Why is craft beer so hard?

Exactly. I think once a person can be educated about styles they like and breweries they generally trust or know to be solid, they are doing themselves a disservice by looking up beer ratings incessantly.

 

No, you're just fine dealing with products in the real world. I bought a six pack of Terrapin Hopsecutioner at a local store a while back and it was undrinkable. Just trust where you buy things.

 

Agreed! It's a great time to be a fan of craft beer, because of all the choices we have! Do some beers fall short of great, excellent, outstanding or world class? Sure, but to my palate, there's just sooooo many more beers that are great, excellent, outstanding or world class, and in a great number of variety and choice. You want "hard"? Go back to the late 80s when there were only a handful of craft breweries around, most of them only local with an extremely limited-to-no, distribution and a beer drinker's choice was a BMC or import from Canada, The UK, Germany, Mexico, and Heiniken.

As to the OP, It's sounds to me like they are complaining that the IPAs they ordered didn't taste like Pliney or Heady Topper, or any of the other world class IPAs out there, and the OP wants all IPAs to taste like them, and when they don't, they believe that those beers suck and that those breweries should go the way of the dinosaurs. What an extreme position to have.

I understand the desire to only drink great, excellent, outstanding or world class beers, it's a great desire/goal to have but it's completely unrealistic unless the drinker only buys those beers, and simply avoids every other beer of that style out there, which some people do, and that's fine, but not everyone does that, especially tickers like me. I also think that those that do are a minority, albeit a very vocal minority.

Anyway, I don't know why I rambled on and I think I'll steep down from the soapbox and away from the mic.

 

The only time I BA a beer is if I can't tell what style of beer the beer is by the label, or I can't find where on he label the brewery decided to say what style of beer the beer is. I then go to BA to look that info up. But overall that's very rare, and usually only for Belgian imports.

 

I haven't read every post here so I don't know if this has already been stated.
Beer is just another product which at the present time, is a product that is quite popular. Therefore, there are plenty of people jumping on the bankwagon and of those, there are alot of people out there looking to make a quick buck. As with any product, you need to know something about the product and who is making it before you buy. There's plenty of crappy craft beer out there put out by those just looking to make a quick buck with no idea how to make good beer.
A few years ago, I was in Myrtle Beach and saw an anejo tequila for half the price of any others in the store. I asked why and was told it was brand new and they wanted to get it into the market. Fair enough - I took a chance and bought one bottle. When I got home to NY, I sought it out and bought a case. I still have 4 bottles even after giving several away; not because I didn't like it but that's when I really got into beer. The point of the story is that I bought one bottle first, therefore if you see a new beer and you don't know anything about it, try it on draft or buy one bottle. If you don't like it, you won't have buyer's regret.

 

There are so many factors that could make a beer sub par, and most of them are out of the breweries hands.

Even Stone has made some beers that dont float everyones boat. Thats the beauty of craft nowadays, if you dont like a beer, move on. Find what you like, and drink it. Embrace what you like instead of bashing a local brewery. If someone asks what you thought, be honest and intelligent. Youll get more acceptance than you think.

 

Because there are 5000 other beers of the same style with a higher rating, most likely. I mean, what else do you have to go by if you've never tried the beer before?

 

After scrolling through this thread, all I can say is I'm doing it wrong, because I like almost all beer. I like beers that I rate a 3.6 and I like beers that I rate a 4.75. I guess I'm the Anti-Snob. I feel bad for people who "struggle" to find beer that tastes good to them. That would suck.

 

You're oversimplifying it. Craft beer is a hobby. Do you also think money is just paper and cars are just hunks of metal? Why even have a beeradvocate account if beer is just a "beverage"? Do you have a wateradvocate account too?

 

You're sort of right. There were over 3,000 breweries operating in the United States prior to alcohol sales being prohibited by the law in 1919. Prohibition is what killed breweries, not the big guys.

If you're disappointed with the product, let your wallet do the talking. Go somewhere else.

Or move to a state that is more renowned for their beer.

 

I agree that some smaller breweries are definitely putting out inferior product but its only a matter of time before the market collapses in on them. However I also think that what makes craft beer so great is the wide variety of options available. I support small brewers, even if they have average beer, because they are the future of the industry and they need all the help they can get. If you support the average brewer enough its only a matter of time before they start taking chances and become less average and more unique.

Also everyone needs to take the ratings with a huge grain of salt. Keep in mind that what makes the top250 beers so popular is their ability to deliver consistent, unique, mind blowing taste. I think we can all agree on that. I think we can also agree that if you're going to the beach or tailgating a game that you don't want to be gulping down 7 heady toppers or BA Stouts all day. There is a market for average beer that is why it exists. You can only drink so many palate wrecking beers before you want to sit down and relax with something average.

 

isn't the reason we are all here, and the reason why we consider ourselves BA's, that we try a bunch of beers? This process inevitably leaves you with some favorites and some duds, but the duds are seldom unbearable or disgusting. I love trying new brews from small sometimes local breweries because its just another beer under the belt!

Not to sound like a Chinese proverb, but you should learn to enjoy things even if you don't particularly enjoy them.

 

In most cases, especially with packaged beer, I'd say it was sloppiness and/or hastiness. Here's an article I linked in another thread recently, but it's worth doing again, I suppose, because George DePiro does a good job making things clear:
http://www.professorbeer.com/articles/diacetyl.html

The key takeaway is that the beer needs a long enough primary fermentation and contact with the yeast so that the diacetyl precursor alpha acetolactate (AAL) is fully converted and then broken down by the yeast. AAL is tasteless, and if it's in the bottled/canned product, and oxygen is introduced, it will then convert to diacetyl after the fact. That means that the beer will likely pass a sensory board prior to packaging, but still wind up flawed once the consumer gets it.

Yes, mutated yeast, or sanitation issues can also cause it- but the ones I have run into were either bottled or canned.

That's pretty much what happened with the last "bust" in the 90s. Total barrels stayed constant (or laybe increased a little bit) but the number of breweries decreased. That was a result of people not wanting to play Russian Roulette any more, for the most part, and just staying with their tried and true breweries.

 

Beer is like video games: a fuck load of them out there, but a more narrow field of very good to great ones. Research isn't hard, man. It's fun and rewarding!

 

I can honestly say that for the vast majority of vists to wherever, the selection is better and quality better every year. Do I get a less desirable one here and there?--sure. Usually try a taste if really unsure and even if blind in a restaurant, a poor one is typically the exception.

 

Craft beer is only hard if ya freeze it

 

His point was that he, and others generally, tend(s) to prefer IPAs to lagers so most IPAs will have higher ratings than most lagers. This means, that when an IPA gets, say a 3.5 rating, it is not that great of an IPA (but still arguably a good beer), since even just okay ones tend to get more of a 4-5. By the same token, since most lagers will be in the 1-3 range, a 3.5 (or higher) rated lager could be considered a pretty good lager, even if not all that great of a beer. Math is "objective" because it is "internally consistent" and tautological. That does not mean that when math or numbers happen to be used that there are no factors of subjectivity or relativity. I'm sure you know this already, since taste itself is well, a matter of taste. That's almost the whole point of the rating system on the site.

A 3.5 lager may be considered as good/bad as a 3.5 IPA, so I guess there's a level of objectivity there, at least on the averaged scores, but relative to other lagers, that 3.5 lager is really good, and relative to other IPAs, that 3.5 IPA is nothing special.

 

That’s to harsh there are plenty of beers out there that are underrated. Don’t depend on everyone else to do the hard work of trying out new beers. Don’t be a follower that’s why you got into craft beer in the first place.

 

Educate me brother -- I love tropical ipas /dipas and pales -- i see you have reviewed quite a number of beers -- Can u turn me on to any underrated brews that fit that category?