Tree House NEIPA Dominance

And that is why I asked: "Do you have actual nationwide statistics here?". Making claims about local anecdotal observations does not equate to what is happening nationwide.

Cheers!

 

I agree that Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen, and probably only those two nationally, move the needle. In some ways, from a consumer perspective, they are the Tree House and Trillium of Belgian sours. I'm sure there are a few American slow sour makers that would generate some initial buzz when they hit a new market before quickly settling in to "shelf turd" (not my favorite term) status.

 

Allagash probably does well here with their "slow sours". I believe some of their releases at the brewery generate some decent buzz, and some of them hit distribution as well.

I imagine Russian River would be in this category too, and maybe Hill Farmstead (I don't know about their portfolio to speak to them).

Locally, Cambridge Brewing Company's sour fest is jam packed full of people, and is probably their most well attended beer festival of the year. These are also "slow sours".

I don't have hard numbers, but perhaps the difference between how kettle sours sell and other sours is that sours in the vein of a Cantillon are much harder to skillfully produce. As opposed to them not being well liked by the general population because they don't taste good.

 

Russian River maybe. That's a big, if old-school, name. Hill Farmstead probably, although there would be less buzz than there would've been five years ago, and I do think the novelty would wear off eventually. In both cases, I think some of the interest would be exaggerated to match cultural expectations (How can you call yourself a beer geek if you don't go gaga for _____?). Allagash I doubt. Cascade, which is at least as highly regarded as Allagash, sits permanently on shelves here even after steep price cuts.

I love slow sours.* The problem is that too few other people do. The market right now wants its sours lightly tart, simple, refreshing, and fruit-forward, whereas slow sours tend to be quite sour in many cases, complex, challenging, and fruit-backward if fruited at all. That's very much consistent with the general trend toward ultra-accessible beers like NEIPAs and pastry stouts.

* I use that term to encompass lambics, oud bruins, Flemish reds, and the various barrel-aged, foeder-aged, and/or open-fermented beers that rely on naturally occurring bacteria instead of or in addition to Lactobacillus intentionally added as in kettle sours.

 

The Hill stuff definitely flies off at retail. They've raised prices and/or tried to make it for onsite only consumption and I'm not sure that has settled things down at all. In fact, I'm certain it has not.

CBC started bottling some incredible sours (Cor Cordium (which won a GABF medal), Bright Size Life, Cerise Cassée, Benevolence this year) and I would say that their bottles don't go by that fast at liquor stores. Honestly, it's amazing because they're actually priced well compared to some of the other, excuse my language, shit that is on the shelves. It's very sad.

I wonder how much the differences in culture between quick and slow sours can be attributed to sales differences. Because lambic is harder to find, there seems to be a "special occasion" aspect to it. You are less likely to buy a bottle and just drink it. Whereas with these fruited quick sours, it seems like they're bought for every day consumption. They're also usually canned which makes a big difference. Now, I don't know where the slow sours fit into this discussion, but I imagine they kind of fit in a vein more similar to lambic, due to price and format.

Thoughts?

 

I think CBC makes a fine sour, but none of those beers are very high in ratings relative to the Cantillon, Russian River, and Hill Farmstead stuff.

Another brewery I forgot about was Jester King. I was there a few months ago, and about ten minutes after they opened on a Friday the line was about 100 people deep to buy bottles.

 

I have family in Texas and I visit at least once a year. My anecdotal experience from my visits is that Jester King slow sours are very popular in the Austin area (and beyond).

Cheers!

 

Same.

That’s a bit flippant, but a sub segment of the sour movement has been sweet takes on the style, but overall these beers tend to express candy like tartness, you get similar expressions of acidity from colas (although there masked by overwhelming sweetness), sweet tarts, war heads, etc.

Here I’m only discussing the broadly popular kettle soured “sour beers,” American goses and Berliner Weiss-style beers.

The fruit juice beers are an off shoot of these (see: Bruesicle).

Again, not knocking this, I’m actually quite happy that the scornful purity of the early 00s towards adjuncts has given way to a more broadly inclusive taste, it’s not good or bad that the most popular styles now most popularly represent American taste, generally (and the other popular segment of course is pilsners which.... are of course similar to the most popular beers in America).

There’s still plenty of diversity on the niche ends of the spectrum, and with thousands of breweries there are plenty more local options which creates opportunities for breweries to take a more narrow bent.

Cheers

 

Sure, they’re also a drop in the pond of the National kettle sour beer volume.

 

It's hard to beat TH but there are a few that do IMO

 

Care to share who those few are?

 

I personally prefer Other Half's Daydream series (particularly "in Green"), Industrial Arts Wrench, and Trillium Congress Street and Cutting Tiles over beers like Hurricane and Sap. I do like Julius, Haze, Spring, Green, Bbbrighttt, and Doppelganger quite a bit. But make no mistake there are some Tree House beers that do not match up to their other ones.

Check out Old Nation and Two Roads as well for some palate pleasing juice bombs.

 

Old nation is the only stuff I've tried from that list. It's nice, when I visit the taproom though o definitely go for their other styles.
I had a chance to try monkish earlier this year at the SARA trap room in Santa Cruz but I had to pass because the in house options were just so damn good and such a lovely spread.
I feel the need to try a couple from the most esteemed brewers before I write off the style but at the moment I don't think I'm really a big fan. Maybe my 3rd favorite ipa sub style

 

Some folks just don't like them and that's okay. I'm not a fan of the caramel-heavy onion garlic pine bombs but there are some crazy weirdos (tongue in cheek, I kid) who love them to bits. That's the beauty of beer.

Me personally? I feel New England IPAs are one of the best things that ever happened to modern beer!

 

Here we have two local breweries that do "slow" sours/wilds, large selections of them, done the "right" way, and they do very well, highly in demand. Another couple are nearby, not actually close enough for the local tag, but they do well too. Therefore, slow sours do well all across the country.

Did I do it right, Jack?

 

If you think slow sours do anywhere close to the volume or revenue of fruited kettle sours nationally in 2019, or that they come anywhere close to matching NEIPAs in hype and demand, you're delusional (or at least out of touch with the state of the market).

Added: I'd love it if that were the case, but the tastes of the vast majority of craft beer drinkers simply don't support it.

 

indeed. I am withholding judgement on the style (although not on those who love the style ) until I get a chance to try some of the exemplars. I've had the Old Nation stuff, some good ones from Mikkeler SD and a couple that I think fit the style well Fieldwork that were good enough for me to see promise if there are really examples that stand out above those. My personal IPA sweet spot is the citrus peel/floral with some pineyness on the way out, but I love hops and am stoked for any new way people want to try to include them in beer.

 

I think what makes NEIPAs most remarkable and unusual is not what they add with hops but what they take away from hops (the bitterness) and what they add outside of hops (residual sugars, often wheat and/or oats, sometimes hefeweizen yeast, etc., and that's without even getting into the likes of milkshake IPAs). There are tons of pre- and post-NEIPAs these days that are extracting the juicy aspects of hops' potential without almost completely sacrificing the bitterness or upping the sugar. I dare say that "juicy" has become the standard IPA descriptor even outside of the NEIPA substyle. If someone is gravitating to NEIPAs over those other widely available options, it's probably not out of a broad love of the flavor potential of hops or even a preference for aromas and flavors reminiscent of juice over those of pine, earth, grass, herbs, etc. Rather, it's because they want their juice sweet and not bitter.

 

I don’t find your belief about the relative demand for these beers to be true at all. Sure, there are far more breweries cranking out kettle sours, both fruited and unfruited, and at much higher volumes, than those doing “slow” sours. But i find that to be a function of the fact that kettle sours require FAR less time, equipment, space, and skill to execute, so they lend themselves to being mass produced in a way that slow sours just can’t be. In my experience, most beer fans go nuts for the good stuff, but it’s really hard to find, often limited, and generally expensive. Just look at the popularity of Casey, HF, SARA, 3F, Cantillon, etc. People gobble that stuff up when they can get it.

Kettle sours are not meeting a demand that doesn’t exist for slow sours, but rather, are giving the people something close to what they would want in a perfect world, and in much greater quantity at much lower cost. I feel like your argument is a bit like saying that people clearly prefer Fords to Ferraris, because just look at how many more Ford cars get sold.

But since both of our opinions are based entirely on anecdotal experience, there’s probably not much value on either side.

 

I personally have tried most of the good hazies out there and Tree House continues to blow me away. I personally think it has something to do with their house yeast.

I live in Milwaukee but have traded for and/or purchased it more than 10 times in my life. I've also tried Bissell, Trillium, Alchemist, Great Notion, Aslin, Veil, Tripple Crossing, Eagle Park.... And Tree House still stands above. Other breweries are close, but not quite...