Just not the kind of thing SN would do, based on my experience.
People travel and would notice the same sku with two recipes. Beer drinkers would not know about the different recipe and would most likely jump to the conclusion that one of your breweries doesn’t know what it is doing. That could create a real bad reputation for your business.
If there is one thing SN excels in, it’s consistency.
Curious to to see if anyone of west coast posts a picture of the color. And, it’s not a bad beer. But I liked previous attempts that were more “Festbiers” better.
I’ll try to remember to do it, but I think it’s pretty close to the same color.
Untappd has lots of pictures of dark beer; like Majorvices’ picture.
I’ve got one left in the fridge that should be from Chico. I’ll check and post a pic in the next few days. I remember it reasonably dark in the glass like major’s pic.
If anyone’s interested, I just checked the FG with an Easy Dens, and it was 1.012 at 70.8°.
5.5% Alcohol by Volume
19 Bitterness Units
13.5° Original Gravity
3.1°
Cool, I didn’t realize FGs were listed on their website. I could have saved myself the five minutes…
I’m guessing mine came from North Carolina because I live in Kentucky. I thought it was a good malty beer and not sweet, it had a nice hop bitterness. Way better than Samual Adams in my opinion.
I was unlucky enough to try both SN and SA “Oktoberfests” this weekend. They are both different shades of awful in my completely biased opinion. Neither one invited repeated sips let alone repeated bottles, both being too malty and too sweet for me. No balance whatsoever. Probably both being perfect examples of the American Oktoberfest style however. :
Man, either my tastebuds are shot or I’m getting a different SN Ofest at than you and Mark. It was almost too dry IMO. Not even close to malty and sweet.
Once again, I’m with Denny on this one.
I had the Sam Adams Oktoberfest a week ago on draft. I had it after two other beers, so keep that in mind.
It did have a sweet finish, not cloying. I have no idea if it was to style. But, I didn’t think it was awful. It was easy to drink and I can understand why a portion of beer drinkers who like a sweet finish would like that beer. It may not have anything to do with Munich’s Oktoberfest but, people like the style, look forward to it each year, and buy the beer, so US brewers keep making it. Good or bad it’s now American Oktoberfest tradition.
The version of Sierra Nevada that I tasted was definitely quite dry and bitter, and was roasty rather than toasty. There must indeed be two very different versions out there.
I have not tasted Sam Adams this year or in the past few years. I’d expect that one to be caramelly and sweet, but don’t honestly know anymore.
I certainly will take blame for some of this difference as I am thin-skinned to any perceived malty/sweetness, and maybe my “too sweet” is someone else’s “a bit of sweetness”, but there is no way the SN Ofest I had would ever be confused with “dry”, unless our tastes are completely different. I would accept this as a reasonable explanation, just as reasonable as the possibility we were drinking two entirely different beers.
The version I bought this weekend, which certainly originated in NC (M code), is malty, but not sweet. It was NOT too dry, but at the same time it was NOT what anyone with a clean palate would consider sweet. Canned on 8/9/21.
Went well with Sushi and then paired even better with Tacos. I’ll need to do research to be sure, but I’m fairly confident it will be delicious when I drink it by itself. ;D
I bought a six pack Saturday, canned 7/7/21, most likely from N.C. I found it malty and well balanced but not dry by any means.
I am not overly fond of this style and much prefer the Festbiers. I really enjoyed the collabs they did with the German breweries a couple years back.