I had a gut feeling on my last visit when I saw no IPA bottles for sale that we had indeed reached the end of the line for the original recipe Alpine product. I was told that fresh Duet would be on in the next week and when i saw that didn’t happen it became quite clear what was going on, clearing out all Alpine brewed product to make way for the new bottles from GF. Today that happened. All you want, Nelson, Duet, and Hoppy Birthday, the only beer that is not in the GF line-up is Pure Hoppiness, and I think that may be Pat’s doing moving forward,maybe his one hold out recipe to re-launch when the non-compete expires as PH has been Alpine’s best selling beer until just last year when Nelson sales finally topped PH. Sad day for a lot of us that used to drive up the hill to the tiny brewery and fill our trunks with that liquid gold. Nobody, I mean nobody was as good as Alpine was at that time. From what I took from my conversation was that there still will be the special one-offs like Keene, Bad Boy Expo,Good, Great, and the sours from time to time but the business model from today moving forward is that of the GF brewed product.If you have a bottle of Nelson, drink it down and savor it, it may be a very long time until you get to taste that amazing recipe again.
RIP Alpine. The loss of Nelson is seriously troubling for me. I have no doubt in twenty years I will still be thinking back at just how good that beer was. Funny thought, I am actually considering getting into home brewing to recreate that beer. Looks like there are some legit clone recipes online with input from Pat, now to get a sample of the local water up in Alpine for analysis…
That sucks. I really appreciate you sending me some before the change, Dustin. When “Alpine” hit our market and everyone when crazy for it I was careful to remind some of my close beer friends what it really was. The difference is/was dynamic.
Dustin, I spoke with Bobby who I think is a really stand up guy. He told me to drop in next week and he’ll open a Nelson for me to show how close it is getting to the original. For a guy like me who drinks Nelson daily it is hard to fathom not having that amazing beer to enjoy but on the other hand, IF….they are getting really close then I’l most likely continue to buy it. It’s funny, when GF started to contract brew for Alpine a couple years ago when a keg of Nelson showed up at Beachwood we would all head over and drink the shit out of it and honestly we all liked it for what it was,take it for what it is.
John, here’s to hoping that they are getting close to the original recipe, I’ll report back next week as I am going to take Bobby up on his offer to come in a drink the new batches.
Yea guys, I really hope Green Flash can dial the beers in but I have my doubts they can do it on the scale they brew at. I also doubt their business model is compatible with the way those beers were originally made. IMO the chances are slim that Alpine beers return to their former glory but I’d love to be proven wrong.
OG Alpine was as good as anything made in America. Whenever I was in SD, I would make it a point to make the 1 hour round trip over the hill for bottles and growlers. It’s a shame but understandable. One of my buddies was at the pub recently and asked what crew what they got out of the deal. She said healthcare. What do you say to that?
Mike, its all GF brewed, actually the tap product at the brewery for the most part has been GF plunk for months now. The only way to assure yourself you were getting the real Alpine product was to buy bottles, not anymore.
Brewers in larger operations likely aren’t as focused as the original brewer.
Yeast behaves differently in very large tanks
One large NW brewery tried to scale up their flagship beer to 240 BBL from 60 BBL, and after 4 years and numerous iterations, the “pub” version (15 BBL) is still markedly better than the 240 BBL version. Their current version of the flagship beer is very good (it won a GABF medal a couple years ago), but the smaller system version is just better.
BTW, this type of action is pretty normal for a big brewery. Make the flagship beers on a big system and do experimental brewing on the smaller pub-based system.
Got it. Thanks. We are about to get the GF brewed Alpine products here in Virginia. I’m interested to taste them, even if they are shadows of their former selves.
Alpine brews have been on the shelves here in chicago for a couple months now. i’ve had the chance to buy Duet, Hoppy Birthday, & Nelson. Nelson has been the clear winner and it was about what i remembered from the bottle i received from a trade a couple of years ago. hoppy birthday has been hit or miss, and Duet has been bad. bought out my local shop’s allocation of Nelson yesterday and am out hunting for more today!
from a local prospective, their Nelson bottling is truly unique. there isn’t anything in this market that compares (haven’t tried the TG Nelson bottle, yet) and i’m pretty stoked we are getting access to it.
I have not seen anything in bottle yet but Alpine Nelson on draft is a pretty regular thing now here in NYC. It’s a very good fresh hop style similar to what I remember Pliny being when I had it out of bottle in CA. Not sure how it measures up to ‘old’ Alpine but I am pretty happy with it. It was not anything mind-blowing/earth-shattering/game-changing however.
