Why are some breweries unable to brew great beers?

1.

Agreed.

2.

Maybe.

3.

Agreed. At sort of opposite ends of the spectrum (though it's generally helpful to view spectrums as circular vs. linear), the "Drink local" and the HypeBoiz crowds support breweries that, in some cases, likely don't deserve so much attention.

That phenomenon is abetted, in my view, by a near-willful refusal by too many craft-beer drinkers not to educate themselves on how beer is made, what a style should be, etc.

4.

Indeed. See Point 3. Marketing/social-media campaigns centered on ... well, let's call them "enhanced brewers' biographies" (in some, but not all, cases) have kicked brand-new breweries WAY beyond their coverage. And then confirmation bias takes over ...

Agreed. And those tend to be the same places that let their "artsy" friends do their label art.

Finally, the reality is that a lot of people can play the piano. Some suck. Some play it really, really well. Only a relative few are considered virtuosos. Why? A precise blend of latent talent, opportunity and obsession. The same likely is true across all vocations/avocations.

 

I would say there are lots of factors. Ingredient quality, including water is a big factor. I think Boulevard has a massive water purifier on site to clean water (if I'm recalling correctly from my tours) just to ensure the water they bring in is of quality. After all, beer is just dirty water.

Middling tastes of the brewers and/or QC team (or lack thereof) could also be a factor. It's easy for people to like beer, but if they don't have the palate to discern a little extra diactyl in the batch, or other oddities, they'll never be able to catch them in the QC phase thus continuing to churn out average beer.

Not understanding the science behind it, instead blindly following recipes from batch to batch despite slight changes in ingredients, both quality and quantity, could play a role.

Finally - settling. Brewery is open, and while it may be fun to work with beer, it's still a job. It's possible they just don't care to do the double rinse of the tank anymore, or verify the quality of their ingredients they way they used to, and thus quality has dropped. Likewise, maybe they never cared enough to quality check their ingredients and instead just went straight to brewing, figuring if they were making beer, they were in the clear.

Just thoughts from someone who doesn't brew.

 

This irritates the ever loving fuck out of me. People who consider themselves beer experts but don't know the first thing about how beer is made and what properly made beer should look, smell, and taste like.

 

The 2 major reasons, usually:
1- appealing to a different demographic

2- incompetence

With reason #1 it'll be a drinkable, or even pleasant, experience at least.

 

Spoetzl is an old established brewery whose patrons may differ from you in their definition of what good beer tastes like.

 

I just remembered the old days of American Idol when the horrendous singers who had no business ever auditioning would come out of the room crying, and their 25 family members would console them. Fuckin sadists.

I don’t want to hurt your feelings, so spend thousands of your hard-earn money and risk your livelihood because we don’t want to hurt your feelings.

Your homebrew black IPA sucks. Go back to your desk job.

 

I don't know, if you're getting your ingredients from a reputable supplier and your water from the city, you're probably OK. IMO, more problems arise when you switch suppliers and/or start using untested ingredients, like well water, for instance.

It's certainly possible to have people who have high thresholds for certain chemical compounds all working in the same, small brewery, but larger concerns are probably going to have gone to off-flavor seminars and the like.

I'd agree that science is important, but adhering to proven procedures is probably even more so.

I'm sure falling asleep at the wheel happens, but you're probably going to get some pretty quick feedback from your customers if you do it too often.

 

Sounds a whole lot like personal preference to me. Off flavors are one thing, but it sounds like this is 100% personal opinion.

 

Indeed. It's the old yarn about people saying "this beer sucks" instead of saying something much more accurate like, "I didn't prefer this beer" or "I thought this beer would be different than it was and was disappointed."

 

I think you're confusing our wastewater treatment plant with how we handle incoming water. We're fortunate that the Kansas City municipal water supply is both delicious and quite suitable for brewing a wide range of styles. Apart from filtering out solids, flowing through an active carbon tank and then a UV light, we really don't do too much to the water. We do use lactic acid to bring the pH down a bit.

On the wastewater side of things, we have balancing tanks where we collect water from our drains. Before this is discharged to the city sewer system, we remove solids and adjust pH.

 

There are lots of variables that come into play yes. But sooooo often it's water related. Has nothing to do with if the water tastes great or not. If you go to a brewery and their stouts are great but their pale hoppy beers suck, 99% chance that's cause they don't know how to use their water. I can't tell you the number of times I've asked brewers about their water and the response is "It taste's great" or "it's voted the best water in the state" or "our water make's our beer what it is, we don't alter it". Nine times out of ten those breweries make crappy beer, either dark or pale. You have to know how to use the water you have and alter it for each style. Yes you can use your water but just cause it tastes great doesn't make it good for making certain styles of beer. I feel like water is the one variable that most brewers tend to not care about but to me it's almost the most important. The really good brewers know exactly what they're doing with water for every beer and it shows.

Yes Boulevard has a huge filtration system. Their city water is absolutely horrible for brewing pale beers so they filter it and start from scratch.

 

TL/DNR: You can't make every beer excellently with the same water

 

Spoetzl has been around long enough that they should know better than to put out a beer that does not taste well to the majority of their fans, thus someone's opinion of the taste of this beer is off.

 

My take on all of this is quite different from everybody else here and it has more to do with general common sense than the technicalities of brewing. Nobody does anything to "the highest standard possible." Nobody. EvenMoreJesus, don't freak out that I am taking you too literally, I'm using your words as a jumping off point rather than a disagreement (and I don't need to get into the differences between "possible," reasonably possible, and impossible with anyone).

There is absolutely nothing in your home that was manufactured to the highest standard possible. In the real world, nobody does their own jobs to the highest standard possible. I love my kids and I don't even raise them to the highest standards possible. Sometimes I let them eat hotdogs and watch youtube videos of someone in Thailand opening up a hundred Kinder Eggs. So, when it comes to the industrial manufacturing of a beverage (be it from a big or a small brewer) coupled with the realities of business and agriculture and so on, people do not make such things to the highest standard possible.

And on the totally other end of the spectrum, many people here subscribe to the idea that the bigger the brewer, the worse the product, and this is clear in people's attitudes towards everything from a regional brewer all the way up to Bud Light.

 

Totally this.

It blows my mind when I read online reviews about certain local breweries and everyone just raves about the beers. It makes me wonder if they've ever had good beer before. Just recently I tried a few beers from a new brewery that will be opening up shop soon. They were all okay at best. I was talking to a friend not long after and he told me that he'd heard from multiple people that it was just as good as the best beers they've ever had.

I just don't get it. Maybe they tried some others that I wasn't able to sample. I'm excited for them to open and want them to be great, but I just can't support a business for the simple fact that it is local. Especially when I can get SN, Bells, Founders etc at the grocery store (probably much cheaper).

 

Maybe "the highest standard feasible" would have been better?

Yeah, that idea is pretty silly, but, unfortunately, pretty prevalent.

 

I think it's the sales. Someone else is buying and drinking them. Out of all of the top selling beers in this country, how many would you consider "great"?

 

Water quality and what they do to treat it is huge.

They stop at mediocre and think it's good because they get some sort of medal at the GABF due to being a good little beer and staying within style guidelines.

There are so many beers that I drink and then I think, how did this beer get a medal? but then I remember that most of the judges are basing their scores on style, not flavor.