There seems to be a lot of animosity towards NE IPAs, pastry stouts, and the evolution of bigger beer with more flavor additives. It comes across in droves when a new beer release is announced with oreos, or a regional brewery cancels a long standing imperial stout to release a half dozen new IPAs. Despite these back-and-forth arguments on this forum, I don't see the entire beer community as latching on to these ideas of always creating bigger and better beer. Personally speaking, with the explosion of craft breweries across the US, a dozen or so have opened up within our city limits. Of those, only one does an annual big stout release, and perhaps three (stretching it) are producing NE IPA with regularity, taking away from their production of traditional beers. I'm curious what the state of traditional beer production is in your community. Have NE IPAs really taken over the cooler section at your local beer store? Has a local Germany-inspired brewery dumped its identity to cash in on trendy beer styles? Or are we hyping this out of proportion with so much attention within these forums directed at these trendy styles? Our German inspired beer is still producing only German traditional styles. Our well known sour beer producer is still producing kettled sours. Our regional brewery is still churning out its flagships without fault. Our latest brewery is producing clean styles across the spectrum (some of which are pretty rare, like an English Dark Mild), with not even as much as one beer with coffee or chocolate added. I'm genuinely curious if your area has seen lose of personal identity and traditional, let's call it - no frills or additives - beer. If a brewery has lost its original identity, how did they do so? Cheers.
I will add, that a user recently pointed out that The Bruery, a brewery well known for wild sours and heavy stouts, produces some traditional styles for in-house consumption. I thought that was very interesting, as it would be easy to overlook with their reputation and with the chatter (echos?) on these forums.
There are only a handful of breweries in my state in my opinion who consistently make an NEIPA and I can only think of two that see any wide distribution. Pretty much all the local breweries make a stout/porter at least once a year but it isn't necessarily a yearly release. It isn't hard to find traditional styles or sours at any of my local breweries. Most every brewery around here tends to offer lots of different styles and not just the current buzz.
No, they haven't taken over, but they have made the "IPA problem" much, much worse. We have two traditional German breweries in Pittsburgh. One is a Hofbrauhaus location and the other is Penn Brewing. Hofbrau brews pretty traditional stuff, but recently introduced "flavorings" that you can add to your beer. Penn also brews traditional German beer, but probably around half of their offerings are IPAs and spiced holiday beers. I don't think so. Many businesses are afraid to lose market share to their competitors so they try to be jacks of all trades (masters of none). If more of them would work on carving out a specific niche, the beer scene would be much more balanced. As it is, beer menus at many breweries and beer bars are around half IPA-ish beers. That, in my humble opinion, is not a good look.
Not sure if things have changed since last year, but when I was last in Atlanta there was a LOT of IPA around. Not NEIPA, mind you, but IPA none-the-less. Sure, there were other beer styles as well, but IPA was by far and away the most represented.
IPA is pretty inarguably the most prevalent style in the state and there are a couple breweries that put seem to put out exclusive only hoppy beers. NEIPA still really hasn't really blown up here although there are a handful of breweries making them with Cherry Street seeming to have the largest focus on them. Overall though I still believe the the majority of breweries in the state have fairly diversified selections and traditional styles are not difficult to find. There is definitely lot of IPA around though but I don't think that is just a Georgia thing as much as a United States craft beer thing in general.
@EvenMoreJesus there is a lot of IPA out there, with all of these threads supporting that: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/top-10-styles-you-have-tried.586123/ https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...entage-your-beer-consumption-are-ipas.354237/ https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/whats-your-ipa-consumption.215430/ What I'm curious about is - what sort of other traditional styles are available, or have those styles been taken off tap to produce another IPA or two? Also, have local breweries lost their identity to meet the IPA/pastry stout/additive styles? I can speak for my community, but I can't speak for the nationwide community.
In my neck of the woods NEIPAs are just a thing and not the thing. Pastry stouts have a small niche, but I really do think the trend is silly and limited. Good solid pale ale, or just plain simple good beer- like a lager- is what most folks prefer. Many people have been weaned off of standard American lager and are happy with blondes, ambers, IPAs, stouts, and do not require oreos and stuff in the mix.
My local guys do a mix and stick to traditional styles also. I think they see it as keeping up with the trend while still remaining loyal to their roots and styles. But as a whole I feel AZ has a lot of traditional choices as well as the flavor bombs and that is cool, life is about choice and I would rather have too much than too little.
I'd say that there are two main scenarios occurring, at least where I live. The first is more established breweries (there aren't that many, btw) altering their production schedule to make more IPAs. The other is new breweries (there are a LOT of them) basing their entire portfolio off of very hype driven styles, like NEIPAs, kettle sours with fruit juice added, and pastry stouts. I'd say unequivocally "no". They never had any identity outside of those things. Well, maybe they did for a hot minute right when they opened, but they very soon succumb to the Dark Side.
I can anecdotally report on the craft beer scene in SEPA (Philly area): “Have NE IPAs really taken over the cooler section at your local beer store?” There is indeed an increased presence of canned ‘NEIPA’ beers in my local beer retailers but where they really ‘stick out’ are on tap at my local craft beer bars. There are a lot of taps pouring ‘NEIPA’ beer and needless to say that means less of other beer styles. This does not mean I can’t buy a draft Pilsner at my local craft beer bar but the proportion of ‘NEIPA’ beers is notably increased. “Has a local Germany-inspired brewery dumped its identity to cash in on trendy beer styles?” No, they have not “dumped” their identity but permit me to relate a recent story. Sly Fox Brewing produces varied beer styles but the top seller is (was?) their Helles and their Pilsner (Pikeland Pils) is popular as well. They had a can release last week of their Hop Project series of beers (a limited release series) and last week’s was the first one where they labeled it using those five letters: NEIPA. IMO this is an indicator that even ‘traditional’ breweries are ‘buying in’ to the latest trend beer style of ‘NEIPA’. “Or are we hyping this out of proportion with so much attention within these forums directed at these trendy styles?” In the absence of comprehensive sales data I do not think that anybody can adequately opine here. I am of the personal opinion that the ‘NEIPA’ beer style is very popular and at a minimum it is muscling out beers on tap handles. Cheers! P.S. As a side note I am of the opinion that “Traditional US breweries” is not being used properly here. In my opinion Traditional US breweries would be those breweries who mostly brew AAL beers, the type of beers my father and grandfathers drank.
I have seen an increase in NEIPA's where I live in the Milwaukee area but I've also been seeing a lot more Imperial Stouts and barrel-aged beer.
Very interesting. Continuous releases of this, which result in them removing or reducing long-standing flagships availability would be lead me to label a brewery as 'losing its identity'. I'm curious to hear more about Sly Fox in the future. I do think I should have added "craft". I took it for granted that the general thread of topic in these forums is craft beer and not so much beer as a whole. Interesting. This hurts to hear. I can say that of the four local breweries (Crane, Torn Label, KC Bier, and Martin City) that distro, there is one APA and two IPA flagship on shelves (although I could argue that their APA is really more of an IPA), with each of those breweries maintaining 3-4 flagship beers available in 6 packs (in other words, not including Crane's consistent sour releases). Hence why I'm always so curious when people say craft beer is losing its traditional brewing history. I give Torn Label a lot of trouble for being the hyped up NE IPA producer when they only do two or three annually, meanwhile, another brewery in town is putting out one every month, but in Torn Label's defense, they focus on their flagship line and maintaining a fresh stock on local shelves and in tap lines.
My guess is that Sly Fox will not make any changes as regards their core beers like the Helles, Pikeland Pils,... but in today's competitive craft beer market you never truly know. I too will be monitoring this situation since I have a strong vested interested. For your reading pleasure below is something I posted a few days ago on this topic: "One of my favorite local breweries is Sly Fox and I frequent their brewpub in Phoenixville, PA. They have been in business 20+ years and make a variety of beer style. This past Saturday I had an Oatmeal Stout on cask, one of my favorite year-round Pilsners of Pikeland Pils, and a can of a recently released Hop Project beer which was labeled as being a “NEIPA”. The “NEIPA” was nice but for this evening my preferred beers were the Oatmeal Stout and Pikeland Pils." Cheers!
In the Twin Cities area, yes, NEIPAs have grabbed a ton of cooler and shelf space, partially crowding out other types of IPAs, which are produced and sold in far less abundance than they were just a couple of years ago, and, to a lesser extent, taking liquor store real estate from other styles. I actually recently was unable to find a local non-New-England IPA that I hadn't already tried at a liquor store that was teeming with local NEIPAs; my estimate is overall that store had 5 times as many NEIPA SKUs as non-New-England IPA SKUs. Most breweries do have at least one NEIPA on tap most of the time, and an NEIPA in the opening lineup has become the standard for newly opened breweries. Among the "traditional" breweries (breweries that emphasize traditional styles), some have hopped on the bandwagon and some have not. Among the non-tradional breweries that predated the NEIPA craze, the vast majority have jumped on the NEIPA bandwagon with gusto. Last year, the head brewer at Surly, a formerly innovative brewery, publicly derided NEIPAs. As of this writing, Surly has seven NEIPAs or heavily NEIPA-influenced beers on tap. Fair State, formerly dually known for its traditional German beers and innovative sours and farmhouse ales, similarly shifted from mocking NEIPAs to being known for them in the course of less than two years. There are many more examples of such a trajectory. The rise of the Sweet IPA, and to a lesser extent the Sweet Sour and Pastry Stout, has been astounding in taprooms, bars, and bottle shops throughout the Twin Cities area, by far the most overwhelming craft beer trend over the course of the last two years in this market.
The fact that even the non-IPA loving person of Jim Koch decided to produce a 'NEIPA' should be speak volumes.
I see it on store shelves more than local brewery tap lists. It is increasingly common to see liquor store and grocery store beer shelves filled with IPAs and increasingly NEIPAs but at our local breweries there remain a wide spread of styles. Even our local IPA specialist hasn't really gotten into the hazy thing and they also do the best interpretations of traditional lager styles as well as a passable bitter, a solid dry irish stout, and some very pleasant belgian styles. For distro though, it is harder and harder to find 6ers of non IPA it seems
The Murkbombs tend to be on-tap around here, with can releases at breweries. We don't see many of them on store shelves. As mentioned in the story on Reubens, they are now releasing a Murkbomb for year round sales. I think Deschutes has dropped a couple as well, but as far as packaged product in grocery stores and mini-marts, the traditional beers are still very well represented in these parts.
