Any bad/average breweries at start eventually become excellent?

If you liked Ithaca, depending where you are at in New York you should check out Peekskill Brewery as Ithaca's former brewmaster is there now

 

I've been there a few times now- it's the best brewery in New York. Fantastic stuff coming out of there.

 

Almost every brewing start up has a learning curve that begins with (mostly) less than stellar initial offerings (other than perhaps one or two flagship brews). If they last for a year, the brews usually pick up and the good ones will be consistently good.

 

I would say most infection issues are due to either inappropriate cleaning or messing with wild yeast/bacteria or barrel aging without proper knowledge or precaution. Seems like control of both is within the brewing process. I enjoy Cigar
City, but they most certainly had a learning curve.

 

Oh, no doubt. I didn't mean to suggest that they didn't have a learning curve or that infections are not reflective of overall brewing ability. I was speaking more about the ability to produce great tasting beers (when all goes well). That ability was evident very early (even if their ability to make them without hiccups was lacking) and their ensuing success and fame was not a surprise.

I think part of the issue here is what exactly we mean by "Strike gold." In the spirit of the original question framing this thread, I was thinking more along the lines of breweries that quickly "struck gold" in terms of the quality of a particular beer or set of beers, not in terms of the production operation that went into making them.

 

Sixpoint. Not necessarily from start, but it's gone from an average brewer to an excellent brewer in a matter of a year or two.

 

The story I heard was that in the olden days, Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers were bringing boltcutters with them to work every day with the expectation that their bank would lock them out of (reposess) their production facility.

 

My own contribution to this will be DuClaw; having visited one of their brewpubs a couple years ago I remember a couple interesting but only ok beers and a few cookie cutters. Now they seem to be really up and coming with some interesting 'regular' beers (Sweet Baby Jesus, Dirty Little Freak) and some really damn good specialty stuff.

I'll also second (third?) Jester King, I only became aware of them this year, but from what I'm told their older stuff was a lot of nothing to get excited about and a few good ones, then they introduced their "house bugs" and seem to have not made a bad beer since.

"Brewer" and "brewery" can be very different here. Take Tired Hands for example; the "brewer" cut his teeth elsewhere, but the "brewery" was pretty much an instant hit.

 

Not sure how excellent they will become, but here in LA Golden Road and Eagle Rock Brewery are both ok-to-good. I'm hoping for big things out of both

 

Didn't think of that. I guess it makes sense- they just had their 17th Anniversary beer- so they've been around for a while. When did Chief start brewing there, do you know?

 

I think you could put Schell's on the list. Aside from Snowstorm, much of their lineup had been forgettable for years. No more, especially the Noble Star series.

 

Due South started out kind of mediocre but now they make some good shit. Haven't had one recently that disappointed me.

 

That was it now we know why they where gonna get locked out cuz their beer was mediocre.

 

I haven't followed them from the very beginning, so I could be wrong on this... but I did try several of their original more farmhousey brews and thought they were just okay. Not spectacular. The Mad Megs, Commercial Suicides and Noble Kings...

Then they started to evolve in their use of farmhouse yeast and bugs, moving from more of a saison-like character to a full on sour profile. They still have some non-sour beers that are good. But now their best stuff are their sours and you have to go to the brewery to find most of those. You used to be able to find the regular stuff on shelves in Texas somewhat easily. They may have had a couple of funky batches that were "in favor" as mentioned above. I'm thinking of their Imperial Stout in particular. But after Atrial Rubicite batch 1, they have been on a roll. I've only had one or two non-exceptional brews after that. They even tweaked their recipes for their non-sour stuff. Guess it took them a year or two to master the bugs and find their true identity.