Style focus: diverse or narrow?

Short answer: Diverse. It helps that most of the locals I purchase from do a wide array of styles fairly well for my taste. Cheers.

 

My wife and I recently took a road trip down to visit friends in Florida. On the trip back we visited Asheville, NC and visited some breweries there; Asheville has an incredible number of breweries to visit.

One of the breweries was Catawba and in the taproom they segregated their beers into categories:

Lighter Styles: Craft Lagers, Cream Ales, Fruited Wheat Beers: - 5 brands right now

Hop-Forward Styles: Pale Ales, IPAs, DIPAs – 7 brands right now

Dark and Malty Styles: Ambers, Browns, Porters, Stouts – 7 brands right now

Sour and Belgian Beers: Gose, Fruited Kettle Sours, Saisons, Abbey Styles – 4 brands right now

I decided to do a flight: 4 small beers. I chose to try their House Lager (tasted like a Helles to me), Brown Ale, Schwarzbier, and CLT (an IPA). All of those beers were good – very good with the Schwarzbier being my preferred beer that day.

Cheers to Catawba Brewing for providing a diversity of choices!

https://catawbabrewing.com/locations/asheville-south-slope/

@rotsaruch

 

IPAs (mostly hazy) and stouts (preferably barrel aged), followed by Scotch ale. I know that does not sound diverse, but consider the fact that I drink various (mostly red) wines and all kinds of distilled alcohol so my overall alcohol consumption is VERY diverse.

 

That’s probably the most diverse tap list I’ve personally ever seen.

 

In contrast after visiting Catawba we went to Burial Brewing for a beer and that brewery was hop centric (Pale Ale, IPA, etc.) and I ordered a pint of Surfwax IPA (which was very good).

I suppose each Asheville brewery has differing philosophies here?

Cheers!

 

Diverse for me, except for Marzen/Festbier season. There are many styles I haven't tried yet.

I did the AAL thing for way too long, trying to make up for lost time. Cheers.

 

I will say that everything I’ve had from Burial I really consider to be top tier. That being said, everything I’ve had from them has been within one or two styles. Cheers.

 

That is an amazing array of beers being offered at one time. I haven't been to Asheville in about two years. I'll go back by Catawba on my next trip up the escarpment......I love Asheville. Nice post Jack.

 

When I was perusing the tap menu during my visit it did seem that many of the beer styles were of the hoppy persuasion (as I mentioned above) but there was also a number of higher ABV Stouts as well. I did notice they had a Schwarzbier available but since I already had one of these beers at Catawba I opted to go with an IPA for this particular visit.

I suppose this is a long winded way of saying that Burial does have some/limited diversity but not nearly at the same level as Catawba does.

And I do agree with you that Burial is a "top tier" brewery.

Cheers!

 

While driving into town from our hotel (on the Biltmore estate) my wife pointed out White Labs and I remarked “maybe we should visit that place” which we did on our return leg. Have you ever visited the White Labs taproom?

During our visit I obtained four tasters: two of a Brown Ale and two of a Schwarzbier brewed using differing yeasts.

Brown Ales

• WLP001 California Ale Yeast®
Caramelized Brown Sugar | Nutty
Winter Fruit
ABV: 5.4%
• WLP037 Yorkshire Square Ale Yeast
Bruised Apple | Bready | Toffee
ABV: 5.1%

I much preferred the Brown Ale brewed with WLP037

Schwarzbiers
• WLP925 High Pressure Lager Yeast
Toast | Cacao Powder | Clean
• WLP838 Southern German Lager Yeast

I preferred the Schwarbier fermented with WLP838.

I enjoyed my visit to the White Labs taproom.

Cheers!

 

I have not been To White Labs TR, but I do know where it is. I'm due a visit I believe.

 

Diverse, no doubt. While I think I have preferences, I have tried 87 styles. I believe firmly in the revisitation of styles I may not have enjoyed initially. I'm quite surprised to find I have tried 64 IPAs if you lump five of the subcategories together, but only 5 of those are in my "favorites" category and 3 of those are Imperial versions. By memory and self-perception, I would have thought Farmhouse and Wild ales were the leaders of the pack and they are without the IPA-math. Out of 526 unique beers, my spreadsheet tells me I have called 33 beers "favorites" and they are scattered across 22 styles. I do the No (28%), OK (15%), Yes would buy again (63%), and Favorite (6%) categories in my spreadsheet. Arbitrary, based heavily on the overall enjoyment factor, and subjective as hell, but it works for me. No means no - simple. OK is a wishy washy take it or leave it category I try to avoid. Yes means I'll buy it again nd there's probably overlap with OK. Favorite is almost a gotta have or a beer I would have absolutely no doubt about drinking again or actively seeking out. Confession - even though I live here, there is not one NEIPA in my "faves" category. (But I have also not been to Treehouse...I know, revoke my residency card).

But to the point of the thread, there's no rhyme nor reason when it comes to style. Yes - by the numbers there are a lot of "yes" IPAs in there. But I keep repeat-trying many different styles and I usually stumble across some representative of a particular style that I can at least get to the "hey...this ain't bad" category. Reaching "favorite" status...whoa now...that takes work

But trying - I'll random grab a beer off the store shelf and find out what it is after the fact, so the odds of blindly grabbing an IPA variant these days is pretty high. And I'll try an IPA at a brewery where the missus won't, so try to avoid duplication in that setting. So having had a bunch of IPAs doesn't seem too surprising.

 

IPA is my favorite style (wcipa), also among my least favorite (milkshake style).

 

Put me down for variety.

How many of us are like indie music fans, where as soon as a band/beer style gets too big/popular/"sells-out" we stop liking it?

 

I live that #SaYzOnLyFe.

 

There is so much out there that it feels like a shame to not experience it. Guess when you get to a certain point of experience, it's easy to develop a comfort zone, but I'm far from reaching that. Even so, it feels way too easy to get hung up on a certain type (like stouts, cough) and not find the time to try the less ostentatious things.

 

When I'm buying beer for the fridge, it's gotten pretty narrow. I don't only drink IPAs, but they give me the most overall satisfaction out of all styles. I recently bought a pack of SN Bigfoot and a pack of Allagash Tripel since it had been a while since I'd had either, but that's rare.

When I'm at a brewery or bar, that's a different story. Especially at a brewery, where I'm trying to get a feel for which styles they excel in, I'm going for a lager or other traditional low ABV style like a Saison or Oatmeal Stout. Or a low ABV sour/wild. Then I go to the hoppy stuff.

 

Perhaps I’m way off base on this theory but craft beer may be backwards from other realities when it comes to age demographics in some regards. I’m thinking the old farts like variety and exploration in their craft beer consumption where the young-ins’ are more prone to have a few go-to styles and don’t stray quite as far from their comfort zone? Realize I’m stereotyping and there are always outliers but this is my theory anyway.

 

Mine is extremely narrow. IPA's make up 30% of all my rated beers. And they certainly make up more than that for the beers I drink regularly.

Hoppy beers are obviously my favorite, but I think I'd drink a wider range of beers if they were available.

 

In the running for post of the year IMO