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Comment by oblib | Hacker News Reader

I remember Shiltz but never tasted it. Old Style was another good beer that mucked with their recipe and chased their base away.

Quite a few good beers have been mucked up over the past ten years of brewery buyouts. Boulevard Brewery and Goose Island are two that I used to love that got ruined that way.

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As I understand it, G. Heileman sold the Old Style brand, but not the recipe. The original Old Style recipe is reputedly[0] brewed under the La Crosse Lager label, by City Brewery.

[0] I've read it in various reviews; confirmed with acquaintances who have sampled original Old Style, new Old Style, and La Crosse Lager; and got the "we can neither confirm nor deny" plus eye wink when I asked their brewer at a beer festival. And I'm just some guy on the internet, so all this is quite speculative.

I'll have to look into that. I really loved Old Style. It had a very distinctive flavor that I'd recognize in a sip.

Which boulevard and goose products have decreased in quality? I have a friend who managed to tell by tasting blindly when they moved Honker's production to New York, and even he said it got back to normal a month or two later.

Duvel is absolutely a best-case scenario for a brewery purchase and it seems like Boulevard has been able to continue doing what they do well.

Ballast Point is one of the only breweries I have lost all interest in post-buyout.

GI 312.

What changes do you perceive? I've had a lot of 312 before and after the sale and I've always found it a pretty mild wheat ale.

The taste is different and isn't as wheaty/hefewiesen-like as it was before. This was reported by many people.

It was their Single-Wide IPA. I bought kegs of that for probably around 3-4 years before they changed the recipe. It was always a very hoppy beer but it went from a nicely balanced blend of hops to a overly citrusy "grapefruit" taste that's become so trendy in the past 3-4 years now.

Same with Goose Island, it was their IPA that changed, and in exactly the same way.

If you're talking KC's Boulevard, which beers, and what recipes? I haven't noticed a decline, although I'm not a beer snob. Occasionally more variance, but not anything out of the ordinary compared to the past. The only dud I recall is when they messed up that Chocolate Ale a few years back and gave up on the idea.

old style is seeing a revival amongst young Chicagoans fwiw, there isn't a bar in Logan Square or Pilsen without it on its menu

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