Beer Geek Posting Rule #1147519

It's always better to go to the source for more info or at least wait
for them to issue something vs. over-reacting, posting in haste, and
risk sounding like a complete fool, like some (not all) of you did
he

http://beeradvocate.com/forum/read/1147519

Summary: homebrewer brews a Double IPA, enters the Samuel Adams
LongShot, wins (yeah!), there's a serious global hop shortage, no brew
for now due to no hops (an unfortunate reality), misinformed beer
geeks blindly attack.

I'll bite my tongue here [edited] and just say that some of you really
need to grab a brew, get a clue, and get over it.

Anyway, here's the story on why the production and release of Mike
McDole's tasty DIPA has been temporarily put on hold. It's more than
reasonable, makes total sense, and Mike's brew is indeed a brew worth
waiting for.

--

Todd -

As you know from helping me with the LongShot judging, Mike McDole won
our Samuel Adams Homebrew Contest with a delicious and complex Double
IPA. We planned to brew his beer for national distribution as part of
our LongShot 2008 6-pack. Back in June when we picked this beer, we
had no idea there would be a hop shortage of unprecedented dimensions.
Most of the seven varieties of hops in Mike's recipe are literally
sold out. They were not available at any price. We had possible
substitutes for the missing hops but they would have changed the taste
of Mike's beer. Since we don't normally buy these hop varieties we
didn't have existing contracts with farmers in place. All of the hops
dealers and farmers we've approached to try to secure the hops to brew
Mike's beer already had their allotments promised to other breweries.
I reached out to Mike last week to alert him to the problem. I
presented him a plan to brew his recipe substituting hops that we
already have or can secure. Ultimately that would have been a
different beer. We were willing to go ahead and make a version of
Mike's Double IPA. Since it was Mike's beer, we left the final
decision up to him as the brewer. And he made what I consider the
right decision for a brewer to make. Neither Mike nor I wanted to
compromise the beer. It's just too good. Together we both decided to
go to plan B. We are going to defer the introduction of Mike McDole's
Double IPA until next year when we can get the right hops. We have
already started the hunt for hops from next season's crop. As you'll
remember from the judging based on the sample brew that we tasted,
this is a beer worth waiting for.

Cheers!

Jim Koch
Founder & Brewer
Samuel Adams / Boston Beer Company

--

Congrats again to Mike, and cheers to Jim for taking the time to
reply!