Beer Hype is real people....it's right next to you, it's on a number of beer websites, maybe your friends subscribe to it. Beer Hype is a baddd bad thing, but often drives the market and the demand of some of the largest bottle releases of the year.
Top 5 Over-Hyped Beers of 2010
5. Brooklyn Dark Matter
4. New Belgium Fat Tire
3. Sweetwater 420
2. Sam Adams Infinium
1. BA Sexual Chocolate / BA IST
OK, now this is just my opinion and I understand that some of my readers and beer friends will disagree with a lot of the choices above....ohh well. The beers above were built up to be some of the best and they just fell flat on their face. Either they weren't anything special at all, or their non-barrel-aged versions were better.
What is your over hyped beer of the year?!?!
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I don't buy into a lot of hype. I can find enjoyment in the basic beers, and sometimes a really good basic pale ale/porter/saison can blow my mind, while the chocolate/12%/100 ibu/whatever hyped beer seems ok.
ReplyDeleteI completely respect your opinions as I know there would be a different top 5 for each person, but I'm a bit curious about what hype surrounded Fat Tire and 420. They're not my favorite beers by any means, but compared to beers newly released this year, or at least those that have special releases annually, I don't see the "hype" surrounding these beers.
ReplyDeleteAJ - I'm not sure where you live so I don't know if you have Fat Tire where you are. But in places that don't have New Belgium that beer is the most requested beer that isn't in those locations. Tons of people come back from vacations in locales that have Fat Tire and they fall in love with it because it is something new. I think it is good for what it is but it I am with Phil that it is a hype machine.
ReplyDeletePhil - At first I thought you had Sexual Chocolate as number one and my eyes almost bugged out of my head. Then I saw the BA before it. I agree that it was a bit of a let down compared to the real version but I'm surprised this was your #1.
JayZeis - the more I am getting into "rare" beers the more I appreciate what is on my shelf at my local store.
ReplyDeleteAJ - South Florida people think that Fat Tire is the end all be all to the craft world. I have also heard soo much about Sweetwater in general and how the 420 is the best thing since sliced bread, well it is not.
Mike - The reasoning for BA IST (which really was not that good) and BA Sexy is partially because of what it took for me to land those bottles. BA IST was a mess, and while BA Sexy was good it was hyped wayyy too much.
**Please note that I am not saying that these beers are "bad", I am saying that there was a ton of talk about them before I tried them.....thus "hype" surrounding the beers. And to be honest they all did not live up to everything that was built up over the beer.
Thanks for reading!
I would say I was not amazed by Bells Batch 10k.
ReplyDeleteSurly Four for sure. Could not believe how completely average this beer was.
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest though... hype for beers like fat tire and 420 isn't "real" hype... it isn't hype from the beer geek community and we all know that. The people that talk up those beers are the very very casual craft drinkers who aren't geeky/obsessed (for lack of a better word) with craft beer. So I don't take that "hype" seriously lol
ReplyDeletehahaha...totally with you on the Fat Tire. But I understand some people haven't been drinking it since they were 11.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this is probably unfair of me but I tend to overlook Sam Adams beers even though they've stayed true to their roots.