The Bar Towel

Used to love this beer, but lately something is off...no more delicious hop aroma or resin grapefruit...all I get is overly malty flabby beer...last one tried was produced November 24, so not like it's that old...anyone else experiencing this ?

had a can of the nov 24 batch recently and it's still a tasty pine-pineapple-grapefruit hop bomb to me

I'm really surprised it has taken this long for someone to mention it on a forum (at least I haven't seen it).

They moved production to the bigger brewery about a year ago, and instantly I noticed the difference. Now I'm not saying that they've gone all macro and are cutting corners, but I did wonder if the larger batch size took longer to cool, so it was like moving the hop additions a bit earlier in the boil. It was definitely different.

I didn't buy it for quite some time, and even when I bought some cans for summer camping I still noticed the difference. I picked up some ISA at the time which I thought was really great, so I knew they were certainly capable, but the IPA was still different.

I picked up the CC/P49 Advent calender (which was certainly packaged prior to your Nov 24 batch), and I was pleased to find the old hop aroma and flavour was back. So I don't know if they're still working out the kinks or what (or maybe using up last year hops?).

Similarly, I think that P49 has suffered some growing pains. Their specialty bombers are generally still good, but the regular lineup is seriously muted. It's definitely filtered... I wonder if they've even started to pasteurize?

Lots of people have said the 2013 crop of Amarillo wasn't quite as good as usual.

According to Josh Rubin in the Star:

“You get more complexity when you add it at different stages,” said Lohin. For the initial batch, Lohin uses a German hop called Magnum. The early batch adds bitterness. For the later additions, designed to add more hoppy aromas, Lohin uses American varieties, including Simcoe, Centennial and Amarillo.

http://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2 ... ewing.html

Some examples of the 2013 Amarillo concerns:



http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/grassy- ... ps-446744/



There are loads of folks on here that I'm sure are willing to talk to it. I've not had too much bad luck with the 2013s, but I've only used them as a small portion of a blend.

So maybe part of the issue is that hops are variable and they just couldn't work around this years crop.

Huh, I hadn't heard about the Amarillo... Could definitely be a factor.

I had a few ounces that smelled a bit like gasoline and straw, I almost just threw them away, but I did use them and they tasted fine.

Cans of this of a newer design w/ production dates in late Jan 2015 are more in line with how I recall this beer was when it first hit Ontario.

had a can with Jan 22 I believe as date packaged...better than the last batches, but I am giving up on this, maybe I just have outgrown this beer?