Sour Cherry Speedway from CraftHeads

I wanted to bring this up earlier, but just got too busy. Anyways, I think some of us (I know me, Raul and Davido) had the "Cherry Speedway" at CraftHeads a few weeks ago. Us three, plus a few others were there for CraftHeads Anniversary on the Tuesday night. Well, I went back on Thursday night for a business dinner/drinks and talked to Koji/Michael. He casually told me that he created the beer himself by adding cherries to the keg, I think it was like 6 months prior. Needless to say I was a bit surprised, but he likened it to using the Randall and he wanted to create something unique. Moreover he seemed to wanted to alter the beer to piss off Jute, the import company. As some of you may know Michael and Jute are not the best of friends to say the least.

Anyways, its clear this is not the Sour Cherries Speedway that is listed in the database and if you look at the other ratings, it seems this beer is more tart than the other ratings. Personally I loved this and I remember Davido gripping it is too sour and I said on ratebeer it is Sour Cherries Speedway, but they mislabeled it Cherry Speedway. Well Davido perhaps did have a point it seems.

My personal take is that this type of stuff has been done before by numerous bars (Raisins added to Super Vintage Ale (ushitora), Dry Hopping done at the bar to Minoh’s WIPA (Thrashzone)), so I am not too offended. More over, I loved the beer and if you are going to do this and take my money, it better be something damn good. I don’t know if it was better than regular Speedway, but it was certainly different.

I will nuke the ratings in a day or so, but let people rant here first if they want.

In case people don’t know, altering a beer at a bar does not qualify as a new beer (or make it like a similar beer that already exists)

Tim

I think Alesmith does the same during the Speedway Grand Prix Event though. If that’s the case the other entries are questionable as well. I’ll check with the SoCal guys.

Originally posted by beercation
I think Alesmith does the same during the Speedway Grand Prix Event though. If that’s the case the other entries are questionable as well. I’ll check with the SoCal guys.

Supposedly, even if a brewery does it, it should not be a new entry if they just add fruit or hops to a keg. It is supposed to be done to a whole batch before packaging.

Ahh, my mistake.

Arturo, can you look into this? If they just added to the keg, we might need to nuke the entire entry.

Thanks
Tim

I will ask Peter and Vicky right now.

Nuke Time!



ME: Hi Peter, how are you? Sorry to bother you, but I have a question from my ratebeer friends. We were wondering about the Sour Cherry speedway stout that is currently on tap. Was the beer with Cherries or the Cherries were added to a regular keg of speedway. We are going over the beer entry in the ratebeer page if the beer was actually brewed with cherries. Thank you. http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/alesmith-speedway-stout--sour-cherry/191320/
AleSmith Speedway Stout - Dried Sour Cherries
AleSmith Speedway Stout - Dried Sour Cherries a Imperial Stout beer by AleSmith Brewing Company, a brewery in San Diego, California
ratebeer.com



PETER: Hi Arturo! Cherries were added. Thanks and hope you enjoyed the brew!

Among all the fancy Speedway variants, I still say the original is best.
The rest are just slightly different from the original; not better.

-Winton "I still like the Barrel-aged Vietnamese Speedway" White