As a craft beer lover, I'm really at odds with what to think about where the scene is today. There are so many breweries out there that are brewing some really great beer and coming up with some interesting styles. In many places there's a recapturing of what I'd call "beer as place" with beirgartens, brew-pubs, and breweries themselves having a more open and inviting experience to hang out and drink beer. It's tasty, fun, and enjoyable.
But there are downsides to all of this as well. The market is SUPER trendy, and breweries have the choice of either jumping on the bandwagon of the style-du-jour or being left by the wayside. Because there are so many breweries and they are so young, the overall quality is just okay with maybe one beer being notable and the rest being slightly sub par. Then you have this issue of investment firms and bigger conglomerates buying up successful microbrews and sucking the life out of them.
I love beer, and in many ways you could say that the American beer scene has never been better. But that doesn't mean that there aren't dark sides to all of that. I drank plenty of Magic Hat over the years, and it's a shame that there are certain names out there (Goose Island is one that comes to mind) that used to stand for a solid craft brewing operation that are now just marketing veneers on top of investment bankers and big corporations.
I'm really getting tired of the IPA fad. I loved IPAs when they were a niche product and you could sample most of them in a reasonable time span. Now they're 90% of the shelf space and other deserving varieties are hard to find. Most of the newcomers are poorly executed hacks that follow the simplistic formula: IPA == bitter hops, therefore let's overload on hops. I won't drink any IPA that wasn't around 10 years ago just to filter out the garbage.
I remember the last time IPAs where the major trend (where most of those 10+ year old IPAs come from). Honestly I feel this round of Hazy/NE IPAs is far less bitter than what was happening back then. Much more floral notes in IPAs and the focus seems to be much more on mouth feel.
It's funny to see IPAs dominate again, I remember when the last fad ended because hops became scarce and that gave way to the trend of absurdly strong imperial stouts. The sour trend was interesting but I'd much rather have a bad IPA than a bad sour.
And while IPAs dominate, at least on the east coast, there are a surprisingly large number of lagers, pilsners and lighter ales being put out by craft brewers, breweries are even making normal stouts! People always complain about the trending beers, but I still find more variety now that ever before in my drinking life.
Stronger beers will always dominate because frankly they're more interesting and diverse even if they aren't more drinkable. There's a lot more you can do with a barrel aged imperial stout than a lager.
Something else I've heard is that IPAs take less time to create, so new breweries with limited capacity start out with them to try to keep income steady
As someone that just wants a refreshing but quality lager there's nothing for me in this current wave. It's all group think. IPAs and Imperial Stouts everywhere. To the extent that you will find entire categories of beer on beer rating sites with nothing above a 4/5 in that category due to the groupthink that says more flavor = higher ratings. Refreshing, crisp and other such metrics don't count right now due to the current fashion. Overpowering flavor is what we judge beer on.
I was a beer snob but find myself mostly drinking mexican lagers these days. It's summer and I don't want an 8% imperial stout or a brewery's mediocre first attempt at a hazy IPA
I have similar preferences and share your frustration. I wonder if part of the problem is that "refreshing and crisp" are hard to quantify. Because you can't put objective numbers to them like IBU or ABV, you can't hope to sell your beer by having "better numbers" than your competitors.
IMHO americans aren't big on 'subtle' when it comes to anything food/drink (or really anything else) for the same reasons - 'really good beef' isn't the same as 'farm kobe with quadruple 5-adjective bacon and 10 cheeses' when it comes to a hamburger, and who wants a 'boring' ice-cream sundae when you can have a 'quadruple caramel chocolate oreo(tm) desertsmasher(tm)' or whatever have you
beer wise i tend to prefer english bitter ales which tend to be very well balanced and flavorful but are also subtle and not as 'clear' to explain as 'turbo bloodhound from hell ultra quadruple cascade hops mega super IPA brah'
same reason (+ more 'business' focus) we have comic-book branded wines which outline grape ratios in percentages with no thought as to terroir instead of subtly branded wines emphasizing regions/appelations/houses as in europe.
same thing is going on with the legal mj market where ultra-high THC percentages and max flavor are the focus
Huh, I've actually seen a move against that. A few years ago, the "West-coast style" IPA with enormous amounts of hops was the vogue beer.
Today, you're much more likely to see a "New England IPA", "hazy" or "juicy IPA" in the star spot. This style is much less bitter, with a bigger body and a ton of sweet juice notes. It's a heavy beer but man is it tasty and refreshing.
Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing is a good example of the style that's widely distributed. Almost every craft brewer has one or two offerings of their own that are typically just as good.
I'm not much of a hop head but the New England style IPA is by far my favorite on the market. I'd encourage you to give it a try before swearing off IPAs forever.
Biggest issue with the hazy IPA style is that they aren’t as well suited for having multiple over the course of an evening. A bit too sweet and thick and sometimes heavy on lactose to really enjoy several.
I feel like it's because an IPA is difficult to mess up. As an amateur brewer, the IPAs always seemed to taste 'fine' whereas my amateur skills/setup were never able to produce a decent lager or wheat, nevermind even more complex styles.
That's why I usually try the non-IPAs whenever I try a new brewery; I am also usually disappointed...
No kidding! Tree House was founded in 2011. You won't find anyone calling their beers formulaic garbage.
I understand the want to change it up. I seek out breweries that I haven't been to before or that have a deep catalog of beers that aren't found on shelves. Flights are a great way to try those beers, and their styles are usually of more variety.
One of my favorite breweries is Hermit Thrush in Brattleboro, Vermont. They specialize in sours, mostly aged. They source their aging barrels from all types of industries. Not only does the same recipe result in a different beer across multiple barrels, the same recipe results in a different beer each time a barrel is used.
If you look, you will find so much to explore. The space might feel dominated by IPAs, but other styles are benefitting from the rise of beer culture.
Speaking of Tree House, I think we're seeing a shift where the East Coast is now the dominate force in the craft brewing scene. I've lived on both coasts multiple time and typically would always vouch for West coast beers dominating for a long time, but the stuff coming out of NE and NYC these days is amazing.
Even more shocking to me is what happened to ciders. Even with Seattle/WA ciders, which used to be far better than east coast stuff, taste like soda by comparison. There are a ton of incredible ciders on the east coast that are much drier, more nuanced and drinkable than current West Coast ciders. East coast ciders are a nice happy space between a sparkling wine and a beer. Honestly disappointed that the west coast has remained relatively stagnant recently.
Hermit Thrush is an amazing brewery, and I stock up every time I’m in the area. I strongly agree with your comment, if you look outside of IPAs there are lots of really creative breweries in New England doing great things.
I feel like there has been a welcome proliferation of styles, at least in my area. There are multiple breweries concentrating on lager styles and multiple breweries concentrating on sours. (Everybody has their styles that they don't get the popularity of, and for me, it's sours. I like a few from time to time, but it mystifies me to see shelves and shelves of them, and I rarely feel like trying a new one.) My favorite development in recent years is that there are a variety of dry stouts available to me, instead of just Guinness.
Regardless, sorry to tell you, but IPA has long since passed its initial fad stage. New styles of IPA can take over the IPA niche in an annoying way once in a while, but IPAs as a category have reached a stable level of popularity that seems to be sustained as new generations of beer drinkers enter the scene.
Really sorry you feel that way bud. Honestly, I totally get it — IPAs are way over-represented in the craft beer scene, especially in CA where I'm at. However, their prominence has led to a really interesting market of new IPAs that use brand new styles of hops, or hops that traditionally have been unavailable in the US market. For example, hops from New Zealand have made their way to the US and now that the trendiness of "magic mystery" hops from another place has died down, some beers made with them are just fantastic and taste nothing like the IPSs of yesteryear.
I totally get being tired out of an extremely prominent style, but I'd encourage you to seek out some brews made with new hops as some of them are just very different and exciting. Of course, there's tons of other beer out there that's not an IPA, so by all means please continue to explore those spaces too!
You might want to look at hazy IPAs a.k.a. New England-style IPAs. They've completely transformed the market, and they're the first hoppy beers I've ever really liked.
They're not bitter at all, and instead they focus on extracting the fruit juice flavors of the hops. A lot of them taste like alcoholic orange juice mixed with other kinds of juice. I've developed a huge taste for them, and they're the perfect antidote for the storm of bitter nasty IPAs that have been flooding the market until a few years ago.
If you're looking for something from brewery that sells their products nationwide to sample, Lagunitas Hazy Wonder is really good. If you're in Texas, also look into anything from Tupps or Manhattan Project.
I long for the days when my college friends would bring me bottles of Augustiner in their suitcase when they came to visit. Absolutely boring. Utterly perfect.
See, I like cloying. Before hazies became a thing, I'd mostly drink wee heavies (strong scotch ales) and milk stouts.
I also live in Texas, where it gets really damn hot and humid out, and the refreshing citrus taste of hazies really helps deal with the heat in a way that wee heavies and milk stouts just don't.
Edit: I've also seen, thanks to Drizly, a new trend of light hazies that's starting to appear. They're a bit too thin for me, but if you don't like cloying you can always check them out. Sixpoint Trail Haze and Firestone Flyjack are the ones I've seen.
I too am a big fan of the New England-style IPA. I keep coming back to Maine Beer Company Mo, offially classified as a "Pale Ale" but since it's NE I'll give it a pass. Lunch is another good one from them, which is more bitter than Mo but really good.
I get the impression that Belgians are going to be the next IPA. I'm seeing lots of mediocre ales slapping on the "Belgian-style" moniker with nothing in the bottle that justifies their claim.
Most of the "Belgian-style" beers I tasted have been crap. Recently I tried Allagash White and was pretty impressed with it. But, whenever possible, I just go with an actual Belgian beer.
Back in the late 90's I fell in love with a Belgian beer called Moinette that came in a large bottle with a cork on top. It had a high alcohol level at the time. Loved it! To this day, it's still my favorite beer ever.
The bad IPAs you are talking about have dialed up the bitterness (because they seem to think that's what an IPA is all about) but are unable to create any of that wonderful complexity, aroma and flavor from the hops used. I absolutely hate these simplistic IPA clones, which are mostly found in supermarkets and give IPAs (and craft beer) a bad name.
Completely agree. A good IPA can be great, but I feel like they've become almost synonymous with craft beer in general. I've heard people order "the hoppiest beer you've got" because it's gotten to the point where hops == good_beer and it just rubs me the wrong way.
I've personally witnessed/been involved with the quality decline and the trendiness you speak of with two other "craft" markets - coffee in the mid 90's and liquor distilleries in the past 10 years.
When I talk to tourists here in Seattle, of course they eventually ask about the best coffee places. If they're at least able to add "not Starbucks," I'm honest with them and tell them that there's really only two downtown that I like. These days, there are plenty of roasters, but the majority are pretty meh to outright bad.
Same thing with craft distilling in the past 10 years. The first wave of small batch distillers were revolutionary, but then many imitators jumped on the bandwagon.
Bars and restaurants pitch them as being "local" and therefore, good. Being local has nothing to do with being good. Some of the worst alcohol I've had were "local." It's gotten to the point where I purposely avoid ordering anything "local" unless I know who's involved in the distillery. And don't get me started on "craft vodka."
As with the discussion of online communities (reddit, Facebook) recently, I wonder if there's anything that remains good once it gains popularity. Or maybe I'm just an elitist hipster.
Slate and Anchorhead as mentioned in another response. Honorable mentions to Elm and Bluebeard.
I've actually spent many years in Sacramento and occasionally go back. Sorry, absolutely no worthy coffee there, but you'll have some great cocktail bars! Go try Shady Lady, Jungle Bird, and Grange.
> The market is SUPER trendy, and breweries have the choice of either jumping on the bandwagon of the style-du-jour or being left by the wayside. Because there are so many breweries and they are so young, the overall quality is just okay with maybe one beer being notable and the rest being slightly sub par. Then you have this issue of investment firms and bigger conglomerates buying up successful microbrews and sucking the life out of them.
If there's hope, and it's hard to see sometimes, it's that most of the trends are at most regional. It's more rare than not that one of these trends jumps coasts, for instance. Many of these trends seem to be truly localized, or at least move in waves. (Anecdotally, by the time my West Coast friends were talking about hazy IPAs/New England IPAs, the trend had already come and gone in Kentucky.) From the level of "everybody in my city is drinking the same thing" perspective it feels the same, but from a high level it mostly means that no big corporation is themselves dominating the trends, almost all of them look to be following the trends, lagging them quite a bit, and/or entirely missing them. Goose Island, to follow your example, is no longer seen as an innovator even if folks don't know the why is that they are a brand arm of A-B InBev (the international conglomerate owners of Budweiser, etc), and no longer "local" despite how much they pretend to be.
The last nationally distributed beer I can recall trending as a fad is the one mentioned in this article, Magic Hat #9, and as the article itself points out, it is possible to take comfort that in building that success model Magic Hat more accidentally burnt national distribution bridges behind them than pave the way for more conglomerates to follow (or even the shell of themselves owned by a conglomerate to continue to succeed at that level), all the while paving behind them communities more likely build locally, trend regionally at best.
I used to be really into discovering beers, but I usually just drink Founders All Day IPA these days, with a German Pilsner as a backup. There are only a couple months out of the year here in Florida where I'd want something that over 5%, though.
As I venture more into my 30's, I almost exclusively drink session beers when I want something hoppy. Drinking even one 8%+ ABV DIPA leaves me pretty much useless the next day.
Founders All Day IPA is a solid go to. Other session IPAs/APAs I enjoy are Notch Left of the Dial, Lagunita's DayTime, Harpoon Rec League, and Zero Gravity Little Wolf APA.
Yes, it is! Back when I was in the middle of my discovery phase we went to a Cigar City release party for their barrel-aged stouts. It was June or July, and everyone was packed into the warehouse - sweaty and impatient, as the event was a mess. But, the Cucumber Saison was the best thing about the experience. Unfortunately, it's only good (imo) on tap.
But, to your point, even Cigar City's flagship IPA is 7.5% and way too heavy for the climate. We find it very ironic that a brewery from Michigan makes a wider, better range of refreshing beers.
I hope they're able to stay open after all of this, but my favorite brewery in the area is Flying Boat (St. Pete). They don't distribute, but their beers are consistently refreshing across styles. It's located at the end of a quiet, suburban neighborhood, so you you can have a beer outside and watch the neighbors mow their lawns.
I supported American craft beer since the mid-90's until a few years ago when everyone went nuts with hops. American breweries seem to have become a copycat industry.
Nowadays I'm going back to European beers. In particular, I'm looking for German doppelbock these days. But anything from Belgium is usually excellent.
Americans are as much sheep with beer now as they were when your choices were Bud, Michelob and Schlitz. Overhopped beer is disgusting and generally (badly) hiding infections or stale malt tastes. The only good thing you can say about it, besides the fact that it's estrogenic enough to make boobs grow[1], is it tastes as shitty when it travels as it does when it's fresh.
If you're feeling down on the US craft beer scene just visit Europe (after Covid runs it's course) and you may realize that US craft beer is quite strong by comparison.
I started drinking in the mid-2000s. This was around when the American craft brew scene was really taking over the nation, but the jokes all my European colleagues told were about how American beer is piss-water. Imagine my surprise when I went to Europe, this fabled land of "real beer", and found that they had at most one or two taps at the bar, and asked if I wanted "dark" or "light". No brand names, no styles, no variety. Just a perfectly adequate, ho-hum ale, pint after pint. This is better than our huge, burgeoning, incredibly active and creative craft beer scene?
It seems like the "American piss-water" jokes have finally subsided today, but for a good decade there, I was real defensive about the American beer scene :)
[*] Note: This is a friendly, lighthearted anecdote about my personal experience 15 years ago. Please take it in the spirit it is intended. I miss you, Europe.
The old brewer's joke which goes like this (I'll use your examples): A Budweiser salesman, a Coors salesman, and an Anchor Steam salesman meet in the hotel bar at a beer convention. The Budweiser man says, "I'll have a Budweiser." The Coors man says, "I'll have a Coors." The Anchor Steam man says, "Just water for me." The other two look at him and say "What? Just water?" "Well," he says, "since you guys aren't having beer I won't either."
Europe is far too big a geography to pin down beer, it's mostly concentrated in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Czech where you find the right climate for the ingredients and hence the beer culture (of course you find beers in France, but they have a larger wine culture).
The differences between them are also huge with Irish dark stout, British pints without collar, German lager only made from basic ingredients, Belgian specialty beers, etc.
The effect of tradition and culture makes almost every beer in those regions taste perfectly decent and some very good, while in the US most are piss-water and some might indeed be very good.
With Bud Light still having the biggest market share, I believe the piss-water jokes still stand today.
In my experiences with German beer, most pubs will carry the locally-brewed brand and that's about it. Sometimes it's local pride, sometimes it's because the pub is sponsored by the brewery to do so, sometimes it's both. Beer seemed more about the Gemütlichkeit than the culinary experience.
I was there a few years ago in the UK, and I found it to be a mixed bag. While most brewpubs I went to all had very similar beers in the styles one would expect, I found a couple places that really stuck out to me. For example, I discovered Brew Dog (originally from Scotland) while I was there and while, and they have since expanded to the US and kept producing great beer. That discovery, in contrast with being able to taste "classic" English beers made for an interesting trip.
However, that's the UK. Elsewhere I think there is much higher representation of the styles of a particular country. Germany epitomizes this with their beer purity law...
Unfortunately they’re known for several sketchy business behaviors. It’s a shame because when I lived in Europe they were one of the few pubs that had unique craft beers in my town.
I went to MBCC in Copenhagen last year. Was going to go this year but... we'll see. One thing that made it interesting was that seemingly half of the brewries were American, which was really nice for us. We were able to focus on the stuff that the locals weren't as interested in, and vice versa.
Anyway, had a ton of great conversations with Europeans about this. We were sad that it's really tough to get Mikkeller around here, and they were like "I cannot believe you say that while you live near Jester King."
Vermont today has much better beer than Magic Hat (even at its height). They tried a lot of different stuff, and most of it just wasn't very enjoyable. What Magic Hat did have was beautiful marketing and wider distribution.
It has to be partially by choice, but The Alchemist and Lawson's make some of the best beer I have ever had, but they are both impossible to find outside of New England and a few parts of New York.
I recently moved back to Vermont, and one of the first things I did was purchase Heady Topper. Even less than five miles from the brewery, it was hard to find!
From what I can tell, New England IPAs–especially the coveted ones such as Heady Topper–really only work when you can control for freshness.
As soon as the beer gets canned its got 2-4 weeks where you can drink it and say "wow, that's amazing". After that you'll have it and think "ok, a bit overhyped".
Distributing beer throws freshness out the window. A liquor store may put it in the back for a month before they throw it on the shelf and then your prospective customers won't get the best impression your beer can offer, as it's tarnished while waiting in that can. So now there's this surge of brewery controlled distribution where you make these pilgrimages to buy a bunch of beer that they'd canned only a few days prior, attracting people to enjoy it when it tastes its best and spread the word.
Lawson's started brewing at Two Roads in CT and got a distributor in CT and it's been a lot easier to find at least here in NJ within the past year. I also recently got Heady and Focal down here but I am not sure where the distributor got it from or if it was a one off thing. You probably already know about them but Hill Farmstead is my favorite in VT. I used to go there a few times a year when I lived closer by.
Sip of Sunshine has always been brewed at TwoRoads. Super Session is also brewed there. The rest of the line up is local at the Waitsfield or Warren facility. Double Sip came before Sip as well.
Alchemist AFAIK only has local distribution within 25 miles of the brewery in Stowe by their own trucks/vans.
(adding) If you find yourself in the central VT area, the Lawson's tap room is really nice facility, definitely check it out.
I still find Hill Farmstead nearly impossible to find, even being in Vermont. They make great beer, but also show that exclusivity adds a lot to the mystique.
For HF, take an afternoon off sometime and go to the brewery to pick up some growlers. This was more fun pre-COVID, but at least the line is shorter now.
Vermont has phenomenal beers if you like hoppy IPAs. Besides being a very fun city, most bars in Burlington, VT carry beers from the local breweries around there: Lawson's (Sip of Sunshine), the Alchemist (Heady Topper), Fourteenth Star (Tribute), Zero Gravity, Hill Farmstead, and more.
If you ever end up in MA, Tree House is worth checking out and has 4 of the top 20 beers on Untappd right now. Vitamin Sea in Weymouth, MA is also very good if you're closer to the coast.
They do in a town with a decent craft scene. It's just the new places don't always have their cleanliness protocols on lock after scaling up from their garage and a super hoppy IPA can hide a lot of off notes. Run far away fom a new place that opens with only six IPAs and no other styles; they're hiding some grossness.
In Denver off the top of my head, Hogshead specializes in cask, Prost brews most of their beers according to Reinheitsgebot, Crooked Stave specializes in wild yeast sours. There's a bunch of others too.
Nowadays my go-to beers are either my local places with no/limited distribution or grabbing a pint or two at some random place while out of town, so it's kinda hard to give specific, actionable, recommendations.
"New England" IPAs aren't overly hopped, have more of a citrus character, and are not as astringent as classic IPAs. I don't like super-hopped beers, but I like NEIPAs. But they're definitely "trendy" at the moment.
New England is much more heavily influenced by Ireland and the UK, and I think that's why we don't get many good examples of continental styles around here. I also suspect that a lot of people who move from a brewing hobby to a brewing business have a lot more experience with ales, and less experience with lagers.
I've never had an excellent hefeweizen made outside of Germany.
NEIPAs are by definition excessively hopped, it's just mostly (if not all) dry hops that impart the aromas you described instead of bitterness that's associated with classic IPAs.
Wow, this is such a throwback. Along with Hoegaarden (pre-Inbev acquisition) and Harpoon's UFO White, #9 was one of my first forays into craft beer. That being said, it's been years since I've seen any Magic Hat on a shelf. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough? Either way, here's hoping that Magic Hat makes a resurgence!
I agree with the previous poster, I didn’t discover magic hat until about 5 years ago and it just didn’t stand out at all among the local craft scene. But I’m all for more good breweries.
There’s a trick to #9. It is 10x better freshly brewed! I went to the magic hat brewery and had #9 there. The taste was so much better, you could tell it was due to the freshness. It ruined the beer for me though, because now I know what I’m buying off the shelf is a bit old.
Most beers are better at the brewery IMO, and most beers are better on draft. One beer I especially like in a can is Boddingtons because of the CO2 capsule that makes its pour quite similar to a draft beer. I think a few other beers have the same innovation. I believe I’m the only person at my local package store who buys it, as they order very little and I always seem to buy the last couple 4-packs.
I think while Magic Hat holds a place in the craft beer renaissance story, much of the regional beer from that era was unremarkable. The idea that it was better than the macro beers stemmed largely from the experimentation and derivation from American adjunct lagers.
As the smaller, more rabid craft beer industry grew from the late 90s, bigger regional brewers like MH never really evolved. Some of that might have been due to the acquisitions, but survival in this extremely saturated space means making a name for yourself via taste and/or quality and Magic Hat didn't measure up. Very few people I know would reach for a MH over a cheapo adjunct lager.
I think that small breweries were caught up in the same trends that were going on in (hipster) food in general: it's easier to be incomparable than to be good. I don't know what to compare an apricot beer to, so I don't know if an apricot beer is a good apricot beer. If I'm the type of customer who is attracted to the high-concept of an apricot beer, when I get sick of it, I'm not going to find another apricot beer, I'm going to find another high-concept beer.
If somebody makes a standard porter, not only are they going to lose that high-concept audience, but if it's bad, people are going to know it's bad and not blame it on their own palate. You'd better have a very wacky label or name.
Using a porter as an example here is even strange, though, because aside from the high concepts, a vast majority of these beers are labeled IPA and virtually indistinguishable from generic lagers aside from possible hoppiness and their high concept.
I've tried many craft breweries all over the US. Most of the time, their beers are indistinguishable from one another, and most of the time the beer isn't very good. It's common for me to walk into a brewery and not like a single beer out of 6-15 beers. I don't consider myself a beer snob, I love lots of different types of beer. I'm a firm believer that most of the major brands of beer are big due to taste, other than the economy beers.
In many ways, beer is like pizza. The best recipes already exist. There is nothing new to create or innovate. Microbrews are like hot-pockets filled with canned tomato sauce, yak cheese and caramelized watermelon. It might be novel, but it's probably not very good.
> I'm a firm believer that most of the major brands of beer are big due to taste, other than the economy beers.
I guess I agree with this in a way, in that what most people are looking for are water substitutes that will give you a low-level buzz. I don't think most people want "good" brews, they were just told that's what they should want, and since the mass-market beer prices rose to nearly meet small brewery prices, there was little benefit in continuing to drink cheap. Buying an apricot flavored light (colored) beer in my view is similar to buying something from the new "flavored water" category. Or a White Claw.
I think this is a market failure rather than a failure in taste, though. Distinguishing yourself by quality in a glutted market is not going to work. It's better to think of a variation that is easily marketable than to compete on quality (except in a luxury market, where you can signal quality through pricing and exclusivity and rely on the effects of conspicuous consumption.) It's going to be easier to sell an IPA flavored with violet essence with a lot of flowers on the label, strong branding through color, and an evocative name than a beer whose only notable characteristic is that it tastes better than others of its type.
All that being said, as long as I can still get Edmond Fitzgerald porter, all is right with the world.
> I guess I agree with this in a way, in that what most people are looking for are water substitutes that will give you a low-level buzz.
This is not really what I meant. I mean to say, for instance, I prefer Sam Adams over 90/100 microbrews I've tried. Name the top 6 non-economy beers in the supermarket, I enjoy most of them more than 75/100 microbrews. Taste-wise, I think most microbrews are a bad product, even if they were priced less than the premium national beers, I wouldn't buy them.
In many ways, it's like self-proclaimed 'audiophiles' and people that love vinyl. It's about something other than just the enjoyment of music. Similarly, as you suggest as a result of market forces, microbrews are about things other than taste. That explains the brewery's side of the equation, but no so much the customer's. Are people drinking microbrews simply because it's cool? Probably, and probably most of them.
I often visit local breweries when I travel as a form of supporting local businesses and such. I do enjoy trying new beers. I found, up until about 10 years ago, a local beer that had supermarket distribution was usually pretty dang good. It was the 'locals beer' which is not really the same as the microbrews we have now.
> I mean to say, for instance, I prefer Sam Adams over 90/100 microbrews I've tried.
All a matter of taste, of course, but I've always found Sam Adams to be on par with Magic Hat as the worst of the Big 'Craft' group. They tend to produce the most inoffensive option of any style, typically devoid of any of most palatable of its respective flavors.
After years of drinking these kinds of beers and being consistently disappointed, I'd rather reach for a macro lager or a small brewery's pale ale, gose or berlinerweisse. I think this is because they tend to appreciate what makes each style work and demonstrate that.
Sam Adams pale ales are basically post hopped, skunked lagers.
Yeah, I'm referring to Sam Adams Boston Lager. Their Oktoberfest is pretty good as well. I'm not a fan of much of anything else they put out.
Most of the macros have a 'flagship' product, and that's what I was more or less referring to. Most micros have a fleet of beers, all bad or mediocre. A handful of them have 1 or 2 flagships that are quite good. It's rare that a microbrewery has more drinkable than dumpable beers, IMO.
Then I probably just disagree. Those macro-microbrews are overcarbonated and thin to my taste. I'd rather have a watery rice lager (i.e. whatever's cheapest) if I'm going in that direction.
TBH, though, preferring the top 6 macro-micros to 75/100 microbrews is praising with faint damnation. 1/4 of microbrews being better than all non-economy macro-micros is a good hit percentage in my book.
> 1/4 of microbrews being better than all non-economy macro-micros is a good hit percentage in my book.
Not precisely what I meant. I meant, pick the top 6 (probably in terms of gross sales), not my favorite 6. Also, I don't mean to say that all microbrews are bad, but the majority of them are, and the ones that are good are no better or only slightly better than the macro-microwbrews. My top 3 favorite beers are micros (or IMO, really more of a regional, has supermarket distribution).
There's certainly something to the increased competition in the craft brewing space and they seem not to have kept up, but I don't really follow your comparisons.
By American adjunct lagers, I assume you mean budweiser, coors, etc? Maybe Magic Hat also made a lager but I was most familiar with their #9 which was a floral, light IPA that was definitely a big step above a cheapo lager. And the article is saying that if anything they were too out-there and experimental, which is basically the opposite problem as being undifferentiated from all the other cheapo lagers.
Magic Hat #9 was delicious. I miss it. I always assumed it was freshness that was a key taste differentiator as well. I figured a case of Budweiser or Miller was more likely to have been on the shelf for many months to possibly years as it worked its way through the supply chain and existing retail inventory. That's why the big 3 did a big "Born On Date" advertising campaign because at one point they were getting hammered by that.
Stagnation of 90s era breweries that started out strong is something I've seen play out on the west coast as well: Bridgeport (Portland), Hales Ales + Pyramid (Seattle), Redhook (Woodinville).
> I think while Magic Hat holds a place in the craft beer renaissance story, much of the regional beer from that era was unremarkable. The idea that it was better than the macro beers stemmed largely from the experimentation and derivation from American adjunct lagers.
Strongly disagree; I believe that the late 90s to early 2010s were the high point of the American brewing renascence, before it all got completely carried away, IMNSHO in hipsterism and bitterness-chasing, but perhaps more charitably just in neophilia. Back in the 90s there were numerous breweries just trying to make good English-style beer; nowadays it is all American Pale Ales, so bitter as to be very nearly undrinkable.
It feels that there's not nearly the room in the craft beer scene for high-quality, traditional beer that there was not all that long ago.
> Back in the 90s there were numerous breweries just trying to make good English-style beer; nowadays it is all American Pale Ales, so bitter as to be very nearly undrinkable.
Nah. There is way too much of that, yes, but there is tons of other stuff, too. Between all the *PAs on the shelf you can find plenty of tasty beers, probably many of them brewed in your city or at least your state. And if you find a good one, you can go hang out at their taproom and probably say hi to the brewer. You could never do that in the 90s or 2000s :)
You're already behind the times, everywhere I look now lambic beers are the next big thing. Which is great because I love a sour. They seem to have largely supplanted APAs as the trend to chase.
A lot of really good entrepreneurial food companies have come out of Vermont, Ben & Jerry's being the most famous. Like MH, it was acquired by a multinational company (Unilever) although it still strives to retain its independence and Vermont character. We live in an adjoining state, and get cheese, chocolate, beer, and syrup from Vermont producers. There's even roasted coffee beans from a producer up there that my wife likes. Most aren't known outside of the northeast.
The thing is, in order to survive almost all of these Vermont food ventures have to "export" to other states. The local market isn't big enough. This encourages them to be more experimental, which fits with the state's independent streak but is also necessary to attract die-hard fans elsewhere.
To give one pre-pandemic example, if the local cheesemakers attempted to sell product that was just like what you can find in the supermarket there's no way consumers in other states would notice it, much less the restauranteurs in New York and Boston.
I think an issue the American craft beer scene has is quantity over quality. Some American beer places I go into have like forty different beers on tap, and are really proud of it. I find it hard to believe that forty beers are being kept fresh and live and maintained properly. Are they replacing them every few days or are the less popular ones in a range that wide sitting there for weeks? I feel like they're ending up quietly taking lower-quality shortcuts like using kegs rather than casks. I don't know why they don't focus on fewer, higher quality beers, rather than a ridiculously wide range.
While the number of breweries has increased, but public consuming them hasn't really changed that much. Granted your casual beer drinker will go for a craft or micro offering now rather than your Bud or Miller Lite like they may have a decade or two ago, but that doesn't mean their tastes have really changed significantly. At the end of the day, most people can't tell the difference and most places don't care enough to properly care for the beer itself or the equipment. One of my biggest pet peeves are places that don't actually clean their lines often enough. It's something I can clearly taste and takes all of the enjoyment out of what should be a good beer.
In regards to number of beers on tap, not every beer is going to by in your standard size keg which points to some of your concerns. Chances are a number of the craft beers are in smaller kegs so they stay fresh, but more importantly take up less space. Refrigeration is key at establishments like that and ideally the kegs would be in their own fridge rather than just in the walk-in like many restaurants do it. Worst is the kegerators at the bar where the untapped gets are at room temperature. Not only is that not good for the beer, it's also horrible if you're one of the first pours from that keg.
PC seems very confused about how niche cask ale is (even in the UK), but the point does still stand to a degree.
Some styles do have quite short shelf lives, namely the ubiquitously popular IPAs. Even with miniscule DO (dissolved oxygen) levels - breweries measure in PPB - you have a few weeks until staling can be reliably discriminated. Distribution takes a couple of those good weeks right off the top in many cases, making stale beer a real issue for people that like hoppy styles.
Much of the trendiness is beer now is due to limited distribution. You can't get Pliny on the East Coast, and you can't get Alchemist or Treehouse on the West. You have to have them specially shipped, leading to one of the worst dick-measuring contests in history with the bottle-trade scene. Those breweries forgo huge sales because they insist on controlling distribution such that quality won't suffer.
It is absolutely a real issue.
Also, any homebrewer can tell you this first hand. Not just for hops, but delicate malt flavors are often at their peak about two weeks from brewing, just enough time to fully ferment and then mature cold in a keg for a few days. Good taprooms can get you this experience as well, but beer trends are decidedly against delicate malt character, though crispy bois (aka pilsners) are having a moment.
Distribution takes a couple of those good weeks right off the top in many cases, making stale beer a real issue for people that like hoppy styles.
I'm not sure I can concur with this, distribution of spirits is an incredibly well solved problem and a speedy one, taking the forms of self-distribution, "hot-shot" distribution/delivery and wholesale distributors. They vary in scale and they all serve different customer segments in the marketplace. I'll concede that wholesale distribution can definitely sometimes take longer than the other two distribution models, but not by a significant magnitudes that it affects the product as much as many would presume, especially with refrigeration technology able to keep the product from heating up and suffering from basic chemistry doing its thing as the beer "cooks" in transit once it's been kegged and sealed
E.g.
Self-distribution models if your local state allows it lets brewers sell right out the back of their vans or right off site to any bar or patron that wants to buy and has the proper licenses to sell alcohol (I did this in Austin for 3 years driving from Austin to Houston weekly with a van full of kegs to bars that had made an order only days prior).
Hot-shot delivery isn't too different from this only it's usually upstart distributing companies (sometimes former brewery workers who split off, bought a van and got appropriate licenses) who will buy kegs and flip them to consumers.
Wholesale, name speaks for itself, but they often sell direct to retailers.
Ultmately though, alcohol distribution is a very well solved problem.
Fresh beer ideally lasts about five days. Are these places getting through a whole cask of all their forty beers every five days? Doesn't seem likely to me. I'm guessing that they're using shortcuts like putting it into kegs rather than casks, Pasteurising rather than keeping it fresh, and using carbonation instead of pumping it naturally, in order to support their huuuuuuge ranges. If they focused on a smaller number they woudln't have to do this and they could have higher quality instead.
Are you from the UK? Cask is considered a sub genre in the US, and not something to shoot for in the general case here.
Most consumers here don't want a cask beer, but instead a carbonated one from a keg. If you serve them a cask beer they think it's flat. There's a craft brewery near me that specializes in cask (shout out to Hogshead in Denver if you've never been), but they're embracing the niche aspect of that rather than attempting to be "what beer should be". It's not a case of cheaping out.
Yeah. Oh right I thought 'craft' sort of implied 'cask' and the kegs were a cheap shortcut, but maybe the taste in the US is more for carbonated beers.
I edited the above, but if you ever find yourself in Denver, check out Hogshead. Really great brewery focusing on cask beers. Haven't had a bad beer there.
Correct. Even in the UK there are plenty of craft brewers who don't produce cask beer. Nobody really thinks all beer should be distributed in casks and other storage methods are only "low-quality shortcuts", despite chrisseaton's four posts in this thread pretending to be shocked.
Even "sub genre" is overstating it. Cask is extremely niche in the US. The vast majority of establishments do not regularly serve cask beers, no matter how craft focused they are.
There are several styles of beer that can be stored such that they continue fermenting in storage and become a final, drinkable product by the time it gets connected to a tap-so this is HEAVILY dependent on what kind of beer you’re making, it’s not really applicable as a universal statement for the storage of several kinds beer. IPAs for example can last quite a long time if properly store (up to four weeks I believe?).
Beers brewed in casks obviously have a different fermentation cycle than something brewed macro systems but storage is less of a problem than you may think for brewpubs and gastropubs, generally speaking. Wits can last for a while if properly stored and rotated (physically as in turning the keg on end), for example. But even then, casks aren’t ideal for long term storage in many cases, and not all beers are suited for storage in casks as opposed to say: steel kegs.
(Spent quite a long time in the service industry and worked two large breweries in Texas)
On a slightly related note, I've had a bottle of Russian Imperial Stout (from Courage) in the fridge for over 6 years now. The intent was to do an experiment in bottle aging and also to time the opening to celebrate a birthday.
I do hope the cap hasn't leaked badly and oxidized everything. The bottle's been in the cold all the time though.
I’ve heard that if you’re going to do this put them in a cool area away from light exposure. So if you’re storing them in your kitchen fridge that gets opened and closed frequently that may or may not affect the aging and final taste.
THAT BEING SAID I’d love to experiment with this and see for myself and see if there’s any truth to this. Store one Imperial in my kitchen fridge for a year and one in my basement fridge where I’ve got other alchemy experiments (Read: homebrews) going on that very rarely gets opened, and is slightly warmer than the kitchen fridge, ask doctor girlfriend to do a blind taste test, submit results to the local home brew club for a fun beer chemistry discussion.
There may be a bit of confusion here, on tap, in the us, usually, just means coming from a keg. Having 40 draft lines is not that odd and beer lasts a long time in a keg. If you meant 40+ cask served beers, then that would indeed require a lot of turnover
Right, but that's what I mean. Instead of a couple of carefully produced natural cask beers, they have forty mass produced Pasteurised, carbonated kegs. Quantity over quality.
In the US, casked "real ale" is rather uncommon and many people prefer kegged and force carbonated beer. While I enjoy and seek out casked beer when it is available, most people I've talked with actively avoid it with comments of it being "flat" or "warm". Even the places that have 20+ taps (kegs) will only have 1 or 2 casks at most, but typically no casks. More often than not, casks are only available for special events/beer releases.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I've had servers at 'brew pubs' give me a blank stare when asked if they had anything 'on cask' - pretty much everything is kegged here.
I really miss the richer, softer head and 'alive' flavor from a proper cask ale. Well, not that anyone should be out drinking socially these days, anyway.
Question in search of some clarity: When you say “they” Are you referring to a specific beer made by a specific brewery when you refer to these pasteurized beverages?
At least as it pertains to the article, not all of Magic Hat’s products involve this brewing process, unless I’ve misunderstood you?
Craft beer bars I go into in the US in general. I'm sure there's tons of exceptions. But in general the beer scene in the US seem to prioritise having a great many taps, over having a smaller number of higher quality beers, and I think quality suffers because of that, through things like old beer, use of kegs and carbonisation.
Are you sure your personal taste and preferences (which are fine to have, everyone has different tolerances for different flavors and experiences with beverages) aren’t getting projected onto an entire industry here?
Of course it’s entirely possible that local craft bars could probably clean their lines a bit better, I’ve definitely experienced this when ordering a beer made by one of the breweries I worked for and immediately
Noticing “nope that’s not how this is supposed to taste”, we offered to clean their lines for free because it directly affected perception of our product if people think our beer is skunky due to poor cleaning practices, and wouldn’t you know it the next pour tasted much better.
Many craft breweries do this, as well, sometimes employees of bars just take one beer off a line and out on a totally different style of beer without a thorough flush (often times just out of ignorance not knowing better) and you Will definitely taste the difference. So maybe this is a quality control issue with the service delivery and not the way beers are brewed and stored?
We must live in different parts of the country, I don't know a single craft brewery that brews 40 different beers at once, not even the huge multimillion "stretching the definition of craft" brewery around here. It's typically 4-10 at once around here. I don't think even Treehouse has that many and they have a ton (and limit everyone to 2 pours each because of the huge amount of traffic they get)
I really struggle to believe they keep 366 beers in the best condition possible. And I don't get why it's a goal in the first place. I don't think anyone is making a meaningful choice between 366 beers and I bet they often get a disappointing one when they select something that nobody else has picked in the last week.
Well, that's a bar, not a brewery, and the topic here is breweries, not bars.
If a bar has the sort of foot traffic/clientele/supply chain to support 366 different beers on tap then good for them, some do, it's not an easy operation to run. They also usually buy mini-kegs for quick turnover. If they are serving garbage quality beer that's been sitting for months then they probably wouldn't be in business.
The place I used to frequent that has around 25 beers on tap usually had a turnover of about 50% of taps/week from what I saw.
Shrug the Delirium Café in Brussels has 2000 beers on tap.
The original comment didn't say anything about breweries.
I worked for a pub for a while that did beer and wine only with 20 taps. We definitely had the occasionally stinker that sat around for way too long (if it sat around too long, it would start getting poured for the staff and regulars on the house), and we had our usual suspects that would pop almost every day. By and large though, it was rare for any given keg to last over 4-5 days.
40 is a lot more than 20, but we were a relatively small bar that didn't even open on Sunday.
There are so many good east coast brews that we rarely, if ever, see on the west coast. I pick up Magic Hat whenever I see it, and they've always been good -- didn't know they were such a revolutionary force, and that the (very good) beer that I buy from them was even better back in the day.
Craft beer craze seems to overpower any ability to discern flavor subltieties across so many offerings. Won't balme consumers to shop by the labels, one craftier looking than other. Even established brands like the MH can drown in the colorful sea of the labels. So gone the days, when I readily paid for overweight luggage just to bring home a case of UFO from Boston.
These days, I'm very much utilitarian about beer, as long as on touch it's colder than room and not much more than 2bucks a bottle. In most cases (for me), the buzz and burp are just unwanted side-effects, so cool water sans ice serves the function ... free of charge. I pick up the missed carbs from the dessert :)
#9 is one of my favorite beers so I was bummed to see the title of this HN post. Reading the article it sounds like production is just being moved to Rochester though.
Vermont doesn't have much going for it economically. Winters are hit or miss for skiing, dairy is dying, etc. Small scale agriculture is the business there. Once you leave Burlington and the immediate vicinity, things look alot less prosperous. Moving a small operation like this is a slow cut that impacts local farms, etc.
Production is moving, but what struck me (and what made me think HN readers would be interested in it) was that the business seems to have fallen victim to a classic problem in business: being sold to people who don't understand the culture / product, and can't effectively sell it or continue it in a meaningful way. From the sounds of things, they're not selling all that well because of that.
>production is just being moved to Rochester though.
I don't think this really captures how important small business is to Vermont. This is likely culling a lot of jobs across the whole supply chain that locals rely on to survive.
There are more than enough brewers and distillers in VT that it won't be that big a deal. Regionally at least, Alchemist, Lawsons and Switchback are bigger names now.
Fortunately, the space is being taken up by another brewery, Zero Gravity (which produces really great beer), and I believe that they're picking up some of their employees.
I honestly don't think it's detrimental to the industry here: there are a TON of smaller breweries that are all doing really well.
Never really got into most of the Magic Hat offerings. Single chair was ok. I was surprised they never really did much with the tap room, instead keeping it to just to small samples and merchandise rather than going full tap room like everyone else
> I was surprised they never really did much with the tap room, instead keeping it to just to small samples and merchandise rather than going full tap room like everyone else
I guess I'm not sure what you mean here. I was at their taproom in Burlington a year or two ago, and you could get full pints of everything they had on tap. I think when I was there, they even had a keg of something they didn't bother to bottle. There's also a really well done tour through the brewing facility, which I thought was pretty cool.
But there are downsides to all of this as well. The market is SUPER trendy, and breweries have the choice of either jumping on the bandwagon of the style-du-jour or being left by the wayside. Because there are so many breweries and they are so young, the overall quality is just okay with maybe one beer being notable and the rest being slightly sub par. Then you have this issue of investment firms and bigger conglomerates buying up successful microbrews and sucking the life out of them.
I love beer, and in many ways you could say that the American beer scene has never been better. But that doesn't mean that there aren't dark sides to all of that. I drank plenty of Magic Hat over the years, and it's a shame that there are certain names out there (Goose Island is one that comes to mind) that used to stand for a solid craft brewing operation that are now just marketing veneers on top of investment bankers and big corporations.