Falling Beer Quality as MN gains more Breweries

Your problem is that people are drinking bad beer and liking it?

 

Thank you for your thoughts on the article and the local scene, ZAP!

I have to admit that I don't drink as much beer (local or otherwise) as I used to, and I can't be the only person who can't keep up with the dozens upon dozens of new taproom-only and/or growler brands, let alone all of the new packaged brands.

What I've heard from professional brewers and others within the trade generally agrees with what Mr. Agnew wrote.

 

Thanks for the link to the article!

But it's written from a purist perspective. It's written factually: yes, there are a growing number of crappy tap rooms & beers. Yes, some aren't getting any better. Yes, many people appear to be 'getting into the game' without understanding fully what their doing. But the facts ignore the subtext.

Most beer drinkers aren't "us", they're people who've grown up on Bud Light, Michelob, & the odd Summit here & there. And now, they might be looking for something that isn't Bud, but they'd hurl if served a Barrel-Aged Surly Darkness. That little local tap room with the porter & wheat beer - that's just what a lot of the current generation is looking for, people who've grown up on heirloom tomatoes & locally-sourced ingredients.

They don't know, or care, if the beers are 'off' in the technical sense. They know these beers have more flavor than Bud, that they're crafted by people living in the community, often with a 'local' angle to their public relations. I know some of these people. When I went to (I'll go ahead & name a name) 612 Brewing for the first time, I was horrified at the sloppy beers being served - diacetyl, the rye tasted just like the IPA, everything was under-attenuated. My friends? Happy as pigs in a shit. They loved that stuff. I, on the other hand, have never been back.

What I'm saying is: there's a place for McDonald's & a place for Brasa. If people choose to drink & enjoy 612, despite the obvious flaws, more power to 'em. Just because the beers suck on a technical level, it doesn't mean they won't have an audience anyways.

 

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Agnew. When I went through beer judge training in the early nineties, we purposely tasted flawed beer to learn the major flaws and what causes them. I can't believe anyone would open a brewery without even that minimal amount of training.

At one taproom we went to, the bartender told us "Oh. The brewer said the IPA turned out different this time, so now he's calling it a brown ale." (WTF?) He gave us a sample, and all you could taste was medicinal/chlorophenol. It was horrible. The guy sitting next to us at the bar loved it. I have to wonder - Is the brewer so clueless that he doesn't know it's bad? Or worse, does he know, but not want to drain-pour a whole batch, figuring his customers won't know the difference?

At another place, our four-beer sampler had three badly flawed beers, and the guy behind the bar was the brewer. My question for this group is: What do you do in that case? Do you go talk to the brewer, assuming he'd want to know? Do you order a pint of the one un-flawed beer, then sit and grumble to yourself? Do you leave and never come back? I chose the last option. But I keep wondering if I should have chosen the first.

 

I leave and don't come back (unless folks here say the beer has vastly improved). Most people don't want some person coming in and tell them they are doing their job incorrectly, even if they are. My wife and I have a growing handful of taprooms that we will not return to in the near future due to seriously flawed beers.

 

Thanks @ZAP nice read with the proliferation of brewpubs and breweries , yes some will not make good beer but what they make is good money and so be it sometimes a place is more hip than the brew so sad IMO... but location and vibe is better than the brew , and thats ok its location for the folks.. me i like good brew and have always appreciated the craft of that beverage that is what i seek, but for atmosphere and being there that has a place in this equation also just my 2 cents.

 

I dont think your comparison is a fair one.

A restaurant that serves spoiled meat will get shut down by the state for health reasons. A brewery that serves mediocre beer wont. A restaurant that serves burned meat will have to close unless enough people like their meat burned. A craft brewery that serves mediocre beer will have to close unless enough people like their mediocre craft beer.

There are different levels of quality in pretty much every product made within every category. Some people will only drink the best of the best craft beer. Other people just want to drink mediocre craft beer because to them it tastes good.

I dont understand why people get so bent out of shape over this. Let people decide for themselves what craft beer they like. Different people like different craft beers. Seems pretty simple. If not enough people like a brewery's beer, however, well then its survival of the tastiest and time for them to go to plan B.

 

Great thread - I think this overall topic is very interesting, at the very least from the perspective of watching how the MN market is rapidly, rapidly changing. I have brought this topic up in the past, and the reaction is always very mixed, and I often got chastised for being too snarky or something like that. At the end of the day, the reality is that MN is fairly young in craft beer game, and many consumers here do not yet have the palate to differentiate designed flavors from off-flavors. (I come from the West Coast where what is happening in MN took place 20 plus years ago. We went through a simialr cycle).

I do believe that many MN breweries are taking significant steps forward with quality, and consumers will continue to improve their palates and better discern off-flavors, and more importantly, identify what a quality brew with a clean profile tastes like. Those breweries that have a QA approach will continue to grow. Those that do not will find themselves in a different situation. Ultimately, the market will decide - that's the way a market based economy works.

 

Fair point on the spoiled meat aspect, and ... have any of you oiks actually had a job where you worked with food? I know that some of you folks are I.T. guys, lawyers, oil industry grunts, police officers, and even 'beer guys' (cheers to that!). But food service is different than Retail* -which is of course very broad- and all of these have their own -VERY specific- levels of quality control and customer service. Food is probably the most stringent at a day to day level.

I've witnessed customers complain of 'spoiled meat' both with and without reason. In the cases of the former, an off-smell should be the first clue to whoever is preparing or cooking it. This means placing portioned sliced meat onto a sub roll, a 'wrap', or a sliced loaf of bread for sandwiches, or cooking meat (grilling, broiling, etc). I've seen MODs fired because they allowed a teenaged kid to prepare a sandwich with ******s in it! Ugh. As to the latter, people complain about food all the time, even when it's fresh, unspoiled and cooked to their exact specification; It's much easier to toss food which is returned to the kitchen than it is to deal with an angry (former) customer who was made ill by being served food which has spoiled.

At worst, infected, off-style, or hilariously-past-code beer will give you an upset stomach . . . but that's it!

Perspective is important, even in an era where "Local, Craft Beer" has become so much marketing and hype.

*Prior to becoming stuck in the food and beverage rut I worked in retail, and stocked and sold 'dry goods' as well as clothing and footwear. Whereas paper products and shoes/clothing won't get you sick, improperly prepared food will. I'm just noting the difference between shoddy manufactured product which can be mended versus foodstuffs which could cause more than just severe stomach and lower intestinal discomfort.

 

I think we all quite often forget that breweries are businesses first and foremost, and therefore have profit as their goal. Some care about beer as much as we do, but some merely care about the money. As I've said before it doesn't take a good brewer or someone who is passionate about beer to open a brewery it only takes someone with a couple million dollars.

As for the article, I agree with Mr. Agnew wholeheartedly, but there is just too much good beer out there for me to get all bend up about the bad beer being made.

 

I just saw this. Tin Whiskers is doing a Beer Off-Flavor Training event at their taproom.

https://www.facebook.com/events/781257918670456/

For non-FB people, it says "We will go over 8 of the most common off flavors in beer (Acetaldehyde, Contamination, Dimethyl Sulfide, Diacetyl, Isovaleric Acid, Light-Struck, Metallic, and Papery), talk about their causes, and try samples of beer that have been spiked to mimic those flavors."

 

There are a lot of breweries in the twin cities here that have at least a few bad beers in their lineup (as in flawed, not just ones I don't care for). I have never said anything to the brewer or bartender, but I have most of the samples intact and asked what they have for guest beers. I like a lot of varieties so it really isn't that hard to please me. I am ok with an average beer if it doesn't have off tastes.

That said there are some real winners in the Twin Cities here.

 

<chokes> I just suffered a near-fatal irony attack.

I haven't been in a while, but if they haven't cleaned up their beers over the past few months, I'd assume they're just using their regular tap line-up for this event.

 

Got my ticket this morning. Hopefully it's a worthwhile event! And maybe it'll help me get my home brews into shape ha

 

Dou you really think brewing shitty beer will become the norm before breweries brewing shitty beer close? If every single one of their beers is really that bad and literally tastes like vomit I doubt many people will buy their beer. There are too many breweries making good beer for that to happen.