Ruination IPA redux; reasons to re-boot?

A couple of weeks ago, this article appeared on the American beer news website BeerPulse, regarding a release issued from California’s Stone Brewing Company. Stone intend to increase the abv on Ruination IPA from 7.7% to 8.2%, a decision explained by their co-founder, Greg Koch:-

We brewed some batches at the slightly higher ABV and our in-house tasting sessions told us that we liked the beer just a little bit more. The additional intensity is a modest modification, but it’s our preference in a side-by-side analysis. Thus, the change! Almost nothing should ever be so sacred that you won’t consider tweaks that result in improvements.

We’ll start offering the new higher ABV recipe in bottles once we get all the necessary paperwork cleared with all the state governmental agencies (a process which, interestingly enough, tends to make one want a beer with a slightly higher ABV).

This got me thinking – in particular the comment about nothing should be sacred. As I see it, there are four potential reasons why a brewer might want to amend the recipe, and therefore the abv, of a beer. To me, Stone are saying that it’s the first one below, but I wonder if any of the others have made their way into the reckoning?

The desire to improve
Brewers are an experimental lot, by and large – after all, it’s how some of the best beers come about. I imagine many beer-makers exist in a state of continual flux, never being entirely satisfied with their core range. I’ll bet there are plenty out there who have drifted off whilst transferring the wort, and found themselves wondering if Chinook would work that bit better. Or others whose mind has wandered when spraying peracetic, and ended up sterilising the brewery cat because they were mentally weighing the pros and cons of a handful of hibiscus and lemon peel. Maybe the Stone brewers had that very same itch; the niggle of an amended malt bill that only a recipe re-jig could scratch.

Peers catching up
Stone, founded in 1996, were one of the forerunners of highly-hopped US craft beer that I ever saw in the UK. We featured Ruination IPA back in 2009, as part of BeerCast #36 – and it ended up being crowned our Beer of the Year for that year (Greg Koch himself has never kept quiet about it). At the time, it really did knock our palates sideways. But how many Double/Imperial IPA’s have been released in the US since Ruination? Twenty thousand? Something like that, at least. Did the taste boffins at Stone start to think the grass is greenermore resinous elsewhere? As numerous new brewers arrive, citing the now-role model Stone as influences, maybe they felt the need to bring a little swagger back to Escondido.

Supply and demand
Another risk factor for long-running core beers is availability. I have no real idea of the nuances of Ruination, recipe-wise, but over time ingredients become harder to get, or don’t perform as expected. Over here, for instance, the hop components of BrewDog’s Punk IPA and Caledonian’s Deuchars IPA (two very different final products, obviously) have both changed over the years, more than once. Both were, at least, as a result of ingredients not working out – Deuchars was amended when a crop of their noble hops didn’t perform (if I remember correctly), and Punk has changed a few times based on the malt bill. It could be that the powerhouse that is (or was) Ruination either wasn’t punching as expected, or the ratios of hops weren’t as they were. This brings me to the final potential influential factor…

Financial reasons
We live in tough times, and accepting the mantra repeated by Greg that nothing is sacred, when poor harvests or increasing distribution costs start to bite, sometimes a recipe change is inevitable to protect margins. Of course, virtually without exception this results in a decrease in abv; we’re currently in the midst of a swath of macro-lagers reducing their alcohol content, as the big boys feel the pinch. But, a small brewer may well want to amend the recipe to free up money for other projects, or to brighten the picture, financially. I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who had to resort to that, if those were the reasons. I can’t imagine Stone would tweak Ruination IPA to save money, only for the abv to increase. Unless that’s the kind of mixed-up world that exists in Southern California.

From my entirely distant perch, so far out of the loop that a dozen Hail Mary’s would fall short, I postulate that the reasons Ruination IPA is gaining a 0.5% nudge are mostly number 1 with a small bit of number 2. And not only am I saying that there’s nothing wrong with tinkering if your competitors are multiplying, I’m saying that it’s a great thing. Be active. Don’t ever be satisfied. And before this post descends into a motivational poster any further, I’ll end it there. We’ll have to wait and see about ‘New Ruination’ – and when it arrives in town, put it to the only test that really matters.