Why are some breweries unable to brew great beers?

I'd give that nod to a Helles or Pils. Behind a super clean lager, you can't hide any fault with your process. Hops can surprisingly hide quite a lot.

If I go to a brewery I will immediately order the lightest option they have on tap... Blonde Ale, Helles, Pils, etc... You can tell right from that how good everything else may be, nearly every single time! I don't think this check has let me down yet...

 

I didn't think their tripel was very good, to be honest. I was disappointed with the Clutch beer, too, which was sad because I love the band Clutch.

 

I can't remember. I might give it a shot.

 

I spend a lot of time in Vermont, and I am very fortunate to be in the middle of some of the best beer in the world. So my first answer is talent. Some breweries have it, some don't.

Second reason is scale. Larger brewers just don't seem to pull off the exquisite flavor smaller breweries do. While the large brewer achieves consistency, they lose the hands on attention.

Third reason is as one previous poster said, is time, or I would say freshness. I strive to get IPA within a week of canning, and the difference is well worth it. Larger brewers 1,000 miles away with stodgier distribution systems are incapable of getting fresh beer on the shelf.

The breweries mentioned by the OP are relatively huge - Sierra Nevada. The breweries that I love are on something like a 20 barrel system. Sierra Nevada produces over A MILLION barrels a year.

I don't get the "If it's not true to style, then I don't drink it" point of view. Good beer is good beer, why limit yourself? I'll remind everyone that NEIPA, now an accepted style, once was a rogue aberration of "the style". We'd all be drinking bland British IPA if we had kept fastidiously to "the style".

 

It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? I’m not huge on the sour IPAs from Hudson Valley, but EQ is great and, maybe I’m biased because it’s 10 miles away, but I’ll drink Sloop all day every day.
And while I’m off on a tangent here, what makes some beers so desirable that people line up to get it when there is so much good beer out there that you don’t have to line up for? Where does the hype come from? With that being said, I lined up for tree house once and I was not disappointed in the least and would probably do it again. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve had trillium IPAs several times and I do not like them at all. They have a mineral, almost chemical aftertaste to me... i see a lot of their beers use dextrose and dextrin, could that cause what I’m tasting? Or water chemistry?

 

I always wonder about the small brewers who keep and show the empty cans and bottles of great IPA makers from around the country that either they drank or patrons gave them as a gift, yet they'll have 5 different IPAs on tap (and retired ones) and none of them are even remotely close to the quality of the bottles and cans they proudly display. Feel bad for them. Are they trying to get there are not?

 

Sorry to say I have never had an IPA that I did not think it tasted like shit. To answer the question at hand I am going to say the brewers ego is what make it hard for them to make a great beer. To explain this I can say I have never met a brewer that did not think he or she was the second coming of Christ. The I am the greatest attitude is what inhibits them from making a good beer let alone a great beer.

 

Well you are correct that it hasn't had brewing salts etc. added.

Not every brewery does it, as we have established. It may be municipal water on a separate line, but what I was getting at was both are usually RO. If they take the time to do it for the water in the taproom, chances are they have put some care/thought into water in their HLT and CLT to make beer.

Does that make sense?

 

The best beers you've ever had, just like everything else in life, are the worst beers that someone, somewhere else has had. There are currently more commercially available brands and styles of beers in North America than there are commercially available soft drinks of any type, combined. There is some beer, somewhere, that is perfect for every single person, from beer-mongers (like myself) to beer haters (like my wife, who barely even touches a beer to her lips without saying "ewww, tastes like beer"). I managed to get her to believe that Crown Valley's Blackberry Ale is sparkling wine and she has loved it ever since, even after claiming that it tasted like rotten fruit after the first sip she ever took. I'm partial to porters and stouts, especially of the rum barrel aged variety. The thicker and heavier the better. Expedition Stout, Rum Barrel Old Mad Joy (the Pappy barrel was pretty good too), Crasher in the Rye, Blaecorn Unidragon, Pirate Noir, Old Rasputin, the two bombers of this year's CBS that were so great that I couldn't help but finish off in one night and would have regretted if it wasn't so worth it. I'm also like a crackhead for some Iron Joe and Victory at Sea. When I see's'em, I buy's'em. E'rtime. Can't help it. On the other hand I pretty much despise nearly any sour (especially those brewed with Bret and every single beer I've ever tasted from Anchorage), with the exception of Bourbonic Plague. Cascade did an excellent job of steering pallets such as mine to the realm of sours with that one. I also really enjoy a few infamously cheap beers. Hamm's, Coor's Bamquet and so on. Miller Lite tastes like stale banana water, Ultra and Bud Light are water, Budweiser, by federal law, should only be allowed to be consumed in a Chelada Picante', Sam Adam's should limit their product line to year round availability of Octoberfest and Octoberfest alone and Constellation should just stop altogether. This is just all my opinion and only a fraction of it, but it's also my point. The overall taste and quality of nearly any beer is subjective. Sure, there are some apparently bad beers out there but the vast majority of brewers, especially the smaller ones, release products that they themselves truly love. The main thing to remember is that most of these recipes start off as the end result of a much smaller test brew and the recipe doesn't always translate well into a larger batch. Shelf life also tends to become an issue after bottling, especially with newer recipes. One should consider any first-run recipe from any brewer, large or small to be a test batch and nothing more. No one, especially small scale brewers, wants to release a beer that they know is horrible. Because every single product that they release is a determining factor in their future success. I'll admit, some do jump in way over their head and quickly fall by the wayside while others briefly capitalize on their ineptitude, but usually, brewers only release products that they themselves truly enjoy drinking and find success in niche markets.

A prime example?

Sheep Shit IPA.......

WT EVERLUVIN' F

 

Stone.

All they do anymore is brew cookie cutter Double IPAs that taste like the last one.

 

You're either a non-lover of IPAs, or you spend time in newish small breweries where the brewer has not gained the knowledge of balancing the malt and hops in an IPA or choosing good hop combos, or just doesn't care to do either. There are many outstanding bottled IPAs on store shelves that provide an endless supply to all hopheads. If all of those "taste like shit" to you now, you'll probably discover them eventually. It happens to just about everyone. Don't give up.

 

I had the beer that started this thread. In fact I bought a 12 pack a month ago. I will say that the first few times I drink the beer I was underwhelmed but the more I drank the more it grew on me. Sure it didn't have the soft lack of flavor that many Hazy IPAs have but it was unique. In the end I enjoyed the beers uniqueness rather than it's failure to comply with juice IPA standards.

 

I’ve noticed that to an extent these shitty beers are getting propped up by shitty beer drinkers. There’s a brewery down the street from me and all the beers they make taste like popcorn butter and for some reason they purport themselves to be a “Hawaiian” brewery, whatever that means. Anyway, that place is consistently packed while a by far superior brewery a ways away is largely empty. Only thing I can figure is, this is east San Diego county, a bunch of kooks who grew up drinking shit beer saw this place, found out their popcorn butter ipa was better than a bud lite and they felt all fancy so they continued to buy it. I will say I’d rather have one or two of this places beers over a bud lite, but I also know there are much better breweries in the area, so you won’t see me debasing myself with inferior beer. Also a sucker is born every minute.

 

That is correct !


If the label boasts "bursting with juicy tropical flavors", and it's not.. then you have an issue. But if the brewer is not making that claim, then an IPA should be branded as inferior, or as a failure, simply because it lacks some particular quality that not every customer really wants in their IPA to begin with.

 

As others have mentioned, you may be conflating personal taste and quality. Some flavors are not for you but other people enjoy them. That’s why, on sites like this, the same beer can have 5 and 1 numerical ratings.

Flawed beer is a different issue and indicates technical failures.

Why do breweries continue to fail at producing quality beer? Ignorance and/or pride. An ignorant brewer who is open to change and critique, will improve. A proud, stubborn brewer who knows his shit will produce quality beer, but will be unable to embrace changing tastes and techniques.

Perhaps you just don’t care for the ‘house flavor’ some breweries have? How do this phenomenon occur? As some have mentioned, water treatment and yeast selection play a large role. But beyond that, there are shared SOPs, tasting panel parameters, and tiny quirks brewers and cellermen have in process that add up to distinguishable flavor impact.

 

You state you are like a crack head for VAS and then go on to say Constellation should stop brewing beer.

Enjoy

 

I am going to steer clear of the personal preference and point out that, as in most things some brewers are better than others. It could be consistency, funding, overbearing owners / investors or it could simply be talent.
In most things in life some people are more talented and creative than others at a given craft.

 

It's a vicious cycle. bad beer, usually = bad sales. Low revenue = crummy ingredients for the next batch. Trying to reculture a yeast colony hundreds of times, etc.. Or, the brewer doesn't know what he/she is doing.

 

Outside of the ones mentioned, I think the following are very worth trying: Abbey, Biere de Mars, Eric's Ale, Frambozen, Sour Saison, Super Cru, and Tart Lychee.

That said, I REALLY like the Trippel, so YMMV.