My Love-Hate Relationship With One-Offs

After a certain amount of work and time, any beer lover will get to a stage when they will hear of an event and naturally ask, “Yeah, but is there going to be anything new?” And this is justified in many ways, the main reason being that we could save the price of admission and just go to a bar to drink the same beer and talk about it with fairly similar people. That beer from a bar will be served in full pint glasses, not those piddly little plastic ones at a lot of events, and there won’t be a lineup for the washroom (which inevitably leads to men doing their best impression of a dog finally being let outside after twenty-four hours). There has to be some reason to hand over our money and endure the worst forms of bladder torture. That reason is usually a one-off beer, created solely for the event or produced in such small quantity that it might as well have just been created for the event.

The appeal of one-offs is also easily justified – it is new and there is nothing sweeter than mocking people who missed out on that amazing beer that will never be served again (and it was a cask!). Or you’ll be that early adopter and get to say something like, “Yeah, that beer is good, but the best version was still from that event on a boat. The original recipe was lost when the brewer fell overboard and was never found.” No one can argue with you unless they were there.

This may be surprising, but that scenario rarely happens. In most cases, the one-off is somewhere between a drainpour and kinda good, often falling in the rough proximity of okay. Why do breweries frequently bring marginally decent beers to events? Well, often they are told that they must bring a one-off, if for no other reason than to attract the beer nerds. And between the day-to-day operations there isn’t a whole lot of time to make and brew some great recipe. They’ve also got just one shot to get the recipe right – no chance to refine or tweak a recipe until it is perfect, as they did with their regular lineup of beers. And if my kitchen experiences are any indication, there is always something that can be changed the second time through. (There are also breweries that don’t really care if a one-off is any good, but for this argument we will assume all intentions are noble.)

Sometimes these one-offs are a first step in the creation of an amazing beer. Great Lakes have been using one-offs and their Project X nights to test and refine recipes, or to see if a kielbasa or gummi bear beer works). The Crazy Canuck started at a Project X night, was slowly altered and now is one of the best Ontario pale ales. If it weren’t for events and one-offs, some great beers would not be available.

As a beer drinker, it is the unknown and the possibility of something wonderful that has us ordering the next pint or buying one more bottle than we should. An experiment can turn out great or it can be… an experiment. It is easy to love one-offs when they work out and hate them when flawed. One-offs are inherently inconsistent, which will continue to bring upon feelings of anger and awe, often at the same event (but rarely because of the same beer). As a beer lover, I know that it is my own flaws that keeps me trying one-offs and supporting the events that feature them. And I don’t know if I want to change it one bit.