Is this where craft beer is heading?

For me it's not a question of it being bad, I just have no interest in these experimental beers. At the same time it's impossible not to notice the appeal these beers have for other people, and their place in the market. So for me it's more about trying to understand the market, but it's a part of the market which has no appeal for me personally.

There's no shortage of beers that I like as it is, and I believe that more is on the way.

 

I'm with you on that one. I haven't even looked it up.

 

Normally, I stay away from beers with crazy flavorings. However, I saw this one at the store the other day and bought it, mostly because of the label. It was kind of a joke, but my wife and I actually enjoyed it. Although, it was very sweet, and 8 ounces each was enough.

 

I had it at a tasting once, and it was very good. But I’ll never buy it because of the label.

 

Fat Head’s 15 packs of Sunshine Daydream (session IPA) and Bumbleberry (honey blueberry lager) are big sellers for them.

 

Craft beer IMO is slipping popularity due to the all the flavored seltzers especially White Claw. I go in different beer stores and three grocery stores and in my desperation to find a six or 12 pack IPA that's no older that 6 weeks is almost impossible. There seems to be a trend of leaving out dated IPAS on the shelf . I found one beer dated last January 2019, then theres the July date, then October. Sorry im a date checker , so most of the time im stuck with most of the local Ga, NC, florida, Tenn. ect…. IPAS just to get a beer that's not older than 6 weeks. Guess everyone is going to local breweries now. Don't get me started on the price, Geezus , it seems the average price is 12 bucks a six now. Where I live away from Atlanta, there not enough beer geeks is probably why all this beer sits. I heard Kroger might get out of the craft beer selling all together.

 

Same! I'm not sure why on the bottom of the artistically styled label, they still couldn't also clearly identify the type of beer? Best of both worlds. Interestingly, I saw yesterday that Southern Tier redesigned their IPA label-nothing fancy there.

 

Yes, it is the direction the industry is headed in, full speed ahead!

(Guy goes up to the bar):

“I’ll have the Imperial Sour Popcorn Kvass Aged On Rancid Pumpkin Seeds, please. Preferably in a slim can.”

I’m getting too old for it all... and it reminds me of this classic:

 

I know I sound like a broken record, but...

American craft beer industry growth in the '10s was achieved mainly through the attraction of many less-experienced craft beer drinkers, mostly younger ones. Many of these newer drinkers were attracted more by the cultural trappings of craft beer and the fact that it was becoming increasingly cool, not by the beer itself. Many of these newer drinkers didn't and don't care much for core beer flavors, or at least they care greatly more for familiar, accessible flavors from outside of the world of beer. Consequently, they demanded that beer be warped to fit their tastes, and that warping of beer to being much sweeter and flavoring-adjunct-laden (or designed to taste as if it were, in the case of ultra-popular "juicy" NEIPAs) than it was previously helped to attract even more newer drinkers, thus reinforcing this trend.

As a consequence, a large portion of the craft beer customer base is here for the scene more than the beverage (which manifests itself in a variety of ways, including always seeking the hot new thing and demanding everything on the periphery of the beer, including the packaging, be as hip as possible). Among other things, this forces craft breweries to focus more on marketing (can art, social media presence, taproom design, attention-grabbing gimmicky ingredients) more than ever previously because the people to whom they're marketing can't identify and don't care about quality, and the consolidation of styles demanded by the newer drinkers has narrowed breweries' practical window to achieve differentiation through flavor.

Until people accept that this is a reality of the 21st century craft beer scene, none of the overarching trends in the craft beer industry, rating patterns, social scene around craft beer, etc. will make sense. The alternative explanation is that all of these newer drinkers understand and appreciate beer at least as much as their predecessors (who had less broad cultural exposure to it and thus had to go out of their respective ways to seek it out), that either the newly popular craft beer styles (NEIPAs, pastry stouts, fruited kettle sours) are just as popular among long-time beer aficionados as they are among the newbies or -- if not -- they're more popular among the newbies because the newbies have more advanced and sophisticated palates, that the best beers ever made mostly have been developed in the last decade (based on ratings and buzz), that sugar- and flavoring-adjunct-filled beers actually are superior to beers that lack those traits (based on the ratings and buzz), that seeking ever sweetet, juicier, and/or more dessert-like beers is evidence of advanced beer nerdiness and not an unsophisticated palate, that craft beer either hasn't actually become more hip or that its hipness has had a trivial impact on the consumers it attracts (everyone is here first and foremost for the beer), that queuing for special releases is done not for the social aspect and bragging rights but rather out of an overwhelming and deep appreciation of the beer itself, that the focus on can and taproom design is a sign of sophistication among consumers and producers instead of evidence of non-beer-related factors becoming more important, and a host of other improbable conclusions.

 

I say on my YouTube channel that you can put a bad beer in a good can and I'll buy it. The caveat is, that purchase is for review on my channel. There's 4,000 or more breweries in the country now and I need some way to sort through it all. Not every Belgian Dubbel or Witbier is gonna taste good to me even if I like the style... NOW, when I purchase my "everyday drinkers" for whenever I just want a beer, I get something I know is good and marketing be damned.

 

Great point. A possibly relevant example of this is that despite how much chatter they generate here on BA, I think there is only one "milkshake" IPA on the current top 250 list* (Double Mosaic Daydream - Other Half) and none of the national or regional breweries distribute one to my knowledge. And Other Half has 5 other IPAs in the top 250 so it isn't just an issue of OH releases being too transient to gain traction on the top lists.

And I'm sure it varies region to region but they're not particularly common in the Boston area even for on premise consumption.

*it's possible I missed one/a couple because descriptions aren't always that clear.

 

LOL

 

I think you are on to a big point around this stuff. I think that these gimmicky beers generate an outsized buzz exactly because they are unusual, you can't really write a gripping story every week about the flagship IPA that continues to lead sales yet again.
Add to that the fact that the beer rating app is dominated by a certain demographic that is also usually earlyer in their drinking career (still exploring their options), likely to try to find rare/extreme/quirky beers to stand out in the world of social media, and prone to the urge to try every new thing.
These combine to give the extravagant fringe of beer a really outsized media presence. I was looking on one of my Bert store shelves last night and found a "salted caramel porter", a " chocolate peanut butter stout", a "creme brulee Baltic porter", and a " black berry dark sour". Other than that it was normal beer, including a number of European brands, Belgian/Trappist styles from the us, and even a plain old porter from ballast point I'd never seen before.
I realize that a lot of the extreme stuff is brewery only and very limited, but its still clear that these wild beers aren't taking over.the entire market. They're just taking over the entire conversation

 

Amen!

Cheers!

 

Interesting reading thru the thread, but any craft brewery cannot survive on gimmicks. So we know guys on this site represent only a handful of a target audience for these breweries, so you might get by selling us one six pack, or a draft or two, but you cannot survive if it’s a one time buy. The thing is you need to brew a beer that I’ll buy many times over again, and I’ll tell my friends. If that doesn’t happen it’s only a matter of time unless there’s another hook, another reason to stop in, like a vacation destination perhaps. But at the minimum there must be multiple core beers that are popular with customers and the quality must be there, every brewery needs an old faithful which pays the bills, there’s too much competition out there to peddle mediocre beers and have long time survivability.

 

Dale, a number of breweries have the "hook" of continually brewing new brands. Example breweries would be Other Half, Tired Hands, Tree House,... I have had many, many Juicy/Hazy beers at Tired Hands that have had differing names but for the most part they all taste quite similar. But this constant new branding seems to keep their customers excited and coming back for more.

Are any of the breweries in your area using this 'shiny new thing' strategy to keep their customers coming back?

Cheers!

 

They do offer new beers, but their base beers are also terrific which imo is necessary to allow new beers to be created. Hard to be creative if the business is upside down. You have to be profitable enough and secure enough that you can invest in either new technology or new products or both.

 

In contrast Tired Hands only has two "base beers": HopHands and SaisonHands. All their HUGE number of other brands are either rotating or one-offs.

Cheers!

 

The

Exactly, there needs to be core beers that people love and seek out, and they’re terrific, they pay the bills. Then you can do one offs or whatever, rotating, and people will stand in line to buy it. But if your core beers are mediocre the other stuff isn’t successful. Of course if you have a really nice brew pub and you serve great food you might get along with average beers.