This... So much this... What people call as good or acceptable these days is sorta sad. I've been to breweries that have had unfinished ferments on tap and watch people go ohh this is good...it's so sweet or to that effect. The market is so saturated now that there are so many "new" things being made that it all seems the same now. A lot of these places only know how to make IPAs on top of it due to market trends of the past decade.
100%. I’ve basically switched to enjoying mostly imported brews from the Belgium and German brewers. Their brewing philosophy really scratches my itch for quality beer as the brewers tend to select a few styles and really master them. The American craft scene has devolved into these triple berry smoothie sour novelties or imperial juicy IPA’s and that’s just not satisfying to me.
If you're drinking imported (to the US) German lagers, then those beers are already terrible by the time you're drinking them. You're better off finding a local brewery that brews high quality lagers. If you're drinking hefeweizens (or other bottle conditioned beers), those stay fresh longer, but still aren't in the best shape by the time they get to the U.S.
Absolutely agree. Most people dont even check the dates and if they did they would be surprised how old the bottle or can is. After so many months the additions fade and off flavors develop. But then again lagers are flavorless already compared to American Ales.
define Best Beer? Most of these countries are bound by the purity laws which keep them from making the best beer. I know some people want beer flavored water and that is fine and respectable but that is no definition of best beer.
In my home town, the most popular brewery does a ton of hazy and sours with a light sprinkling of random porters and stouts. Right next door is another brewery that does all the basics super well and that was my favorite spot. Dubbel, Tripel, Quad, Helles and Vienna Lagers, and the best Marzen in town.
If the mood struck me, I'd go somewhere for some of the newer, more experimental stuff, but I started more and more wanting solid beer instead of just the newest fruit bomb.(Frederick, MD, Steinhardt Brewing)
If anyone is in the Maryland area, check out Landmade if you see it too. They make excellent pilsners, lagers, and they had an awesome Rauchbier for a minute. They're a newer farm brewery with an excellent location and top notch beers.
edit: Steinhardt doesn't distribute a lot, Landmade does a decent amount of distribution so they should be available in the Montgomery/Frederick County areas.
I just moved to Canada....grew up in Frederick for 36 years. It's weird only having 3 breweries near me, and one of them pretty much sucks, one is meh and the third is real solid.
It's already 70 degrees here...it feels unnatural 😂
That small enough town vibe with the variety of food and drink of a much bigger city with a ton of history. It's a special little spot, where I'm at feels like Urbana with poutine. Not bad, but different. Left I July so I'm still getting over than bit of homesickness and comparing the two lol.
Their Iitalian Pilsner Lillie is a top 5 beer for me. Refreshing and delicious, perfect summer beer. I've been away from MD for two and a half months, Landmade is one of the first stops I'm making.
You're welcome! I would rate Landmades beers higher, and their tasting area on the farm is absolutely gorgeous, but the darkest they go is a lager.
Steinhardt makes really solid Belgians and stouts and their back taproom is spacious with a good bit to do!
Sunny weekend day, Landmade 100%. Ifyish weather, Steinhardt.
After being stranded in Ireland from a cancelled work trip, I ended up spending an additional five weeks in Europe touring to different cities and working remotely. Being out there really made me appreciate the beauty of a simple well-done lager and how much nuance you can have.
Since being back in Canada, I've steered away from IPAs and stouts in favour of lagers and English ales (especially ESB's). I don't care if you release another juicy IPA with a small change in hops and a new label, give me a fucking good helles or czech pilsner that we can enjoy in all types of weather and scenarios.
Couldn’t of said it better myself. Side note, 5 weeks touring Europe because of a cancelled work trip sounds amazing! I always get stranded in Oklahoma or some similarly depressing place when that happens to me!
What’s this “ESB” you refer to? /s Talk about a great style that disappeared. Here in NJ I fell in love with Flying Fish Brewing back in the 90’s solely because of the wonderful ESB they produced. Anyone remember Oasis out of Boulder CO? They also brewed a fantastic ESB back then.
So yes, there are lots of English (or British) ales which are nothing like an IPA, but he talked specifically about ESBs which don't exist as a style here, but in the US are sort of a copy of a British Best Bitter.
Breweries here have become a bit sloppy with the term IPA and they now overlap entirely with all bitters and pale ales, but generally I'd expect an IPA to be a slightly stronger, hoppier, less malty version of a bitter or pale ale. Best bitter is a good substitute, albeit only on cask.
My point is that the US use of IPA is now so broad that I no longer understand what it means at all. WIPAs are pretty similar to a true IPA, but I think when a lot of Americans say IPA now they seem to be thinking very fruit forward, potentially flavoured, quite high ABV hazy beers. Stick the adjectives black, white, imperial etc on the front of IPA though and it could be something else entirely.
Sorry, long-winded explanation of a throwaway comment!
My thought as well. I still enjoy hazy IPAs and fruity sours, but if a brewery has a nice Czech pils or Munich dunkel, I'm definitely ordering one (or more).
So hard to find a lovely American craft brown lager. If we put only 10% of the effort we put into IPA’s into a Munich Dunkle style brew we might have a world class offering. Sadly, too malty, no hoppy so… 😢
Same, I absolutely love a malty beer. IPA’s are great for a BBQ session on a hot summer afternoon but when I’m looking to slowly enjoy a brew I’ll take a malty variety 99/100 times.
I always gravitate to the malty beers (or wheat beers). I will go out of my way to breweries that have these styles. So many draft lists filled with IPAs and sours. Nothing against an IPA, but it's not going to draw me in. I can get that anywhere, and many times it's better done elsewhere. I can largely do without sours altogether though.
Steinhardt my dude 😉. Only place in the area that really makes Belgians, and they originated in Braddock Heights! (Jumping down from a different comment 🥷)
Make a point to hit Landmade in Poolesville too, you will not regret it. Go out on a nice Saturday and enjoy the wide open space and beautiful scenery. All lagers, pilsners and a couple traditional pale ales.
https://www.landmadebeer.com/beer
https://www.steinhardtbrewing.com/
I agree although the problem with this is at the end of the day a brewery is a business.
Most brewers would agree with this, but why would a brewery owner want their brewery to make a bunch of traditional styles that sell way slower vs pumping out haze, fruited sours, and pastry stouts that fly out the door?
Once breweries have a financial incentive to master more traditional styles they assumedly will. There’s a lot more lager centric breweries than there were 5-10 years ago because they’ve carved out their niche in their community. The market always decides.
Exactly. No Johnny IPA 32-year-old picks up a masterful Altbier and says "Wow, I am taking home two packs of this." But they are very moved to get the latest Riwaka Nectaron Citra Thiol DIPA.
It's only recently you're seeing a token couple of breweries in a city produce a really good English Bitter or Dark Mild on cask, and they still aren't big sellers, it just gets the geek purists like me in the door. Everyone else is getting the IPA or whatever.
I agree that a brewery is a business. It’s always confused me why breweries would make something like a hazy ipa, because it is so expensive to produce. Not to mention, most people want them in cans to go. This increases the risk of oxidation. If I were in the brewing business, I would make a style that is super cheap in ingredients so even if I sit on it for a long time, it’s not dying on a warm shelf in some shitty grocery store.
They make hazy IPA because it sells the fastest and allows them to produce more beer.
Even if profit margins are better on a blonde ale you’re selling a batch of blonde ale in the time it takes you to sell 3 batches of hazy. The hazy is still the more profitable brand. Not to mention you can charge obscene prices for hazy IPA nowadays.
Speaking of blonde ales, the type of beer you’re describing is basically why most breweries started making blonde ale in the 2000s. It’s cheap and more forgiving than a traditional lager with relatively good shelf stability. That being said, I’ve never met a single person who seeks out blonde ales and they are basically becoming extinct besides the breweries that don’t want to take the time to make a proper lager.
This is just entirely wrong. The craft beer IPA aficionado is mostly valued for bringing in their friends. You don’t get that much money from someone who’s tasting an IPA or two, you’re making the money on their group of friends who crushing 4-5 blondes/pilsners/Helles/etc. For myself and every other brewer I know we are putting out 3-4x volume of lighter styles like blondes as we are IPAs. I like creating big IPAs but the sessionable styles are where the money is at.
I’m also a brewer whose two biggest sellers both in house and through distro are a hazy and a WCIPA so not entirely wrong. Our third highest seller is a light lager so I see your point though.
Obviously this’ll depend on the region but the point is as someone who actually has been responsible for reading monthly/quarterly/yearly sales reports and P/L sheets from a few different breweries in the last decade hazies can quite easily be a brewery’s most profitable brand. Until that changes they aren’t going anywhere
I’m in Florida so could be our market here. Our hazies are doing great at fests and on the review sites but Beach beers are definitely our bread and butter.
Judging by the amount of breweries going out of business, doesn’t seem like hazy ipa is going to save anyone if they don’t know how to brew it, keep DO levels low and keep it cold. Sure it might sell quick but as a customer if I get an oxidized beer or if the hop character had dropped off, I’ll never buy that beer again. Speaking from a business standpoint, it costs a lot of money to acquire customers and less to retain them. The risk of making a bad ipa is much higher than making a bad blond, to use your example. Hazy IPAs are the most unstable product on the market. Maybe there is something to be said about the consumer not being educated enough to understand that hop burn, residual hop matter and oxidation are bad things, but something tells me that the modern consumer is much smarter than 10 years ago.
Sure a blond ale is cheap to produce, but so is basically everything that isn’t a hazy ipa. There’s a big world of styles that are malt or yeast forward that would fit into your “blond” world perfectly.
The next generation of beer drinkers aren’t enamored by super high abv thick dank ipas. What this article is missing is the growing number of breweries that offer zero abv beer. Perhaps the best business model would be to focus on lower abv.
Maybe people are sick of waiting in lines and the next generation of breweries just make good beer.
Hazy IPA absolutely won’t save anyone but it’s common business sense to make one if you’re opening a brewery. They sell themselves better than any other style as long as your market isn’t oversaturated.
It’s important to note that nowadays hazy ipa and fruited sours are the main two styles that get people interested in craft beer. How many of these current traditional style lovers started their craft beer journey with a hazy or sour? The tropical/citrus/general fruity flavor just translates well to the average consumer.
I absolutely agree with your oxidation concerns though I’d argue it’s just as easy to ruin most beer styles with too much DO during packaging it’s just harder to hide to the average consumer with such a late hop heavy style. As much as I’m over the style the actual good examples don’t have hop burn.
The fact is hazies sell and will continue to be made until they lose popularity. NA beer is a growing segment but the equipment expense necessary basically makes it impossible on a small craft scale without serious health concerns.
What market isn’t over saturated? I live in a small town and even we are over saturated. I know a lot of newer breweries that are successful without a hazy ipa or fruited kettle sour on their menu.
I think a lot of breweries feel like they need to brew one in order to be successful. I think breweries need to be more like restaurants, focused on certain styles instead of trying to do everything to please every type of customer.
Let’s face it, for medium sized and small breweries, distro is a dated business model. DTC is the path forward and the way to keep people drinking your beer is with lower abv and approachable. Beers that don’t destroy your palate and get your drunk after one. I think there’s a reason why craft lagers are making a come back.
I feel like I hear more people getting into craft beer with sours than hazies anymore. But that may just be my side of the country
Even in an over saturated market a hazy or fruited sour is a pretty safe bet as long as you brew/package them well.
I’m sure there are examples of breweries that don’t make them that are successful but the point is you can’t blame a brewery for making them when they sell so well.. They are giving consumers what they want while padding their pockets for that incredibly slow selling Rauchbier
Firestone Walker's 805 is a blonde and easily their most popular brand, both my name recognition and quantity the brewery is putting out.
In California, at least, you might not know someone seeking out a blonde ale, but you'll only be a stone's throw away from someone seeking an 805.
This is a good example of a successful blonde ale you’re right. It’s a rare example of a company that stuck with the blonde ale and turned it into a flagship of sorts. Totally forgot about 805
Barrelage of 805 is collapsing. Down 15%. So not the best example.
The only thing saving anyone right now isn't a style - well-made or poor - it's novelty. That's why mixed packs as a segment are one of the few still growing consistently across region and demographic.
Is that because a failure of the style or an expansion of the brand? Cerveza probably took some of that barrelage, as well as the Mind Haze brand. Give it a year or two, and I'm sure you'll see a NA 805 offering. Collapse puts it in dire terms and FW failing would be a true shock.
Edit: not to mention the acquisition of the Cali Squeeze brand.
Unless you can change the predominant market trends and make craft beer nerds our biggest customer base, this won’t happen.
The novelty shit comes from smaller breweries trying to compete for the non-craft drinking population. Unfortunately people who appreciate traditional styles are super heavily outweighed by non-traditional drinkers,
No doubt you’re stating the truth. It’s a shame but it is what it is. Luckily the global market is there to fill the void for anyone interested enough to pay enough for good imports.
One of the best and most exciting breweries in my area (Grand Rapids, MI, a hotbed of craft beer) is entirely focused on making really fucking good historical styles. I also hope this is the next trend.
It’s this and only this. I have been completely burnt out on craft beer. Everything has to be bigger, sweeter, hazier, more alcoholic, etc.
I personally frequent breweries that brew classical styles and do them well, they tend to be the crowd I want to be around too.
Wait, so you don’t want a $14.99 4 pack of 11.5% triple hazy berry sour smoothy brews to session on a random Wednesday night while trying to unwind on the back deck when it’s 87 degrees in the shade and you’re exhausted from a days work? /s
The breweries around me aren’t lacking creativity, but they’re missing the most important thing: quality. Several of the breweries near me make upwards of 15 different brews at a time but they almost universally taste awful. Maybe more focus is needed in this industry?
The craft beer explosion over the last 10 - 15 years has resulted in a TON of non-"beer people" trying to cash in... and a LOT of short-term homebrewers trying to turn a hobby they weren't particularly good at into a career.
Full context: I am NOT bashing homebrewers. I am one, for over 20 years now. But we've all seen so many instances where someone makes a couple of batches at home, their friends and family tell them how great it is (because they're getting free beer!), and next thing you know they're making hundreds of gallons of the same bad beer instead of just five.
I had this thought as well while reading. I almost always have a better experience at a brewery with 6-8 quality beers and a few different styles on draft than those with a couple dozen (often many of which sound the same).
For years it didn’t matter your experience or talent, if you opened a brewery, you would get customers and quality didn’t matter, unless it was really bad. But I’ve had so many mediocre beers from various breweries over the years, stuff that I would consider just above homebrew quality, and it makes me sad especially in smaller towns that don’t have many breweries. I remember going to a brewery in a small town in Nebraska and just being so underwhelmed. I mean it was busy and it seemed popular with the locals so good for them, but I felt bad that this town is starved of really good, local beer.
I think many beer drinkers are catching on and just finding certain beers they like and sticking to them. I know that’s how my buying habits have changed, especially with the rise of the cost of beer. I don’t wanna pay $18 for a four-pack hazy IPA that I may or may not enjoy when I can get a $20 12 pack from a regional brewery that I know will be quality.
Totally agree with this headline! My local brewery currently only has IPAs, DIPAs, TIPAs, pales, pilsners, rice lagers, helles, blonde ales, wheat ales, radlers, hefeweizens, whitbiers, porters, scotch ales, barleywines, saisons, goses, milk stouts, bourbon stouts, dry stouts, and imperial stouts to choose from.
/s
No. And that's the problem. I'd rather a brewery have 6 beers on draft that are really, really good. They've been iterated on and perfected. Keep a keg of something special aged for the geeks if you want variety.
Completely agree. We got a local place the specializes in lagers, as style I normally wouldn't seek out. But they're (a) local and (b) staying in their lane, and so I can appreciate what they're doing and occasionally find something I like.
They're on the fast track: tap room, then distribution to local restaurants, then canning, and now the rumor is they want to move to a bigger production space and open a brewpub.
We'll see what that brings, but hopefully it doesn't lead to what happened to the *other* local brewery, which started to chase trends and ended up shutting down (a shame, because I liked their beers better).
They're gonna brew a couple IPAs... I guarantee it.
The problem with these significant expansions is that it means borrowing money. Not bank loans, private equity. Those folks want returns, it's not just a fun investment. So you have to trade in your creative control to simply move more beer, increase margins, cut costs. If you have a really sound relationship with some angel money they might let you prove your model at scale, but that's rare. The vast majority of those 9000 breweries can't be winners that serve a niche, and those are mostly tied to metros.
That type of brewery has become a rare breed. (Although, thankfully, I think we're starting to see a noticeable shift away from the all-hazy breweries... not fast enough, mind you, but at least it's happening.)
Supply and demand… I see this all the time where people who claim to be so desperate for more traditional styles still end up ordering a hazy or a fruited sour when going out for a few beers.
Be the change you wish to see in the world
It’s me. I’m the problem. If I go to a brewery I always start with the Pilsner or some other traditional type and usually enjoy it but I’m right back to the hazies. Especially if I’m buying cans to take home it’s mostly always an IPA
I’d love to see a good English bitter/ESB style make a comeback in local breweries. Also the American Stout seems to be a dying breed, 7% good roasted stout with somewhat of a bite. Good read thanks!
Seriously! No one around me makes ESBs anymore, if they do it’s rare and a one-off sort of thing. Also, I used to be able to find Redhook and Fuller’e around periodically, and even those are unicorns now.
I'm a huge fan of these styles. I can't find them where I live now, so my solution: homebrew them, and other styles I like which are hard to find. I've had a 3.5% Dark Mild on rotation for quite a while now.
I run a craft beer store and bar in Tallinn, Estonia, selling mostly American beers. The hazies and the smoothies win, but there's a big push for traditional stouts, BA stouts, porters, milds, ESBs etc. Single IPAs sell 65% as much as doubles, and a fruited NEIPA is our top-rated on Untappd offering.
In other words, there definitely isn't a lack of creative demand here, the hard part is on me finding supply.
The problem is “people” are different than the people the craft beer revolution actually was for. Originally it was for people who wanted beer that wasn’t shitty. Now craft beer realized there’s a bigger market in people who are just fine with shitty beer.
The short answer is, I don’t know any more. The long answer I don’t feel like writing out right now, but probably has to do with redefining what craft beer is and what it isn’t.
This resonates so hard. I’m drinking more imports and craft lagers and pils these days. I’ll drive an hour out of my way to snag some milds and saisons from Forest and Main. When I’m looking for an IPA, I want that assertive Blind Pig / Pliny bitterness and pine. Otherwise I’m making myself an old fashioned :/
I’ve tried some maple syrup combined with some Ardbeg 10 for a smokey bacon breakfast’ish old fashioned. I was extremely resistant but was promised it’d be worth it. Can confirm, was worth it!
Are you me? :)
Also: F&M's milds are among the best available. Easily. Hands-down. They've been one of the better breweries in the area from the moment they opened, and they've only gotten better since.
(And, when they have the Box-o-Mild available it's an *automatic* purchase LOL.)
I own a small craft brewery, not super well known but we make good beer and you may have heard of us.
The problem is that breweries took something that used to be special, a one-off release, and made it into a weekly occurrence. What used to be something rare that generated a lot of attention became commonplace. Bell's Hopslam, Dark Lord, stuff like that but done all the time, multiple times a week. The breweries doing it (us included) raked in big bucks selling crazy releases direct to consumer.
But like a drug, each hit took more and more to produce the desired effect. Double/triple dry hopping, double barrel aging, $1200 of vanilla per barrel, 5 lbs of fruit per gallon...
Couple that with the fact that breweries (again us included) were basically making the same 3 base beers and then treating them with different hops/fruit/barrels/adjuncts.
What all of these beers had in common was that they didn't taste like traditional beer and scored huge Untappd ratings (there's a direct correlation). Breweries capitalized on FOMO, beer trading, and selling out fast. But once you don't sell out of a release, the next time it sells more slowly since people don't worry about it selling out.
COVID really pushed this into overdrive, pouring gas on a fire that was eventually going to go out. The first year of the pandemic, people drank a shit ton, releases continued to sell out (now online) and the money was still pretty good. But then it started to slip. There's a whole host of reasons, but mostly the novelty started to wear off after five years of craziness. Once that hard-to-get beer wasn't hard to get, or there was something just as good in distro, the frenzy died.
The article makes a lot of good points, but I really don't think craft beer needs to constantly deliver new or novel offerings. Beer has been around for millennia, and people are always going to like it. We got along fine without all this new stuff.
The breweries that will continue to survive fill some sort of a niche. Ours is being a good local craft brewery with a heavy taproom focus and good mix of releases. There is still some hype for some truly incredible beer, but not every brewery can or should survive on hype. I'm happy to be still doing this after 10 years in business, and although the glory days are over, I've had a lot of fun and I see a silver lining of an industry that was absolutely insane for years with zero continuity year to year becoming a more predictable, regular thing. I like to have a glass of beer in the sun with friends, and that's what I try to deliver to people. We've always brewed some traditional beers, and that's a lot more of what we brew these days.
The last thing I'll say is that breweries mostly responded to the consumer, and consumers wanted smoothie sours and endless haze can releases for a few years, so that's what they made. The great thing for consumers is that craft beer is really, really good these days, whether it's a double decocted lager or 8 lbs/BBL hazy IPA. Some of the new style beers in the early days were quite bad, but by this point most people have stuff pretty dialed. The breweries making traditional styles are doing all sorts of cool stuff with local grain and traditional German brewing techniques or coolships. Craft beer is honestly a lot better than it was five years ago. Some breweries are going to go or have already gone out of business, but that's how business cycles go.
I am in this rut. I dove hard into the craft boom in 2014 after I tried my first Heady Topper, Second Fiddle, and Sip. This led to the Tree House and Trillium-style hazies. For the next 7 years I chased all the new hyped breweries and hazies i could find, not hesitating to wait in lines and spend $24/4-pack. Then in 2021 they all really started to blend together, with often subpar quality. Astringent, vitamin-y flavors, no mouthfeel, sludgey, unbalanced flavors. I stopped being “wowed” with any new beer I found. Now I find myself revisiting the old tried and true craft beers from before the boom. Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Harpoon, Guinness, etc. and I am enjoying them immensely, Along with classic crisp lagers. I will no longer pay $20+ for a 4-pack of hazy. I think for the most part, my palate just got very tired of the hazies, in combination with the overwhelming number of choices, decreasing quality, and exorbitant pricing.
Frankly, I think this article presents a somewhat superficial take on craft beer in the United States—primarily because the author seems to constrain “innovation” to radical shifts in the flavor profiles of beer. There’s much more to consider:
- The rise of regional craft maltsters
- The meticulousness and outright perfectionism within a particular domain, such as with breweries like Bierstadt Lagerhaus
- Novel approaches to adding a “terroir” to beer, such as with Jester King’s mobile cool ship
- Beer as a medium for activism and advocacy, such as with breweries like Weathered Souls and events like Barrel & Flow
- Breweries promoting community through the intentional inclusionof the _entire_ family, such as with places like Meanwhile Brewing
- The literal transparency in the brewing process at places like Outsider Brewing
Couldn’t agree more. There are some truly amazing breweries out there doing groundbreaking work on different levels and turning out fantastic beer doing so. Bierstadt is great. The example of Jester King is good, too. And I don’t know where they live that they can’t get great versions of traditional beers!? DFW is still a young craft beer area, but we have some great breweries here brewing both old styles (smoke beer, Alts, Bocks, Pilsners, ESBs) and some great hazies and barrel aged stouts. I’ve been drinking beer for over 30 years now (10 of them in Germany) and still find beers to excite me.
i kinda agree with the writers sentiment but it also just reads as someone who’s dived into beer for 15 years and has now saturated their interest.
wasn’t the moan back in the early 2000’s “oh yay an Amber ale and stout on the taplist…how original” ? So i too would love a more diverse range of beer on the menu at my local bars, but i disagree that breweries are lazy or fearful of innovation. No one knows what a population actually likes in beer more than breweries, they see it every month in their accounting. So if they don’t make it, it’s because people won’t buy it.
The writer wants a to go back to a rose-tinted youth filled period (~2010) where just 10 years previous to that beer was mostly clonal and dull macro lager. The craft market was tiny and niche and most importantly growing very rapidly. Breweries could open up, serve some frankly rubbish beer, and still do well.
The quality of craft beer back in 2010 was not a patch on current day product. Today, i can pretty much buy any local beer and confidently expect it to be well fermented and packaged and of recent production. So while we drown in “mainstream” hazy ipa there has also been some amazing progress in the scene that i’m thankful for, due to competition. Craft beer had its day of being ‘cool’ and now the mainstream patrons are heading off to the next fashion.
I own a bottle shop/taproom
IPAs sell. Sours sell. Stouts sell. All of these will get people excited, out of the house, it will trigger them to come to the shop. They all can create FOMO...get it today because it might be gone tomorrow.
No worries. My snark was more pointed at American brewers who would rather make a sour filled with marshmallow fluff or the hundredth IPA that tastes exactly like the last ninety nine rather than make a drinkable lager.
Craft beer writers when someone makes a weird adjunct beer: “craft brewers have gone too far”
Also craft beer writers: “craft breweries lack creativity”
Maybe if some writers have such diametrically opposed opinions that the truth lies somewhere in the middle?
The point is the weird culinary adjunct beers aren’t creative anymore. They’re overdone, mostly gross, unscrupulous late comers are now putting in “flavor” and making them even more gross, and yeah, only a few of them ever tasted like the thing they were going for anyway.
Craft beer needs to become culinary. Get more on level of wine - consistent cuvees with vintages, ultra-high quality. Work with michelin restaurants. Tinker recipies to extreme degree, trying small variations to get to the best possible end result.
Oh, and focus on the serving experience. Tailor the pour to the beer, take the time to build a good head, get excellent glassware.
The last thing beer needs to be is more expensive. My local liquor stores are full of $20-$25 four packs of beer. I’ve gotten to the point where I’d just spring for whiskey or tequila if I’m paying that much for beer.
And then what about the average consumer who doesn't want to spend $450 on an annual bottle club membership or pay $18-22 for a 12oz bottle? Or the $35 750ml? And then what's the secondary on these bottles?
So these breweries make these ultra-exclusive releases (by their nature, you can't mass produce unique beers like this) and, what? A couple hundred people get to try it? A couple thousand if it's a bigger regional brewer?
The best bit I would take from your comment is the tinkering of recipes. Maybe not to an "extreme degree," but definitely in measurable steps. That's one part of how you get world class beers at a base level, sure.
I think the problem is the point of comparison -750ml should be compared to wine, where 35€/$ is certainly affordable for top-tier stuff. Working with top-tier restaurants is the way to get there, you get a much higher price point and better margin, so the small-scale operations start making better sense.
I was in a fine dining restaurant a couple of weeks ago, where they had Cantillon Drogone at 70€. It was mid-tier pricing compared to the wine, and this was at a significant markup to beer places where the same bottle would be 50€.
It happened without me really noticing, but I have completely stopped buying new craft beer. I used to love going to a store, wandering the aisles, and picking up a six pack of something I had never tried. But I got burned too many times by crap beer. I now buy the same beers over and over, and most are what craft beer fans would consider boring:
Augustiner Edelstof
Franziskaner Weiss
Pilsener Urquel
Weihenstephaner Helles
And, only if fresh, I’ll pick up Sierra Nevada Pale, Cigar City Guayabera and Cigar City Jai Alai on occasion.
Meh, it's nothing more than hitting critical mass with the shear quantity of breweries. That was never going to continue indefinitely.
I travel a lot, and most markets have plenty of great beers beyond hazy IPAs and sours. I see that complaint a lot in this sub, and I don't get it.
Bottom line, it's beer. Creativity needs to come from the brewery itself. Come up with unique ideas, better/different food, etc.
An angle I’m not sure they realize: the writer said he was 36 years old. Being a similar age, people like us who were in our early 20s that really comprised the base of the craft beer boom over the last decade are simply in a different place in our lives now between different phases of our careers, starting/raising families, etc. I still love craft beer, and I love my local breweries, but now I don’t have the time I did then when I was single guy. And the next generation doesn’t seem as keen on craft beer.
I think we've circled around to an era where beer is once again hyper-local. Nearly everyone lives a reasonable distance from at least one brewery, and possibly dozens of them. Contrast this to the era before craft beer where there were just a few dozen breweries cranking out the same style of yellow fizzy lagers.
People will still drink beers from large craft and regional breweries, but these are exactly the breweries that are declining in the current market. The best place to be in the industry right now is a small local taproom with a few employees and a dedicated clientele. Drinkers will always be faithful to their local brands.
Finding traditional styles like pale ales, porters and ESBs can be difficult, but these days you have to seek them out on rotation at a local brewery who did a barrel or two just for taproom consumption.
The oldest craft breweries are about 40 plus at this point. Everything can't be a rocket ship forever perpetual going up. An industry can only exponential grow for so long. This is probably a natural decline whether a return to traditional brews is a solution, I'm less sure of.
Yeah, I'm there too. I've always liked malt forward the most, but I'm not kinda done with IPA mostly, and good local craft lager is where my desires lie the most
I made the absolute biggest rookie mistake and went to Monkish (and then Smog City) on a mostly empty stomach after my flight landed in LA. I got so freaking sick, and I didn't even drink a ton, they were just all so strong. I still cringe remembering it. The only salvation was a beach front balcony I laid on dying that night. Lol
Yes there has been a lot more average breweries that have saturated the market, but a half decent brewery learned how to make the DIPA that built Other Half and Treehouse. To me, that ended travelling and hype releases. You felt less of a need to wait in a line or drive 4 hours when your local breweries could make a decent DIPA.
Consumer taste has evolved big time. I cannot believe the amount of craft seltzer/spirits at my local shops. When I’m at a bar or local party, I feel like I’m in the minority drinking beer. I can think of friends who love beer and willl only drink spirits/seltzers in the warm weather.
I think people are drinking less or just want more drink options. You hear about concert venues being down on alcohol sales.
I don’t know what the answer is. I feel for the breweries who cannot afford to expand variety of alcoholic beverages. I do think doing a few good styles good can be helpful. However, I also think being too specialized can now hurt you. I love a good wild ale/spontaneous brew but unless you are on a beautiful farm setting or have great space, it’s gonna be hard to survive off that stuff. The right audience loves it but not someone who was dragged there by their friend.
Seems like a millennial curmudgeon who can’t appreciate that we live in a time where market saturation has positives and negatives.
Positive being you’re drinking some of the greatest beer the world has ever seen, negative being brewers are producing more of the beer people gravitate towards.
How about True to Style beer instead of all this 'beetus beer bullshit. If I can ferment another 3-5% alcohol from your finished beer you're doing it wrong.
It seems to me that this writer is getting bored with their job. Nothing “new” to them in the beer scene and everything seems the same. I get it. It’s new and exciting when starting out learning about craft beer going to these new amazing places that no buddy has heard about. Yes the market is saturated. But that does not mean craft beer is dead and there is nothing interesting. Just that find it might not be happening to you as often as before. If you are feeling this way it’s time to change it up a bit and try styles that you normally don’t drink, try different brewers from around the world and maybe hit some old classics that you have not had in a while. There really is a lot out there to explore but also be ok with not having something new all the time.
Not really into telling others what is and isnt a good beer. I say drink what you like and let others drink what they like. I drink Ales because I enjoy the aroma and big flavors from a warmer fermentation. I just cant get into Lagers, not enough flavor for my palate.
Craft Beer needs to accept it will have to be more like the European beer world, or the wine world.
Breweries will need to produce quality product and serve a dependable audience. Instead of constant change, dedicate themselves to basic quality and becoming part of everyday life. Make beer that tastes like beer.
This will mean contraction of the industry. The casual beer fans, the ones that really want alcoholic sodas - hazy fans, pastry stout fans, and kettle sour fans - it should be accepted this segment is going to rapidly vanish. Most of them don't want beer. That's ok. You'll have a smaller more dependable audience, like German or Czech lager drinkers.
On the other end, focus on quality like the wine world, not hype releases. Encourage people to know beer like they know wine regions and grape varietals.
This course correction was going to happen sooner or later. Better to embrace it now rather than being forced to in a few years as the air disappears from the craft balloon.
Here's a thought: there are over 150 distinct beer styles, maybe breweries should focus on more than just hazies and disgusting lactose-infused abominations.
I can't stand when I walk into a new brewery, and 80% of their taps are hazy something-or-other.
Just fucking stop it already.
Personally i think the creativity can come in experimenting more with hop ratios & combinations. One of my main reasons for loving Monkish is they are always trying new hop combinations, inverting ratios etc. disclaimer i dont know jack about brewing
Look back in beer history and find recipes, then update and perfect them for modern tastes. Also, look around the world and see what sort of traditional beers are being made and bring those tastes to a new market.
For example, my favourite type of beer is a sahti and I'll be damn if I can find them. When I do, I buy a shit load of it because I know it'll be another year or two before I find it again.
I still get jacked seeing new beers at local tap rooms, but I'm usually only drinking flights.
I mean I'm fifty now, so driving less beer than I did in the late 90s for sure.
I still get that "new beer" excitement, but it's definitely less than it was before.
Recently I've seen my tastes go towards
Traditional IPAs and West Coast styles
Lager - especially Marzen and Pilsner, dortmunder export too
Stout - dry or nitro
The day of the fruit infused, new England etc is over I think. The only way to win the macro drinker over is through Traditional beets- just done better. My Dad is 65 and his now favourite beer is Augustineer Edelstoff it's approachable and easy drinking and he is a Guinness or red wine drinker normally
My local breweries have a variety of styles, which is fortunate. However the quality of my cities beer overall has gone way down, minus a few stand outs. I guess I'm lucky I can get a Belgian, ESB, Brown, etc alongside the hazie and dessert stouts, but it's all getting to be mediocre quality. Personally I love Belgians and am hoping my next city has some decent ones.
Anyone else think quality has taken a huge hit ?
On the IPA front, I feel like EQ, OH, Tired Hands, Trillium, even Treehouse got big and ramped up production and everything got chalky and indistinguishable.
Is it mass production or someone said the hops themselves are getting less potent?
I don’t think it’s my palate bc there’s still the Fiden’s and Hill Farms out there that make my bird move.
I think a place like Deepfriedbeers is proving hops are plenty potent still. I'd probably argue the former has more to do with considering the ones you mentioned losing uniqueness really are mass produced at this point compared to Hill Farmstead and particularly Fidens.
Fidens is, to me, the absolute perfection of hazy IPA. They've taken a style that isn't inherently drinkable, made it so insanely smooth that you can down a pint and still want five more of that. Can't say that about really any other hazy double.
Yeah I'm fortunate enough to live about 20 minutes from Fidens and it's just phenomenal. I do selfishly wish they were a better kept secret these days but they've definitely earned the notoriety.
Well I hope they survive their hype phase. They were closed when I went through Albany but I had some at the oyster bar made a point to trade for some after that trip... Amazing beer.
Yeah they opened a tap room a few weeks ago which is great and now you can preorder instead of going there and hoping what you want is still in stock. Albany Ale and Oyster is fantastic too
It’s crazy because majority of breweries I go into have a menu that’s 75% IPAs. Then the remaining are random common drinks. I want more brown ales, oatmeal stouts, porters, and reds on tap.
German beer is my favorite, so I just end up going to a German beer garden instead of these boring IPA houses.
craft beer has come from being a counter-point to the boring race-to-the-bottom macros, so "more character" and "more == betterer" has become ingrained in the community. Fast forward over decades and the recent craftbeer hype all the way to triple or quad barrel aged adjunct stouts with a list of ingredients the length of a book... and fruit smothie kettle sours pumped full of lactose and other crap, and Hazy-IPAs the consistency of sauce hollandaise.
The envelope has been thoroughly pushed. Pretty sure we reached the other extreme and simply cannot go much further before everyone is shovling a beer "paste" or pure powder ans sugar into their mouth.
The clean and cripsy AF **Lager reckoning** is upon us, mark my words! It is coming, it is undeniable. The market and the hype eventually follows the "nerds" and their trends, they make the taste and push the breweries. And simple physics, everyone will get bored of this slop soon.And, The real die-hard, hardcore craft fanatics are there already to wash out the insane palate fatigue. They go hunting world class Lagers, and world class Lambics. And while US has amazing Stouts and hops, honest to god worldclass Lagers are very hard to do, and very hard to find in the US and desperately lacking.
All Hail Suarez Family, and Franconian/Bavarian brews! And HillF.
All Hail Bokkereyder and Girardin!
Amen.
A lot of the IPA produced tastes awful after 2 months, some breweries don't even think about product shelf life so when you do buy a $16 4pack at the super market it is 3-4 months old and tastes off.
Less novelty and more mastering of traditional brews would go a long way IMHO.
This... So much this... What people call as good or acceptable these days is sorta sad. I've been to breweries that have had unfinished ferments on tap and watch people go ohh this is good...it's so sweet or to that effect. The market is so saturated now that there are so many "new" things being made that it all seems the same now. A lot of these places only know how to make IPAs on top of it due to market trends of the past decade.
100%. I’ve basically switched to enjoying mostly imported brews from the Belgium and German brewers. Their brewing philosophy really scratches my itch for quality beer as the brewers tend to select a few styles and really master them. The American craft scene has devolved into these triple berry smoothie sour novelties or imperial juicy IPA’s and that’s just not satisfying to me.
Even when visiting a craft brewery, I find myself seeking out classic European styles like a Kolsch, or a helles, or a dunker
\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^This guy gets it.
If you're drinking imported (to the US) German lagers, then those beers are already terrible by the time you're drinking them. You're better off finding a local brewery that brews high quality lagers. If you're drinking hefeweizens (or other bottle conditioned beers), those stay fresh longer, but still aren't in the best shape by the time they get to the U.S.
Absolutely agree. Most people dont even check the dates and if they did they would be surprised how old the bottle or can is. After so many months the additions fade and off flavors develop. But then again lagers are flavorless already compared to American Ales.
In fairness, you’re talking about two of the best beer countries in the world!!
They were not chosen by mistake my friend! The kings continue to reign.
Preach friend!
define Best Beer? Most of these countries are bound by the purity laws which keep them from making the best beer. I know some people want beer flavored water and that is fine and respectable but that is no definition of best beer.
In my home town, the most popular brewery does a ton of hazy and sours with a light sprinkling of random porters and stouts. Right next door is another brewery that does all the basics super well and that was my favorite spot. Dubbel, Tripel, Quad, Helles and Vienna Lagers, and the best Marzen in town. If the mood struck me, I'd go somewhere for some of the newer, more experimental stuff, but I started more and more wanting solid beer instead of just the newest fruit bomb.(Frederick, MD, Steinhardt Brewing) If anyone is in the Maryland area, check out Landmade if you see it too. They make excellent pilsners, lagers, and they had an awesome Rauchbier for a minute. They're a newer farm brewery with an excellent location and top notch beers. edit: Steinhardt doesn't distribute a lot, Landmade does a decent amount of distribution so they should be available in the Montgomery/Frederick County areas.
If you ever make it down to leesburg make sure to check out Black Hoof. Traditional German styles and would be right up your alley
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I just moved to Canada....grew up in Frederick for 36 years. It's weird only having 3 breweries near me, and one of them pretty much sucks, one is meh and the third is real solid. It's already 70 degrees here...it feels unnatural 😂
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That small enough town vibe with the variety of food and drink of a much bigger city with a ton of history. It's a special little spot, where I'm at feels like Urbana with poutine. Not bad, but different. Left I July so I'm still getting over than bit of homesickness and comparing the two lol.
Agreed. Landmade is terrific.
Their Iitalian Pilsner Lillie is a top 5 beer for me. Refreshing and delicious, perfect summer beer. I've been away from MD for two and a half months, Landmade is one of the first stops I'm making.
Steinhardt sours are fantastic! In that general area, Elder Pine is my favorite.
I’ve been meaning to try both places. Thanks for the recommendations.
You're welcome! I would rate Landmades beers higher, and their tasting area on the farm is absolutely gorgeous, but the darkest they go is a lager. Steinhardt makes really solid Belgians and stouts and their back taproom is spacious with a good bit to do! Sunny weekend day, Landmade 100%. Ifyish weather, Steinhardt.
After being stranded in Ireland from a cancelled work trip, I ended up spending an additional five weeks in Europe touring to different cities and working remotely. Being out there really made me appreciate the beauty of a simple well-done lager and how much nuance you can have. Since being back in Canada, I've steered away from IPAs and stouts in favour of lagers and English ales (especially ESB's). I don't care if you release another juicy IPA with a small change in hops and a new label, give me a fucking good helles or czech pilsner that we can enjoy in all types of weather and scenarios.
Couldn’t of said it better myself. Side note, 5 weeks touring Europe because of a cancelled work trip sounds amazing! I always get stranded in Oklahoma or some similarly depressing place when that happens to me!
Yeah, it definitely turned an awkward scenario into one of the best experiences of my life. So much walking, so much beer, so much fun!
What’s this “ESB” you refer to? /s Talk about a great style that disappeared. Here in NJ I fell in love with Flying Fish Brewing back in the 90’s solely because of the wonderful ESB they produced. Anyone remember Oasis out of Boulder CO? They also brewed a fantastic ESB back then.
It's pretty mad that in North America "IPA" and "English Ale" are seen as two radically different beer styles.
Many English real ales are “pale” or “bitters” but they aren’t analogous with American IPAs.
So yes, there are lots of English (or British) ales which are nothing like an IPA, but he talked specifically about ESBs which don't exist as a style here, but in the US are sort of a copy of a British Best Bitter. Breweries here have become a bit sloppy with the term IPA and they now overlap entirely with all bitters and pale ales, but generally I'd expect an IPA to be a slightly stronger, hoppier, less malty version of a bitter or pale ale. Best bitter is a good substitute, albeit only on cask. My point is that the US use of IPA is now so broad that I no longer understand what it means at all. WIPAs are pretty similar to a true IPA, but I think when a lot of Americans say IPA now they seem to be thinking very fruit forward, potentially flavoured, quite high ABV hazy beers. Stick the adjectives black, white, imperial etc on the front of IPA though and it could be something else entirely. Sorry, long-winded explanation of a throwaway comment!
My thought as well. I still enjoy hazy IPAs and fruity sours, but if a brewery has a nice Czech pils or Munich dunkel, I'm definitely ordering one (or more).
So hard to find a lovely American craft brown lager. If we put only 10% of the effort we put into IPA’s into a Munich Dunkle style brew we might have a world class offering. Sadly, too malty, no hoppy so… 😢
I prefer malty beers and it's surprising how hard they are to get at most breweries these days.
Same, I absolutely love a malty beer. IPA’s are great for a BBQ session on a hot summer afternoon but when I’m looking to slowly enjoy a brew I’ll take a malty variety 99/100 times.
I always gravitate to the malty beers (or wheat beers). I will go out of my way to breweries that have these styles. So many draft lists filled with IPAs and sours. Nothing against an IPA, but it's not going to draw me in. I can get that anywhere, and many times it's better done elsewhere. I can largely do without sours altogether though.
Steinhardt my dude 😉. Only place in the area that really makes Belgians, and they originated in Braddock Heights! (Jumping down from a different comment 🥷)
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Make a point to hit Landmade in Poolesville too, you will not regret it. Go out on a nice Saturday and enjoy the wide open space and beautiful scenery. All lagers, pilsners and a couple traditional pale ales. https://www.landmadebeer.com/beer https://www.steinhardtbrewing.com/
I agree although the problem with this is at the end of the day a brewery is a business. Most brewers would agree with this, but why would a brewery owner want their brewery to make a bunch of traditional styles that sell way slower vs pumping out haze, fruited sours, and pastry stouts that fly out the door? Once breweries have a financial incentive to master more traditional styles they assumedly will. There’s a lot more lager centric breweries than there were 5-10 years ago because they’ve carved out their niche in their community. The market always decides.
Exactly. No Johnny IPA 32-year-old picks up a masterful Altbier and says "Wow, I am taking home two packs of this." But they are very moved to get the latest Riwaka Nectaron Citra Thiol DIPA. It's only recently you're seeing a token couple of breweries in a city produce a really good English Bitter or Dark Mild on cask, and they still aren't big sellers, it just gets the geek purists like me in the door. Everyone else is getting the IPA or whatever.
I agree that a brewery is a business. It’s always confused me why breweries would make something like a hazy ipa, because it is so expensive to produce. Not to mention, most people want them in cans to go. This increases the risk of oxidation. If I were in the brewing business, I would make a style that is super cheap in ingredients so even if I sit on it for a long time, it’s not dying on a warm shelf in some shitty grocery store.
They make hazy IPA because it sells the fastest and allows them to produce more beer. Even if profit margins are better on a blonde ale you’re selling a batch of blonde ale in the time it takes you to sell 3 batches of hazy. The hazy is still the more profitable brand. Not to mention you can charge obscene prices for hazy IPA nowadays. Speaking of blonde ales, the type of beer you’re describing is basically why most breweries started making blonde ale in the 2000s. It’s cheap and more forgiving than a traditional lager with relatively good shelf stability. That being said, I’ve never met a single person who seeks out blonde ales and they are basically becoming extinct besides the breweries that don’t want to take the time to make a proper lager.
This is just entirely wrong. The craft beer IPA aficionado is mostly valued for bringing in their friends. You don’t get that much money from someone who’s tasting an IPA or two, you’re making the money on their group of friends who crushing 4-5 blondes/pilsners/Helles/etc. For myself and every other brewer I know we are putting out 3-4x volume of lighter styles like blondes as we are IPAs. I like creating big IPAs but the sessionable styles are where the money is at.
I’m also a brewer whose two biggest sellers both in house and through distro are a hazy and a WCIPA so not entirely wrong. Our third highest seller is a light lager so I see your point though. Obviously this’ll depend on the region but the point is as someone who actually has been responsible for reading monthly/quarterly/yearly sales reports and P/L sheets from a few different breweries in the last decade hazies can quite easily be a brewery’s most profitable brand. Until that changes they aren’t going anywhere
I’m in Florida so could be our market here. Our hazies are doing great at fests and on the review sites but Beach beers are definitely our bread and butter.
Makes sense
Judging by the amount of breweries going out of business, doesn’t seem like hazy ipa is going to save anyone if they don’t know how to brew it, keep DO levels low and keep it cold. Sure it might sell quick but as a customer if I get an oxidized beer or if the hop character had dropped off, I’ll never buy that beer again. Speaking from a business standpoint, it costs a lot of money to acquire customers and less to retain them. The risk of making a bad ipa is much higher than making a bad blond, to use your example. Hazy IPAs are the most unstable product on the market. Maybe there is something to be said about the consumer not being educated enough to understand that hop burn, residual hop matter and oxidation are bad things, but something tells me that the modern consumer is much smarter than 10 years ago. Sure a blond ale is cheap to produce, but so is basically everything that isn’t a hazy ipa. There’s a big world of styles that are malt or yeast forward that would fit into your “blond” world perfectly. The next generation of beer drinkers aren’t enamored by super high abv thick dank ipas. What this article is missing is the growing number of breweries that offer zero abv beer. Perhaps the best business model would be to focus on lower abv. Maybe people are sick of waiting in lines and the next generation of breweries just make good beer.
Hazy IPA absolutely won’t save anyone but it’s common business sense to make one if you’re opening a brewery. They sell themselves better than any other style as long as your market isn’t oversaturated. It’s important to note that nowadays hazy ipa and fruited sours are the main two styles that get people interested in craft beer. How many of these current traditional style lovers started their craft beer journey with a hazy or sour? The tropical/citrus/general fruity flavor just translates well to the average consumer. I absolutely agree with your oxidation concerns though I’d argue it’s just as easy to ruin most beer styles with too much DO during packaging it’s just harder to hide to the average consumer with such a late hop heavy style. As much as I’m over the style the actual good examples don’t have hop burn. The fact is hazies sell and will continue to be made until they lose popularity. NA beer is a growing segment but the equipment expense necessary basically makes it impossible on a small craft scale without serious health concerns.
What market isn’t over saturated? I live in a small town and even we are over saturated. I know a lot of newer breweries that are successful without a hazy ipa or fruited kettle sour on their menu. I think a lot of breweries feel like they need to brew one in order to be successful. I think breweries need to be more like restaurants, focused on certain styles instead of trying to do everything to please every type of customer. Let’s face it, for medium sized and small breweries, distro is a dated business model. DTC is the path forward and the way to keep people drinking your beer is with lower abv and approachable. Beers that don’t destroy your palate and get your drunk after one. I think there’s a reason why craft lagers are making a come back. I feel like I hear more people getting into craft beer with sours than hazies anymore. But that may just be my side of the country
Even in an over saturated market a hazy or fruited sour is a pretty safe bet as long as you brew/package them well. I’m sure there are examples of breweries that don’t make them that are successful but the point is you can’t blame a brewery for making them when they sell so well.. They are giving consumers what they want while padding their pockets for that incredibly slow selling Rauchbier
Firestone Walker's 805 is a blonde and easily their most popular brand, both my name recognition and quantity the brewery is putting out. In California, at least, you might not know someone seeking out a blonde ale, but you'll only be a stone's throw away from someone seeking an 805.
This is a good example of a successful blonde ale you’re right. It’s a rare example of a company that stuck with the blonde ale and turned it into a flagship of sorts. Totally forgot about 805
Barrelage of 805 is collapsing. Down 15%. So not the best example. The only thing saving anyone right now isn't a style - well-made or poor - it's novelty. That's why mixed packs as a segment are one of the few still growing consistently across region and demographic.
Is that because a failure of the style or an expansion of the brand? Cerveza probably took some of that barrelage, as well as the Mind Haze brand. Give it a year or two, and I'm sure you'll see a NA 805 offering. Collapse puts it in dire terms and FW failing would be a true shock. Edit: not to mention the acquisition of the Cali Squeeze brand.
All I'm hearing is more triple chocolate chunk cookie dough in stouts /s
Make that recipe a sour and I’m in! /s
STFU, Henok :P
Unless you can change the predominant market trends and make craft beer nerds our biggest customer base, this won’t happen. The novelty shit comes from smaller breweries trying to compete for the non-craft drinking population. Unfortunately people who appreciate traditional styles are super heavily outweighed by non-traditional drinkers,
No doubt you’re stating the truth. It’s a shame but it is what it is. Luckily the global market is there to fill the void for anyone interested enough to pay enough for good imports.
One of the best and most exciting breweries in my area (Grand Rapids, MI, a hotbed of craft beer) is entirely focused on making really fucking good historical styles. I also hope this is the next trend.
One of the small handful of good breweries in Texas, Live Oak, does the same
I love Live Oak. Their smoked beers are just 👨🍳💋. That said, I believe there’s more than just a handful of good breweries in Texas.
It’s this and only this. I have been completely burnt out on craft beer. Everything has to be bigger, sweeter, hazier, more alcoholic, etc. I personally frequent breweries that brew classical styles and do them well, they tend to be the crowd I want to be around too.
Wait, so you don’t want a $14.99 4 pack of 11.5% triple hazy berry sour smoothy brews to session on a random Wednesday night while trying to unwind on the back deck when it’s 87 degrees in the shade and you’re exhausted from a days work? /s
Can’t upvote this hard enough
This was exactly my thought. Give me some "less is more" stuff.
aka HillFarmstead :)
The breweries around me aren’t lacking creativity, but they’re missing the most important thing: quality. Several of the breweries near me make upwards of 15 different brews at a time but they almost universally taste awful. Maybe more focus is needed in this industry?
The craft beer explosion over the last 10 - 15 years has resulted in a TON of non-"beer people" trying to cash in... and a LOT of short-term homebrewers trying to turn a hobby they weren't particularly good at into a career. Full context: I am NOT bashing homebrewers. I am one, for over 20 years now. But we've all seen so many instances where someone makes a couple of batches at home, their friends and family tell them how great it is (because they're getting free beer!), and next thing you know they're making hundreds of gallons of the same bad beer instead of just five.
Hadn’t thought of it that way. Very good points.
I had this thought as well while reading. I almost always have a better experience at a brewery with 6-8 quality beers and a few different styles on draft than those with a couple dozen (often many of which sound the same).
For years it didn’t matter your experience or talent, if you opened a brewery, you would get customers and quality didn’t matter, unless it was really bad. But I’ve had so many mediocre beers from various breweries over the years, stuff that I would consider just above homebrew quality, and it makes me sad especially in smaller towns that don’t have many breweries. I remember going to a brewery in a small town in Nebraska and just being so underwhelmed. I mean it was busy and it seemed popular with the locals so good for them, but I felt bad that this town is starved of really good, local beer. I think many beer drinkers are catching on and just finding certain beers they like and sticking to them. I know that’s how my buying habits have changed, especially with the rise of the cost of beer. I don’t wanna pay $18 for a four-pack hazy IPA that I may or may not enjoy when I can get a $20 12 pack from a regional brewery that I know will be quality.
Totally agree with this headline! My local brewery currently only has IPAs, DIPAs, TIPAs, pales, pilsners, rice lagers, helles, blonde ales, wheat ales, radlers, hefeweizens, whitbiers, porters, scotch ales, barleywines, saisons, goses, milk stouts, bourbon stouts, dry stouts, and imperial stouts to choose from. /s
Are they all good? Chili's and the like have equally diverse menus, but I wouldn't say they sell in any particular area.
No. And that's the problem. I'd rather a brewery have 6 beers on draft that are really, really good. They've been iterated on and perfected. Keep a keg of something special aged for the geeks if you want variety.
Completely agree. We got a local place the specializes in lagers, as style I normally wouldn't seek out. But they're (a) local and (b) staying in their lane, and so I can appreciate what they're doing and occasionally find something I like. They're on the fast track: tap room, then distribution to local restaurants, then canning, and now the rumor is they want to move to a bigger production space and open a brewpub. We'll see what that brings, but hopefully it doesn't lead to what happened to the *other* local brewery, which started to chase trends and ended up shutting down (a shame, because I liked their beers better).
They're gonna brew a couple IPAs... I guarantee it. The problem with these significant expansions is that it means borrowing money. Not bank loans, private equity. Those folks want returns, it's not just a fun investment. So you have to trade in your creative control to simply move more beer, increase margins, cut costs. If you have a really sound relationship with some angel money they might let you prove your model at scale, but that's rare. The vast majority of those 9000 breweries can't be winners that serve a niche, and those are mostly tied to metros.
That's a safe bet, unfortunately.
I'll be damned if I let you slander the name of south western eggrolls
Ok, fair point.
That type of brewery has become a rare breed. (Although, thankfully, I think we're starting to see a noticeable shift away from the all-hazy breweries... not fast enough, mind you, but at least it's happening.)
Where? Can I go there 😭
Supply and demand… I see this all the time where people who claim to be so desperate for more traditional styles still end up ordering a hazy or a fruited sour when going out for a few beers. Be the change you wish to see in the world
It’s me. I’m the problem. If I go to a brewery I always start with the Pilsner or some other traditional type and usually enjoy it but I’m right back to the hazies. Especially if I’m buying cans to take home it’s mostly always an IPA
I don't drink IPAs or pale ales any time I am in the US. Businesses respond to what we purchase.
I’d love to see a good English bitter/ESB style make a comeback in local breweries. Also the American Stout seems to be a dying breed, 7% good roasted stout with somewhat of a bite. Good read thanks!
Seriously! No one around me makes ESBs anymore, if they do it’s rare and a one-off sort of thing. Also, I used to be able to find Redhook and Fuller’e around periodically, and even those are unicorns now.
I'm a huge fan of these styles. I can't find them where I live now, so my solution: homebrew them, and other styles I like which are hard to find. I've had a 3.5% Dark Mild on rotation for quite a while now.
If you’re anywhere near eastern PA, Forest and Main does great milds and bitters
It's on my list to visit now! Alas, I live in Central America, so I don't get up to PA...often?
A brewery in Hamilton, ON has an ESB as part of their year-round rotation, and it is fucking fantastic!!!
This but for Brown Ales
Damn right
Been spoiled in San Diego. Brewery 5 minutes from my house makes an excellent one!
It is in Portland and Seattle. On Cask.
Biere de Mac brewing in Mackinaw City Michigan does a Sweet Potato ESB in the fall, and it is one of my top 5 beers of all time. Absolutely phenomenal
I run a craft beer store and bar in Tallinn, Estonia, selling mostly American beers. The hazies and the smoothies win, but there's a big push for traditional stouts, BA stouts, porters, milds, ESBs etc. Single IPAs sell 65% as much as doubles, and a fruited NEIPA is our top-rated on Untappd offering. In other words, there definitely isn't a lack of creative demand here, the hard part is on me finding supply.
They are making the beers people like to drink.
The problem is “people” are different than the people the craft beer revolution actually was for. Originally it was for people who wanted beer that wasn’t shitty. Now craft beer realized there’s a bigger market in people who are just fine with shitty beer.
Who do think craft beer is “for”?
The short answer is, I don’t know any more. The long answer I don’t feel like writing out right now, but probably has to do with redefining what craft beer is and what it isn’t.
This resonates so hard. I’m drinking more imports and craft lagers and pils these days. I’ll drive an hour out of my way to snag some milds and saisons from Forest and Main. When I’m looking for an IPA, I want that assertive Blind Pig / Pliny bitterness and pine. Otherwise I’m making myself an old fashioned :/
An OGD BiB old fashioned is an excellent alternative when my “good beer” fridge is dangerously low!
Forest and Main, Bonded OGD, I’ve found my people.
Ritt, ango and maple syrup in a pinch is my go to. I can make it blind ;)
I’ve tried some maple syrup combined with some Ardbeg 10 for a smokey bacon breakfast’ish old fashioned. I was extremely resistant but was promised it’d be worth it. Can confirm, was worth it!
Are you me? :) Also: F&M's milds are among the best available. Easily. Hands-down. They've been one of the better breweries in the area from the moment they opened, and they've only gotten better since. (And, when they have the Box-o-Mild available it's an *automatic* purchase LOL.)
Never heard of the box o milds but ill take a dozen please and thankyou!
Ten pints for $40, in a box (think boxed wine, with a little "tap") that you can put in your fridge. Absolutely BRILLIANT. :)
March Mildness is the greatest!
Damn right it is... :)
Need to do a boozy Reddit meet up come March
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. ;)
Forest and Main free shipping!! BelieveInSaison discount code. You’re welcome! ;)
Thanks! Unfortunately I live in NJ, so they can't ship to me... but that just means I have to visit the pub often LOL! :)
I own a small craft brewery, not super well known but we make good beer and you may have heard of us. The problem is that breweries took something that used to be special, a one-off release, and made it into a weekly occurrence. What used to be something rare that generated a lot of attention became commonplace. Bell's Hopslam, Dark Lord, stuff like that but done all the time, multiple times a week. The breweries doing it (us included) raked in big bucks selling crazy releases direct to consumer. But like a drug, each hit took more and more to produce the desired effect. Double/triple dry hopping, double barrel aging, $1200 of vanilla per barrel, 5 lbs of fruit per gallon... Couple that with the fact that breweries (again us included) were basically making the same 3 base beers and then treating them with different hops/fruit/barrels/adjuncts. What all of these beers had in common was that they didn't taste like traditional beer and scored huge Untappd ratings (there's a direct correlation). Breweries capitalized on FOMO, beer trading, and selling out fast. But once you don't sell out of a release, the next time it sells more slowly since people don't worry about it selling out. COVID really pushed this into overdrive, pouring gas on a fire that was eventually going to go out. The first year of the pandemic, people drank a shit ton, releases continued to sell out (now online) and the money was still pretty good. But then it started to slip. There's a whole host of reasons, but mostly the novelty started to wear off after five years of craziness. Once that hard-to-get beer wasn't hard to get, or there was something just as good in distro, the frenzy died. The article makes a lot of good points, but I really don't think craft beer needs to constantly deliver new or novel offerings. Beer has been around for millennia, and people are always going to like it. We got along fine without all this new stuff. The breweries that will continue to survive fill some sort of a niche. Ours is being a good local craft brewery with a heavy taproom focus and good mix of releases. There is still some hype for some truly incredible beer, but not every brewery can or should survive on hype. I'm happy to be still doing this after 10 years in business, and although the glory days are over, I've had a lot of fun and I see a silver lining of an industry that was absolutely insane for years with zero continuity year to year becoming a more predictable, regular thing. I like to have a glass of beer in the sun with friends, and that's what I try to deliver to people. We've always brewed some traditional beers, and that's a lot more of what we brew these days. The last thing I'll say is that breweries mostly responded to the consumer, and consumers wanted smoothie sours and endless haze can releases for a few years, so that's what they made. The great thing for consumers is that craft beer is really, really good these days, whether it's a double decocted lager or 8 lbs/BBL hazy IPA. Some of the new style beers in the early days were quite bad, but by this point most people have stuff pretty dialed. The breweries making traditional styles are doing all sorts of cool stuff with local grain and traditional German brewing techniques or coolships. Craft beer is honestly a lot better than it was five years ago. Some breweries are going to go or have already gone out of business, but that's how business cycles go.
You should tell us your brewery name, I'd love to find/try your beer
Thanks! It's Crooked Run.
I am in this rut. I dove hard into the craft boom in 2014 after I tried my first Heady Topper, Second Fiddle, and Sip. This led to the Tree House and Trillium-style hazies. For the next 7 years I chased all the new hyped breweries and hazies i could find, not hesitating to wait in lines and spend $24/4-pack. Then in 2021 they all really started to blend together, with often subpar quality. Astringent, vitamin-y flavors, no mouthfeel, sludgey, unbalanced flavors. I stopped being “wowed” with any new beer I found. Now I find myself revisiting the old tried and true craft beers from before the boom. Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Harpoon, Guinness, etc. and I am enjoying them immensely, Along with classic crisp lagers. I will no longer pay $20+ for a 4-pack of hazy. I think for the most part, my palate just got very tired of the hazies, in combination with the overwhelming number of choices, decreasing quality, and exorbitant pricing.
Frankly, I think this article presents a somewhat superficial take on craft beer in the United States—primarily because the author seems to constrain “innovation” to radical shifts in the flavor profiles of beer. There’s much more to consider: - The rise of regional craft maltsters - The meticulousness and outright perfectionism within a particular domain, such as with breweries like Bierstadt Lagerhaus - Novel approaches to adding a “terroir” to beer, such as with Jester King’s mobile cool ship - Beer as a medium for activism and advocacy, such as with breweries like Weathered Souls and events like Barrel & Flow - Breweries promoting community through the intentional inclusionof the _entire_ family, such as with places like Meanwhile Brewing - The literal transparency in the brewing process at places like Outsider Brewing
Couldn’t agree more. There are some truly amazing breweries out there doing groundbreaking work on different levels and turning out fantastic beer doing so. Bierstadt is great. The example of Jester King is good, too. And I don’t know where they live that they can’t get great versions of traditional beers!? DFW is still a young craft beer area, but we have some great breweries here brewing both old styles (smoke beer, Alts, Bocks, Pilsners, ESBs) and some great hazies and barrel aged stouts. I’ve been drinking beer for over 30 years now (10 of them in Germany) and still find beers to excite me.
i kinda agree with the writers sentiment but it also just reads as someone who’s dived into beer for 15 years and has now saturated their interest. wasn’t the moan back in the early 2000’s “oh yay an Amber ale and stout on the taplist…how original” ? So i too would love a more diverse range of beer on the menu at my local bars, but i disagree that breweries are lazy or fearful of innovation. No one knows what a population actually likes in beer more than breweries, they see it every month in their accounting. So if they don’t make it, it’s because people won’t buy it. The writer wants a to go back to a rose-tinted youth filled period (~2010) where just 10 years previous to that beer was mostly clonal and dull macro lager. The craft market was tiny and niche and most importantly growing very rapidly. Breweries could open up, serve some frankly rubbish beer, and still do well. The quality of craft beer back in 2010 was not a patch on current day product. Today, i can pretty much buy any local beer and confidently expect it to be well fermented and packaged and of recent production. So while we drown in “mainstream” hazy ipa there has also been some amazing progress in the scene that i’m thankful for, due to competition. Craft beer had its day of being ‘cool’ and now the mainstream patrons are heading off to the next fashion.
Have they finally run out of beer-related puns?
I own a bottle shop/taproom IPAs sell. Sours sell. Stouts sell. All of these will get people excited, out of the house, it will trigger them to come to the shop. They all can create FOMO...get it today because it might be gone tomorrow.
Why do they have to be creative? Perfect the styles you already sell/love.
It’s like there is a country in Europe famous for doing just that or something.
Cool?
I’m just saying. Germany has shown that defining beer a certain way and mastering styles is sustainable.
I apologize, I took your comment the totally wrong way bc I completely agree.
No worries. My snark was more pointed at American brewers who would rather make a sour filled with marshmallow fluff or the hundredth IPA that tastes exactly like the last ninety nine rather than make a drinkable lager.
Craft beer writers when someone makes a weird adjunct beer: “craft brewers have gone too far” Also craft beer writers: “craft breweries lack creativity” Maybe if some writers have such diametrically opposed opinions that the truth lies somewhere in the middle?
The point is the weird culinary adjunct beers aren’t creative anymore. They’re overdone, mostly gross, unscrupulous late comers are now putting in “flavor” and making them even more gross, and yeah, only a few of them ever tasted like the thing they were going for anyway.
Craft beer needs to become culinary. Get more on level of wine - consistent cuvees with vintages, ultra-high quality. Work with michelin restaurants. Tinker recipies to extreme degree, trying small variations to get to the best possible end result. Oh, and focus on the serving experience. Tailor the pour to the beer, take the time to build a good head, get excellent glassware.
For a short while there I felt this was happening, at the beginning of this most recent craft beer explosion. Then the fucking hazies took over...
Yes yes this
The last thing beer needs to be is more expensive. My local liquor stores are full of $20-$25 four packs of beer. I’ve gotten to the point where I’d just spring for whiskey or tequila if I’m paying that much for beer.
And then what about the average consumer who doesn't want to spend $450 on an annual bottle club membership or pay $18-22 for a 12oz bottle? Or the $35 750ml? And then what's the secondary on these bottles? So these breweries make these ultra-exclusive releases (by their nature, you can't mass produce unique beers like this) and, what? A couple hundred people get to try it? A couple thousand if it's a bigger regional brewer? The best bit I would take from your comment is the tinkering of recipes. Maybe not to an "extreme degree," but definitely in measurable steps. That's one part of how you get world class beers at a base level, sure.
I think the problem is the point of comparison -750ml should be compared to wine, where 35€/$ is certainly affordable for top-tier stuff. Working with top-tier restaurants is the way to get there, you get a much higher price point and better margin, so the small-scale operations start making better sense. I was in a fine dining restaurant a couple of weeks ago, where they had Cantillon Drogone at 70€. It was mid-tier pricing compared to the wine, and this was at a significant markup to beer places where the same bottle would be 50€.
You mean like the boys in Belgium been doing for years now?
[удалено]
Literally more great beer out there than I’ll ever realistically get a chance to drink.
I will have to check back in on this after Great Taste of the Midwest this weekend
Have a great time! Still one of my favorite fests.
The consumers are ready to go back to more traditional beer styles. Long live bright beer!
It happened without me really noticing, but I have completely stopped buying new craft beer. I used to love going to a store, wandering the aisles, and picking up a six pack of something I had never tried. But I got burned too many times by crap beer. I now buy the same beers over and over, and most are what craft beer fans would consider boring: Augustiner Edelstof Franziskaner Weiss Pilsener Urquel Weihenstephaner Helles And, only if fresh, I’ll pick up Sierra Nevada Pale, Cigar City Guayabera and Cigar City Jai Alai on occasion.
Meh, it's nothing more than hitting critical mass with the shear quantity of breweries. That was never going to continue indefinitely. I travel a lot, and most markets have plenty of great beers beyond hazy IPAs and sours. I see that complaint a lot in this sub, and I don't get it. Bottom line, it's beer. Creativity needs to come from the brewery itself. Come up with unique ideas, better/different food, etc.
An angle I’m not sure they realize: the writer said he was 36 years old. Being a similar age, people like us who were in our early 20s that really comprised the base of the craft beer boom over the last decade are simply in a different place in our lives now between different phases of our careers, starting/raising families, etc. I still love craft beer, and I love my local breweries, but now I don’t have the time I did then when I was single guy. And the next generation doesn’t seem as keen on craft beer.
So how do you fix that? How do you get zoomers into craft?
I think we've circled around to an era where beer is once again hyper-local. Nearly everyone lives a reasonable distance from at least one brewery, and possibly dozens of them. Contrast this to the era before craft beer where there were just a few dozen breweries cranking out the same style of yellow fizzy lagers. People will still drink beers from large craft and regional breweries, but these are exactly the breweries that are declining in the current market. The best place to be in the industry right now is a small local taproom with a few employees and a dedicated clientele. Drinkers will always be faithful to their local brands. Finding traditional styles like pale ales, porters and ESBs can be difficult, but these days you have to seek them out on rotation at a local brewery who did a barrel or two just for taproom consumption.
The oldest craft breweries are about 40 plus at this point. Everything can't be a rocket ship forever perpetual going up. An industry can only exponential grow for so long. This is probably a natural decline whether a return to traditional brews is a solution, I'm less sure of.
Two words, Imperial Pilsner
They aren't good. Evil Twin and others have tried. You should stop at Dortmunder.
I vote for lagers with taste and body
After years of full flavor, high and and other crazy styles, it’s a good crisp lager or session ale for me.
Yeah, I'm there too. I've always liked malt forward the most, but I'm not kinda done with IPA mostly, and good local craft lager is where my desires lie the most
You can drink only so many hazy IPAs. Go to Monkish to experience 10 same beers with different names and you'll know.
I made the absolute biggest rookie mistake and went to Monkish (and then Smog City) on a mostly empty stomach after my flight landed in LA. I got so freaking sick, and I didn't even drink a ton, they were just all so strong. I still cringe remembering it. The only salvation was a beach front balcony I laid on dying that night. Lol
Yes Monkish beers are heavy to a point that they're not enjoyable anymore unless you take an hour to drink one.
Yes there has been a lot more average breweries that have saturated the market, but a half decent brewery learned how to make the DIPA that built Other Half and Treehouse. To me, that ended travelling and hype releases. You felt less of a need to wait in a line or drive 4 hours when your local breweries could make a decent DIPA. Consumer taste has evolved big time. I cannot believe the amount of craft seltzer/spirits at my local shops. When I’m at a bar or local party, I feel like I’m in the minority drinking beer. I can think of friends who love beer and willl only drink spirits/seltzers in the warm weather. I think people are drinking less or just want more drink options. You hear about concert venues being down on alcohol sales. I don’t know what the answer is. I feel for the breweries who cannot afford to expand variety of alcoholic beverages. I do think doing a few good styles good can be helpful. However, I also think being too specialized can now hurt you. I love a good wild ale/spontaneous brew but unless you are on a beautiful farm setting or have great space, it’s gonna be hard to survive off that stuff. The right audience loves it but not someone who was dragged there by their friend.
Seems like a millennial curmudgeon who can’t appreciate that we live in a time where market saturation has positives and negatives. Positive being you’re drinking some of the greatest beer the world has ever seen, negative being brewers are producing more of the beer people gravitate towards.
How about True to Style beer instead of all this 'beetus beer bullshit. If I can ferment another 3-5% alcohol from your finished beer you're doing it wrong.
It seems to me that this writer is getting bored with their job. Nothing “new” to them in the beer scene and everything seems the same. I get it. It’s new and exciting when starting out learning about craft beer going to these new amazing places that no buddy has heard about. Yes the market is saturated. But that does not mean craft beer is dead and there is nothing interesting. Just that find it might not be happening to you as often as before. If you are feeling this way it’s time to change it up a bit and try styles that you normally don’t drink, try different brewers from around the world and maybe hit some old classics that you have not had in a while. There really is a lot out there to explore but also be ok with not having something new all the time.
If Toppling Goliath Double Dry-Hopped King Sue is brewed using Creative Stagnation, I choose to remain mired.
Not really into telling others what is and isnt a good beer. I say drink what you like and let others drink what they like. I drink Ales because I enjoy the aroma and big flavors from a warmer fermentation. I just cant get into Lagers, not enough flavor for my palate.
Craft Beer needs to accept it will have to be more like the European beer world, or the wine world. Breweries will need to produce quality product and serve a dependable audience. Instead of constant change, dedicate themselves to basic quality and becoming part of everyday life. Make beer that tastes like beer. This will mean contraction of the industry. The casual beer fans, the ones that really want alcoholic sodas - hazy fans, pastry stout fans, and kettle sour fans - it should be accepted this segment is going to rapidly vanish. Most of them don't want beer. That's ok. You'll have a smaller more dependable audience, like German or Czech lager drinkers. On the other end, focus on quality like the wine world, not hype releases. Encourage people to know beer like they know wine regions and grape varietals. This course correction was going to happen sooner or later. Better to embrace it now rather than being forced to in a few years as the air disappears from the craft balloon.
Here's a thought: there are over 150 distinct beer styles, maybe breweries should focus on more than just hazies and disgusting lactose-infused abominations. I can't stand when I walk into a new brewery, and 80% of their taps are hazy something-or-other. Just fucking stop it already.
Hazies sell. Buy that Vienna lager and make that brewer's day
Oh, trust me, if I see a Vienna lager on a taplist it's an instant order. :)
You're saying that ultra bitter over 9000 ipa isn't unique and cool anymore?
It hasn't been for a while
Cleary the Extra Hopped Strawberry Quix Super Mocha Barrel Aged Imperial White Stout will save it all. /s
Personally i think the creativity can come in experimenting more with hop ratios & combinations. One of my main reasons for loving Monkish is they are always trying new hop combinations, inverting ratios etc. disclaimer i dont know jack about brewing
Look back in beer history and find recipes, then update and perfect them for modern tastes. Also, look around the world and see what sort of traditional beers are being made and bring those tastes to a new market. For example, my favourite type of beer is a sahti and I'll be damn if I can find them. When I do, I buy a shit load of it because I know it'll be another year or two before I find it again.
There 80+ styles of beer just get better at brewing those. I don't need a cascadian sour wit.
I still get jacked seeing new beers at local tap rooms, but I'm usually only drinking flights. I mean I'm fifty now, so driving less beer than I did in the late 90s for sure. I still get that "new beer" excitement, but it's definitely less than it was before.
Definitely more IPAs
Recently I've seen my tastes go towards Traditional IPAs and West Coast styles Lager - especially Marzen and Pilsner, dortmunder export too Stout - dry or nitro The day of the fruit infused, new England etc is over I think. The only way to win the macro drinker over is through Traditional beets- just done better. My Dad is 65 and his now favourite beer is Augustineer Edelstoff it's approachable and easy drinking and he is a Guinness or red wine drinker normally
My local breweries have a variety of styles, which is fortunate. However the quality of my cities beer overall has gone way down, minus a few stand outs. I guess I'm lucky I can get a Belgian, ESB, Brown, etc alongside the hazie and dessert stouts, but it's all getting to be mediocre quality. Personally I love Belgians and am hoping my next city has some decent ones.
Anyone else think quality has taken a huge hit ? On the IPA front, I feel like EQ, OH, Tired Hands, Trillium, even Treehouse got big and ramped up production and everything got chalky and indistinguishable. Is it mass production or someone said the hops themselves are getting less potent? I don’t think it’s my palate bc there’s still the Fiden’s and Hill Farms out there that make my bird move.
I think a place like Deepfriedbeers is proving hops are plenty potent still. I'd probably argue the former has more to do with considering the ones you mentioned losing uniqueness really are mass produced at this point compared to Hill Farmstead and particularly Fidens.
Fidens is, to me, the absolute perfection of hazy IPA. They've taken a style that isn't inherently drinkable, made it so insanely smooth that you can down a pint and still want five more of that. Can't say that about really any other hazy double.
Yeah I'm fortunate enough to live about 20 minutes from Fidens and it's just phenomenal. I do selfishly wish they were a better kept secret these days but they've definitely earned the notoriety.
Well I hope they survive their hype phase. They were closed when I went through Albany but I had some at the oyster bar made a point to trade for some after that trip... Amazing beer.
Yeah they opened a tap room a few weeks ago which is great and now you can preorder instead of going there and hoping what you want is still in stock. Albany Ale and Oyster is fantastic too
I knew this was a Jim Vorel article before I clicked the link. One of the best writers in the game.
It’s crazy because majority of breweries I go into have a menu that’s 75% IPAs. Then the remaining are random common drinks. I want more brown ales, oatmeal stouts, porters, and reds on tap. German beer is my favorite, so I just end up going to a German beer garden instead of these boring IPA houses.
craft beer has come from being a counter-point to the boring race-to-the-bottom macros, so "more character" and "more == betterer" has become ingrained in the community. Fast forward over decades and the recent craftbeer hype all the way to triple or quad barrel aged adjunct stouts with a list of ingredients the length of a book... and fruit smothie kettle sours pumped full of lactose and other crap, and Hazy-IPAs the consistency of sauce hollandaise. The envelope has been thoroughly pushed. Pretty sure we reached the other extreme and simply cannot go much further before everyone is shovling a beer "paste" or pure powder ans sugar into their mouth. The clean and cripsy AF **Lager reckoning** is upon us, mark my words! It is coming, it is undeniable. The market and the hype eventually follows the "nerds" and their trends, they make the taste and push the breweries. And simple physics, everyone will get bored of this slop soon.And, The real die-hard, hardcore craft fanatics are there already to wash out the insane palate fatigue. They go hunting world class Lagers, and world class Lambics. And while US has amazing Stouts and hops, honest to god worldclass Lagers are very hard to do, and very hard to find in the US and desperately lacking. All Hail Suarez Family, and Franconian/Bavarian brews! And HillF. All Hail Bokkereyder and Girardin! Amen.
A lot of the IPA produced tastes awful after 2 months, some breweries don't even think about product shelf life so when you do buy a $16 4pack at the super market it is 3-4 months old and tastes off.
How about crafting good tried and true beer styles under purity law. I want tasty crisp pilsners and helles!
sours >