Breaking Up With An Old Favourite!

I feel like this thread would be better suited to one of the more established ones on this subforum.

I have found GBB output to be pretty strong, and not overwhelming. As a comparison, there was a period last year it felt like Whiplash had 2-3 new beers each month. It was hard to keep up with and they all became samey. Whiplash have dialled it way back, and I think that is a good thing.

GBB in recent memory have had barley wines, BA stouts, non-BA stouts, sour IPA, hazy IPAs, cold IPA, pale ales and saisons. Pretty diverse and all of a good standard (to me).

I do miss the milk stout, and regret them changing their core stout to the dry Irish stout (Ostara). I also very much miss the old, old Of Foam & Fury which I recall having in college long before I got into beer properly.

They've recently changed Althea to a hazy session IPA where it used to be a pale ale. Waiting for cans of the new recipe to drop in Bradleys, but I'm assuming they're trying to sell the old stock first.

Beavertown for me. Seems to me their focus these days is churning out mediocre lagers and hazy beers compared to some of the more interesting beers they made their name with (Smog rocket, 8 ball etc). Gamma Ray doesnt seem to be the beer it was either though although that might just be fatigue from me drinking too much of it over the years 😋

Honestly, I'm falling out of love with modern craft beer, generally. There are just so many beers that hold zero interest for me.

As anyone who knows me knows, I really don't like hazy/juicy/NE/East Coast style IPA. It's becoming more and more difficult to find old school IPAs and it seems to me that even older beers are changing more towards this style with no balancing bitterness. I mostly stick to Kinnegar in cans as they are clearly labelled and described accurately.

I have zero interest in pastry beers and rarely do I enjoy barrel aged stuff.

It seems only a few short years ago, given a list of 20 beers, I would have happily chosen 10 of them. Now, I'm lucky to find one in such a list.

I love sour beers, generally, but so many contemporary sours are really, really sweet!

Thankfully my favourite bar sells 9 White Deer. They are old school with their IPA and PA.

Lost interest myself after the main brewer left

Any of the Irish breweries doing a good Red Ale. It is our native beer style after all in spite of what the Guinness marketing department tell us. GBB Bay Ale is inferior to Smithwick's imho.

"native beer style" what on earth does that mean?

@BeerNut Might remember exactly. But AFAIK it was to a brewery in the nordics,Sweden maybe.

right, but there's no such thing as that, certainly not Red Ale. (or stout for that matter)

I love sour beers, generally, but so many contemporary sours are really, really sweet!

I actually thought that was my taste buds being off that sours aren't that sour. More like fruit beers.

yeah, he said "native" not "historically brewed", so do some research yourself.

Things can be both sour and sweet.