When is "big" Too Big?

It seems to me that plane is the one where making money is secondary to making a quality product.

 

Yep, which brings us full circle.
Tag team 1-2 punch.

 

YES - i can give 2 shits who makes it -- or the socio-politico-economic implications -- I drink craft -- because it tastes good -- i dont care who makes it -- people have to stop using beer as a surrogate for other issues -- its beer -- company A makes beer and company B makes beer -- you as a consumer choose which tastes good and drink --
If miller starts cranking out a world class DIPA - to on par with PtE -- you wont drink it ? course you will , maybe you wont out of spite -- and if RR starts putting out crap, will you still drink their products -- because they are RR --
I drink what tastes good -- regardless of who makes it -- people have to stop making beer more than it is

 

a brewery is too big when it changes its philosophy. you can keep quality the same by just not changing the recipes, that's pretty simple for most breweries.

 

I agree totally -- but do you care who makes it -- as i said -- if Miller can put out a product to rival some of the best in craft would you not drink it --

 

+100000000000000 this. Post of the thread. SN, DGFH and other major craft brewers that are now widely available nationwide, are proof that a brewery can expand and still retain it's flavor and quality.

 

As others have said, it's not expansion that's the problem - it's shifting the focus from the product to the profits, and thereby cutting corners. I won't name any names, but I definitely think that certain craft breweries have seen their quality suffer even as their popularity has increased: the original master brewer might delegate more brewing to less-talented assistants in order to focus on the business side of things, beers that were once bottle-conditioned might become force-carbed in order to increase inventory turnover, and innovation of exciting new recipes might take a back seat to pumping out as much of a boring flagship as possible.

These problems, though, are not the necessary concomitants of success - they are side-effects, at most, and easily preventable ones. Breweries like Sierra Nevada and New Glarus stand as shining examples of how to grow a business without sacrificing even the tiniest bit on quality, and I'm confident that more and more great craft breweries will follow their lead.

 

The size of the brewery matters only insofar as it affects the "craft" of their beers. The reason why we tend to like smaller breweries is because, often enough, they are more focused on their craft (on reaching beer advocates) rather than reaching non-beer enthusiast markets. But naturally many non-beer enthusiasts buy craft as well, and breweries grow. We should only cut off our support once they lose the element of quality that they started with, not merely because such quality is reaching more people and putting more money into the brewery.

There are other reasons to boycott larger breweries. Inbev participates in horrible business practices that are only made possible by its size and corporate nature (suing smaller breweries with arbitrary suits to suck money out of them through legal fees, buying up bars and stores, etc...). But if we're just boycotting them because they're big, we have to reevaluate why we support a brewery. It's because they make good beer, not because they are a certain size.

 

I judge a brewery by its beer taste and then I judge it by value. They can make the best beer in the world to me, but if it cost me too much then I will not buy it. I think most places grow to make more folks happy with the product, which to many brewers is a labor of love. One assumes there is some economy in scaling up, but at what point does quality suffer, or does it even have too?

I do not judge by size, or rarity, but by taste then price.

 

And to answer your answer of a question's question, I was just playing devil's advocate, and do find it kinda amusing that the same people who bitch about the state of craft beer selling out are the same people who are currently clambering for KH and bramble on the trade boards

 

I don't think that's the right question to be asking.

 

I say god speed to Goose Island. I'm sure they realized that the warm fuzzy feeling that they got making smaller profits wasn't going to pay the bills. Warm and fuzzy doesn't put your employees' kids through college. If the quality of the brew they produce isn't effected then who cares. It would take some pretty terrible business practices for me to stop buying a companies good beer. I know it sucks if a few smaller brewery doesn't make it but that is what keeps American Craft delicious and ever expanding. The ones that do make it tend to be top notch.This is America, we're built on competition.

 

The buy out was not about profitability per se, the buy out was about GI wanting to expand and this was the easiest way to do so. There are still brewers there working far too many hours and not getting paid nearly enough, in some people opinions. If the move was about profitability I doubt the profits are being shared equally down the line.

Several large breweries have found was to engage in multi-million dollar expansion projects without going down this road. This option was just the easiest way for GI to accomplish a goal.

 

When breweries have to pull out of markets where they were once distributed.

 

Personally, I think of craft as referring to quality beer, not the size...micro would be the size. I could care less how big they get as long as they keep quality and ideally they'd all get big enough to be like Sierra Nevada without suffering quality. If they expand and keep their quality, I'm a happy camper. It's like Houston's steak house. They're a huge chain restaurant empire but they've kept their quality top notch so what do I care about how much they expand. This is kind of off topic but they(Houston's) actually expanded so much that they divided the chain in 2 and created a new name for half of them just to keep themselves from going to a higher tax bracket. I could care less about it being a huge chain restaurant, I care that they serve quality food.

 

hypothetically, i guess i would, but i think it's important to note that there's no way in hell to make a great beer if beer is only a means to profit, rather than the beer itself being the end, and profit being a means to continue making more great beer. any craft efforts of the macros are done to take market share away from the microbreweries and keep their hold on the beer industry.

 

When Stone brews and bottles "Kind of a Douche, but OK for a Frat Guy" light lager, that's when they've jumped the shark for me. Same goes for Sierra Nevada if they ever start brewing Sierra Nevada Platinum Pale Ale- "Less hops, smoother drinkability!" with a double pull tab can "Shotgun ready!" Aside from that, if the quality doesn't drop, I don't care if the get big enough to be the official beer of the NFL.

 

I agree with a few people, but the bottom line is if they keep producing great tasting solid beer and grow to meet the demands of the beer whats wrong with that.

 

Well lets see here WI biggest craft brewer is New Glarus, WI best craft brewer is New Glarus. Another one of the biggest is Central Waters and they are equal with New Glarus. They get big by bein awesome so no it is not a bad thing at all it is a awesome thin because them more people get to experience the awesome beer!

 

My thoughts exactly.

Craft is not about size, it is about a dedication to quality craftsmanship and innovation. If growth stops, that means those two things are no longer happening.