Falling Beer Quality as MN gains more Breweries

While it does often happen that Bud drinkers remain Bud drinkers after trying craft beer, most craft beer drinkers probably started off drinking Bud or something similar.

 

I really agree with many points in the article. I've had a few taproom regrets over the past year or two. One thought I had while reading it was about my time studying in Bavaria. Local brews tended to be preferred and for reasons beyond quality and freshness. I think it is good to want to drink local but the Bavarians have the advantage of an industry where apprenticeships are the norm for those learning how to brew. Akin to the mentorship that the author is asking for, perhaps a few of these brewers should have spent more time (or any!) working as an assistant or head brewer for someone else before striking out on their own? That tendency would result in slower growth but better quality assurance.

 

This is a great point (yes, I was the only one naming names), but this has been an interesting & civil discussion, & I'd agree that naming names might devolve quickly. Perhaps in a different thread started just for that purpose?

And as someone else pointed out it can be tough, especially from a memory sometimes months old, to separate the "bad" beer from the "beer I just didn't care for".

 

Nutmeg got called out on FaceSpace recently. In the past I have seen LTD called out as well, they seem to be improving a lot though. While people may get offended sometimes constructive criticism needs to happen. For all we know local brewers and pros may be private messaging the off flavors they are detecting directly to the brewery. After all Minnesota's craft beer rep as a market is very important to a lot of people.

 

I remember talking to a local brewer about the finishing gravity of his IPA which was remarkably high for the style. I asked him if it was on purpose or if it just turned out that way. He said "yeah, that's just where it ended up." I started talking about more attenuative yeast strains, and it was like he had never really done any research or experimentation before picking a yeast strain. This was the co-owner/head brewer, mind you. I get not knowing all of the cool new yeast strains, but being satisfied with an abnormally high finishing gravity for an IPA should be out of the question for a professional brewer.

 

It's also just as likely that a bud drinker tries a seriously flawed beer and thinks that's what craft beer is supposed to taste like. He may even like it. I've met those people. And you can't blame them. It's not their fault.

 

Are you talking about Facebook? I didn't see that, nor do I see it now. That would make me remarkably sad, because I have been waiting forever for brewpup in the south metro, & plan on stopping in soon.

 

There was this post on a FB group: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10107069606448940&set=gm.1068394106533700&type=3&theater

The brewpub was tagged and some of the various comments mention quality. I did go there and agree there were some off flavors with the Weiss and IPA. The Dark Ale and Mild were ok, food was good, service decent, and the place looked nice.

Here is the group if you can't view the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/216808638358922/

 

If you stop in soon, there's free beer with purchase of entree; That's a deal anyone should be able to get behind.

 

I've seen similar on 10K in at least one or two public reviews already. They'll probably be ok because of location, but it sucks to see it.

 

I've been to LTD six times in the past few months and I have no complaints with anything that I've tried, although I'd never tried them before that. I've actually wondered why they're not talked about a little more because the majority of beers that I've had from them are better than a lot of other Minnesota brewers.

I just visited last Friday and thought the Rudolph's Nightmare was a very good coffee beer. The Nightmare C&V was also solid. They had a firkin of a cinnamon maple brown ale that I thought was absolutely phenomenal. Probably one of my absolute favorite new beers from any Minnesota brewer the past year. Definitely a dessert beer, but it's one that I wish I could have regularly.

 

I agree that naming names in this thread will turn the discussion downhill very quickly. I travel a bit and visit taprooms all over, this is not only a Minnesota problem, it is a national problem. From sea to shining sea there is a whole lot of mediocre to poor beer. And a lot of it gets a pass by either localism or people do not know a flawed beer when they taste them. Education of the beer drinker I think will be the key to turn the direction towards improving all beer quality. I definitely could use more.

 

If you know the difference between beers that you don't like and beers with off flavors/infection, I say go ahead and name names.

 

Same here with LTD, it was a year or so ago I saw the call out. Seems to take a lot of new breweries that amount of time to dial in. While we want to be supportive, we are literally paying for their mistakes which is unique to the industry. As the scene matures I doubt the tolerance for that will be as high.

 

Michael sums it up purdy darn well (and I'm anonymously paraphrased in the article, "A brewer friend who has judged the GABF competition for many years confided to me that the number of unpalatable entries has skyrocketed."). As the growing number of "better beer" drinkers become more fully educated, the tolerance for sub-par beers will force either an improved range of beers (hopefully) or shuttering of operations. Go Darwin!

Education and experience will bring about better beers - study and drink!

I've maintained for a very long time the biggest "competition" of/for craft beer is bad beer. Part of it is a number's game (there's a % of just bad brewers out there and now there's 4000+ breweries in the US), and a gold rush / "it's easy!" mentality when it comes to commercial brewing. End of the day, it's a business (one the evokes a lot of passion!) and the margin for marginal is becoming slimmer and slimmer.

The question of "should I say something to the brewer?" - yes! If there's a problem out there that I'm unaware of, I'd want to know ASAP. Just approach from the standpoint of, "hey, I had one (or more...) of your beers and somethings not right, it tasted like..." - constructive criticism will go A LONG way to helping rectify bad beer.

PS - (shameless plug...) The BrewFarm is open this weekend (1/9-10 from 3-7 each day) - come out and try some tasty beers!

Cheers,

FarmerD

 

People definitely paid for my mistakes the first few weeks at Sisyphus, and it has affected our reputation even to this day. There's a long thread titled "Sisyphus Thoughts" that I could link, but I'd rather not look at it again. It's the one phase of my life I wish I could go back and do-over again. When we opened, to no one's fault but my own, we were completely out of money. Things cost more, things took longer, and I thought I knew what I was doing which was probably the most dangerous.

When I was brewing the first batches, I knew we had to sell them or our doors would literally never open, and I would have cost my wife and I everything (House, retirement accounts, loans from parents). I was looking online for jobs in Alaska, because I figured that would be my only option to deal with the embarrassment of my failures. That's a lot of pressure, and a lot of places opening have similar behind the scene challenges. They aren't going to tell you that publicly, but trust me, there are numerous breweries that either are or were in financial trouble, and opening that valve to send something down the drain might not even be an option they are considering. It took several weeks to stabilize before I had the "luxury" to say "This sucks, we can't sell this." I put luxury in quotes because that should be standard - If beer is bad, don't sell it. And to look at where we are today makes me glad that we got through it. But we did long term damage to get to there. I think a lot beers are pretty awesome right now (IPA's, our high alcohol stouts, barrel aged stuff). But there is a group of people who will never come back to give us another chance based on the start.

Some brewer's don't know better. Or don't care to get better. I always try places multiple times, because I like trying beers and I like hanging out in taprooms. Some places that I think make bad beer have gotten better, some haven't. Usually talking with the brewer/owner will give you a sense of this. I'm a capitalist through and through - the market gets to decide who stays in business and who doesn't. Quality of product is one of the factors that may or may not influence success, but marketing, location, branding, etc also play a huge factor. We just opened a comedy club attached to our taproom, and it will definitely help us keep us doing what we have been doing.

I've stopped trying to get to places right when they open. Openings are almost always disappointing. I'm trying to think of an opening I've attended recently where I have been impressed with the beer, and I'm struggling. I'd probably pick Fairstate as the last place I went to early on and was very impressed. They got it right - experienced brewer, proper funding, and built in community support, and I think they are just absolutely killing it now.

I think a lot of people in craft beer have been consumed by a large "Fear of Missing Out" factor as well as this intense desire to find "THE BEST" everything out there; when it falls short of these lofty expectations, things are judge more harshly than they should be. I'm kinda over that part of the beer world personally. If I get a bottle of whatever flavor du jour is hot right now, so be it, but I'm not going out of my way to get it. If something is getting tapped and there's only 1/6 barrel keg this side of Himalayas, so be it. Maybe it's because it's a consumable good that goes in our bodies, but what other art gets judged so harshly? How good is the pilot to your favorite show? Mine is Seinfeld, and the pilot...not that good. How good is a stand-up comic the first few times he steps on stage? Or the first few episodes of a new podcast?

So to summarize this stream of consciousness, if beer is bad and you don't like it, don't buy it, but maybe give places another chance down the road. Your couple visits aren't going to make or break the business. Be honest about your thoughts when people at the establishment ask you. The places that care will adjust and try to improve, and the ones that don't care won't. And remember (and maybe people will hate that I say this), but after all, it is just beer. I view beer as a compliment to friendship and conversation. And if the beer is bad, I'm still going to have a good time.

And to copy Dave's style, here's my shameless plug: The BrewFarm is open this weekend (1/9-10 from 3-7 each day) - come out and try some tasty beers! Seriously, if you haven't been here, you need to go.

 

What happened 20 years ago on the west coast that is only just starting to happen here in Mn?

 

No, but let's not go down that rabbit hole again!

I agree with most of your post, but IMHO there are things other than the quality of the beer that's driving people to taprooms, & for that reason, many that are marginal are going to survive, or even thrive. There's the social aspect of gathering with friends, there's the "neighborhood watering hole" aspect that many places have absolutely nailed, there's the cool factor of both the physical locations & the "craft beer movement", & the aforementioned simple ignorance of what a Belgian Pale Ale (for example) should taste like, among other things. If semi-lousy brewpubs are doing some other things right, & still fouling up their beer, they're going to be fine.

Wonderful post. I particularly agree with going to places right away. I, too, have ceased visiting tap rooms in the first month or so of operations, because I've had some very poor impressions that have been tough to shake. Although it would be terrible if everyone started doing this, because those places would never get off the ground!

The BrewFarm is one of the coolest places on earth. Go there.