Breweries that have lost their way/identity

Just started drinking

Just tried a bunch of their beers. Not much German heritage there. Totally understand as I love German beer. I find Victory ok. Didn't know they were much better awhile ago.

 

FWIW, I just had this on draft in Philly and it was delicious.

 

Old one I'd say is Leinenkugel's. They used to have such a good variety considering the beer market at the time and now it's almost all shandied garbage. Was easily my first love in craft beer before I moved West and discovered Stone who then George Lucas'd PA and Ruination. No more Sublime, Smoked Porters, and the Enjoy By releases just don't seem as "devastatingly dank" as they once were.

 

Fair enough but the innovation that brought those crazy beers (that were good) seems to have fizzled. I wouldn't say that Sea Quench is great. If they made a low calorie offering that had a ton of flavor then sure. But just offering low calorie beers to bring in new customers doesn't seem like the Dogfish I used to know.

 

Spot on...

 

And they are expanding their wild beers project
https://www.dogfish.com/blog/wild-ale

 

Someone I worked with (this was more than 5yrs ago) was so sysed/siked when they hit the shelves with the Merry Monks 6pks. He came up to me like:


"Bro did you see they came out with Merry Monks 6pks??"
"To be honest, no, but that's great, you love that beer"
"Yeah man, how awesome is that?"
"Pretty awesome I guess..."
"Yeah, it's like a 6pk of Merry Monks"
"Pretty much, yeah that's pretty much exactly what it is"
"Only $13.99"
"Cool, yeah, I guess that's a good price..."
"Well yeah, compared to drinking 3x 750s of Merry Monks, yeah it's way better"
"Oh... yeah... yeah, I guess compared to drinking 3x 750s of Merry Monks, that's a better deal"
"Yeah..."
"So do you... do you drink 3x 750s of Merry Monks in one night, a lot?"
"Uh, well, not if I have to work at 6am the next day" ::haha::
"Oh, yeah, I guess not if you have to work the next day (!?)"
"You don't drink 3x 750s of Merry Monks??"
"Me? Me- yeah well not a lot, but I guess I don't have to anymore..."

**end scene**

 

I think all mid-large breweries are struggling with the current market. They keep trying new things to save themselves (or lose their way as OP put it) but I don't know if they will. To be honest I feel like when this all shakes out and beer in the US matures we will just have a ton of small local successful places. People want fresh and local and the current distribution method for large breweries doesn't support that.

 

I am of the opinion that a number of the 'regional' distributing breweries will survive/thrive. Breweries that concentrate on their home state and a few local states. Example I would suggest are Yards Brewing (PA, NJ, DE, MD, VA) and Sly Fox (PA, NY, NJ, DE, MD).

Cheers!

 

I could not agree more that founders barrel series is poor to awful.
Bought aCBS this year and it tasted like a syrup barrel not a beer.

Bought a KBS and it just tasted of bourbon. Not a beer aged Ina whisky barrel. Not pleased at all.

 

100% agree with you on this as well, and two great examples of that size for our region.

 

I'm a self professed DFH fanboy. To me they lost their way for a bit a few years back when they were doing 'pale+'. Pale plus wasabi, pale plus spruce (which apparently was a big enough hit to still be around), pale plus whatever.

The last few years though I think they've really come back strongly. The scrapple beer, vanilla oak aged world wide, Perfect Disguise, SeaQuench, SuperEIGHT, really the only beer that has let me down recently from them is Dragons & Yum Yums. Plus the sour program (hope they have some when I'm down in June), the liquors, they're really making quality stuff as of late.

 

This thread is 2.5 days old and I'm surprised that no one has mentioned The Bruery. A few years ago people were competing to get into the Reserve Society, and now they get begged to sign up. They seem to just spray the wall with their concoctions, hoping to get lucky and hit the target once in a while, which rarely if ever happens. A friend of mine and I went up there recently and shared 20 tasters between us, and didn't like any of them. It's really too bad.

 

Vanilla WWS was very good. That was probably the first new beer in ten years that I liked from them. Good point.
Idk if you can count their liquors as part of the beer part of the brewery... That's being a little generous.
Are the sours supposed to be good? Feel like they'd be up on trading forums if they were. Or are they just super unknown?

 

Fall from grace? What happened ?

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...loyee-alleges-deceptive-biz-practices.596521/

 

Weird -- haven't heard of that. Went a couple of days the last few weeks and the place has been packed w/all types. Seems like the BA thread was mostly a few people w/an axe to grind? If there current situation is losing their way --someone needs to rethink the definition....

 

Because not long ago I had to travel to a different city/state to get great beer. Now the breweries down the street from me are making fantastic beer.

 

As much as I hate saying this, I would say Victory Brewing as well as 2 Roads Brewery. Road to Ruin is still amazing but...idk...

 

https://www.democratandchronicle.co...ur-beer-production-rochester-beer/2921910002/