The Problem with American Craft

There are a lot of interesting points being made here. I think that an increase in craft beer is a good thing. Yeah, you are going to get some "meh" beers, but I would take "meh" over the domestic. Anyone taking a chunk from the big brews is a good thing IMO.

Also, think about it like this, and I apologize in advance for using wine as an example. Go down the wine isle and look at all the Pinot Noirs. All those different brands from the same grape? They should have a similar profile, but there are those subtle differences. The same thing can be said from what you see in the craft beer market today. God knows how many IPAs are available, but there should be enough variation from brand to brand.

 

I'm not going to plow through this mess of complaints and try to make sense of it as one thread.

 

He's not talking about "whalezbro". I know people I work with that drink Blue Hills Brewery IPA because 'buy local'. They don't make good beer. It's not valid when a 6 pack of Stone IPA is sitting in the package store a few buildings down. Drink best.

Many times buying local just to buy local is an impedance on better quality goods moving in.

 

I don't agree with the concerns in the original post. Really there is not much extreme or new, history shows that so many spices were used, huge loads of hops in most styles before refrigeration came in, etc. So anything to attract attention really isn't novel, it doesn't mean it's great, but it's all part of the beer world past and now present, not just the American one. Variety is good, and people like different things. I was brought up to believe sour beer was bad, but I see many sours in the market now, someone likes them. It's all good and if I had one complaint, it's to see more porters and stouts of good quality. I don't like the flavoring trend for the black beers, it doesn't really help the taste usually IMO, and carefully made an unflavored can be great. Yet so often you get this burnt raw grain taste to stout and a lot of porter too, that is not a good craft porter IMO.

 

While I agree that there are a lot of mediocre brewers out there--unavoidable when you have 3,000 of them--I've never quite understood the worry that those mediocre brewers are somehow impacting the brewers who know what they are doing.

If there is a problem with American craft (which I don't know if I would call a "style", per se), it's that anyone can do it, which leads to people doing it who don't really know how. The interesting part is that the fact that anyone can do it could also be argued as one of the great things about American craft. After all, in the long run, the shitty brewers will be sorted out from the good ones, because people will buy the beer of the good ones and the shitty ones will go under. And the basic truth is that more entries boils down to a better chance at hitting the lottery. One new brewer opening doesn't have good odds of being Toppling Goliath. But 100 new brewers opening equates to a reasonable chance that at least a few of them will be Toppling Goliath.

But I really get lost when you suggest that "various American styles and/or American versions of other styles... ...are awful, painfully average or simply unnecessary". A style can be done well. A style can be done poorly. But I've yet to encounter a style that was inherently bad on concept--can you name some of the styles you're thinking of? That might help me wrap my brain around the idea.

Lastly, I feel like it should be pointed out that the definition of "mediocre" is ordinary, average, unexceptional, undistinguished, middling. By definition, there are going to be more mediocre breweries at any given point in time than there will be truly great breweries (or even truly awful breweries). The only reason the exceptional (and exceptionally bad) stand out in the first place is because of the average middle. The trick is to find the breweries, styles and beers that you find exceptional and ignore everything else.

I'll start to worry when mediocre breweries are running the exceptional ones out of business. I just don't expect that's likely to happen anytime soon, if ever.

 

Whenever you are awake.

 

Exactly.

No objections to drinking very good or great local beer.

I'm annoyed at how much mediocre or outright bad beer/breweries are supported just because they're local.

 

IPAs if all shapes and sizes are more popular now than they have ever been, but like all trends IPA popularity will rise and fall given enough time. IPAs will never disappear from the market, but I think this trend of throwing hops into everything will gradually pull back over the next couple years.

 

They are currently running exceptional ones off the shelves where I live.

 

I appreciate your sincerity. You want to put your buy local ideology ahead of your taste then that's your personal decision.

I think opinions like yours and the resulting actions are a big problem with why so many mediocre or poor breweries manage to stay in business. I know that's not a problem for many locavores because they want them to stay in business, regardless of how good their beer is, because they're local.

Never until now with this buy local movement would I have thought that you have to actually persuade people to drink what they think tastes best.

 

There are plenty of beer shops (at least around here) that don't carry a great breweries full lineup because it is more important to carry 1-2 beers from every brewery regardless of quality. There is a similar issue with tap lines in most places. The mediocre beers are pushing out better beers on some level.

 

To the extent there is a problem, and I'm not sure there is, but to the extent there is a problem it is that every new brewery thinks they have to make a pale ale, have to make a porter.

I submit that that is wrong.

 

My humble thoughts:

I can get, and many other Americans can get, as large or larger assortment of more various styles local to me/us than anyone else can get local to them in any area outside of this country. This includes hoppy beers, and an astoundingly large variety of other styles.

Brewers make hoppy beers because they sell well. I wonder if you look at shoe styles and blame the manufacturers for making the styles of shoes that sell best?

Alabama is late to the party and it soon will catch up to the level of other areas of the country.

Every industry has poor quality as well as great quality. Poor quality may survive as the demand goes up for the product, but will most likely go out of business soon as better products come to market and demand stabilizes.

I agree with not worrying about all of this and just drinking what you enjoy.

 

The biggest problem I see with American craft is some breweries releasing beers that are below quality or not what they intended to brew and relying solely on reputation to sel it. I can think of a few examples locally where a batch of beer has been screwed up and still packaged and sold under a different name. I love innovation, and granted, in some cases a breweries mistake can turn our great, but I really wish breweries would start focusing a bit harder on quality control. To me, quality control is what will start weeding out the weak links from the over saturated market.

 

I don't think buying local should trump product quality. If your local brewery makes a kick ass [insert style here], then absolutely buy that beer. But don't buy your local brewery's beer just because it's your local brewery. The only way to demand that your local businesses provide top-notch quality product is to refuse to patronize them if they don't meet a minimum standard.

Also, there is a pretty large gap on the spectrum between buying local and walezbro. Buying beer from out of market is not walezbro.

If you don't mind my asking--can you give me some examples of what you're seeing? In my area, there are so many great options on the shelves, that it would take awhile before mediocre beers made a big enough dent in the shelf space for me to even notice.

Well, I suppose there are degrees of pushing out. This kind of thing happens around here too, but to my point in my reply to herrburgess, there is still so much good stuff on the shelves (even if a brew or two from a great brewery isn't there) that we have a long way to go until I feel like I don't have great options to buy when I go to the store.

 

Same here but I'll add too many new/small breweries making average beer at premium prices hoping for the localism buy. Sorry but when I see a 3.5 BA rated bomber of a local 4% bitter on a bottle shop shelf next to the 32 oz Sucks and Sucks is priced a buck cheaper....we'll that's really a no brainer now is it.