What brewery does your community sh-t on?

Thanks for the "inside" info. I really like the space/staff. I do think having a good selection of lagers would be a step in the right direction.

 

I'll mention 612Brew as the punching bag of Minneapolis beer. It had the hottest taproom in town from a mainstream perspective circa 2013-2014, but the beer was poor in both quality and taste. Once people caught on (only after thr crowds moved on to the latest and coolest), its reputation was ruined forever even as it has made a concerted and publicized effort to improve quality. Ironically, the most heavily hyped brewery in the Twin Cities today also has had severe quality problems that people don't notice because it brews the requisite styles for trendiness and is a hip hangout spot, not unlike 612 Brew used to be. That leads me to believe that 612 Brew gets guff because it failed to stay trendy more than because of beer quality; people around here, including many users of this site, can't tell the difference anyway.

I think Surly got, if anything, better initially after Haug left. It expanded its lineup with some really smart, complex, and creative off-trend (that's a compliment) beers, and quality control seemed to improve. Recently, however, it has dumbed down its lineup with New England and other hazy IPAs that it describes with words like "tropical" and "easy" that have no place anywhere near a Surly beer, and it's doing a lot of style exercises that it executes very well but that defy the original Surly ethos of brewing style-busting, palate-pushing beer. It has to maintain multi-state distribution and has a gigantic taproom to fill, so it has been forced to placate the masses and succumb to some lamentable trends, but my guess is it would be doing the same thing under Haug (who is brewing some similarly stultified fare with War Pigs), only with less variety.

It should be mentioned that Trillium vehemently denies that allegation (from a disgruntled former employee, so we all should take it with a grain of salt). I read that thread and found the panic embarrassing. Much of what was being complained about were perfectly reasonable and ethical internal business decisions that affected employees and their employer and that merited no external opinions either way. But you live by the hype, you die by the hype, and Trillium bears a lot of the culpability for the biggest bad trend in beer of the 21st century (even though an even more heavily hyped fellow Massachusetts brewery is an even worse offender and makes inferior beer), so I don't exactly want Trillium to return to its previous exalted position in the public consciousness.

 

I live 5 minutes from the Costa Mesa location and honestly enjoy going there. The tasting room opens right into the Camp so there is a lot of foot traffic. I used to hate on Bootlegger's all the time, but mostly because of the bro-centric crowd at the Fullerton brewery. The beers are decent though. Far Out IPA w/ Thai Tea is fantastic. imo

 

Just visited Indy for my wife's work trip and went to Sun King and I thought it was OK but could quickly tell it was the "big" craft beer in the area. They charged $16 for their barrel aged stuff to go, which I thought was a bit absurd (16 oz format, and only decent).

Really? That's pretty funny. As an outsider, they were a brewery I sought out when I visited Chi in December. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it was pretty solid beer.

 

Among local NJ groups, Magnify and Bolero Snort take a lot of heat. Magnify isn't all that bad, but perhaps has been overhyped. Their IPAs are a bit burny, but they have some hits. Bolero is OK, but people like to rag on them. Everything is cow-themed, which is a bit odd, especially in Bergen County.

 

I can't think of an example specific to my community, but everyone in the northeast shits on Lord Hobo, and I think it's unfair. The main focus of their rage is the owner's supposed "pretentiousness" or "douchebaggery"--and while maybe that's true, who cares? How many other hundreds of other breweries are pretentious and douchebaggy? That's a lame excuse to boycott something.
The proof is in the pudding, and I have not had a single bad beer from Lord Hobo. In fact, every single one of them (except for Meat & Potatoes; that was just okay but not really my thing) has exceeded my expectations. All of their NEIPAs are stellar and are better to me than many "hype" Instagram breweries, and some of their styles like their Pils, Godmother, and Freebird are also great.

 

Oh yeah good call. Being in some Tree House/Mass FB groups it always annoys me how people hate on them for really flimsy reasons. And filming themselves drain pouring one of their beers, cmon. Real tough, bullying a carbonated beverage. I've only had one beer from them but will perhaps will go out of my way to buy their beer in the future without any reason whatsoever besides the fact that people irrationally hate on them.

 

it has been a while since we've gone there. I honestly hope they can rethink their strategy and make some great beer under their own name. It is such a great spot, pretty easy for us southeastern MA residents to get to and spend an afternoon. I would much rather go there than head towards the big city. I know I ragged on them pretty hard - just so much potential that seems to be wasted.

I certainly appreciate your perspective here, and after reading your reply it seems a little upside down. It doesn't seem right that the co-packers are given priority. Excess capacity, sure, but not at the expense of your own brand.

 

Because they are disinterested in making the necessary business efforts (e.g., marketing and sales) to optimize their own brand sales?

Cheers!

 

Well, they almost don't have to do any of that work. They have everything else already working for them. Even a slightly increased focus on the beer brewed for the brand would truly put the place completely over the top. They can already draw a crowd just for the setting and location - maybe some people do the two for and hit the winery and brewery - but every time we have gone there has been a crowd.

 

Upstate NY heads will know Davidson Brothers.

Their beer is objectively trash. And it -- both recipes and the exact beers they make -- haven't changed in 20 years. Still peddling the same uninspired 90s brewpub IPA and red ale they've always been. Which, you know, would be fine. There can be a place for that. But their owners are notorious pieces of garbage to their employees. They had a big whole thing a couple years ago about how they were eliminating the ability to tip servers at their restaurants and giving them a token, paltry raise to 'make up the difference.' That lasted a couple months of outrage before they had to go back to the old system.

The Capital Region in NY is very collaborative with beer. Our breweries all work with each other often. They do events at our beer bars and beer stores often. They're all together at fests together. They make collab beers. Davidson is never involved in any of this. Either because they make no attempt to be part of the larger community or because the other breweries/beer bars/etc hate them and don't want to work with them. One or the other.

I've lived in this area almost 10 years. I've been to every brewery in a two-hour radius. Most 2-3 times if not more. I have never stepped foot in Davidson's. There's literally a brewery across the street from them in South Glens Falls I've been to 5-6 times, and at no point have I entertained the notion of walking across that street and into their doors.

 

There are a lot of people, both in this specific context and more generally, who disagree with you on both your points. Putting aside potential illegality, personally, I believe that paying someone less than minimum wage, no less a livable wage, for a retail position is unreasonable and unethical. Also, how a business treats its employees is a major consideration for me when making a purchasing decision. Trillium changed their comp plan only after news of their questionable business practices broke in the Boston Globe - without external opinion their retail employees would still be making $5/hr plus tips.

 

I can’t think of any brewery pumping out crap beers, especially bad enough to shit on an entire brewery. Now there’s a ton of mediocre stuff out there, there’s beers here or there that aren’t great, but I’d assume that might be true even from breweries who are renowned for producing great beers. You don’t like a beer, ask for another, pretty easy, it cost you an extra $6? Eh, always a risk, and ask for a sample first.

 

BAs do this frequently with breweries like AB, MillerCoors, often accompanied with descriptors like "piss".

Cheers!

 

Familiar with that, and perhaps I missed a hint it was Macros here. But that would totally invalidate his opinion in what was passing for crap beers if this was the case. There’s better beers but Bud, Miller etc are not crap beers by most peoples palates, and there’s plenty of regional macros that produce good beers, they have their place. But I’m reading the OP was asking about craft breweries that is passing out crappy beers across the board. I can’t think of one here that fits that description, most have a style or so that’s a miss, and the biggest style missed imo is wheat beers. Most American takes on Wit beers imo suck, but if pushed I’d say Natty Greens in Greensboro pushes out more mediocre beers than everyone else.

 

Dale. consider yourself lucky. There is a craft brewery in Eastern Montco (near the Bucks County border) which produces 'bad' beer. I ordered a 4 beer sampler and three of those beers suffered from technical brewing flaws. The fourth beer did not have a technical brewing flaw but was extremely mediocre for the style.

Cheers!

 

If you do, I highly recommend Angelica.
It's an all-Mosaic wheat NEIPA, really fruity and it's only $9.99 a pack, at least here in NY.

 

Fat tire. It's actually a pretty tasty beer.

 

There's a long-running inside joke in the GL forum where Mikerphone gets "blamed" for anything that's bad/wrong/absurd/etc. Everything from hyped-up releases to stuff happening at other breweries to "this thread is getting out of hand."

In Chicago, we do a lot of short-term sh*tting-on of breweries. Pretty much varies from release to release, and often goes in cycles.

Hop Butcher:
- These hazies are awesome!
- WTF is up with this Belgian-tasting sh*t? These guys suck.
- Yo, these guys are making the best hazies in the city.
- Their release strategy blows, I'm sick of competing with these truck-chasers.
- MILKSHAKE!!!! HB RULES!!!!
- WAIT!!!!! They put lactose in ALL THEIR BEERS???? F those guys!!!

MoRE:
- OMG!!! This is where Shaun is brewing!!!
- Meh, it's OK, just not as good as what Shaun brewed at Ram.
- Shaun must have dialed it in, because these are off the hook!
- WTF? The service blows and they only have 4 beers on tap. I'm done.
- Can't wait for the next release!
- That release was a sh*tshow. If I lived near the brewery, I'd be pissed about the nonsense that somebody else told me was happening there. And the service still blows.
- MoRE BA STOUTS 4 EVA!!!!! Can't wait to line up at–WHAT? Lottery release??? Man, F that place!
- Fruity NEIPAs? OK, I'm back in!
- Shaun is leaving??? Those f*cking dishonest crooks! No wonder their service blows.
- Eric from Corridor is the new head brewer??? Guess they're not dishonest crooks after all.
- They accidentally sold some BA Stout release tickets early? And they're not going to cancel those orders? F them if they can't get their sh*t together!

With the sheer number of breweries around here, there's plenty of sh*t to go around. The problem is that we're never really sure of who we should be sh*tting on or why, so it's all very disorganized and scattershot (scattersh*t?).

Then again, if you're being sh*t on around here, you must be doing something right. If your beer is just straight-up bad, we won't even take the time to sh*t on you, we'll just ignore you.

 

This reminds me of an old quote:

“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

-Oscar Wilde

Cheers!