Breweries Trending Up and Down

Every Goose Island beer I've seen provides bottling date on the bottle label and also does a best by date on the case.

 

There's a reason I didn't get A's in English. Should've made that a separate sentence. My beef with GI is that all send near me is boring crap & then sends the store next to zero Bourbon County. I'd rather spend the extra buck or two a sixer for Founders or Stone, at least they some times actually send something besides the same old stuff.

 

UP:

Long Trail (LIMBOOOOOOOO)
Kane (They just keep getting better and better while upping their consistency)
Victory (Dirtwolf has been a treat and I hope they can keep it up)

DOWN:

Weyerbacher
Rogue

As for DFH, I think their year depends on how they market Namaste and how it's priced in six packs. Could be a game changer for them or could just be something that doesn't move the needle at all.

 

Trending Up: Jack's Abby- most of their beers are unique but not strange and they've been knocking it out of the park lately

Trending Down: DFH- most of their beers are unique and too strange for consistent consumption. I pretty much only buy 90 minute now.

 

Up:

Tree House Brewing Co.- Wait until they start canning Julius. Pandemonium will ensue.

Jack's Abby- They started offering pints at the brewery today. Expanding production and the release of the BA Framinghammer series this year will make everyone take notice.

Firestone Walker- Seems like they can't do anything wrong. I did notice that they might be adding a couple bucks to their releases though.

Allagash- Their coolship program is changing sours in America. A solid east coast sour representative.

Down:

Dogfish Head- Despite the fact that they're now re-available in RI, the only beers I'll ever buy from them are the Minute IPAs (60,75,90) and WWS, which is not available right now.

Goose Island - Bourbon County absolutely was the star of 2013. But 28 bucks for Gillian is fucking stupid.

 

Trending: New Jersey edition.

UP:

Carton and Kane. Only folks in the NY/PA/NJ area what I am talking about. These guys are putting NJ on the map in a huge way. Exciting, interesting, DIFFERENT, yet creating instant classics at the same time.

DOWN:

Flying Fish. Apparently the brewer behind the Exit Series -- which LITERALLY put NJ on the map and was consistently amazing -- has exited the building. As much as I love the idea of being stoked on the closest brewery to my house, I just can't get into their regular beers and there doesn't seem to be anything new on the horizon to interest me (that I'm aware of).

Elsewhere, Victory is going full steam ahead, Terrapin is heading toward the big leagues (Wake n Bake is now a chase beer?!), Firestone Walker continues to brew world-beating beers...

But Russian River doesn't excite me any more (try Pliny next to Hop Ranch, seriously), Weyerbacher's beers seem phoned in, and Southern Tier just doesn't have the charm it once did.

 

As far as trending down, what about Troegs? I'm not particularly a big fan of theirs' to begin with but what have they done recently? Nugget Nectar is a staple. People love Mad Elf, I personally don't. Their Perpetual IPA is mediocre. They haven't come out with anything new in a while and their stand bys are becoming more and more ordinary.

 

Agree with Carton and Kane, and especially with Flying Fish.

It's like they found out what made them money with the exit series and releasing one every six months to a year or so......and then they stopped and rested on the exits they already made.

And Exit 9, as a Rutgers alum, was a tragedy. From a business perspective I wanted to slap who ever thought a DIPA that's barely red was a good idea for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights beer. Make a red, delicious, sessionable ale in six packs, and sell it right when football season starts. You would sell out in the central Jersey area every week during football season.

 

I skipped Mad Elf this year, but still reserve a lot of excitement for the NN release. Other than that? I'll try that barrel-aged Troegenator if I see it but I'm not gonna chase it down as I'm not a huge fan of the base beer as it is. Sunshine Pils was pretty tasty last summer, can't lie.

Since we're talkin PA, Yards did a bunch of new beers this year and while I liked Cape of Good Hope at first it came off as kind of one-note to me. At least they put the effort in to do a bunch of new releases this year, even if I passed on most of them.

I'll say it again, Victory for the win in 2014. They're on such a roll it's unreal. Someone was mentioning the Braumeister Pils series earlier, all of which are great. They also did one this summer called Hip Czech -- wish that came in bottles! More authentically a pilsner than the hoppy Prima. Go Victory!

 

I forgot about Sunshine Pils. I do like that. I wish it were year round though.

 

I so agree! The fact that I live in MA and can't get Gandhi Bot pisses me off!

 

Keith, I have had a number of Weyerbacher’s “Brewers’ Select Series” beers on draft at Capone’s and I have greatly enjoyed every one that I have tried; two brands that immediately come to mind is Zulu and X-ray (I have had others but I can’t recall their names off the top of my head).

“Weyerbacher’s “Brewers’ Select Series” beers are special one-off and experimental brews which encourage creativity and collaboration between all of our brewers. The naming schemes are pre-set so title does not dictate the style of the beer. The first series followed the NATO phonetic alphabet. Series two began in early 2013 utilizing the names of northern hemisphere constellations.

Weyerbacher Brewers’ Select beers are released every few months in very limited quantities; kegs go to select restaurants and bars and only about 70 0r so cases of 12 oz. bottles are made available exclusively at Weyerbacher’s Visitors Center.”

Cheers!

Jack

 

I think that Troegs Dreamweaver Wheat is an excellent Hefeweizen beer.

Cheers!

 

I think the market was completely different when SN and Lagunitas started, so much so that comparisons aren't really valid between what they did when they started and what small brewers do now. When SN and Lagunitas started, they were virtually the only beer on the shelves that wasn't BMC, and they were marketed as premium alternatives. They were priced significantly higher than any other beer you could get, with the exception of some imports. (Both Ken Grossman and Tony Magee write about this in their books.) But that was then. Now, they are among the biggest craft brewers, which enables them to price at the low end of the craft segment. I'm glad they are able to make such high quality products at such low prices, and I'm a big fan of these breweries. But I also know that new brewers with lower capacity pretty much have to charge more. So I'll buy a $7 bomber from Heretic or Track 7 on occasion, partly for variety, and partly to support what I see as really promising new brewers.

As for $15-20 bombers, I don't buy many of them--why would I, when a sixer of Sucks is $10? But I'm certainly aware SN has done a few pretty pricey bottles lately. Wasn't Devestation $14.99 when it came out? BA Bigfoot was more than that IIRC. I think what's happened is that SN feels like they're in danger of being perceived as not being on the cutting edge, no longer a "premium" product and they want to show they can do high-end small batch stuff, in addition to their lower-priced, more mass produced stuff. Why? Because the market wants it.

Overpricing as a result of ineptitude? Sure, that's out there in every industry, brewing included. Let the buyer beware. But "exploiting customers"? I don't get that. We're not talking about somebody who's showing up after a hurricane and charging thirsty people quadruple their cost for a bottle of water. We're talking about what's essentially a luxury product (well, to most people) in a market where consumers have a ridiculous number of altneratives. If you don't like the prices on one company's beers, you can buy from another. Simple as that. If people buy beers they think are too expensive, they're not being exploiting, they're just being stupid.

 

entirely 100% TRUE. It's frustrating to see and even moreso when you go to new breweries and see that virtually everything is new. Tons of people are able to lobby for huge sums of money to buy the latest and greatest gear and all of this crushing debt that is amassed is passed along to the consumer. Gone are the days where you fabricated your own gear out of dairy or grundy tanks. The only thing that is shooting craft in the foot right now is price and mediocrity by a large percentage of new guys.

 

“If people buy beers they think are too expensive, they're not being exploiting, they're just being stupid.”

A HUGE Amen to that!

Cheers!

 

Maybe you can give some examples?

I'm not saying this isn't happening somewhere, only that I don't really see it where I am (Northern Cal). I don't see a lot of new breweries charging outrageous prices because they're in debt. I see some really pricey bottles, usually because they are sours, BA beers, and others that are costly to produce. I'm thinking they do this because they know that, in such a crowded market, they're not going to be able to compete with SN and Lagunitas by putting out a cheap pale ale, so they do BA sour that those brewers don't do, and they have to charge more for it. And generally the little guys have to charge more, simply because they don't have the economy of scale like the more established brewers do. And in some cases prices get jacked up due to incredible demand. But I haven't heard about anybody charging outrageous prices because they had crushing debt. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that I can't think of any.

But even if that's true, I don't see how it's a problem for anyone other than the people taking on too much debt and trying to sell mediocre beer at inflated prices.

 

For me personally Madtree in Cincinnati is a huge trend up. Every beer they're releasing is a hit. They've seriously expanded this year (their first year in operation).
I also think no great lakes had a great year.Couldnt get enough of alchemy hour and rye of the tiger.
Lagunitas also did no wrong this year.
There are probably more trending up for me but these come to mind right away.

As for trending down? I'll go with rogue. Can't remember the last time I've had one of their beers.

 

Up:
Victory for making necessary refreshing changes
Goose Island (for the wider distr. on their specialties)
Lagunitas for making great beer, hopefully coming through on Sucks all year and adding bottling dates
Tired Hands, I have a feeling they're going to reach HF status in a year or so.
FW for always being awesome, DJ 4 packs, Velvet merkin bottles though I didn't get any,and Matt B.

Down:
Yards, they need new beers in their lineup.
Pizza Port, Tomme Arthur is a douche
Bell's make more Hopslam, Expedition stout is way overpriced, and I think Two Hearted (probably my favorite beer of all time) is overpriced at least for my market @ $13/6 pack