The chase, bragging rights, or the beer?

I think things were better when I was younger and better looking and a few beers didn't tend to make me sleepy.

Otherwise the current situation regarding beer is aces.

 

Fair, but unless you go to the brewery, you aren't getting any Zombie Dust without having to work damn hard for it, or pay double the usual price. If you go to Half Acre for one of their releases the line goes around the block. What used to be a cool event where I could say to a buddy "hey sweet, half acre is releasing Double Daisy today - want to stop by and have a beer?" now requires standing in line for an hour and way too much douche-bagery than it should.

Sure, there are some great beers on the shelf that are just as good (and I drink them!) but the fact there are 200 people in line for Double Daisy an hour before the brewery opens is just nuts...

 

I think the oversharing thing is ubiquitous and not just applicable for beer (I am definitely guilty of this sometimes!). Checking facebook this morning confirms that! That said, I think the "chase" and "bragging rights" are now more of an element now that BA and other beer websites and forums keep growing as well as social media itself. In the end a lot of rare releases and events are still a social event and it's not like a pure soup **** situation, so I definitely do not cast aspersions on folks who are into this.

I always put beer first, but that doesn't mean on one of my once-in-awhile trips to Tree House I don't enjoy the hour and a half drive and build anticipation for a possible unannounced rare release - again, for my enjoyment and not just to trade for some other whalez...

 

I'm between 60-100 years old and have been a huge good beer advocate since I was in my 20s. As I've said on many occasions it was travel early, at a perfectly impressionable age, all through Europe and elsewhere later, that marked me as a lifetime beer fool. It was fresh Munich Lowenbrau that hooked me. My Dad knew that he was buying it for me. Having it in Munich years later was a thrill!
The behaviors that you very delicately describe are just normal human traits- hoarding, bragging, the list goes on. Your perspective is excellent, in my opinion. It is very important not to be too self-righteous because in fact this is just beer. The problem is that a number of folks take beer a little too personally, almost as a matter of pride. I've learned to just like good beer, share with family and friends, and to be as reasonable as possible in assessing some of the modern negative trends. There are just way too many good folks around here- that have dedicated their lives to a nice type of beer evangelism- that we need not listen too seriously to some of the silliness. And cheers to all!

 

Nice cathartic thread going on here. Might as well get my time on the couch too. Recently went to a Grand Opening of the beer store I go to (the ONLY store I buy beer at) because they had changed location to a bigger better building. They were having some tastings and were releasing harder to find beers during the event. I enjoyed congratulating the owner, talking and sampling beers with local brew reps, and walking around the awesome new place. Later, I found out a lot of people were standing at the storeroom doors waiting for the staff to walk out with a new box of beer so they could GRAB it out of the box before being allowed to put on the shelf. Sad, sad, sad. A party to support the store and celebrate its opening and all these guys were there for was to try and bum-rush the sales guys for harder to find beer. Pathetic. I went back the next day and still found some great stuff too.
PS-I'm also in my 30's, so apparently that means I can comment in this thread

 

@pagriley sorry if I came off a little on the provocative side, I wasn't trying to start a fight or offend anyone.

But the point I've been trying to make is that at this point I'm fine with not being able to get Zombie Dust for takeout, (they'll always either have Gumballhead or Zombie Dust on tap!) and I'm perfectly happy if I can score cans of Daisy Cutter or let alone drink some from the tap house. I've become content enough with these already excellent beers that missing out on the next best beer ever doesn't quite strike the same note that it used to anymore.

@coldy thank you for clarifying your position. I'm sorry you feel frustrated, but at least you're not buying a bottle of 7 months-old 90 Minute Dogfish Head IPA for the price of a four pack back in the states from your local importer because the importer can get away with stuff like that because the general public doesn't seem to be able to tell the difference between a malt bomb and a well-hopped IPA in this backwards country. At this point I'm just satisfied with what I can get period.

 

No worries - not provocative at all! I guess my annoyance with the scene today is that it wasn't always like this - not even a few years ago. The frenzy is accelerating, although most of what I have to say is mostly just whining and pining for the olden days! One of my favorite beers at the moment is Tall Grass 16 bit - it is a fantastic bigger pale ale (6%) and I can get it whenever I like, so I am with you, there are lots of options just as good - it just irks me that douchebags are crowding my hobby!

 

What I have learned is that people get enjoyment out of beer in all different ways. For some people it's the chase, for others it's posting what they're drinking every 15 mins on social media, or writing a beer review, or maybe just relaxing at home with a beer and tuning out everything else in the world around them for a few hours.

I have found that it's very easy to avoid anything that might annoy you about the beer scene. Personally, this means I don't trade, I don't go to releases, I don't wait in lines, I don't hunt whalez, I don't even like saying the word whalez. Avoiding these things keeps beer enjoyable for ME. But that might be incredibly boring to someone else.

There are a lot of things to dislike about this evolving beer scene, but if you ignore them you'll find there a lot of great things as well. It is extremely different than it was 10 yrs ago and it will be different 10 yrs from now too. How you get enjoyment out of it is up to you.

 

The craft beer scene is starting to resemble the sports memorabilia (primarily cards) scene in the early 90s. Demand and supply took off in lock-step, mostly because of an artificial sense of "value." People saw the whale collectibles selling for a mint, and thought they could sock away their future college savings by investing in collectibles. Of course, card companies flooded the market with waves and waves of garbage, with a few rarities thrown in. Many of the old-timers got turned off, and eventually even kids and casual collectors got turned off and ran out of enough cash to keep up. Now we're left with truckloads of kindling clogging up former collectors' basements.

Beer will go through this same process eventually. Hipsters will age out, get lives and families, and run out of disposable cash, all while the product on the whole inevitably gets watered down. Keep supporting the best of the new wave of breweries out there, because they are the ones we want around when the dust settles in a few years.

 

Well, I walked right in and had a PTY at Monks with no line a bunch of years ago. Tried to go two years ago and walked away because I won't stand in a line down the block.

I grew up listening to punk rock and was mocked about it till I got to college. Now it's accepted. All good things will find the main stream. Nothing you can do about it. It's good for the brewery.

I remember when three Floyd's distributed to PA and when they left no no one cared. ZD was not on a pedestal as it is now. I does seem as if that pedestal has become lower in recent years

Enjoy

 

Two years ago is exactly when I went. Tom was frustrated as hell because some people were lining up in front of the door step at 6AM drinking out in public. They had some amazing vintage RRBC stuff on tap that day though (Supplication, Consecration, etc.)

 

I understand where coldy is coming from. I think we are around the same age and I was the one bringing a six pack to a keg party and taking some heat from my friends. One of my buddies used to refer to my beer as Robotusin or tusin as he liked to call it.

My take is with any change there is going to be positives and negatives. The beer store I used to frequent would try to almost push beer that would be considered limited today. Now the same beer sells out in half an hour and they would never mention they had it unless you ask. But on the other hand last night I went to a small burger spot that had a great tap list. The same place 5 years ago I would of been happy if the had Boston lager. Overall I think the popularity is a positive.

 

Honestly, for me a lot of it's about the chase. I think it stems from my love for running competitively. Every now and then you have a great race, set a new record, but the glory is only temporary. By finding enjoyment in the chase, the long training hours in the dead of winter with the thermometer isn't even in the double digits, and the swelteringly hot triple digit days in the summer, the chase became what I enjoyed - with the sweet spots in between being sublime.

Beer is the same way, except I don't exert myself as hard. I hear about beers that I think "ahh, I'll never try that" and then I land a trade or something and get to taste it for myself I'm always chasing new beers too. Whether they're local or not. I just love trying new beers. Especially now that I've discovered not all IPAs are ludicrous or disgusting.

P.S. This reminds me of my friends who discovered Twenty One Pilots several years back. They were opening for someone else at a small 75 person venue. Now they're performing in the largest venue in town (a basketball arena). I know they were pretty upset when others started loving Twenty One Pilots, but hey - that just means they're doing something well. Bummer that you can't see them in a small venue, but at least they're doing what they love. Same thing with beer. It may be harder to get your hands on something, but on the other side, it means that brewery gets to work a little bit more on what they love.

 

Actually, you tangentially raise a very good point - Russian River of all the breweries is among the most guilty of manipulating the situation to their advantage. There is no reason that PTY should be once a year only - it could easily be available on tap regularly at the brewery (and even on tap in a few selected locations too) but the rarity adds to they hype, and that sells.

We really should be pissed off with the breweries who try and manipulate / benefit from the situation. In most other markets, if you make something that everyone wants, you try and make more of it - try and get supply to meet demand. I am not implying you compromise quality, but the 'once a year super limited' feeds the frenzy, and is (at lest to me) deliberate for some breweries to benefit from the hype.

This 'it is limited thus better' marketing gimmick is actually a hallmark of luxury good marketing... We are being suckered by cleaver branding and manipulation...

 

For me, it is all about the thrill and excitement of new discover of quality beers and/or then sharing them with others. Not saying that is good or bad, but simply why I am so much more excited to try new beers vs. revisiting the easy to find great tasting beers I can get frequently or easily.

A perfect example, I love La Fin Du Monde. One of my perfect score 5 beers. I bought a single 12oz bottle as part of a mixed six pack with 5 new beers I hadn't tried yet. Over that week, I always was more excited after work to reach in the fridge and try one of the new beers, while La Fin sat in the back. Eventually (after 2 weeks and another mixed sixer later) I finally decided to drink the La Fin. Tasted delicious as always and yes, was better than nearly every other beer I sampled over those 2 weeks. However, it just didn't excite me, like new discover beers do.

 

You make an excellent point, but perhaps--and take this with a grain of salt--chose a bad example to illustrate it, here's what the RRBC website says about their yearly PTY release:

That said, it is extremely difficult, time and space consuming, and very expensive to make. And that is why we don’t make it more often! This beer is very full-bodied with tons of hop character in the nose and throughout. It is also deceptively well-balanced and smooth.

I think I read something similar about Founders and how they could make KBS a year-round offering, but they simply don't have the money or the space in their brewery to do it, as well.

 

Fair point on KBS - they have to have space to barrel age etc... I totally agree capacity and barrel storage is a big issue for many limited releases, but I call shennanigans on Russian River for the PTY statement - it is a DIPA... you don't have to age it, you don't need space for barrels, all you need is a bit of extra malt and hops and perhaps an extra few days in the fermenter to get the ABV up and clean up the fermentation. Sure, it is a bit harder to make an 11% DIPA than an 8% one, but not so hard you can only manage it once a year...

I actually picked PTY because it is a DIPA - it really isn't that much more expensive and difficult to make compared to the regular Pliny - they could easily make it 4 times a year if they wanted to...

 

The differences within the community are what make it so fascinating to me. As for myself, I’m a simple sod by nature. I drink beer for taste and relaxation. When I have to tramp all over creation, stand in lines, track releases, and orchestrate trades it eliminates the relaxation angle. That said, I’m a curious sort and a social networker who gravitates to sites like this to expand my horizons and learn more about this interesting little world of craft beer and brewing.

 

Add bottle shops and bars as well. By capitalizing on the craze they also perpetuate it. Just a normal Saturday transforms into the "greatest beer weekend evah" in Chicago by spending just a couple minutes on Twitter.

 

Too true... although I am about to get in my car and drive to Wisconsin to Central Waters for a release... so... I am just as guilty as everyone else!