Buyers Remorse!

I picked up a 750ml of Victory's V12, a "belgian inspired strong ale" with 12% abv and a 6 pack of hazed and infused from a take-out place with a fantastic selection of really hard to find beers.

The hazed was no where near what I had expected given the really high praise I see online when folks talk IPAs....the aroma was excellent and the flavor was good, just the bitterness came no where near approaching that delicious aroma. Very tasty and a satisfying beer overall.

The V12 otoh was awful. Sticky sweet raisins and toffee flavor with huge alcohol burn that only intensified as it warmed. I didn't expect the alcohol to be meek at 12% but it was just overwhelming.

After pouring the remainder of the $10 bottle down the drain, I was feeling a bit of buyer's remorse for few moments and had to laugh at myself....experiencing a bad beer is better than no beer at all.

Have you tried Belgian's before? I recently bought some Chimay Red to try as I had never had any of the trappist ales or and trippels. I was nonplused. Something about that sourness just doesn't do it for me (too bad since I wanted to name a brew Mad Monk, ah well).

I had a couple of beers that were really over-malty for my tastes (I really dislike toffee flavors when they dominate the flavor profile, and I especially hate when the malt gets that dried fruit/raisen character). Weyerbacker's Insanity was very disappointing to me, I was expecting it to be more in the real of an IPA. The worst, though, was Dogfish Head's Golden Shower, their "imperial pilsner" (some things just shouldn't be made "Imperial").

In any case, I've concluded that I'm really not a big fan of big Belgians. I'll keep trying them on occassion, but so far, they just aren't my thing.

TheJadedDog said:

Have you tried Belgian's before? I recently bought some Chimay Red to try as I had never had any of the trappist ales or and trippels. I was nonplused. Something about that sourness just doesn't do it for me (too bad since I wanted to name a brew Mad Monk, ah well).

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Tried, brewed and enjoyed many of em over the years. This however was more like belgian flavored grain alcohol

I'm not a fan of Belgian beers (Unless I'm in Belgium) Stella is OK and a good Dubbel, but those real heavy and fruit enhanced beers don't trip my trigger.

Victory makes a great German style Pils and their Hop Devil IPA is tasty too!

I guess I spent too many years in Germany where they still only use Water, Malt & Hops to brew beer. I abide by the same rule.

Belgians are great (IMO) but definitely not for everyone. And they're not sessionable. Shame that so many are sold in 750's.

the_bird said:

I had a couple of beers that were really over-malty for my tastes (I really dislike toffee flavors when they dominate the flavor profile, and I especially hate when the malt gets that dried fruit/raisen character). Weyerbacker's Insanity was very disappointing to me, I was expecting it to be more in the real of an IPA. The worst, though, was Dogfish Head's Golden Shower, their "imperial pilsner" (some things just shouldn't be made "Imperial").

In any case, I've concluded that I'm really not a big fan of big Belgians. I'll keep trying them on occassion, but so far, they just aren't my thing.

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IIRC Insanity is the cask aged blithering idiot which is a barleywine. The bar around the corner from my place had it on draught this past winter and it's definitely a sipper. Blithering idiot is a good barley wine by Bell's old ale is really more my speed.

They have a 750 of the golden shower at the same place. That seems like a drain pour from the get go to me.

That Golden Shower was way too sweet for me. I think Cheese has a picture of someone sampling that somewhere.

I felt this way about the Stone 10th Anniversary. Fortunately the bottle was given to me. We did finish it, barely.

Monk Madness. Felt the same way with that too, but that only was $5 or whatever.

Otoh, one thing that really irks me is if you open a pricy bottle and it is flawed. That is not fun.

As for the Belgian discussion, there is a cornucopia of flavors and types out there. The down side is we tend not to get many here. They seem to always get lumped into one category as being crazy fruity or whatever and to a large degree this is true. Most are not really session beers that is for sure.

I like Hazed and Infused alright. You nailed it, IMHO--an interesting beer but not nearly as good as you might expect from the praise it tends to receive.

There's something out of balance, IMHO, about that beer: perhaps that level of dry-hopping needs a bigger beer as a foil? Not sure about that.

cweston said:

I like Hazed and Infused alright. You nailed it, IMHO--an interesting beer but not nearly as good as you might expect from the praise it tends to receive.

There's something out of balance, IMHO, about that beer: perhaps that level of dry-hopping needs a bigger beer as a foil? Not sure about that.

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boulder refers to it as a "dry hopped ale" though I always see it described online as an IPA....but IMHO it needs more bittering/flavor hops to really hit the IPA category.

It is an interesting & pretty tasty beer but not something I would buy regularly.

Try Mojo IPA from Boulder Brewing...I like it more than H+I, although I do like a hazed from a tap.

I'm a fan of Victory, a lot of what they do is great.

If you didn't like the V12 this time and want to experiment, get a bottle and stick it in the cellar for a while.

I recently had a bottle of V12 from 2005 that was quite tasty and much less hot than it is fresh.

foureyedgeek said:

I'm a fan of Victory, a lot of what they do is great.

If you didn't like the V12 this time and want to experiment, get a bottle and stick it in the cellar for a while.

I recently had a bottle of V12 from 2005 that was quite tasty and much less hot than it is fresh.

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eh...considering all of the other fantastic choices in quads and strong ales out there that don't need the cellaring, I would rather spend my commercial beer dollars elsewhere than another V12. Good suggestion though.

Yeah, I was lucky enough to try my friend's before opening my own, so now I know to let it rest for a while.

some of the belgians are bottled with the intention of you cellering them yourself, you'll get a different range of flavors after a year or so. they are not fully fermented when they are bottled, and many don't spend alot of time in a cellar before they ship.

uglygoat said:

some of the belgians are bottled with the intention of you cellering them yourself, you'll get a different range of flavors after a year or so. they are not fully fermented when they are bottled, and many don't spend alot of time in a cellar before they ship.

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That's not the case here.

I have seen on beeradvocate and ratebeer that other folks are rating last years vintage (same as what I had) rather high and few mention the overwhelming alcohol flavor like the one I had exhibited.

BTW, I appreciate all the suggestions on style preferences and cellaring but the point I was trying to make seems to have been lost:

Sometimes you get an expensive drain pour.
At first I was a bit peeved considering the price paid for 1 bottle but then I got a grip and realized that a bad beer once in a while is all part of the experience of beergeeking

Thats sort of how I felt when I got a bottle of New Belgium's La Folie...but I forced myself to drink it after spending $18 on a bottle. Man it is bitter.

There is a lot of crappy beer out there IMGO. Just because it is commercial does not mean it is good! Once again, homebrew is where it is at. Brew what you like, drink what you brew, the rest can go follow whatever over-priced hot new hog-hair-infused, double yeasted, ice injected, corn hole filtered brew they want to.

I had V12 as well. It took my rommate and I 2 hours each to down a pint of it. I'm not what you would call a 'fan' of that brew.

Now V-Saision (also Victory) is pretty darn good. It's no Hennepin, but it aint too shabby.

I had Hazed at last year's big brew fest and it was easily my least favorite. There were many better hoppy ales.