Most Improved Breweries & Those Losing Their Shine

they better not kill Kellerweis

 

I agree. Victory re-branded but nothing's really too different other than the packaging and the addition of dirtwolf and hop ranch.

 

I'd agree with many others here. Long Trail and Otter Creek deserve some props for catching on that people like hops and coming up with some great new beers. I'd agree with Victory too. Never a bad brewery, but to me, Dirt Wolf means they're finally in the top tier.
I don't know if this is a brewery falling off, but someone needs to have a long talk with the folks at Ballast Point. Yes, Sculpin is a good beer, but it's not really an eyebrow raiser anymore, just a solid IPA that I NEVER BUY anymore because the price is absurd. I think they need to either come up with a huge new beer, lower their prices to reasonable levels, or both.

 

All the Pennsylvania guys are a little biased here...what we're trying to say is Victory finally has some beers that are reputable across the country instead of just PA. Without Dirtwolf and Hop Ranch they wouldn't be saying this haha.

 

Terrapin has been stepping their game up a bit.
DFH needs to get out of the brewing industry now. they're more focused on hotels and moon dust. shame.

 

After reading through all the post you can see the obvious hop bias the user on this site have,

DFH is falling off? because they aren't focusing on their minutes series IPA's? no big citrusy ipa? what about Hell Hound on my ale? Big IPA with lemons that tasted phenomenal with about 6 months on it to let some of the hop quality fall off and allowed the lemons to play the main role. Im just glad to see theres still a brewery that does what ever they want. its nice to see people who arent scared to try something weird and different. im tired of seeing the same beers from EVERY SINGLE BREWERY. its really damn annoying knowing theres only a few places out there willing to take real chances. Someone mentioned they were just flavoring their beers. well even if they stopped adding the weird ingredients and just added a bunch of new and different hops they'd still just be "flavoring" their beer...

Victory is amazing! Maybe that's because they "dry hop the shit out of every beer they make"(not my words but, literally the words out of the Victory sales reps mouth while we shared a beer last night)

New Belgium falling off? I drank the LOF Gruit last night and it was delicious! It probably wont get any attention because they didnt use hops in it though... plus they are putting out a sixer of great IIPA in Rampant for under $10 Show me one other brewery that puts out a beer that solid, for 8.99 retail a sixer.

Founders though, you guys are right on that, save for FIS and porter im just not the hugest fan all though Mango Magnifico con Calor was amazing.

as far as breweries on the rise, foot hills has been surprising me lately except for BA People's Porter just tasted like peoples with a shot of kentucky gentleman in it. but everything else has been great from them.

 

I don't know what KBS and Breakfast stout you have had lately but if you look into it neither one has "natural flavorings" they have always showed the public what chocolate, and coffee they are adding into those stouts, just look up the pics they are floating around on google, or their facebook page. Now the last stout/porter I remember them using "natural flavorings" was Frangelic Mountain Brown. Also, if I am not mistaken a stout is a porter, its up to the brewery what they classify it as a stout or a porter there is no difference it's still an Ale. You can only be on top and praised for a short bit until people start talking crap about ya

 

The bad: Central Waters - Three years in a row that Peruvian Morning has been infected. Look especially weak when the beer is part of their Brewers Reserve series.

The good: @Pipeworks They are doing some LARGE things. Really looking forward to barrel aged products from them.

 

I think you could lump Founders and DFH into the same category at the moment. They still make world class beers (Minute series, WWS, FIS, FBS, Dirty Bastard, etc), but some of their newer stuff hasn't lived up to those expectations (realistic or not). They still have distributed some new good beers, just not to those levels.

 

Love living 5 minutes from Victory. I manage to get a couple sixtels of St. B every

Not my fault the rest of the country thinks DIPA is the only beer style.

 

I tend to agree, although I do like Centennial quite a bit. Making Red's a seasonal, reducing it to a 4-pack and increasing the price (at leat local retailers) was a real shame. I'll never buy it, in package, again.

 

I think Anchor deserves a nod for expanding their lineup and keeping things interesting

 

Most improved: Another PA brewery- Voodoo Brewing. Maybe not "improved" as they are already known in some circles for their barrel-aging program, but their other non-heralded beers such as Good Vibes are fantastic and holds up to some of the best out there so I think they continue to improve in that regard.. and even their heralded beers are killing the bigger names, especially PVW Black Magick, AB GNVP, and The K13. They're easily moving on up in the craft beer world and I'm glad to have visited Meadville and met the great folks both in front and behind the operation.

Losing their shine: Have to agree with everyone who nominated Founders for this category. I love their FBS and FIS, but for the most part, the beers that put them on the map are falling behind the rest. Their Backstage series has been fairly disappointing too, although nothing that's been "bad" per se and some experimentation is good, but there is a clear downward progression in the series as time goes on.

 

For me Clown Shoes has only gotten better and better. They have been trying some new things that seem to strike gold every time.

 

Just saw that AZ is getting Founders, and I've got friends there that would happily get me the goods. For those of you who are saying Founders has fallen off, are there particular brews you think have fallen off hardest? I always thought Founders was considered an upper echelon brewery, so I'm surprised to see it getting multiple "falling" votes.

 

Their quality is not falling off per se, it's more of a "what have you done for me lately" kind of thing and they haven't stepped up their game much; mostly producing the same solid lineup- Porter, FBS, etc. Which is understandable as they seem to be focused more on expanding their distribution footprint. But when their biggest new thing is an overpriced "Session IPA" with the relatively tame Backstage Series beers of the past year, with KBS being such a pain in the ass to get (crappy effort:benefit ratio) it can't help but tarnish some of the shine they had going previously.

 

Good thoughts, Stevedore -- much appreciated.

 

I think many people are done paying for the $12 experiments that may or may not taste any good.

 

I will sorely miss Tumbler - it was easily my favorite SN beer and one of the best - heck, if not the best - straight brown ale on the market for my tastes. But, as I understood it, they nixed Tumbler because of poor sales. So as much as I like to think it was a dumb move, it was probably the right move for them if that truly was the case

 

Thats every 22oz special release bottle of beer from any brewery you havent had yet, though. i remember when i though Tehenket was a total abomination and could barley sell it to any one, then an egyptologist came in and bought it all for his and his wife's anniversary(who was also an egyptologist), after about a year of its initial release people started coming in actively looking for it.

The point I was making is that BA has a tendency to be focused solely on very specific styles, and any deviation or experimentation from these styles rarely receive any fan fare. Look into a majority of the post here and you'll see the main quantifiable characteristic in a lot of the beer/brewery judging on here lies specifically on the hops quantity quality and followed then by malts and their balance. Which is entirely understandable because we all know hops (or at least we pretend to) and I don't expect Joe BA to understand in the least bit, what the proper balance of wormwood and lemongrass to Maris otter malt should be, mostly because not many people are doing it and secondly, if they just stick to the script and shove a metric ton of C hops into every beer Joe BA can run and compare it to every other beer just like it.

TL;DR
Breweries shouldn't be considered failing if they are trying things no one else is
Constantly innovating means your gonna screw up more than a few times.
Maybe brewers get tired of making LCD beers for "Craft" enthusiast and want to do something for themselves.

What ever the case, im still buying, the more weird ingredients the better, im getting really sick of trying the next new Wheat, IPA, Stout, Brown, or Lager that always ends up tasting exactly like or close to something ive already had 100 times from the last 100 breweries.