Why are some breweries unable to brew great beers?

I had a highly respected commercial brewer tell me that in his opinion the most important thing to have and know when brewing is a good palate, the rest can be learned. I think many brewers have poor palates. I was asked to be part of a 3 man brew team to start a farm brewery some years back. I am smart enough to have made sure the brewer I knew with the best palate was part of the team before I agreed to be.

 

Experience. Scaling issues as an example. I've seen a couple of local breweries get better with time. Problem is, once you get a reputation for mediocre beers, it can be hard to recover.

Not caring. Perfect example - Mohegan Cafe on Block Island. They have not given a shit for a number of years (seriously some of the worst beer I've ever had) but it's a tourist trap and they always have a good crowd so "why bother" seems to be the attitude.

 

There's an interesting example of this here in Pittsburgh. There's a local brewery who is making very, very good (and sort of hypetrain) beers since they moved into their new brewery, who used to make, at best, barely meh beers at their old brewery. Experience was part of it, as their brewer went straight from homebrewing to commercial brewing, but the overwhelming issue was the equipment that he was brewing on at the first brewery. Once they up-graded, all his problems miraculously vanished.

 

Orlando probably has the worst quality beer, on average, than any other place I have been. They also have the absolute worst tap water that I have tried. Lol

I'd say water and inexperience as primary drivers. I can make epic beers with the most cheap, easy to get hops... Any great brewer could. Grain for the most part is on a level playing field brewer to brewer.

Cant teach passion, that's for sure.

 

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back there, brother.

 

Biggest issue here as many have noted is thinking that a beer you don't like is a "bad beer". There are few "bad beers" being made these days.

If we're just going by taste, I didn't like Tree House Ma at all. It was sweet and fruity and tasted nothing like I think an amber ale should taste like. Does that mean Tree House can't brew a good amber?

 

Probably.

 

Well if a brewery is trying to brew a beer true to style and fails to brew a beer to that style then its a failed beer. It may taste great but its still a failure. If they explicitly try to do their own take on it then that's a different ball game, a hoppy pilsner for instance. That's not to say every style from a brewer is going to be perfect but they should at least understand that they haven't made a beer true to style.

 

As mentioned, lots of variables at play. I remember my first few home brew batches and thinking how many things I had to get right to get my desired results. Is my recipe right? Is my yeast viable and pitched at correct amounts? Did we mash long enough and at correct temp? Did we get enough sugar out of the grain before sparging? Are the hops good quality? Did we cool the wort down quick enough? I know so much of it is computerized now. Are we on the same page palate wise? Anymore I think it’s more of an ingredient cost/ recipe creation issue. Water wasn’t even tested that first year we brewed but later, we fine tuned that part.

Sadly I think a lot of brewers think their recipe and palate is supreme. There’s been clone recipes for almost every beer made out there for years now. I’m glad a lot of breweries don’t want to ‘plagiarize’ a known recipe. But maybe some should. Or use it as 80% base of what you want to create.

My area has a ton of new breweries who aren’t quite hitting the same flavor and quality notes as the mainstays. Just as there are good and bad restaurants (who all use the same food distributors, so technically all their quality is on same playing field ), there are defnitely crappy brewers who may be missing 2-3 of the ten variables to make a quality product.

There is this brewery that opened up a few years again with a brand new system. They should’ve been hitting it out of the park for 2-3 yrs now. But they’ve struggled to make high quality beers. Head brewer hasn’t really changed so I want to say there is a little bit of magic or it factor that the better brewers have. Your brewing system alone can’t do it all for you

 

I'm confused by your confusion. And I mean that in the most instigating of ways.

 

I disagree with this in the case of their Lips of faith series and Tripel, their belgian beers are pretty great.

 

HAHA!!!! My homebrew is pretty freaking awesome...and I'm still going back to my desk job. Just because you can do 1 doesn't mean you can do the other.

 

Two possible explanations:

1. They think it is great.

2. They don't have time/money/capacity/* to sufficiently refine the recipe.

As someone who will buy and try any imperial stout I haven't had before, I often find myself thinking: "close, but not quite there yet".

I have no idea how many iterations most brewers go through, but I doubt Bell's Expedition or Founder's Breakfast Stout were created on the brewer's first try. I suspect many smaller brewers have fewer resources, including time, to try ten or a hundred variants.

 

New Belgium is making a killing selling meh beer. I dont get it either.

 

I don't know about that. If a brewery is trying to brew a beer "true to style" and fails to brew a beer to that style (to use your words), then I'm more inclined to think that they just don't understand the style. Sorta like thinking that a "true to style" pilsner can't be hoppy. If it tastes great anyway, I'm not so sure it's a failure either, especially since different people are clearly using different sized yard sticks for their style measurements.

 

As are a lot of breweries. Which beers from them do you feel are meh?

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/192/

 

Brewing an excellent beer that isn't "true to style" is more a labeling issue than anything else.

 

Hell yeah, crushing it with that quote. I agree completely. Especially since I love British Ales, and I brewed an ESB recently that turned out very solid. I did what I always do with a new recipe: read dozens of recipes and techniques, honed in the solid, truest form of the beer I could derive, and then tweaked one variable to make it "mine." Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. Many great painters would get their start by attempting to copy the works of former masters. Then, they would tweak their technique to make future works their own.

You can't just throw a bunch of stuff in the hopper and think greatness is going to come out. Cooking works the same way. Most restaurants suck. Many are good. Some are great. And a few are truly innovative. The big factor distinguishing "suck" from "good" is consistent execution. For beer that means cleanliness, temperature control, quality ingredients (maybe that also includes the water). And just like restaurants, not every brewery is going to have the time, talent, money, or work ethic to achieve that. Once you perfect your craft, then you can try to become great. Once you really understand how to be great, then you can innovate.

 

I think that's code for "they aren't known for IPAs."

 

Unfortunately, too many people use the word "sucks" for anything they don't like these days. I have had beers I have not cared for, but I usually just write it off as not my preference. I the earlier post where New Belgium was mentioned, I am not wild about that brand either. I don't know if it is my imagination or if my tastes changed, but when I first heard of and drank Fat Tire, I thought it was quite good. That was probably back in the nineties. Now that there seems to be an infinite selection of various beer styles, I really don't care much for it. Also, on the subject of fairly large scale breweries, I think Flying Dog does a pretty good job as well as the others mentioned above.