Great Lakes Barrel Aged Christmas Ale

[mashani]

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/upd ... e-1.644328

I don't know what they expected sticking it in a barrel, and apparently locals are wimps... but they are not as brave as Yazoo apparently in embracing the funky result.

I'm unclear if any of this actually made it to market, but if so and anyone got any, hide it in a cool part of your basement for a year and see what happens.

[BlackDuck]

Very interesting. It almost appears that if any did make it to market, it would have been only sold on site in their gift shop before they pulled it, and who knows how long it was on those shelves before it was pulled. But you can still get a sample at the pub, but a sample only, they won't even pour you a full pint.

[Dawg LB Steve]

That just sucks! They will let you sample it on tap at the Brewpub but no pint or growler sales? Pull it all or sell it! Nobody can know how a barrel aged beer will turn out, if the brewer is happy with it and customers sampling it on tap are happy with it, sell it! A couple boo hoo's from social media should not affect releasing this, unless they released information that this beer would be something completely different than it came out as.

[RickBeer]

Figures an O*IO company would wimp out...

I love their Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. Make a clone of it, probably the best beer I have.

[Kealia]

I think it's silly to allow for tastes but not sell pints or growlers of it. If people like it, let them buy it.

I can see both sides of this issue from up here on my fence.
On the one hand, trying to "pass it off" as a happy accident can seem a bit shady.
On the other, as we know, accidents sometimes leads to great beers.

[BigPapaG]

I think it's silly to allow for tastes but not sell pints or growlers of it. If people like it, let them buy it.

I can see both sides of this issue from up here on my fence.
On the one hand, trying to "pass it off" as a happy accident can seem a bit shady.
On the other, as we know, accidents sometimes leads to great beers.

Yeah, I agree...

They probably should have nixed the Christmas Ale period...

And then rename it, stored it for a few months or more and then decided what to do with it.

It might be something great...

[mashani]

I think some locals might be wimps about it because a now-defunct local brewery that I will not name directly did open fermentations that intentionally exposed their beers to the local environs and infect them with local wild bugs, and sold them in some small retail stores around here as if it was special because of this. But unfortunately our local air is not the air of West Flanders - our local wild bug mix is not so good at making tasty sours, especially middle aged ones - as in not just weeks old - and most especially if you *traditionally bitter your beer first* which they often did as far as I could tell - *which is stupid when making a sour*. And even more especially consistent ones. Because we are not West Flanders. So to be honest, their beer was sometimes good, but randomly gawd-awful/harsh/nasty, and very inconsistent, and aged poorly as far as retail shelf space goes (it got middle aged as such but never got aged for the long haul to mellow). So anyone who drank that stuff might just assume that all infected beer is bad.

But the Great Lake Christmas ale is not bitter at all, it's malty sweet and only mildly spicy. It could stand up to some sour and be interesting. It would taste totally different, so yeah probably should be re-named like Big Papa said. But I could see it being good, especially with age.

[Pudge]

Just because it's sour doesn't make it a good sour beer the same way shoving hops in a recipe doesn't make it a good IPA. They must have been a little iffy on this one from the start. Maybe. Maybe not.

Sucks though. It shows that everybody is chasing the almighty dollar. They have to. They can't risk a few average Joes walking around going "Oh no, don't drink that Great Lakes stuff. Tried it once and it had gone bad." or whatever.