Breweries that have lost their way/identity

Yup, hazy IPAs, sours and barrel aged stouts, they have all of the important things covered.

 

Do people trade for shelf kettle sours? That's pretty much what DFH has been putting out as far as sours go, nothing 'super unknown' unless they have a BA sour or something in a large format bottle that I haven't seen.

Seaquench is ok but I can only drink one, something about it upsets my stomach where most other sours don't. Had SuperEIGHT yesterday and thought it was good, probably take that over Seaquench.

 

Xocoveza. That's about it.

 

Totally agree with that. After I posted I thought about that one. It's the one Stone beer I do seek out to be honest.
Cheers!!

 

stay tuned.. we are about to make you happy again!!

 

Victory really lost me a year and a half ago after being a once a week customer at the brewery. Been back once since and that may be the last time.

I really enjoyed trying all the new one offs and it would seem like there would be several on every visit. I found that the frequency of these new beers reduced along with a drop in quality and an increase in price. A $9 small pour for Java Cask and a $7 dollar pint of really underwhelming Orange IPA were the final straw.

I would have hoped that Victory would be following the lead of the largest craft breweries like Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas in using the economy of scale to provide a more affordable “premium” beer experience. Instead it seemed that they felt that since the little guys are able to get $7 for a pint then they should be able to as well. Not from me.

 

Are you comparing prices at the bar/tap room with prices bottled? Does Sierra Nevada actually charge bottle prices in their bar/tap room? Any idea how they can afford that given the significant extra labor costs involved in bar service?

 

For me it has to be the bruery. For the longest time they were a must buy pretty much every time they put out a bottle because they were unafraid to be bold. Now you can only get those kind of beers with their club membership, thus the regular distro is pretty soulless

 

Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas are more affordable in their tap rooms as of my last visits (which hasn’t been for a couple years). Bottle prices for the more premium Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas beers (Bigfoot and Brown Sugga) also seem quite a bit more affordable than equivalent Victory beers. This is from my own informal observation.

Why do you assume that Victory needs to charge $7 a pint due to “significant extra labor costs” rather than due to the need to satisfy their new master’s expectation for profit margin? There are many, many bars and restaurants that somehow manage to sell quality beer more cheaply (including tap rooms selling other breweries beer and, likely, profiting significantly less per pint than Victory does).

 

Thanks for the clarification. I take it from your response that you were not intending to be comparing bar prices to bottle prices. Now I understand better the point you are wanting to make. (Note: I didn't assume Victory needs to charge $7 because of extra labor costs, just that bar prices in general will be higher than bottle prices because of labor costs.)

 

I suspect you are (knowingly) presenting a false dichotomy, but if anything that seems to be the "problem" with the current market. More shelf space than ever, relatively fewer takes on traditional styles, variety coming from gross additives.

I don't have any idea what the solution is though. I personally can't blame anyone from staying out of the lower-shelf volume market. A lot of these "waaay more folks" you mention who would buy a 15pk of All Day won't hesitate to buy Golden Road Wolf Pup if it's cheaper. That's kind of a weird market to target, at least for a craft brewery aspiring to maintain a reputation (fwiw) as a craft brewery.

 

I do not know where the craft market(s) will be a few years down the road. Craft beer consumers will ultimately make that decision(s).

Cheers!

 

Personally I think craft beer is notably worse now than it was when I was first really getting into it around 10 years ago. Rapid expansion of mediocre (at best) beers being the main reason.

Sure every restaurant/bar has craft options now, but most are poorly done IPA or other hoppy spectrum beers. Sure liquor stores with beer/beer stores have an insane amount of craft options now but if you just walk in and pick something randomly to try, odds are it’s not going to be something good enough to want to purchase and drink again. Plus the scene has completely changed. I stopped going to “rare beer” releases a couple years ago because the crowd was becoming progressively more douchey at every event i attended, and it always seemed that a large portion of the attendees were just there to get product to sell on the secondary market. Combine all that with the every changing flavor of the month (both literally and figuratively) and it makes for a less than ideal scene.

In a nutshell the reward to effort ratio has decreased substantially.

Nowadays I’m down to drinking beer about once a week, and usually just 1-2 “big beers” from the relatively large cellar I accumulated after several years of collecting, or one of a few “old reliable” shelf beers. Ironically the market that apparently is being crushed (“big craft” if you will) is what i typically go to for those old reliables as I know I’m going to consistently get a good product (for example Id take a Stone IPA, SN Bigfoot, or Founders Breakfast Stout over comparative style samples from Random Brewery X 9 times out of 10).


Maybe this is just my becoming an old man, “things were better back in the day”, “get off my lawn” post, but personally I wouldn’t consider the present as the golden age for craft beer.

 

Where abouts in SC do you live?

The beer scene in my area (Southeastern PA) is drastically different than what you describe there. Many small, local breweries breweries have opened over the past decade (with a significant number opening in 2018 - 2019 with plenty more in planning) and the vast majority of those breweries producing high quality beer.

Cheers!

 

You make a good point, location probably does impact your current view of the craft beer landscape. If you weren’t able to get quality beer prior to the brewery explosion that’s different, but I doubt that was the case for most people.

I actually don’t live in SC anymore, but I lived in Charleston for 5 years. When i first got there COAST and Westbrook were the main games in town (not technically only games in town. but for all intents and purposes they were) and there wasn’t a lot going on in other parts of the state either. Both were/are excellent breweries who consistently put out great offerings. By the time I left there was a new brewery popping up in SC every month or so. Some had some good beers, most were whatever. So at the beginning of that 5 years if I was supporting “SC local” breweries I was almost guaranteed to get a very good product. By the time I left if I went to the store and picked something random from the SC Local section it was more than likely mediocre at best.

And I don’t think that’s unique to Charleston or SC. I travel a fair bit, and i used to always grab a six pack of local craft or have local offerings when out at bars/restaurants. In the past there were fewer breweries but they were higher quality, so if you went to an establishment and grabbed something local, you would get for example: Alpine/RR in Cali; Crooked Stave/Duschettes out west; Wicked Weed/Burial in NC. Now you can of course still get all those, but you have to look for them. Those all are more available then ever, but my point being that you hve to sift through a lot of average (or worse) local offerings to find great beer. The “random local craft” beer has been saturated with mediocrity. More isn’t always better.

 

That is not the case in my area but I think this goes back to what you stated in the beginning of your post: "...location probably does impact your current view of the craft beer landscape".

Cheers!

 

@zac16125

Jumping in here to reinforce what Jack is saying. There is no shortage of locally brewed quality beer here in SEPA. (I can think of at least a half dozen locally brewed Pils beers that are always worth drinking.) Nor is there a serious shortage of quality imports. While sometimes the imports are older than I prefer that's part of the problem with imports anywhere.

 

I cant tell if you're being obtuse or if you really believe that craft was better 10 years ago. You dont have to "sift through a lot of average offerings" to find great beer. You just look it up. Rating systems aren't perfect, but they'll reliably tell you if a beer is flawed or exceptional. If you dont want to risk buying a mediocre beer, buy a known excellent beer. The massive increase in verity of excellent beer available in your area is a testament to the progress.

 

While I feel like there's some truth in @zac16125 's point about picking up a RANDOM craft beer at a store now, that's more a function of there being soooo many more options. 10 years ago you could pretty much guarantee that a random craft beer would be one of maybe 10 styles from 1 of maybe 50 breweries. Nowadays there is an infinitely greater chance that your random beer will be some experiment that probably shouldn't have been packaged and is targeting non-beer drinkers. But if you bring a basic level of discernment with you to the store there is a tremendous wealth of good beer out there and many more breweries in the same quality tier as those old standbys

 

I don't know what the hell happened to Stone, honestly. They were my favorite brewery back in the day. They made great beer and had one of the best widely distributed core line ups....and now? They got rid of all of it and churn out a line of mediocre and unexciting IPAs. I miss old Ruination, original Pale Ale, Sublimely Self Righteous. Their smoked Porter was delicious and so was IRS and Old Guardian...all I've got that feels like old Stone is Arrogant Bastard. I even miss the old labeling before they cheaper out.

It's kinda sad