Breweries that might need to step it up?

Came here to post Sam Adams and Rogue.

Both awesome breweries in their time but both went too commercial. Aside from a couple examples,neither have much worth lusting over.

 

I will mention Schlafly, not because they aren't a great brewery (they are) but because Saint Louis has so many more options than it did five years ago. Their TIPA is amazing, but I've been a little let down with some of the other seasonal offerings and some of the choices they made for canning (the Session IPA, Schwarzbier and Brown) are not their best representations of their lineup.

 

Bitter Brewer is probably my favorite American beer, in any style.

 

Nice! I was only able to get one so I'm waiting for a special occasion haha. It sounds great though.

 

Wrong

 

It isn't to my taste, but from their seasonal releases, I remember enjoying Schadenfreude quite a bit. Dampfbier is good, and I don't know how long it'll be on the market, but El Hefe Negro is damn tasty. They've got great stuff, it's just that my overall impression is that their focus is on hoppier releases...but that might not actually be true by looking at their overall beer lineup.

 

How in the world did Southern Tier ever get brought up in this conversation? Be nice if people elaborated when naming one. That one is a head scratcher. Could someone please explain?

 

I brought it up. The Choklat is interesting, but I wouldn't want to drink more than a few ounces of it. Every other beer I've had from them, be it IPA's, pumkpin ales, stouts, whatever....I wouldn't pay money for another, ever. There are so many brweries doing it better.

 

Thanks for replying. When I think of stepping it up I am thinking of not being a one trick pony as in brewing nothing but sours or relying on their flagship beers for sales. Southern Tier seems pretty prolific with their brews.

 

So by your logic, the Alchemist needs to step it up. (?)

I wonder how different your definition is than the OP's definition.

 

Look at this without the BA glasses on people. BA has approximately 500K users, of which probably 50K actively use the site. You're complaining about breweries (SN, Bells, DFH) which sell millions of cases of beer and grow at 5 to 10% a year. Why exactly do they need to step it up? Because the less than 1% of 1% of the beer drinking consumers who use this site say so? Seriously, unless it's brewed with the years of newborn babies and aged in barrels made out of the Joshua tree most people on this site would complain

 

The whole of the industry is littered with breweries that are a step up from BMC but that is about it.
Are they the gateway to craft brews for many people... of course the answer is yes.
Just because you produce thousands of gallons of beer doesnt make you better. Catchy cool names and labels will only get you so far now. Superior product is what wins the race .
Magic Hat , St.Arnolds , Abita , Rogue etc. all have there place .

 

I can't believe Im reading breweries such as Southern Tier, Stone, DFH, and Bell's, to name a few, in this discussion. That's just crazy.Those guys all mix it up, especially with their large quantity one-offs and brewery only stuff. What about the year round stuff from Goose Island...everybody sees and demands BCBS but their year round stuff, IMHO, is at best average, with nothing exciting having been released in that profile in forever. Locally, Great Lakes has too many of the same types of beers and their seasonal rotations are ok but could be better (except for "Alchemy Hour" which is pretty awesome).

 

Heavy Seas. Yawn.

 

Really a loaded question, and a couple of ways to look at it.

There's "need" from a business perspective. That's pretty simple. If a brewery is losing market share, or stagnating, or not increasing as fast as they desire, or simply not selling as much as they want (which they could ostensibly still do even with decreased or stagnant market share, since the market overall is increasing) they need to "step it up" in terms of selling more. They could do that through greater distribution, increased/changed marketing, and/or changing/increasing offerings.

I would think that for many brewers, the business perspective is what is the main consideration. In this sense, a brewery like Sierra Nevada doesn't really need to step it up.

But, many have suggested that there is a "need" from a reputation perspective as well. I think amongst craft beer geeks reputation for quality, for innovation, for "wowing" is important, and we'd assume that it's important for at least some of the breweries as well. So, it matters if Rogue or New Belgium is generally boring us, or at least not wowing us like they used to, even if their sales are healthy. They need to "step it up" to have that undeniably positive association between their product and their brand/name. This is, or course, all up to the individual brewery and what their reputation is in the first place.

 

Saint Arnold in the same sentence as the other three is ridiculous.

 

I think that a few people in this thread think that the route of beer drinking goes BMC>Gateway Craft>teh sours!!

There is a failure to see that a brewery that is successful and expanding probably got there by selling their flagship beers. Didn't Sam Calgione say he didn't want to be known as the "60 Minute IPA Brewery"? Those core beers are what keep the cash coming in and allow for breweries to make weird and different beers. Just because YOU don't like their one-offs or year round beers doesn't mean that they need to do something different. There are plenty of people drinking core beers by the case all year. Case in point my neighbor across the street who always has an empty Sam Adams case at the curb each trash day.

 

Last year I would have said Longtrail/Otter Creek, but I've been really happy to see them brewing some interesting stuff recently. Beers like Kind Ryed, OC Russian Imperial Stout, the Farmhouse IPA 12 pk from Longtrail, Limbo IPA, and Culmination Chocolate Porter, have totally brought life back into what had become a pretty mundane lineup from the biggest brewers in VT. It seems like they have responded well to the demand for better beer, hell Otter Creek just released a BA Stout and I'm really hoping that the "Brush & Barrel Series" is more then just a rebranding of the Brewmasters series for Longtrail and we actually see some widely available barrel aged stuff.

 

especially since the brewer/owner change. while their day to day stuff was just ok their sours used to be great, now, meh

 

Right on.