10 Great Beers You Will Never Taste
5. 3 Floyds Bourbon Vanilla Dark LordJust like your average Cantillon—whatever "average" means—Dark Lord is not that hard to land. Released every year at "Dark Lord Day" to the tune of 25,000 bottles or so, if you know a guy with a beard, a belly, and an arcane brewery shirt, he probably knows a guy who can find you a bottle or two. (The dirty secret is, the snootiest of beer geeks flat out mock the beer nowadays.) What they refuse to mock, however, and hypocritically go bananas for, are any of the Dark Lord variants, released in significantly smaller numbers via a scratch-off "Golden Ticket" lottery system. Bourbon Vanilla Dark Lord—or BVDL as the code-talking geeks call it—comes out most years at the festival, usually at a bottle count of around 500 to 700.
HSCollectibles
6. Sante Adairius West Ashley
Sante Adairius Rustic Ales is perhaps California's brewery of the moment, rocking some serious saisons out of a small industrial park in Capitola, right near Highway 1. SARA—as they are popularly known—beers can barely be found in most of central coast California, much less anywhere close to where you might live. That's one reason their most famed beer, the Pinot Noir-barreled apricot sour saison West Ashley, is so damn tough to get your hands on. Released sporadically—they're now on Batch 8 by my count—they are also snatched up immediately.
7. FiftyFifty Imperial Eclipse Stout - Masterpiece
If you think Pappy is hard to get as a mere bourbon, try getting your hands on a Pappy Van Winkle beer. Late last year, California's FiftyFifty Brewing released a mere 400 bottles of their noted Eclipse imperial stout that had been aged for eighteen months in former Pappy barrels. The brewery inexplicably didn't have any sort of per person bottle limit, so many opportunists loaded up and the beer sold out in under an hour. The next day, FiftyFifty's owner offered an apology.
8. TAPS Remy's Pappy
Besides FiftyFifty's, there's actually several other Pappy Van Winkle barrel-aged beers that have come out over the past few years. All of them make finding a real Pappy (the bourbon) seem as easy as going to your corner store for a Coke Zero. Pennsylvania's Voodoo Brewing released the Pappy Van Winkle-aged THE K13, a barleywine, in 2013 to the tune of 258 bottles. California's Port Brewing Pappy-fied their Board Meeting, a brown ale, late last year and released around 250 wax-sealed bottles. Remy's Pappy is perhaps the most acclaimed of the few Pappy beers, first released by California's TAPS Fish House & Brewery (try the tuna!) in 2013. Earlier this week, TAPS opened another Fish House in Irvine and to celebrate, offered a new batch of Remy's Pappy. A mere 60 bottles at $60 per bottle. Ouch.
9. BrewDog The End of History
It's actually more difficult than you'd think to figure out what is literally the rarest beer ever made. Even your local brewery has probably brewed a single sixtel keg's worth of a beer, never to make it again. But no one cares about that beer. Perhaps the rarest beer ever bottled is the publicity stunting The End of History. Only eleven total bottles of this 55% ABV beer were ever released—and when I say bottles I'm being a little inaccurate. The beer came in an effing taxidermied squirrel. For a mere $750 you could nab this Scottish beaut, the world's most alcoholic beer at the time. I have no idea if any bottles still exist on planet earth, though someone reviewed in on Untappd as recently as last week. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that, just because something is rare, doesn't mean it's good. Although, the few people to have tried this beer do actually give it a fairly great rating.
10. The Bruery Barrel-Aged Partridge in a Pear Tree
Finally, and perhaps most navel-gazingly, I wanted to list a beer that I'm starting to wonder if I will ever taste. In 2009, The Bruery began a program to release a special beer each year for Christmas for twelve years. Twelve years later, you would, in theory, drink all twelve beers in a grandiose celebration of patient alcoholism. These beers aren't particularly rare, though I do find them fun to collect. I bought Partridge in a Pear tree that first year and I've managed to keep up each subsequent year (we're now up to 7 Swans a Swimming). In many years, The Bruery has released more limited barrel-aged versions as well, but the one I've never been able to sniff is this first one, Partridge in a Pear tree. A mere 290 bottles were released seven years ago, but who knows how many still remained un-drunk. I'm lucky to have actually tasted most of the beers in this listicle—hey yo media "samples"—but I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever land this sucker. I've got five more years left to try...
Sante Adairius Rustic Ales is perhaps California's brewery of the moment, rocking some serious saisons out of a small industrial park in Capitola, right near Highway 1. SARA—as they are popularly known—beers can barely be found in most of central coast California, much less anywhere close to where you might live. That's one reason their most famed beer, the Pinot Noir-barreled apricot sour saison West Ashley, is so damn tough to get your hands on. Released sporadically—they're now on Batch 8 by my count—they are also snatched up immediately.
St. Adairius Brewing
If you think Pappy is hard to get as a mere bourbon, try getting your hands on a Pappy Van Winkle beer. Late last year, California's FiftyFifty Brewing released a mere 400 bottles of their noted Eclipse imperial stout that had been aged for eighteen months in former Pappy barrels. The brewery inexplicably didn't have any sort of per person bottle limit, so many opportunists loaded up and the beer sold out in under an hour. The next day, FiftyFifty's owner offered an apology.
FiftyFifty Brewing
Besides FiftyFifty's, there's actually several other Pappy Van Winkle barrel-aged beers that have come out over the past few years. All of them make finding a real Pappy (the bourbon) seem as easy as going to your corner store for a Coke Zero. Pennsylvania's Voodoo Brewing released the Pappy Van Winkle-aged THE K13, a barleywine, in 2013 to the tune of 258 bottles. California's Port Brewing Pappy-fied their Board Meeting, a brown ale, late last year and released around 250 wax-sealed bottles. Remy's Pappy is perhaps the most acclaimed of the few Pappy beers, first released by California's TAPS Fish House & Brewery (try the tuna!) in 2013. Earlier this week, TAPS opened another Fish House in Irvine and to celebrate, offered a new batch of Remy's Pappy. A mere 60 bottles at $60 per bottle. Ouch.
darkninjason
It's actually more difficult than you'd think to figure out what is literally the rarest beer ever made. Even your local brewery has probably brewed a single sixtel keg's worth of a beer, never to make it again. But no one cares about that beer. Perhaps the rarest beer ever bottled is the publicity stunting The End of History. Only eleven total bottles of this 55% ABV beer were ever released—and when I say bottles I'm being a little inaccurate. The beer came in an effing taxidermied squirrel. For a mere $750 you could nab this Scottish beaut, the world's most alcoholic beer at the time. I have no idea if any bottles still exist on planet earth, though someone reviewed in on Untappd as recently as last week. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that, just because something is rare, doesn't mean it's good. Although, the few people to have tried this beer do actually give it a fairly great rating.
BrewDog
Finally, and perhaps most navel-gazingly, I wanted to list a beer that I'm starting to wonder if I will ever taste. In 2009, The Bruery began a program to release a special beer each year for Christmas for twelve years. Twelve years later, you would, in theory, drink all twelve beers in a grandiose celebration of patient alcoholism. These beers aren't particularly rare, though I do find them fun to collect. I bought Partridge in a Pear tree that first year and I've managed to keep up each subsequent year (we're now up to 7 Swans a Swimming). In many years, The Bruery has released more limited barrel-aged versions as well, but the one I've never been able to sniff is this first one, Partridge in a Pear tree. A mere 290 bottles were released seven years ago, but who knows how many still remained un-drunk. I'm lucky to have actually tasted most of the beers in this listicle—hey yo media "samples"—but I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever land this sucker. I've got five more years left to try...
The Bruery