near the total cost

5 Likes

I don’t even want to think about what I’ve spent.

I’d say I probably could’ve saved for a deposit on a house if I didn’t drink, but who am I kidding, I’d have only spent it on records

3 Likes

Yeah I got lucky as they had a Magic Rock cream catalana bearded lady and amundsen BA desert in a can on draft. I went back though, no way was I having both in one sitting

Also to add that looks like there’s been a 5 IBU drop in Punk IPA these last five years, which (caveat/big assumptions - the recipe profile hasn’t changed as far as hop addition timings goes, nor the hop recipe itself) means they’re using less hops & saving money there.

Very speculative theory: many of their beers taste horribly thin & lack mouthfeel to me nowadays (not so much the core range, more the seasonal/fanzine stuff etc). My hunch is that they’re trying to get away with using less malt per batch of beer, by using a higher-attenuation yeast to eke the same amount of booze from less raw materials. This means less residual sugars in the final product hence the beer tastes thinner etc.

3 Likes

My mum’s favourite Viv Stanshall quote is this:

If I had all the money I’ve spent on drink… I’d spend it on drink

9 Likes

(and the % alpha acid content of the hops themselves - the trouble with speculations is they rely on so many things…)

I like to think of it as an affordable luxury, and I go out less now “and I’d only have spent it in a pub”. But it is getting quite out of hand and I’m basically in denial.

1 Like

That’s interesting. The last few times I’ve had a dead pony or a punk ipa I’ve wondered whether they’d always been quite shit or whether my tastes had just moved on. It’s something that I find happening a lot with beers generally. Sometimes I’ll revisit a beer that I remember absolutely loving and six months later it’s a completely underwhelming experience.

Think there’s likely some truth in some or all of that too: hadn’t noticed the drop on stated IBU but haven’t been paying much attention since I left the company a couple of years back. They definitely subbed out Nelson and Simcoe for quite a few batches about 3-4 years back when they couldn’t get the volume they needed, and I’m not sure they ever got back to using the amounts that they had done prior to this.

That is great reference to the classic advert.

I’ve never really got on board with chocolate orange beers though, even though I love chocolate orange.

I honestly think they’ve started cutting costs in the recipes, because my tastes haven’t changed since their early 10s heyday. Well, my tastes have expanded and possibly refined, but the concept of a good Punk IPA or 5am Saint is still pretty much my idea of glugging beer heaven. The reality, alas, no longer matches reality.

I haven’t had a Jaipur in years, and since Punk IPA is (or was) essentially a Jaipur clone, that might be a useful comparison. How’s Jaipur tasting nowadays, Thornbridge fans?

Probably not as amazing as it once was, but a thousand times better than punk ipa

There’s also the slight possibility that they’ve started using adjuncts (e.g. rice etc) for sugars instead of malted barley, but despite Brewdog’s sky-high level of hypocrisy and bullshit, I’m not convinced they’d try to get away with that. For one thing, I’m sure they’d legally have to state it on the label ingredients-wise…

I suspected as much.

To me, Brewdog’s vast expansion into pretty much every supermarket in the land has brought their product quality down to generic supermarket beer level, so much so that many of the other craft-ish £1.50-£2 tins Tesco et al. sell are now better beers both in terms of taste and value.

Like, the Germany-brewed Stone IPA isn’t a patch on what the original beer used to be, but it’s £2 a pop and on a different playing field to Punk IPA I’d also rate Vocation’s Session IPA and American Pale higher than Punk nowadays.

idea no longer matches reality

I am stupid and can’t type

I drank some lovely beers tonight.

Verdant’s Marylou was as great as yer man @rich-t claimed

Also, lovely Chubbly

2 Likes

Me local is celebrating their 3rd birthday tonight. 10 tap verdant takeover and 10 taps of special stuff they’ve bee saving.

Happy fuckin days!

That Marylou is very nice

1 Like

image
Bought a giant beer and a spicy one.

2 Likes