The Bruery: explain how they've done it.

FWIW...

Maybe there was some grand conspiracy, or some mini-conspiracy... but I think people were blown away by Black Tuesday. It's never been my favorite of the style, but it was astonishing to drink a beer of that strength and not have it be boozy and loaded with the many flaws that can come with brewing high ABV beers. There are plenty of criticisms that I'd label legitimate you can level at it... but IMO it's a remarkable achievement. It's also a damn fine beer... I just don't want any less than three people on a bottle if I'm involved.

 

Black Tuesday is a remarkable beer. I wouldn't want more than a few sips of it in an evening, but I certainly did appreciate the few sips I got to have. The trouble is the reaction it caused in the community. I'm not quite as cynical as DavoleBomb, and must confess that the bottle of Saison de Lente I opened the other week was pretty tasty, but there was something really wrong in the way this beer, and the Bruery along with it, got instantly elevated above everything else and seemingly all of BA went along for the ride.

One thing to note - the Bruery is still not on, and AFAIK not particularly close to, the BA (other BA) top 50 list. They're simply not as big as people tend to picture them. In this way, they're similar to Founders which just made the list for the first time.

 

The idea that any region of the country hypes any worse than another is breathtakingly inane.

 

The Bruery is sort of a love/hate thing for me with their beers. There aren't too many that have been meh. Most of them I either really love or just hate.


Love: BT, CR, BA Autumn Maple, Old Richland, Burly Gourd, White Oak, Batch 300 (probably my favorite so far).

Hate: Anniversary series, Christmas series, Snickelfritz, Imperial White Orchid.

My wife has a similar love/hate thing with Bruery beers. She just likes mostly different styles than I do.

 

Judging from their proposed but unadopted changes to the RS this year, I think they agreed with you. Just that too many people argued back.

 

I only wish I had the tolerance to read all the craziness you all posted. The Bruery makes good beer...kinda.
Explain how they do it? Become a RS member.

 

Humulus Lager is delicious. That is all.

 

If I get lumped in with people in SoCal, you can get lumped in with people in Oregon.

 

I've never lived in a state that distributes beers from The Bruery; I wish I could try more, as the off-the-shelf beers I've had from them have been solid. Saison de Lente in particular is tremendous.

 

in fairness, i thought black tuesday 2009 WAS really hyped (and i posted that at the time). but i think it's ridiculous to suggest that a nationally distributed brewery with several years of reserve society (presumably lots of out-of-state members) is still propped up solely by local hype 3 years later.

 

It very well may have been, I'm completely sure that there are people out there who hype things up. What I take issue with are the people saying that some regions are systematically worse than others, and that hype is a problem in general. (I'm definitely willing to grant that some individuals may be chronic hypers, but I find it hard to believe that they affect anything in any systematic or meaningful manner. There may be isolated cases where a beer gets super hyped, but I also seriously doubt that. My guess is that most times when people suspect hype are genuine feelings.)

 

making shit product may not work in a place with solid distro to awesome breweries like CA, but if you live in a state like Nebraska you're allowed to ride the bandwagon even if you get into the game a bit late and your product is generally mediocre.

 

That would be the part of the ground floor equation I spoke of.

 

I don't think that's accurate.

 

See Veritas 009, which in my mind is the most clear cut example of a relatively small group of people having enormous effects on the hype of one beer. Systematic? Not out of the realm of possibility.

 

I don't think that's clearly true. V009 is super divisive, I didn't like it at all, but a number of people I know did (and this was at a tasting, none of the people who liked it had bottles, or any reason to lie about it). It's completely possible that the first few people to review it on here actually did really like it, and weren't trying to hype it.

I think that people on BA sometimes forget that hyping is a deliberate act, and it's actually pretty difficult to prove that it happened in a systematic way without looking at a boatload of statistics. (And even then you can't rule out benign preference differences or the like.)

 

just came in here to say humulus is one of the best beers i've ever had and mother funker is probably the worst craft beer i've ever had

 

Do you even like sour beers at all? It states right on the label it's not for the "sour newb."

 

yep. love them. still got poured down the drain