How did such a tasty beer come from such a mediocre brewery? I would put this beer above almost every IIPA I've had West of Colorado, and that includes Nugget Nectar (yes, I know it's labeled as an Imperial Amber.) It's easily better than the 3 DFH IPAs (60, 90, 120). I'm seriously just impressed with this beer. Nice job Pyramid.
Do you mean East of Colorado? I assume so. Even if so, I also assume you've never had Surly Abrasive.
Agree on the Abrasive, and from what I've heard some of those Hill Farmstead IPAs are pretty damn tasty too. But even though he didn't mention it, I think the OP might also be pointing to Outburst's availability. For me at least, a beer's desirability is inversely proportional to the level of effort involved in acquiring it (I realize, for many BAs this is a foreign concept).
If you've ever had the chance to try Notorious or Hop Venom from Boneyard, than that should give you a very good idea what HF's Ephraim and Abner are like. Both beers are excellent, but styliistically, I can see where they might not be to everyone's taste. Also, both HF beers are quite different from the Pyramid Outburst (IMHO). Personally, I could give a fairly lengthy list of "East Coast" DIPA's and IPA's that I think are superior to Outburst, but that's just my opinion, and of course everyone's taste is different. Each to their own....
Anything from Boneyard is on my "must try" list, but AFAIK availability is currently limited to the brewery and/or Portland maybe? Definitely on my radar though.
Funny thing, I had a bottle of it a year ago and liked it, tried it on tap a few weeks ago and thought it was a train-wreck. Oh well, such are the ways of the world.
I've seen some tap lists in Eugene that had boneyard beers as well. The last time I was in Portland you could find the RPM around town pretty easily, but not the DIPA's unfortunately. They're definitely diffucult to find, even in Portland. So I was stunned when I saw the Union Cafe taplist at 16 Tons list both beers on tap at the same time (have NEVER seen that before). Even now the cafe taplist indicates they have hop venom on tap.
I had Outburst once at the Mactarnahan's tap room. I thought it would be pretty good if they called it a regular IPA. As DIPAs go, it didn't measure up, IMO. Still not a bad beer though. And the price is great. I really liked Discord, and you can't beat the $3/bomber price. Oh, and don't get me started on Boneyard. Definitely my favorite brewery right now. I've seen Hop Venom more often around PDX, and RPM has even been in Salem a few times now, so that's encouraging. I'm really hoping some Hop Venom makes it to Salem soon. That shit is liquid crack.
Just did a quick search, and found HV on tap at 5 places in the Portland/Vancouver area. I've never really thought of it as difficult beer to find on draft.
For the past month or so, both Hop Venom and Notorious have been on tap at a bunch of places around PDX. The kegs usually get killed rather quickly though. RPM is usually easy to find around town.
This is great to hear. Last time I was out (back in late December), it was near impossible to find either beer around town (and believe me, I looked!).
I had it on tap at the brewery last summer on the first day of its release and thought it sucked. I might try it again but I think Pyramid is a weak brewery despite their recent efforts (mostly PR imo) to try and change perception of the brand...YET AGAIN...ugh.
Just saw that Beer Junction will have Boneyard RPM on tap today during the "soft opening"of their new location (4-8 p.m.). I don't pay much attention to what's on tap around town, but this is the first time I've ever seen a Boneyard beer listed anywhere in Seattle. Unfortunately I probably won't be able to make it though...
Don't know if you count Federal Way, but I think 99 Bottles has had RPM available for growler fills fairly frequently.
Boneyard Hop Venom shot up all over the place a few weeks ago As far as Outburst goes, it's impressive for a Pyramid Beer. As far as a IIPA goes, nothing even close to special. Check out Black Diamond's IPA and IIPA if you can, while they are around.
"As far as Outburst goes, it's impressive for a Pyramid Beer. As far as a IIPA goes, nothing even close to special." This.
And this was my point. Yeah I've had much better iipas but when I cracked a pyramid bottle and got that kind of flavor for the price I was really impressed.
For the price, it's a great beer. $5 growler fills of any Pyramid beer on Mondays at the tap house, including some very solid beers they're making in the small R&D setup in Seattle now. Had a smoked helles lager a few weeks ago that was pretty great, and their irish stout for St. Patrick's day was very good. As far as the Boneyard tangent, I think RPM has taken top spot in my list of NW IPAs. It's been all over town recently (Uber, Pine box, Collins Pub, Noble Fir...). Collins Pub had Hop Venom as of this past Sunday as well; fantastic.
I think the OP was pretty clear. He's saying that Outburst is better, cheaper, and easier to get than a lot of East Coast/Midwest DIPAs that we get in the PNW. He left out Surly, Alchemist, Hill Farmstead etc. but I don't think that was the point. Mainly he was saying that Pyramid produced a good beer and he wanted to give them credit for it.
I cracked a year one old bottle of it a few weeks back, was pleasantly surprised how it aged. Didn't age it intentionally, was in a box I forgot about. Was a nice surprise.
But then you went on to compare it to all IIPAs you've had east of Colorado, which to me seemed more like the point behind your post. Anyway, you wrote it and I just misinterpreted I guess. As for being better or as good as IIPAs from the East... Maybe you haven't had many IIPAs from the East? DFH certainly isn't the standard these days. If you're a IIPA fan you owe it to yourself to check some of them out (even though it's not easy to do being out here).
Better than Heady Topper??? I would be shocked. I think Heady is the Best IIPA around. Going to a buddies house tomorrow to try a Kern River Citra, I'm taking a Heady Topper. But now I'm curious to try Outburst. Hope it's around here since almost every other crappy Pyramid beer is!
No I said I hadn't had Heady yet. -edit- I guess I didn't say that, but I'm constantly thinking it. Asking myself when I'm going to get to try it lol
