Craft's Proliferation Problem

I think there are more bright spots than dark. As someone above indicated, it's an amazing time to be a craft beer fan and though the bubble will inevitably burst, at least to a small degree, I think it's safe to say that now that so many people have a taste for really good beer they won't be turning back. I think you can always find negatives in regards to any product that becomes so popular in a fairly short amount of time, but again, this is a amazing time to be a fan. So Drink up and enjoy! :-)

 

Is it surprising that as American craft has grown, there are fewer imports? In the past when there were fewer American options, imports were the more common option I would imagine. And I would imagine the proliferation of IPA's is connected to the potential variety of them - many different kinds of hops, with different flavor profiles.

I also wonder if the proliferation of tap handles - many more restaurants serving craft beer than ever before, and more craft beer bars, would offset the proliferation of beers. The former maybe not so much, as they tend to have mostly the biggest sellers (though at least in this area, not local beers particularly) but the latter I would think so - Churchkey, Meridian Pint, etc seem to have a great range of styles and origins.

 

Given that I live in a very German town, complete with multiple German heritage societies that have competing Oktoberfests and Christkindlmarkts, one of the first Hofbrauhaus locations in the US, and no shortage of restaurants where one can get a good schweinschaxe, I can confirm that the days of seeing 5 hefeweizens on tap even in German-themed bars are gone. I've seen the same thing when traveling to other states and stopping in German-themed bars therein - even ones with amazing beer selections (hi, Hessen Haus in Des Moines) have maybe 2 hefes. But they'll also have at least 1 Belgian, and likely several taps of US craft!

That being said, I'm okay with having fewer hefes on tap, as long as the ones on tap are good, and there are other good beers on tap alongside them (hi again, Hessen Haus, with your seemingly permanent Tap 6 Aventinus, Korbinian, and Reissdorf Koelsch handles).

 

http://www.churchkeydc.com/documents/ONLINEDRAFTMONDAY05-18-15.pdf

Only one hefeweizen, against a whole bunch of IPAs and IIPA's (although that English IPAs and one "Belgian IPA", session IPA's etc)

But plenty of lagers, plenty of imports generally, several Saisons and Witbeirs.

Are there many people who could not find several things to like on that menu (and that is only the draft menu, of course)

 

Below is the current tap list from a local beer bar:

Troegs Dreamweaver - Hefeweizen

Dark Horse Smells Like A Safety Meeting – IPA

Doc's Pear Cider

Ballast Point Sculpin IPA

Clown Shoes Space Cake - DIPA

Allagash Dubbel

Allagash White

Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold – German Export

Evil Twin Femme Fatale Kabosu - Brett

Cigar City Florida Cracker - Witbier

Wells Bombardier English Bitter

Hijinx Pitch Penny – English Bitter

Alpine Hoppy Birthday - APA

Boulevard The Calling - DIPA

Avery Salvation – Belgian Pale Ale

Goose Island Summer Ale

Lagunitas Sucks - DIPA

Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager – German Pilsner

Cigar City Vanilla Maduro Brown – English Brown Ale

Anderson Valley Blood Orange Gose

Ithaca SaScotch – Scotch Ale

Schneider Weisse - Hefeweizen

Bell's Two Hearted - IPA

Trois Mousquetaires Baltic Porter

Captain Lawrence Black IPA

Surly/Lervig 1349 Black Ale – American Black Ale


By my reckoning of the 26 tap handles:

· 12 American (including hoppy) beer styles: 46%

· 5 Belgian beer styles: 19%

· 5 British beer styles: 19%

· 4 German beer styles: 15%

The majority of the beers on tap are non-American beer styles.

Plenty of good beers to choose from!

Cheers!

 

Appreciate the reply, my good man, and apologies again if my accusations of BS came across too harshly or personally. I don't want to overplay my hand here -- you are correct that Belgian (typically, what, Chimay?), English (Guinness, Bass, Newcastle, Harp, Fuller's, etc.), and German (Spaten, Paulaner, Weihenstephan perhaps, etc.) don't command tap presence like they used to.

I'll argue that with some of those they're not exactly missed -- Newcastle, Bass, hell even Guinness (and I LOVED Guinness and really it was the beer that taught me to love beer at all), etc. I'll also argue that I guess I just notice (perhaps selective vision, I concede) less crazy ingredients than you do.

Re: local, you know that we disagree somewhat here -- while there are bad locals, to be sure, which I understand any antipathy when they gain a handle, there are others that are perfectly tasty in your neck of the woods, incl Four Peaks (much more traditional range of beers, btw), Fate, Dragoon, etc.

Overall, though, you really paint a picture of just being an import lover. All well and good, but, and this is something I'll touch on later in this reply, can you really be so surprised that, as craft grows, imports decline? I mean, would you really expect to find a Sculpin on tap in Germany or England? Why would we expect the same here?

I definitely never saw the 5-7 tap range of Fuller's that YM saw. Again, not wanting to overplay my hand, I definitely saw a few more hefes and lagers and, definitely, English beer in general around. And, again, some of those, I don't especially miss. I think what we're dealing with here is simply more variety, which didn't exist 10-20 years ago. Whether the more limited offerings in the past was a good or bad thing depends on your palate, I suppose.

Lordofthemark kinda gets to something I've been pondering during this discussion. It's curious to me that a major feature of the American craft scene 10 and 20+ years ago was the prevalence of international beer. Now, as US craft grows, those imports are somewhat being displaced by US craft options. To me, that's a pretty logical development -- more options locally/regionally, fresher options, more geared to what has emerged as the American palate (somewhat hoppier than international stuff).

So, I ask: why should the US have a strong presence of international beer?

Would I expect to see a Stone IPA on tap in a German biergarten (only if Greg Koch has his way, apparently!)? Should I be frustrated to find that Sculpin or Bourbon County never pops up on tap at my favorite pub in London? I doubt anyone would argue that. So, again, why should these international beers be afforded such place in our local drinking holes?

 

The reason more tap handles are devoted to craft is that BMC beer is sold in 1/2 kegs and don't need to be replaced as often.

 

Well, since I kept my examples of specific beers limited to US breweries creating beers in the US...

 

No, no, I think you're right on. I think I'm willing to have a little patience with US craft, because I do view it as in its infancy, when it comes to international styles. You've talked so much about those Bamberg breweries that have been open for 500+ years -- how on earth could US craft be expected to produce works as refined as those exact styles? Now, they may make variants of styles that appeal to some palates (and less to others), but I sort of digress there. Overall, I completely agree that US craft has lots to learn, particularly with certain international styles, and holding up something like JA as the pinnacle of the style is either hubris, naivete, or both.

(Full disclosure: I've thought the stuff I've had from JA anywhere from pretty darn good, though not authentic (Hoponious), to really not good at all (Kiwi Rising).)

 

I just googled craft beer bars in Phoenix, and there seem to be a few that advertise that half their tap handles are local. You just do not find that around metro DC (other than at locavore farm to table restaurants) despite, I guess, Md-DC-Va having more good local breweries than Arizona does. Seems like a quirk of the Phoenix scene (and perhaps a few other metros)

 

I'm sure there are some large geographical areas where the craft beer market is not saturated (Northern Alaska, South Dakota, etc.) but I don't think there are many populated areas left where the demand is that much greater than supply.

In Cincinnati, there have been 3 new breweries open in the last month (with another 2-4 opening over the summer).
These breweries all are fighting for the same small pool of tap handles that bars will give to craft/import. For 99% of bar owners, BMC is far and away where the money is on draft, so those keep the tap handles. If they can move 10 kegs of Bud Light per week and 1 keg of Local IPA, the hypothetical Local Brewing Co doesn't have a prayer of getting a second handle for Local Brown Ale. Which brings me to my next point...

You're half right, the hope would be that the mediocre craft brands will die out leaving the strong to survive and thrive. However, it seems like there are breweries opening so quickly (many of them mediocre) that (at least in Ohio) there's a constant influx of new crap coming out, so last month's new crap is being replaced by a different brewery's new crap. Anybody else see the problem here?

 

I'm in Cincy as well, and yes, that's part of the issue. Especially when there's a lot of shelf and tap space advertised as given to local breweries. I'd also throw in that when Local Brewery's new mediocre crap pushes, say, Edmund Fitzgerald off a tap handle, that ends up being a significant net decrease in beer quality.

For every Chickow! being brewed around here, there's at least 5 or 6 beers whose names I can't even remember without a visual prompt due to the meh-ness. But they all get their single rotation through the tap handles...

 

Want to preface my reply with acknowledging that much of this is the market responding to U.S. consumer demand, and that demand is NOT in line with what I like, @herrburgess likes, and others that speak up in threads like this or those regarding German beer, Belgian beer, etc. So I don't think there's really any mystery involved. I also don't think it is necessarily fair to just paint this as merely some sort of import preference. I think it is so common among veteran beer drinkers that it is just as aptly described as a veteran beer drinker preference sort of thing. If someone got into good beer back then, it was predominately the good imports and given the age of "veteran" drinkers, there's also the increased chance of actual travel to the source countries to see how good this stuff really is (that is far, far less common among the new kids just getting into craft beer).

Look at the German vs. U.S. examples of German styles threads and you'll see why some of us have our answer to your above quoted question. Because Germans make German styles better. Because Belgians make Belgian styles better. Because the British make British styles better.

That debate has taken place in those other threads, and honestly I don't think there really is much of a debate at all. The best of those beer styles come from their respective countries. That's why some of us are vocal about liking them so much and disappointed at their disappearance from tap handles for the sake of newer, trendier stuff. Now imagine that those beers were more readily available and now are gone. It's not hard to see why some of us liked things better back then.

 

or 100% local. See Craft 64. The "buy local" following is very active here. Think of Cubs fans in Chicago, regardless of how good the team is in a given year.

 

So, sticking with my ecological analogy , you're suggesting that the influx of new product is exceeding the carrying capacity of the consumer market which will create a crash in the craft beer industry. I think that is plausible if there is no net increase in interest and new consumers of craft beer, but the interest in craft seems to be growing, so I'm thinking it will be able to support the increased product lines. Now if the consumer base levels off, but the new products keep increasing, then maybe there are issues with sustainability.

I don't think the quality is an issue because the American consumer base is largely unconcerned with quality (see BMC's success) but more concerned with conformity. Everyone wants to be part of the latest cool thing. And craft beer is definitely cool.

 

Which ones, in particular, did you take note of? I can think of a couple, maybe, that are more local oriented, but the ones I've been to have definitely been a mix of local/regional?

That said, Phoenix may be a unique market. It doesn't have the historical connection to international beer styles (like, say, a DC/NY/Chicago/etc.) and has mostly a connection to BMC-stuff. There's been a decent localism push there too (much to @yemenmocha's chagrin), so that might be at play.

DC might be the quirk, though -- that's a very multi-regional/national community, so having regionally/internationally diverse tap lists makes a lot of sense.