I digress.
This year's Beer Camp mix-pack was a success. People are buying it. It's selling out. It's a craft beer commodity. When the craft beer children want something, they get it. They'll wait in line at a brewery after driving hundreds of miles. They'll package up their valuables and ship them halfway across the country. And in the case of Beer Camp 2014, there was no shortage of threads in the regional BeerAdvocate Forums asking questions like, "has anyone seen Beer Camp in [insert location here]."
Yeah, it sold out. But how the fuck does it taste?!
Does it matter? No, seriously. Think about the logistics of assembling this mix-pack. Sierra Nevada collaborated with 12 breweries, many of whom are as far away from California as can be. The spread here includes breweries from Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and California. Many of these breweries, if not all of them, are popular and already operating on thin margins in terms of space and time. New Glarus doesn't even ship out of Wisconsin, and yet here we find them being distributed on a national level, just for that one time. How cool is that?
Apparently...not that cool. If the response from the beer community is any indication, the 2014 Beer Camp has been middle-of-the-road. A dissapoint[ment]. A mix-pack full of average beers. I'll ask again: even if these are middling beers, does it matter?
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| Your typical beer Vlogger (not pictured: a line of expensive #whalez) |
Beer Camp, the festival and the mix-pack, is a celebration of beer in America. I don't think the target demographic for this mix-pack was the fat neckbeards that display their bottles of expensive and rare beers when they film their shitty video beer reviews. The target demographic for this mix-pack wasn't the pretentious Double-IPA critics, or people who are looking for barrel-aged beers where the barrel has been aged inside another barrel for that extra meta rareness.
In an ideal world, I'd like to think Sierra Nevada was marketing this beer towards the every man/woman. Imagine if you could sell a few of these Beer Camp mix-packs to the Joe Average-guy who buys the Sam Adams seasonal variety packs. The Beer Camp is so much better. The Beer Camp is simultaneously a gateway and celebration of craft beer...something you can hang your hat on and say, "fuck yeah, America, titties, craft beer." It's like everything Magic Hat envisioned when they started releasing variety packs, without the Magic Hat. So it's better.
So, it's super disappointing to see reviews of this mix-pack complaining about the price, or the bottled-on dates, or whatever. Yeah, the Chico King Pale Ale sucked, and it tasted faded. But the rest of this mix-pack was on its game. And complaining about the price? Really? These complaints are coming from the same people that will drop $30 on 750ml of beer. Move your yeard out of the way, push your man tits together, and harden the fuck up. And FYI: no one cares if you don't fancy English-style Bitters, Scottish Ales, or Altbiers. This mix-pack has all three, and all three are pretty good.
I'm gonna stop...this is an early morning rant, typed up between a cup of coffee and my morning dump. But while we are talking about how not bad the 2014 Beer Camp was, here was my breakdown of the mix-pack. This much needed meta analysis will help to stimulate my brain and colon. Here's how the 2014 Beer Camp stacks up:
1. Double Latte Coffee Milk Stout Divine Brew (Decent) 4.5/5
2. Tater Ridge Scottish Ale Above-Average (Strong) 4.5/5
3. CANfusion Rye Bock Above-Average (Light) 4.5/5
4. Maillard's Odyssey Imperial Dark Ale Above-Average (Strong) 4/5
5. Alt Route Altbier Above-Average (Strong) 4/5
6. Yonder Bock Tropical Maibock Above-Average (Decent) 4/5
7. Torpedo Pilsner Hoppy Pilsner Above-Average (Decent) 4/5
8. Electric Ray India Pale Lager Above-Average (Light) 4/5
9. There and Back English-Style Bitter Above-Average (Light) 3.5/5
10. Yvan The Great Belgian-Style Blonde Above-Average (Light) 3.5/5
11. Myron's Walk Belgian-Style Pale Ale Average (Strong) 3.5/5
12. Chico King Pale Ale Average (Light) 3/5
Out of 12 beers, there was a total of 60 potential points available. When you add up all the scores, the final total is: 47/60, or a percentage score of 78.3%. If you take the mean/average, you end up with a final score of 3.9/5.0. You know, for all you Untappd people.
That's not a bad final score. It's somewhere between average and closer to above-average, which is where I feel this mix-pack stands out. And while there were no perfectly scored beers in this mix-pack, the Ninkasi collab comes pretty damn close with a 4.5/5.0. It also stands out as the only Divine Brew in the mix-pack. I feel confident calling it world-class (like that means anything). It's a good beer if you like coffee stouts.
Other favorites include the Tater Ridge, which was a nice take on the Scotch/Scottish Ale style. It had substantial body and a welcomed sweetness that would fit right at home in an Autumn beer. The CANfusion Rye Bock was also delicious, with a nice blend of complex malts and interesting hops. The Maillard's Odyssey and Electric Ray should also get serious props, although both beers fail in terms of being original or classics.
The biggest losers here are clearly the Chico King and the Yvan The Great. Even if the Chico King was bottled closer to the release, I'm confident the beer wouldn't have done anything other than middled it. What a disappointing beer...and honestly, it's not surprising when you look at some of the underwhelming stuff FFF has been shoving into bombers as of late. And selling for high prices. I still love Three Floyds and no one does it better...but come on. The Russian River and Sierra Nevada collab was also a huge disappointment. The bottle promised a great experience and the beer was average and hardly innovative. The fact that Sierra Nevada and Russian River are neighbors doesn't help their case either. These two breweries could have collaborated to make something really outstanding...but oh well.
Last but not least, let's talk about the There and Back English-Style Bitter. I thought this skirted by as an Above-Average take on the style. Honestly, New Glarus crafted a delicious beer with this one, it just so happens that the Bitter style isn't particularly exciting for most American beer drinkers. Having said that, New Glarus' regular lineup of beers (including their seasonal offerings) features a bunch of Bocks and Lagers...boring beers by many accounts...but beers that are crafted masterfully. While New Glarus has gained notoriety for their sours and fruit beers, their regular lineup is stellar stuff. There and Back is no exception and pretty much embodies what they do.
With that said...it's August. The Beer Camp 2014 has probably peaked. I don't know if I would still seek this out given that some of the beers were bottled as early as May. At this point in time (8/8/2014), I'd pay no more than ~$24 for the 12-pack. If you were fortunate enough to jump on this one in early July like I was, then you were rewarded with a fun celebration of American craft beer.
I hope Sierra Nevada reads this post and ignores a lot of the lazy reviews and beer snobbery that has surrounded this release. And then hopefully they mail me free shit. Sierra Nevada, email me: Cums4Hops69@hotmail.com
Also, I look forward to Beer Camp 2015
I don't think the mixed pack was bad and mostly agree with you, but I have a sorta different interpretation of the concept. The pack sounds like a celebration of American beer from some of the premiere American breweries led by the brewery that probably best epitomizes the American beer scene, and it's mostly made up of beers that aren't characteristic of American beer.
ReplyDeleteSure, most of them come with some sort of justification for the brewing choices in the description and most of it makes sense, but I think SN could have done a much better job living up to what your "fuck yeah, America, titties, craft beer" description. I would have loved to see SN invite these breweries to play to their strengths and do interesting and delicious twists that you won't find otherwise, but I don't think they were going for that. I think they had a somewhat different idea.
For instance, CANfusion is a kinda hoppy rye bock from OB And SN, two breweries that don't make a similar beer that anyone can get unless you find some random keg that probably is only served at their taprooms. Hell, there aren't even many (possibly, any for some places) bocks among the hundreds of beers on my local beer stores' shelves besides the old German standbys. Then, there was Alt Route, which was brewed to a style that doesn't exist in wide distribution besides Uerige's expensive and unevenly scheduled allotments (Alaskan Amber doesn't count) - to be fair, Victory does make an altbier but it's a locally distributed keg thing, as far as I know.
So, what? Isn't it fun to see these breweries go outside of their normal range of large production beers and offer a chance to try some styles that you wouldn't normally find? Yes, it is, needless rhetorical questioner. And I think that was the point, here. This 12 pack is a message that reads, "Hey, assholes. We want to stop devoting 50-75% of our brewing schedule to IPAs. Drink these other styles. We can even put hops in them." Now, that's a perfectly fine idea, but it's hard to tell if it made an impact.
Personally, I'm not convinced of anything, but I'm not the right audience, so my opinion is kinda moot. BA gets a little closer, but it's muddied. The likelihood of negative responses is probably disproportionately high on their forums, and they're probably not representative of the larger audience (at least, I don't think so). I would guess that Untappd is closest to a good sample, but I have no idea how to interpret their scores since they offer so little analysis. On the other hand, I noticed something interesting on ratebeer, namely that most of the beers in the pack crushed in their style rating percentile. That seems like a very positive sign.
I don't think this pack of beers is going to convince beer stores to stock a bunch of bocks, but I do think it was a successful feeler, and maybe, it will get a few consumers to ask stores for similar beers to this or that. Obviously, there are some beers in the pack that don't quite live up to part of my theory (Electric Ray, Myron's Walk, Chico King, Yvan the Great), but I think that these were still all efforts to show off things that the brewers would like to see gain popularity (actually, I have no idea what was going on with Yvan. I thought that was a decent but utterly forgettable Belgian, and there are tons of better examples around. Even though Brux was underwhelming, at least it had a point, but whatever). At the very least, every beer seemed to push away from the dominant themes in American beer without completely alienating what makes those themes popular.
I don't know. I'm probably over-analyzing things. Hell, my favorite (or maybe, second favorite; Maillard's was tasty) was Myron's Walk, which was pretty much just a lightly hoppy, fruity Belgian with some witbier spice.
By the way, I think they put out a second round with more recent canning dates. Not really sure about that.
Oh, huh. Different username. This is familynight.
DeleteI think this is an interesting interpretation of the mix-pack. For sure, a lot of the beers in Band Camp are styles we (as Americans) don't see very often. How many people can say they have tried a number of Bocks, let alone love the style?
DeleteAt the very least, Beer Camp 2014 has generated a lot of hubbub, which is a nice change of pace for the slow and quiet July we usually have.