Spearhead Brewing

StephenRich · Post by **StephenRich** » Mon May 30, 2011 11:12 pm

Hey Guys,

You are right; these were thoughts that ran through my brain since I posted the reviews. My intent was of course just to sing about a beer that I have been helping to craft and develop for the past year and had yet to be able to talk about it publicly. I've been busting at the seams trying not to talk about it, so I definitely got over excited and carried away.

Jon, thank you for your candid and valuable input on this - you are absolutely right, it is not appropriate to post an in-house review which can't help but be biased, no matter how honest or heart-felt. These were strictly my personal thoughts on this beer. I am excited to hear what you guys think about the Hawaiian Style Pale Ale in a short couple of weeks - I do hope that everyone enjoys it as much as I do!

I've tried very hard over the past year when testing prototype batches to evaluate them objectively without any bias to make sure we end up with the best beer possible. I've done the absolute best job that I can, and I believe, as does my entire team, that the Hawaiian Style Pale Ale will speak for itself. That being said, the ratings have been removed from both BA and RB, and soon my site (definitionale.com) will be closing its posts for the same reasons.

Spearhead and the Hawaiian Style Pale Ale will be in Barrie beginning June the 17th at the Local as cannondale mentioned. We are hosting a beer dinner with the Local that night, and then we will be back on July the 16th for a different beer dinner! I can't wait!

You can find all the bars and restaurants carrying our beer here on our site: http://spearheadbeer.com/index.php?id=8

We are only kegging the Hawaiian Style Pale Ale right now, but would love to bottle it in the future. We have to of course work without our means and resources. So the more people enjoy and buy our beer, the faster we can get it into bottles! haha

The inspiration for this beer are the West Coast American-Style IPAs - but thats a mouthful already. Hawaiian Style India Pale Ale gets a bit messy - and to be honest, by adding pineapple to our beer it no longer fits directly into the technical definition of an IPA, or Pale Ale for that matter. Hence, we are brewing beer without boundaries - not focusing on fitting into a specific style category or template. Thats what we do.

Thanks to everyone for your enthusiastic posts already! I can't wait to meet everyone in person this summer over many pints! Cheers!

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Mon May 30, 2011 11:40 pm

Stephen, I have 2 hopes for you:

1. That you stop using the internet as a means of self boasting via exaggeration and overuse of fluffy adjectives.
2. That your beer is as good as you claim it to be.

Cheers,

SteelbackGuy · Post by **SteelbackGuy** » Mon May 30, 2011 11:42 pm

Bah, who fucking cares. People make mistakes. Judge not..........

Steve, best of luck with this venture.

I for one will be supporting your product when and wherever I can.
It is encouraging to see a new Ontario brewery debut with their first beer as a west coast styled pale, especially given how often we see golden ales and pale lagers and lame and flavourless amber beers.

Jon Walker · Post by **Jon Walker** » Mon May 30, 2011 11:48 pm

Well said Stephen. It takes character to step up and admit the error in judgement. At this point the best move is to let the beer speak for itself in the online arenas like Bartowel, RB and BA. The extended beer community and the general public will let you know where the beer fits with their words, their scores and their wallets.

Again, good luck on the 17th.

StephenRich · Post by **StephenRich** » Tue May 31, 2011 12:17 am

Thanks very much for the well wishes guys! I can hardly wait for the 17th to come - then on to OCB Week!

A · Post by A » Tue May 31, 2011 12:22 am

I do like the color of the beer on the page - doesnt look like a lager anyways

I recall Ken did a cask of some kind of pineapple pale ale many years ago and it was actually really good, so I'll try to find this when it comes out

mintjellie · Post by **mintjellie** » Tue May 31, 2011 1:17 am

I'm pretty pumped to try this. A lot of American-style pale ales have that juicy, fruity, tropical/peach/citrus flavour to begin with. I'd imagine brewing with pineapple juice would pump that up even more.

Just remember in the future that BA/RB are the wrong places to sing your beers praises.

Ralphus · Post by **Ralphus** » Tue May 31, 2011 8:38 am

Stephen, I have 2 hopes for you:

1. That you stop using the internet as a means of self boasting via exaggeration and overuse of fluffy adjectives.
2. That your beer is as good as you claim it to be.

markaberrant, I read a quote today that stood out after reading your comment. Hopefully you can find some meaning in it:

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great make you
feel that you, too, can become great."

-Mark Twain

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Tue May 31, 2011 9:24 am

Ralph, your comparison is way off base. I have repeatedly said I hope Spearhead makes great beer and is wildly successful.

However, to date, the only "product" Spearhead has released is an internet marketing campaign, which is all I can base them on. You may say it is unfair to do so without sampling the product, but marketing is an important part of any business, particularly one that has not yet released a product. It is all they have.

If this were some "faceless" corporation, my comments in this thread would likely be seen as the most positive compared to everyone else's, and the RB and BA communities would be having a field day.

Stephen may indeed be passionate, his beer may be the 5 out of 5 he claims it be, and he is most welcome to be part of the craft beer community, but I personally find his marketing antics to be a huge turnoff. That is not belittling, that is offering consumer feedback.

JerCraigs · Post by **JerCraigs** » Tue May 31, 2011 10:35 am

StephenRich wrote: That being said, the ratings have been removed from both BA and RB, and soon my site (definitionale.com) will be closing its posts for the same reasons.

I don't necessarily think you need to close your site, just be up front about your relationship to Spearhead.

I had noticed your rating on ratebeer (cause I’m anal retentive and watch for new listings, lol

) and decided to wait and see before messaging you – apparently other people noticed too! From a user perspective it was inappropriate since the policy is that you aren’t supposed to rate your own stuff. It’s gone, no harm done imho. From a marketing perspective, it screamed out as likely being a marketing vehicle (for a variety of reasons). For that reason, I think the ratings probably undermined half the point of posting thing – generating buzz and good will for the beer. Whatever, they are gone now. I am not personally too worried about it. Chalk it up to enthusiasm, which hopefully carries over to future endeavors!

Beer wise, I am super excited to try the beer, since its essentially the pineapple version of a citrus IPA recipe I have been rolling around in my head for a while now but never got around to making. If its half as good as I am imagining it to be it should be good stuff!

Belgian · Post by **Belgian** » Tue May 31, 2011 10:58 am

From talking with (Stephen) he seems like an OK guy, definitely a marketeer & apparently also a Craft enthusiast seeking to make the kind of beers that WE would like . But yeah - let's judge a physical product objectively as a community not the brewery!! And I do look forward to this 'unfiltered and dry hopped' creation.

StephenRich · Post by **StephenRich** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:44 pm

I certainly haven't taken anyone's comments as a direct or personal attack - and in fact I am very grateful for everyone's forthright honesty. I've always believed that the best way to improve and grow in any manner is by understanding and recognizing your faults and mistakes. As long as you learn from them.

So thanks everyone - although I'm a beer geek at heart, I am new to the online community - and must learn the ropes. Lessons learned

I'm torn about my site, but I think that it is best in the long run that I let it rest and focus all my attention on Spearhead. If everyone enjoys the beer as much as I hope, I probably wont have much time for DefinitionAle anyways - a great problem to have!

I'll be at Beau's Festivale event tonight at Bier Markt W tonight wearing a Spearhead hat. If anyone is there and sees me please say hi!

Cheers

PeenSteen · Post by **PeenSteen** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:45 pm

I have tried one of Stephen's brews at a tasting (not the Hawaiian Pale Ale) and it was pretty damn good. This guy knows a lot about beer and certainly knows what he is doing.

Best of luck Stephen and Spearhead you have my full support.

StephenRich · Post by **StephenRich** » Tue May 31, 2011 9:12 pm

Thanks Peen!!

Ralphus · Post by **Ralphus** » Tue May 31, 2011 9:49 pm

Ralph, your comparison is way off base. I have repeatedly said I hope Spearhead makes great beer and is wildly successful.

Really? Well that's good.. because reading this thread all I see are comments which could be interpreted with a heavy hand of sarcasm. As if his use of a thesaurus and the fact that you hadn't tried his really, really, really, great beers was eating away at you, so you were maybe secretly hoping they weren't as good as announced.

It sounds like I missed the mark though. Such is the difficulty of trying to extract emotion from text.

Well, it sounds like we can together wish Spearhead Brewing the best! Onwards and upwards!

Cheers