Best Triple-Threat Breweries

Are you trolling me or honestly missing the point?

The US didn't get back to 4000 breweries by craft brewers making what already sold - quite the opposite.

 

Love me some Firestone but I've never encountered a sour by them...

Evil Twin - hard to pin them down but they do them all well
Stout - Imperial Biscotti Break
Wild - James Beer
Hop - Molotov Light

 

I'm going to buck convention a little.
New Belgium. Stout (Cocoa Mole Stout) Hoppy (Rampant IPA) Wild (Le Terrior)
[Stout isn't really their specialty, but they've made some good ones]
Avery: Stout (Uncle Jacob's Stout) Hoppy (Maharaja) Wild (Avery 22, many others)

This is super arbitrary though, and "Wild" is not a major style. Most wild beer sits on the shelf forever here and across the country.

 

FFF: BVDL, Zombie Dust, Skull'Ole

Cigar City: Hunahpu (and variants), Jai Alai, Lactobacillus Cherry Grove

 

Wicked Weed: Pernicious (Hoppy), Dark Age (Stout), Oblivion (Wild)
Prairie: 'Merica (Hoppy), Bomb! (Stout), Funky Gold Mosaic (Wild) (Extra versatility points since you can easily interchange both Hoppy and Wild examples)
Avery: DuganA (Hoppy), Tweak (Stout), Tectum et Elix (Wild)
Bruery: Humulus Lager (Hoppy), Mocha Wednesday (Stout), Rueuze (Wild)

 

Oskar Blues has been Wildly successful without being a "triple threat".
Stout: Ten Fidy
Hoppy: Dales Pale Ale, G'Knight, "Blue Dream" IPA, Gub'na
Wild: None, they don't make anything wild or sour
One of the fastest growing breweries in the US...

 

The great thing about this thread is that whether you want it to be the Beer Nerd Trifecta™, with stouts/hops/sours, or the Bastions of Tradition™ (lagers, Belgian, etc.), the answer is still Firestone.

 

Firestone Walker
Hill Farmstead
Alchemist

 

Regarding the styles OP mentioned, I think they are perfectly viable, no?

Breweries are certainly able to cover up their mistakes within these styles with ease, but this is not mutually exclusive with an experienced brewer being able to make a well-balanced, flawless version of each style as well.

In fact, I'm continually looking for examples of the latter. With the flood of mediocre DIPA's and BBA-stouts out there, I'm always happy to find one that doesn't have a dopey name and isn't the most hyped, but is the product of an excellent brewery.

 

I'd concur with that. Boulevard's Love Child #5 sold out everywhere I know of around Cincy within a day or two (because we only got a little bit of it, and only very craft-beer-centric places got any), but I see it sitting several rows deep at every Binny's I walk into when I go to Chicagoland. Alongside a bunch of others.

As far as the triple threat goes for this thread, I literally can't judge any hoppy beer - I've never tried it, but I can guarantee Heady Topper would taste to me exactly like Two Hearted, which tastes exactly like Arctic Panzer Wolf, which tastes exactly like SNPA, and so on and so forth. So, I'll just replace that category with pilsner, and go with...

Boulevard. Love Child takes care of the wild entry, they do a handful of good stouts (X Aztec Chocolate was quite tasty), and their KC Pils is pretty darned tasty as far as I'm concerned. Throw in that they're not bad at Belgian beers either, and they're fairly well-rounded.

 

Seriously? Are you unaware this thread is about craft brewers? And every point I made was about craft brewing? And every beer I mentioned was a craft brew?

 

I'll vouch for a villain, again: The OP.
I am not a home or commercial brewer, so I can only speculate how difficult it is to make either a good stout/wild/hoppy or a good Pilsner/Kolsch. I'm sure both categories have their difficulties. But there is something to be said for using the first category as a metric for the skill of the brewer. Because their demand is so high we the consumers can be harshly discriminating between even a very very good one from a great one. The answers here represent the best of the prodigies of the cream of an enormous crop. If we were rating breweries based on Pilsners and Kolsches it would not be as much fun, because a lot of us would respond: "XYZ makes a good one, I think. Not much competition anyway."

 

Some people just don't care that much about sours. Which is fine..to each their own. Saves me lots of money

 

What did I do to rub you the wrong way?

Of course we're talking about craft.
Your point was that a craft brewer should make what sells, and difficult styles can bankrupt you.
My point is exactly the opposite: we got to 4000 breweries through brave brewers creating new fans by giving them beers like nothing they'd ever tasted before.

 

Jester King:
Black Metal
Wytchmaker
Atrial Rubicite

Come at me, bro.

 

I agree with what's been said about redefining the OP's 3 pillars. I think sacc. cerevisiae, sacc. pastorianus, and brett/bacteria would be good pillars. A bit more broad and all 3 of the above pillars need to be treated very differently to achieve good results. I have a decreasing amount of respect for the ale only breweries. People who shun lagers are missing out big time.


As for the OP's question...I'll play

Allagash
Saison(hoppy)
Black(stout)
Wild...lol

Westbrook
Cake
One Claw
Gose(even though it's a midget compared to most longer term sours/wild it's still really great)

Jackie O's is also a no brainer the diversity of stuff they make at a high level, makes listing below unnecessary.

 

To address your first point, maybe I read in a condescending tone to posts like...

I may be reading more into them, but they seem condescending to me.

As for your second point, I fully agree that a poorly made pils is undrinkable and it is difficult to make a clean one. However the same issues that create these off flavors in a pils are the same issues that lead to a bad IPA or stout. Other issues come up as well for the bigger beers, like autolysis. I just find it hard to stomach when people say it takes no skill to brew any specific style. There is just so much more to it than what is on the surface.

 

Alchemist is not a triple threat. They make 1 beer.

I agree with "Triple Threat of Hype" that somone posted. IPA, Imperial Stouts, and Sours are the most hyped styles right now. Doesn't mean they aren't good. Just means they are incredibly hyped.

 

Drop wilds and sours and add pilsners. BOOM!