Beer styles more breweries should consider making

So what I’m hearing is everybody really wants better access to German imports

 

QFT. Quality much more important than quantity. Do we really need 2-3 weekly NEIPA releases from a brewer? Rather have the high quality balanced NEIPA offerings done well (Old Nation, Alarmist).

I also try to hit the few places offering cask at least monthly. Alarmist always has 1-2 cask available, Revolution and Goose Island hit or miss with cask availability.

In terms of breadth of beer styles, I truly like just about every beer style. I'm blessed Chicago has many good brewers which either specialize and produce high quality offerings within a subset of styles (Dovetail, Maplewood), or have the time and capacity to offer a broad catalog of high quality beers across many styles (Revolution and Half Acre).

 

I advocate that brewers go the other way: Since there's so much consumer interest in variety, I'd like to see small tweaks to recipes and frequent, publicized releases in styles other than NEIPA, fruited kettle sour, and pastry stout. Try to get some of the more adventurous among the younger and newer craft beer drinkers excited about classic styles where the beer still tastes like beer, be the beer in traditional or modernized form. I know that's a tall order, but getting a hazebro to open up to other styles entails two challenges: First, to his palate, but second, to his purchasing process / sense of social participation in the craft beer scene. The first challenge will remain, but the second partially can be addressed.

 

Beer flavored beer.

 

Not necessarily. I think many people are hoping that more American craft breweries attempt traditional German styles. I'd love to see more German imports if they were fresh, but that's a big "if." In practice, I'll take an eight-week-old American dunkel over an eight-month-old German one 90% of the time. At least in the Upper Midwest, there's a number of craft breweries that tackle German styles quite well (as opposed to Belgians, where most American attempts continue to fall far short of the real deal), but I wish that number were larger still, and I wish they'd tackle some of the lesser-known German styles more frequently. But, again, I'm realistic about the low level of demand for such beers among consumers in 2020, even as I lament it.

 

ESB and Braggot would be nice to see more of them

 

Not sure if releasing 120 variants of a pastry stout (or NEIPA) per year raises the bar
Count Chocula
Fruit Loops
Fruity Pebbles
Count Chocula/Fruity Pebbles Blend
66% Count Chocula/ 34% Fruity Pebbles Version
33% Fruit Loops, 33% Fruity Pebbles 33% Count Chocula 1% Starbursts (or Skittles, Snikckers, Babe Ruth, et al).

People were bitching on the Great Lakes thread about Old Nation's lack of dozens of variants. It takes work and effort to get to the point of releasing a great beer (M-43 / Boss Tweed). Sure they can put out a couple of variants a year if they add something to the process, versus feeding the beer scalping / ticking / social media hype machine with 3 weekly releases, until folks move on to the next thing and thousands of shelf turds remain.

 

Hype is a huge part of craft beer marketing and perceived quality; the vast majority of top-rated beers at sites like this get a massive boost from hype. Part of the reason that traditional styles get so little attention is that their makers don't participate in the hype push, at least for those styles.

Look, I think hype is silly and stupidity-inducing, but it's effective, and it's a dominant force in craft beer culture (and it's largely responsible for some of the worst aspects of the craft beer scene today). I truly believe that many young so-called "craft beer geeks" don't much care for the beverage (hence their embrace of beer that goes out of its way to eschew flavors traditionally associated with beer and replace them with familiar flavors from other realms) but are enamored of the cultural trappings that have developed around craft beer in recent years. Some subset of those people perhaps could be convinced to embrace actually good beer if offered in the cultural packaging they've come to expect. Come for the hype; stay for the beer. The lack of participation in modern craft beer phenomena like frequent releases is part of the reason these styles are so uncommon, I suspect. Dumb as it may be, perhaps breweries should be fighting fire with fire.

And, oh by the way, a series of bocks (or pick your traditional style of choice) with slightly different malt and hops mixes and yeast strains from a brewery committed to the style doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world to me in its own right, marketing advantages aside.

 

Nice offerings! I'll definitely give it a try if I'm in the area.

 

I know market demands determine styles in brewery selection/availability. However, I would love to see more British Barleywines, old/strong ales, dopplebocks. Love me malty, carmely beers.

 

When my wife and I started living together in 1990, we would pick up a six pack of SN pale ale, porter, and stout. If I had to, I could go back to those days.

 

I have't read through this thread so I have no idea how unpopular this is going to be but I love Sour Shake style beers (Fruited sour or Sour IPA + vanilla + lactose) and I know a lot are made all over the country by some big names but there are only a handful made in my state and as far as I know now of them get canned it is brewery only growler stuff when it is made here. I would love to see them available on the shelves.

 

One of the best things about having moved to the Pacific Northwest is that beer is much fresher here than back in Massachusetts. The clientele is demanding here. Beer drinkers don't go for three month old IPAs.

 

Wish that was the case here too, I have no problem turning over cans with July/Aug dates on the bottom. It’s probably unfair to say the market here is dying, but there’s certain stores that imo must be financially sick. They’re already contracted the offerings, and this place used to be heavily shopped, now it’s not unusual to have the place to myself.

 

Beer drinkers don't appear to be going for three month old IPAs on the shelves here in Boston either.

I can find plenty of them on the shelves.

 

My locals should consider making less expensive beer (for to go options). Kind of hard for me to justify paying $15-25 for a 4 pack when I can get 12 and 15 packs for $15.

 

Rauchbier isn't a style. Schlenkerla makes Rauuchbiers in several different styles: Märzen, Weizen, Helles and Bock.

 

I hear you, but in a similar vein, are "Märzen, Weizen, Helles and Bock" even really "styles" per se? You've certainly seen the consequences of treating them as such, particularly with Märzen around here.

 

I'd like to see people making Imperial Stouts at .5- 5%abv that taste like the best of the ones at 13-15%abv...

 

There's and old saying, "And they say that miracles never happen" which is often said when, in fact, something good does happen. Well that won't apply here.