Are you exhausted with the constant hype?

for us here that’s not the case. Obviously not as many options as hazy ipas but I’m very happy with the options I do have. Most are well made and affordable: troegs, victory, yards, sly fox, etc. luckily usually not too old imports. Stinks that doesn’t seem to be the case by you.

When the hazy ipa breweries make lagers they’re just too damn expensive and usually not as well dond IMO.

 

The hype doesn't bother me at all. I pay no attention anymore. I never did stand in line to buy the latest and greatest thing as it were anyway, but often felt the need to try and get the latest cool beer. Not anymore. There are so many quality beers in the market that I feel no need. My biggest complaint is the breweries that have little or no low abv options. I like drinking at the brewery. When the lowest abv is 6.5 or so, I tend to avoid the place.

As far as hard seltzer, I'm all for it. We have many friends who aren't beer drinkers. Now it's no problem getting together at a brewery for a couple drinks. I think it's good business

 

I'm exhausted --- but not from the constant hype of wacky new beer styles. I find that somewhat amusing, though it can drift into "petty annoyance" category. Once the nice weather comes, I'll be OK (I hope ).

Yeah - fine choices all but they all seem to be getting more difficult to commonly find on the shelves. Sly Fox Pikeland Pils was once a constant for me (check the shelves in my office - lots of Pikeland boxes full of magazines, etc) but once they left Hunterdon for ____ (geez, I don't even remember who distributes it now), their stuff disappeared 'round central Jersey. I think they last few times I bought it, it was during a beer shopping trip over the Delaware and I brought back a "suitcase" of it.

Don't see Neshaminy Creek's Trauger Pilsner around often either (though their damn busy/cartoon labeling makes it difficult to spot on a shelf full of NC beers).

And Victory? Seems to be just "Monkeying" around these days...

 

My only complaint might be that my main store in under water with local beers of unknown quality. And There’s a wall of them. Some of these breweries I’ve never heard of before, since bars are closed they are not on tap to try, even then they’re way too outside of tge mainstream to dedicate a tap too.. So your asking me to plunk down $12 on an unknown brewery from nowhere NC? It might be good, but the ones I’ve tried don't lean that way, especially with regard to IPAs. So I can’t get Pivo Pils anymore, or Union Jack, or Hop Devil, or Hop Wallop, or one of dozens of well known quality Cali beer. I’m not one to experiment with unknown $13 beers, and a good many don’t can date on top of that.

 

I'm exhausted with the styles of beer that are hyped, pretty much the only things I can find at my local breweries are hazy IPAs, fruited/lactose kettle sours and pastry stouts. Some lagers, which I appreciate but they are pretty mediocre and at $12-15/4-pack they won't be purchased by me.

 

Fortunately, that's the same here as well, although it's worth noting - the quantities of options don't match between lagers vs. IPAs (or even NE IPAs). But variety isn't a requirement for me. I want good beer, and -thankfully-, I can buy it locally.

This is apart of this whole issue. People aren't willing to spend craft beer amounts of money on lagers in meaningful enough quantities to make it worth the business's interest to produce it. FWIW, our local lagers are ~$16 for a 4-pack of 16oz cans (case purchases may get a slight discount). The brewer has expressed this is as low as he can sell it to make a profit, and this includes increasing his batch size to reduce material / labor costs. Of course, every batch of lager takes longer in the fermentation tanks, reducing capacity to produce other ales and taking away further profit.

This isn't an attack on you either. I've heard sentiments of not wanting to pay more for a 'lesser' product (hell, I've said the same thing about Light Hearted ale), but this consumer mind set is apart of the issue just as much as people wanting new and shiny beers.

 

I'm having much better success with the NE lagers these days- available, quality, freshness (Jack's Abby, Von Trapp, Zero Gravity...).

Is that just a north NJ thing, or are they available down there as well?

 

JK,

Hopefully very soon you will be seeing Sly Fox beers on your local beer retailers' shelves:

"Pottstown, PA– February 22, 2021 — Sly Fox Brewing Company’s popular beers will return to package stores and bars throughout New Jersey effective immediately. The brewery’s well-regarded year-round flagship beers and fresh, limited releases returned to New Jersey in the beginning of February and are making their way to retailers now.

Regal Wine Imports, the wholesale partner for the entire state, and the Sly Fox team are excited to offer the award-winning portfolio throughout the state. Sly Fox re-entered the Delaware market with Regal in November 2020.

“We are excited to work alongside Sly Fox as they re-enter the New Jersey market. Their seasonal and limited release beers offer compelling new options throughout the year, and the introduction of the Sly Fox Variety Pack is a revival of a craft brewery classic. We are proud to partner with a well-respected local craft brewery and look forward to their success,” said Charlie Trivinia, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal Wine.

A new offering for New Jersey's nostalgic beer fans is the resurrected legacy beer, Reading Premium Lager, now brewed by Sly Fox and for the craft beer aficionados, Haze Fix IPA , the brewery’s latest year-round release– a 12oz hazy IPA weighing in at a sessionable 5.5% ABV. Also making a debut is Sly Fox's new Variety Pack, loaded with adventure-ready brews that are perfect for the backyard, the beach, or anywhere in between. Also look for the brewery’s beloved Helles Golden Lager, Vulpulin IPA, Pikeland Pils , Rt. 113 IPA, and other seasonal varieties and limited releases. Grisette Belgian Wheat Ale, the brewery’s GABF gold medal winning farmhouse ale, will start to hit shelves early next month.

“We’re really looking forward to building on our successful Delaware re-launch with Regal Wine and carrying the momentum as we re-launch New Jersey with new products, energy, and focus,” remarked Peter Giannopoulos, Director of Sales for Sly Fox."

Cheers!

@jonphisher @TongoRad

 

Well, I'm in the 3M region (Mercer/Monmouth/Middlesex) - I was seeing lots of Jack's Abby stuff - via Remarkable Liquids - but much of what is left is now gettin' old on the shelf (like +6 months or worse) - my last purchase were a couple of their variety 12 packs. The 16 oz. cans of Post Shift and the appropriately-named House Lager would be "house beers" for me if I could consistently find them fresh.

Pretty much ditto for Von Trapp (Hunterdon, statewide) - I see some of their beers, never a good selection, and usually what I find is old lately.

Zero Gravity (that name initially scares me off! ) - another Remarkable Liquids beer, I've picked up the Green State Lager and think I've seen the Cone Head, too?

I'll believe it (and be very happy) when I see it... Reading Beer, too? That'd be a nice nostalgic pruchase, last had one in Reading around the time the original brewery closed. (Doubt I ever had Schmidt's version. Forget now if Heileman picked it up...EDIT - Yup, they did.).

 

JK, I would be surprised if they distribute Reading since that beer does not seem to be selling well in my neck of the wood. Like you described Jack's Abby in your area (+6 months or worse) my local Retail Beer Distributor has quite a bit of Reading beer on their shelf but it was from a batch packaged in Sept. 2020 (so about 6 months old now). I did purchase a six-pack last fall (and enjoyed it for what it is) but I will not be buying Reading again if they can not maintain freshness in retail. Maybe buy a six-pack once I get vaccinated and visit the local Sly Fox Brewpub for draft beer drinking (if the six-pack at the brewpub is not old)?

Cheers!

 

Just going by your post's copy/paste from the announcement.

That's the one benefit of a new brand or a change in distributorship - fresh beer. Although, there have been cases of a "new" beer being pretty darn old by the time it hits the shelves.

I forget now if there was a SF NJ distributor(s) between Hunterdon and Royal. This Nov. '20 PR said:

"Cape Beverage" is a spin-off of the Cape May Brewing Co., IIRC.
I guess that deal fell through?

Also, can't remember the conflict between Hunterdon and Sly Fox that caused the original break.

 

That's a shame, did you lose imports for local breweries but none of them produced lagers? Or have your local/regional brewers moved away from lagers? Seems like lots of lager styles could go real well with a Tennessee summer...

 

Nope they are down here as well @TongoRad I guess I count them in my etc. part of the list. In fact I have some JA shipping out of boston lined up for NBW this weekend

I actually almost grabbed the VT natur helles, but went with the JA instead.

 

Well not a better diversity of options, but the options they did have were better beers. I would say in general the not very good IPAs/Pales that I am talking about are generally the locals or regionals that have replaced what I consider typically very good national distro’d American craft and/or excellent imports. It seems like a lot of places have a couple or a few taps designated for non macro lagers, things you used to see on those would be for example SN Pale Ale, or one of a number of Stone offerings (try to ignore the current madness at stone and remember their track record of excellent beers and it was not uncommon at all to see say an Arrogant Bastard on tap), or a great Bells or Founders offering, or perhaps a German import like Weihenstephaner or Schneider. Whereas now it seems those taps are dedicated to just not very good regional IPA variants. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve tried “local or regional IPA X” as one of, or even the, only non AAL/macro offering at a locale and been like well this kinda sucks, what a waste of a precious non-macro tap.

That’s also true for some beer bars I used to frequent, that ultimately had some great offerings, but you had to sift through a lot of not very good local/regional IPAs in order to get to them. For example one beer bar that I really do love and used to frequent far too often (like daily) had at least 1/2 to 2/3s of their taps dedicated to local/regional breweries, which is great except almost all of those beers offered were Pale Ale spectrum beers and most just weren’t very good. So what often happened is that I ended up drinking a lot of repeat beers over and over, or delving into their small bottle/can fridge which was more diverse. How big of a deal that is I guess is debatable, I mean it wasn’t a huge deal or I would have stopped going, but I would certainly contend that the lack of style diversity imposed by the IPA obsession prevent me from having the opportunity to experience many more/different/new to me beers that I may have enjoyed much more than that 100th middling IPA from pseudo local new to the scene Brewery X.

So for me it was a minor inconvenience but I think the bigger issue for the scene in general would be those who are new to craft, and this place brought in a lot of people who were obviously newer to the craft scene which is great, but the problem arises when these new to craft folks aren’t being exposed to particularly good craft beer. So you could visit the place many times over several weeks, try a dozen different beers or so which were all different, and at the end from a purely statistical standpoint may have primarily sampled these mediocre pales styles, and at the end of it not really even had any great craft beer! At what point would that lead these potential new costumers to say, “well I gave it a shot but maybe craft beer just isn’t for me” and then go back to wine, or cocktails, or whatever. Personally I think that would be a shame, they never really got a chance to experience great beer because they were flooded with mediocrity at the onset.

I have rambled enough at this point, but ultimately the TL/DR version: my point being more isn’t always better. More is only better if the quality of the more is equal (or at least close to equal) to the quality of the less.

 

I'd happily welcome them back again with that lineup!

 

I see what you did there haha...Yea, victory is lacking you are right, other than prima and classic.

I think something is up with Neshaminy, I haven't seen anything from them lately. A hunterdon rep I ran into said they couldn't get most things from them anymore for distro. Didn't ask why he just said it has been hard for them to get stuff.

That's good to know @JackHorzempa I actually saw pikeland for the first time in forever the other day, I was shocked and happy to see it. When my current pils stash runs out I will be purchasing.

 

I wholeheartedly agree there, and your description of that "craft beer" bar is depressing. Reminds me of some.of those chain beer bars that advertise their immense number of taps, then you visit and it's the flagship pale/IPA from every single national or near national brewer, a couple of very mundane imports, and a couple whacky styles. And you know almost none of it could.be fresh.

We do have a place that opened here about 2 years ago, restaurant with a lot of taps, and they kind of fit that bill. Probably 2/3 pale ale styles and stuff from every local brewery, but they did always have some interesting stuff on. The illusion of diversity, and the number of people who seem content to cling to that illusion, is probably the aspect that's most frustrating to me about current craft beer options. At this point, I'd rather my local outlets pruned away 75% of the ipa-ish options so I had to check fewer dates. Like I said earlier, can't possibly try all the beer on the shelves anyway

 

Our breweries here are hazy IPA, pastry stout and fruited Sour dominant...I'm over it...I just want back my Helles and Pilsner and Dunkels....

 

Exhausted? Not at all. I don't drink IPAs and whatever those raw sewage-looking things are called so all the hype goes right over my head. Also, over the past year I learned to stay away from the social media accounts of the breweries I do like.

 

That sucks. All newer breweries I take it?