Expectations

If I get told good things about a certain beer, I try to stay away from expectations.  Expectations can hurt your experience with any beer, and the experience is what I look forward to the most.

Sometimes when I drink a beer, I just don't know what to think about it. This Ayinger was one of those beers. I started drinking the Jahrhundert Bier with high expectations.  I was told that it was a great beer, something that I would enjoy.  I was hoping for a nice balanced beer, that would combine a nice sweet malt with a good hop backbone. What I got was just sweet, bready malt. A little too much. It was smooth and not over carbonated, but I needed the hops to crash it at the end and it never came. Maybe I was expecting too much.

The other side of the expectation story comes to Bear Republic Racer X.  This was a beer that I had been looking for ever since I knew it existed.  Racer 5 is one of my favorite beers available.  The beer is a very easy drinking West Coast IPA that feature the citrus characteristics of the hop, instead of the bitterness.  Racer X is a Imperial IPA, that is the spawn of Racer 5.  The major difference in the two beers is the factor of a bit more bitterness in the X (but it doesn't overpower the beer).  The beer was well balanced, with the malt pushing through after the initial hop citrus and bitterness.  Overall, this was a very drinkable beer, but one that you should watch out for due to the alcohol content.

Whenever a person has expectations, it is hard to hit it right on the nose.  Typically, the outcome is better or worse than expected.  In these two beers, I was able to get one that was better than expected, and another which was lower.

Have you had your expectations reached/fallen short lately?