Established breweries vs. beer trends.

Not sure what you're referring to, I don't recall saying I don't like the style, never implied I don't like people who do either. The topic has been discussed to death, and to think established breweries are no longer relevant is silly. But hey, maybe someday I will be in the cool club.

 

Some of this from the consumers view is about regularity, consistency, and the business plans.
Many brewers understand the 95-50 conundrum, the vast majority of the product is consumed in a very close proximity. Now for relevance, good or great brewers with a solid plan and good or great execution. Will be relevant as long as we support them.
Cheers

 

Your post is pretty solid, but I disagree with the conclusion. Since they are selling all the beer they can make, and still not meet demand, there's no real need to chase fads. Were they onboard with the CDA trend a few years ago? Younger this year was still the same clusterfuck it always is, Elder is still a beer people seek out, Blind Pig might be the biggest "cult" beer on the west coast (I know more folks that get excited about that beer than any other), and their pub is, by all accounts, always jammed, what do they have to gain by kicking a proven profit source out of the lineup, for this years bandwagon? Once there's a couple of cases of PtE that don't sell out of a given batch, then, maybe, they would start to think about it. And, Vinnie and Natalie seem to have proven themselves pretty sharp cookies, I bet they've looked at it, and have contingency plans ready.

 

Agree man. Which is why I littered my post with disclaimers, compliments, caveats and tried to ram the point home by saying "long, long term".

They're set for 5-10 years at least. But at some point in time they'll need to change things up I would have thought.

 

I'm sitting here enjoying a Stone Enjoy By 4-20-17, it's really not that hard is it? Btw the first time in about forever, far more earthy and pine than I remember. A big brewer gets fresh IPAs are better, and they deliver. This isn't new stuff , you would think that a standard has been set, but others keep pumping out mediocre IPAs that aren't even dated let alone a short freshness window. They staked a lot on the concept and it's successful, good for them, but it's sad for the industry that this isn't a trend it's just a blip.

 

God bless the ones who, due to their size or business plan, don't have to wade into the 'flavor of the month' waters. I sure as hell know where I'm inclined to throw my support; the little startups bucking the trends are the ones exhibiting the true spirit of craft beer in the first place.

 

A minor addition. Not too many years ago their distribution footprint was larger than it is now. Further more there are a couple of their beers I used to find around here fairly easily that I haven't seen in a couple of years.

 

Yeah, they pulled totally out of WA a few years ago. Plus, something I forgot to mention above is the lifestyle aspect of staying a size where the owners can be on top of everything, yet still not have to feed the beast with 100 hour weeks.

 

If you can find it, give a try to the Atalanta Saison from Orpheus down in Atlanta, GA. They deliberately started off with flagship beers that did not include an IPA. An IPA was not added to their line up until after they'd already carved out a niche in their market.

 

For those of you that were deep into the original wave of craft (micro) beers (1990's), do any of you remember trend changes through that 7-10 year period before the bust? I remember SN, Sam Adams, Petes, numerous local breweries (most aren't around anymore), but they all seemed to stick to the pale ale, wheat, amber, blonde formula for the most part and usually used cascade hops as the American standard.

 

I think back then, for me at least, those types of beers sort of represented the essence of the US brewing "culture." And so, instead of looking for US breweries to do every style from everywhere or to constantly chase new styles, people (or I) looked more to travel to experience other beer and brewing cultures and, if you will, trends.

 

FWIW, especially back then those three breweries each had their own fairly unique personality, as did Pike, Geary's, Catamount, and quite a few others. But still, when it eventually did seem like there were too many copycats around (and half-assed ones at that) I was leading the parade for the thinning out to begin. Homogeneity isn't desirable in and of itself, whether it comes from large corporate brewers dominating the market or lots of small clones.

 

"For those of you that were deep into the original wave of craft (micro) beers (1990's), do any of you remember trend changes through that 7-10 year period before the bust?"

My first "microbrewed" beer that I recall drinking was Stoudts Gold which was (is) a Munich Helles beer. I enjoyed that first microbrewed beer. Stoudts is now 30 years old and they still brew that brand of beer and I still enjoy drinking it.

Some breweries/brands of beer have staying power.

Cheers!

 

Was just on a panel discussion last night as part of our local "craft beer week." A portion of the discussion centered on longevity and staying power. We mentioned how recent darlings like Stone and Green Flash are already laying off workers...not to mention places that have already sold out or even closed. The breweries who produced the beers I modeled ours on, on the other hand, have been in operation in some capacity for as much as 650 years. Lots of minor variations over the years, sure.... But some established breweries, and cultures, have staying power indeed.

 

SN had the core brands, and was busy expanding the Chico brewery, and concentrating on the sustainable brewing aspect. In the last ten years they have added a lot of beers beyond Pale, Porter, Stout, and Bigfoot.

 

I don't think the issue is that breweries like Stone, SN, etc., are not chasing the latest trend, ( i.e. hazy IPA's ), but rather are they victim's of their own success.

What I mean by this, is these breweries started as small local breweries, that expanded in part by selling the idea that these small regional breweries produced better beer.We all agreed. They became evangelical, "buy local", "support the small guy", "buy craft beer". We still agreed.

Wait! Look around. Now we are not small local breweries. And lots of other small local breweries are competing with us. And now people are more interested in small local batches than nationally distributed beers.

Don't my wrong. I'm long time fan of pioneers like Stone, SN, etc. But I also have a lot of great local options that weren't available years ago. The result is I buy less from the now big guys. But what hadn't changed is still buy a lot from the small guys, which are now truly local to me.

 

In the article linked by @herrburgess, it notes that Sierra and Boston Beer had declining sales of approximately 2-4% in their core beers. The quotes section shows how SN's two core IPAs fell down to only producing almost $180M for the company. How many new, local, trendy breweries are making that much over their while lineup?

I know we tend to have a win win win mentality, but maybe SN, Stone, BB and the like have hit their plateau just as Russian River has, is just a higher plateau (and maybe they even exceeded it if she's are dropping). Maybe $250M in sales (2015 figure) will have to do.

Or maybe not. But as many of us believe (know?), a mid-sized brewery probably isn't going to grow (relatively) much by "stealing" sales from other local, small craft breweries, they need to cut even more into big beer, who still have the biggest portion of the pie. But that gets into the relevant question. What does it mean to be relevant? To be talked about and hyped on BA or local Facebook groups?

My guess/thought is when you see the big boys of the Brewers Assocation dabble in the styles that are helping smaller brewers survive and even grow, they are taking some of their capacity to see if a larger portion of the populace might be open to the style. It's a calculated risk. You don't need to wow every beer geek here to make money.

All that said, I think craft beer is working towards becoming a mature market (within a mature market), though it did grow at a reduced rate last year. Competition is obviously higher (number of breweries in US continues to rise), and innovation does seem to be slowing slightly (IMHO). What will happen when 5000 breweries find out they all can't grow? Will you see more RR philosophies? Or will you see the "shake out" many have/are predicting?

 

IMO some breweries lines are just too extensive, it turns out to be a large list of fairly unimpressive beers. For the most part anyways, and thats a sure receipe for disaster. I think most would be better off concentrating on a smaller core, and then introduce seasonals, and concentrate on quality not just churning out junk that clogs the shelf. There's a sea of mediocre and thats the Brewers main hurdle, how do you get out of thst circle? Mediocre beer that sits , it costs you money. Beer sells after sitting, it sucks, customers then don't buy it again. You lose money. Why would I buy Torpedo when there's 3-4 better locals that I know are fresh? Torpedoes
ok, nothing more, so declining sales should surprise no one.

 

Jeff, have you been following the other thread where is was mentioned that both the Porter and Stout are no longer listed as being year round beers on the SN website?

Bill Manley joined the discussion to state that these beers are not officially gone but will be brewed as 'half' batches (I think that was the term) and that they will need to be special ordered from the brewery.

Cheers!