When Good Ideas go Terribly Bad



Good Idea Alert!!!

We are a nation of innovators and imaginative thinkers. We constantly seek to come up with the next great idea in all things we do. This inventive spirit translates into the beer brewing industry quite well, and the results are usually pretty freaking awesome. Sometimes, however, these good ideas take a very wrong turn, and the results can become down-right scary.

The idea in question, and the genesis of this blog post, is the beer variety pack. This is not a new invention, as brewers have been offering samplers and variety packs since the beginning. But the recent craft brewing revolution has caused the variety pack concept to become very exciting as brewers seek to create new types and styles of variety packs to offer to their thirsty consumers.

Brewing up good beer and great ideas in Boston

One such example of a very exciting variety pack that’s new to the world is the Boston Brewery’s Sam Adams IPA Hop-ology variety pack, a limited release collection of six of their IPAs, their Latitude 48 IPA, their White Water IPA, their Dark Depths Baltic IPA, their Third Voyage Double IPA, their Tasman Red Red IPA and their Grumpy Monk Belgian IPA. This is an ingenious way to give Hop Heads (like me) something to cheer about and introduce the many different styles of IPA to non-IPA people. And remember, last year these very same people brought us the Latitude 48 Deconstructed variety pack, in which they gave us two-each Latitude 48 IPAs brewed with one of the five hop varieties that are found in the Lat 48 normally. Clearly, in spite of their macro-level production and distribution, Sam Adams has this crafty variety pack thing down to an art. Cheers to the boys from Boston.

A box of crap, but at least its only 95 calories per

On the other side of this coin, representing the sinister half of this whole variety pack idea is where you find monstrosities like the Michelob ULTRA fruit infused variety pack. In this abomination, which of course is brought to you by the same zero taste corn beer producers that are responsible for Bud Light Lime-a-Rita and Bud Light Platinum, Michelob’s “sophisticated” pilsner is infused with pomegranate raspberry, lime cactus and Tuscan orange grapefruit. My initial reaction is to vomit in my mouth, but after that is done, I can only sit back and wonder why anyone would think this is a good idea. Clearly, they missed the boat on the good side of this idea, and it only further condemns the industrial fizzy swill side of the brewing industry. I’m fine with it, because the more they shoot themselves in their own feet, the less time I have to spend doing it, and the more time I get to spend making beer correctly (and writing this infamous blog in order to bring the brewing wisdom to you).

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!