Sacred Profane Brewing Launching Summer 2022

Based on their website, there are four members on the team. For obvious reasons, Brienne Allan is the most recognized and outspoken. Considering that Sacred Profane is not even open yet, I don't understand why there are so many negative comments about what they are doing. For all I care, they can stop talking about it altogether, and let us make up our minds about how it goes when the place opens in the summer.

 

I don't really understand the continued criticism and harping either.

 

Budvar recently dropped a series of reels (one with Mark Dredge), which may help some grasp the Sacred Profane concept

3:30 – No Bar Service, or see the short/condensed clip just below

 

What is negative in this thread? Seriously. Please quote a post, because this constant "why is everyone being so negative" hasn't been proven once. Just because people keep repeating it, doesn't make it so.

No one said anything negative about the beer. Nobody said anything negative about the brewers. So what is being said that is negative? Do you understand the difference between a discussion and negativity?

 

So were you not ok with people discussing the viability of Stone in Berlin? Is this still a beer discussion board? Or is questioning the viability of only serving 2 beers in a beer market obsessed with checking everything into untappd where you draw the line?

 

Unrelated-to-SP question: Is what you describe above still a thing? I honestly have no clue. I remember a co-worker used to be obsessed with entering every beer he had into the app, but I guess I assumed that was a passing fad. People are still doing this?

 

Sure. I use it regularly. I find it to be a useful app as I do like to keep track of beers I’ve had, where I had them, and take a note or two about the beer for future reference. I’m not a “ticker” in the way I have to try everything so that’s not my purpose for the app.

 

Certainly wasn’t meant to be dismissive of the app. It was a genuine curiosity from someone who doesn’t use it.

Would this, theoretically, preclude someone from visiting a brewery more than once? And how significant of a percentage of craft drinkers is this?

I very much subscribe to the favorite brewery thing. I love buying (and rebuying) beers from the same brewery. I continuously buy other beers from the same 5-6 breweries.

It is still somewhat surprising that this hasn’t become the norm. Or maybe it is. The trends part of the biz isn’t really my beat (I’m more of a lengthy feature guy)

 

But buying beer from the same brewery does not preclude a desire/need to try ever changing new brands of beer.

As a point of example let’s consider Other Half Brewing:

In the US – Northeast forum it appears that Other Half is the ‘most talked about’ brewery with 17 pages of discussion in the Other Half Brewing (2022) thread. According to BA, Other Half has 1019 active brands of beer. A beer consumer could strictly purchase beer from only one brewery (e.g., Other Half) and never have to re-purchase the same brand of beer.

Recently in another thread I posted:

“When I was a kid my father (and all of my friends' fathers) would just drink one brand of beer and if they drank multiple beers it was just that one brand (my father drank Piels Real Draft). In today's craft beer scene it seems that just having a 'regular' brand is passé.”

After listening to Brienne Allen discuss Sacred Profane in the Born on 3rd podcast (reference: post #129) it sure appears that she has a plan to have a business which is “anti-craft beer”. Another way of characterizing things is she wants a business which is drastically different from a craft brewery such as Other Half.

Maybe a business structure such as Sacred Profane will result is some creative terminology in the near future such as “Traditional Brewing” or “Back in the Day Brewing” or “Old School Brewing” or… Perhaps this is fertile ground for an article for you to write?

From my perspective it is blatantly obvious Sacred Profane will be very, very different from the current craft beer scene. Last evening, I visited a local craft brewery taproom where I sat at the bar. There were 10 different beers on tap (plus others available from cans) and for this visit I chose to drink two pints of a Bohemian Pilsner (brand name: Czech’d Out) which was poured from a Lukr side-pull faucet and a pint of NEIPA. I enjoyed that selection last evening.

Cheers!

P.S. I also purchased a four-pack of the Czech’d Out beer which I will be discussing next weekend in the weekly NBW thread.

 

I do it primarily to remind myself about the beers I don't drink often and check how I scored them. For me, anything below 4 means I shouldn't bother with it again. A fun side effect is to see personal stats. As for badges, I cannot care less about them and wish there was an option not to see/get badges at all.

 

I used it for the menus, a few stores locally update their menus each week. It has allowed me to try some beers I otherwise wouldn't have been able too . Perfect example...the Schilling Schwarzbier I had this week for NBW.

 

From the beer perspective, this is a very niche market they are going after. Would be better off in a major metro area where a niche market is more sustainable. In Frederick, MD we had a similar place called Doner Bistro that modeled after a German beer hall, served 5-7 German beers on tap and others in bottles. Food was primarily German street food /pub food. Location was prime real estate along Carroll Creek that is modeled after the San Antonio River Walk. Doner didn’t make for more that a few years there and assuming this spot in Frederick has a larger population draw than this town in Maine. They didn’t offer much and I think it alienated a lot of potential customers. There is an oyster house 50 yards away from where Doner used to be, however, that is packed all the time. Perhaps the Oyster House experience is the primary draw, and they plan to offer other non beer drink options while offering up 2 Czech style house beers? Or they are looking to bring in I95 tourists heading up to vacation in Maine (but that is only a few months in the summer)?

 

Perhaps if word spreads that they are making top class Lagers, They expand into distribution and offer <$12 six packs vs $15+ 4 packs? That would be the most anti-craft thing they could do.

 

We thought more about it this weekend when we popped up to Biddeford. Which is quite a sleepy place on a Sunday.

If someone goes to your bar and doesn’t like 1 or both of your beers. It’s likely that person will never return. When someone asks he will say I didn’t like the beer and they only make 2. It will probably turn some other folks off. Especially the large percent of folks who fall into the “why only two” or “yeah don’t care about triple decoction and yada yada” You are literally pushing people away to other breweries in the area. I thought the whole idea of a business was to do everything you can make people come back. Which normally is variety. Even notch will have 10 or so usually.

And I can’t back the “it works here in this country” ideas. We just aren’t those places and it’s clear we can see what people want. If they could just brew 4-5, whole other ball game. Given I don’t drink daily and enjoy many different kinds of styles and foods. I wouldn’t want to use my day to explore or try other things on a weekend only at the same place, same beer, on repeat. That would be like eating at the same place who only offers the burger or cheeseburger. But it’s a specialty burger. Plus if you are going to offer wine and other drinks then you’re just catering to the customer but in a different way and it seems the two beers is more of a statement aimed at other breweries than a smart business plan. Why not scrap the wine and anything else and make a few other beers you can be proud of.

As I sipped my 6th variant of Stay Puff at barreled souls I couldn’t help but think about how mad she would be that it had salted caramel in it. But it’s not a hazy IPA so maybe it’d be ok

But man, Time and Tide has some damn good cold brew!! Beat out Elemental for sure.

 

Listen, you need just one of two things to run a successful brewery.

1) Really good beer. Beer people will travel for or tell their friends about.

OR

2) A fun, comfortable spot where people like to congregate .

That’s it. That’s literally it. Now, you can certainly be both — Fox Farm, Schilling, Other Half FLX, Wren House, Jacks Abby, etc — but you don’t need to be. We’ve all drank in wholly forgettable, austere, copy-and-paste taprooms because the beer is great and we’ve all drank in taprooms that were a lot of fun and a great vibe but the beer is eh.

We already know the beer is gonna be killer, so they’ll do just fine. And if it’s a dope vibe, they’re gonna absolutely kill it.

Obviously external elements can submarine a brewery (onerous loans, landlord jacks rent, somebody dies, business partners split, natural disaster, whatever) but all things being equal there isn’t one legitimate reason to believe this place won’t thrive beyond “I personally have not been to a place like this so I don’t think it can work.”

And that’s not a fuckin’ reason at all.

 

This is such an unintentionally hysterical post.

“It would be like a burger place that only offered two burgers.” Oh, like In-N-Out? Yeah man they’re really going through tough times financially because of their business model.

Literally don’t even understand your point about the wine. “They’re just catering to the customer” — like a business does? Like the literal foundation of every business in existence? That’s a mark against them?

Also you assuming that their decision to have two beers is a “shot at other breweries” reeks of some weird projection you need to work out on your own.

Lastly, Suarez reopened last month and is selling *ONE* beer on draft at a time and their taproom has been full so maybe leave the talk about “smart business decisions” to somebody else.

 

This is based off her multiple long podcasts I’ve listened to a few times each as well as posts put up. It’s based off what I heard and how I processed it.

 

Well since you seem to be very alone in your thought process we’re gonna chalk this up as a ‘you’ issue my guy.

And even if it is supposed to be a “shot” at other breweries — good! Competition is healthy. Somebody trying something novel is healthy. Craft beer needs less homogeneity.

The weird negativity in here (and from numerous posters) under the guise of “we’re just having a discussion” reeks of fedora nice guys “just playing devils advocate” about some inane bullshit.

 

Once the keg kicks do they put a different beer on? If so, that wouldn't be a direct analogy.

 

Oh for christ sake you people are pedantic. Whether they replace Palatine with Palatine or replace Palatine with Cabana they still only have one available beer at a time so it’s fucking close enough.

You’re still going on whatever day with the expectation that only one beer will be available for you to try and it’s almost definitely one you’ve had already. It’s not deterring anyone.