Are we spoiled in 2019?

I went beer shopping two days ago.

My first stop was a beer store. Of the bottles I looked at, a majority of them were 3 years old and I put them back. I felt very lucky finding a 6 pack of a nice US craft lager from this year. It had no price on it. I brought that 6 pack to the register. They rang me up and the bill was $16. I have the feeling that some of those new 6 packs will still be in that store 3 years down the road as well. I certainly did not feel spoiled as I returned to the car with my beer.

My second stop was a grocery store. Along with the food I was picking up, I was able to purchase a 6 pack of Hofbrau Original that was bottled this year for $10. When I got home and was putting the food away, I thought about how the Hofbrau bottles were now brown glass and I felt very fortunate.

 

I'd just like to see MORE breweries brewing different styles. I'm sort of tired of breweries releasing a new rendition of the same 5 NEIPAs they released the week prior with maybe just a different hop added. Don't get me wrong, I do love these sugar bombs sometimes, a good IPA can be great. But with so many different styles out there why not give variety? I'm not big into trading, so its not always easy to find certain things locally.
Beer isn't like wine, where a winery grows maybe just Pinot Noir grapes due to their terrior or because their vines are 100 years old. They certainly aren't going to plant new vines every year.
A good brewer should know how to brew a multitude of styles. Just like a good cook knows how to cook different cuisines. But then again it comes down to the consumer. People are buying, and brewers are providing. So maybe its us? Or are we just settling with what we have?

 

I look at it a different way. Both dishes involve cooking a bird, but I don't have a real need to eat at a restaurant that can make a good Peking duck and turkey mole poblano. I'd rather visit a restaurant that specializes in making an excellent version of one of those dishes and doesn't bother with the other.

 

Touché

 

But I should add that I'd clearly prefer the specialist if I had options to get the other cuisine elsewhere... but the preference between a specialist and a jack-of-all-trades is less easy to determine if your options are very limited.

 

Yes, we live in a comedy of choice. There's so many around me that make such good beer that "spoiled" may be understating it. In fact, there are breweries I go to for ONE drink. And there are some that, by all accounts, make good to great beer...but never go to.

 

Let's see, we are sitting here probably dodging work by using our pocket super computers to debate whether having more and better beer widely available constitutes us being spoiled...I'm going with yes
I do understand the burnout on the hype machine styles and the vocal/visible cultural domination they exert. But even if you just look at Bells, SN, ommegang, all of us can probably get some or all of those brands and their portfolios represent at least a dozen styles all well made and by no means just hops and pastry stouts

 

Phone? I'm on the work PC.

 

LOL nice!

Same here

 

Same.

 

Sheesh, the only place I can get Hofbrau around here are Total Wine and BevMo!

 

For sure you're totally right - but to OP's question of specifically being spoiled in 2019 (vs just having some level of access), do you think you are as spoiled / more spoiled when it comes to non-trend breweries/styles as you were in say, 2013? Anecdotal and possibly not representative of the entire country, but in NYC we're definitely not.

Obviously the broader question of being spoiled - looking at all beers/styles/breweries - is up for debate, and most people on here are going to argue that we are at peak spoilage (no pun about "shelf" beer intended).

 

We are sure reaping the benefits of having so many beers/styles available to us but another factor is the benefit that the communities receive by having breweries in town. So much goodwill!! Prost to the Brewers!

 

Having never been to either country, I wouldn't know. But if we are not than that to me is a testament to the greatness of the German and Belgian beer culture and does not take away anything from how great I have it here in little ol' Albuquerque.

 

@guinness77 is completely correct! There are so many new beers released each year now that even if you drank six new beers a day you'd only be scratching the surface!

 

Similar to @zid, I just went to my beer store at lunch and picked up a mixed sixer...sticker shock of $27. Only 1 beer was a BA beer as well which I expected to be expensive (new Founders Imperial Gose). 2 16oz cans of a couple local IPAs and pale ale....$7.99 each.

So no I don't feel spoiled, I feel robbed on the current pricing for locals. These are generally pretty good IPAs from this particular local, but its far from top tier IPA makers. Other beers were pretty cheap, Flying Dog for $2 and something else for like $2-$3 a can. Granted 3 16oz cans technically gives me a 7th beer in theory but still...my avg. mixed sixers between 2010-2017 were usually around $15-$18...closer to $18 if I grabbed a high ABV or Barrel aged 12oz'er.

 

@nc41, I'm going to put this on a t-shirt: "I haven’t a clue here, it’s great and it’s a fucking mess all in one stroke"

 

One issue with this is yeast management. It'd be great for a brewery to brew English ales, Belgian styles, American everything, and German hefeweizens and lagers but... that all requires different yeasts and it's not often possible, financially, in a small brewery to be able to handle all of those different yeasts.