Agree on your 3 points the "blonde" monikers are embarrassing in the sense that they seriously have no creativity or imagination, hell consult BA or Untappd before naming it or leave Blonde out of it.
A small quibble for me is a brewery that serves food and is a brewery first whose food is more known than their brews. How's the beer? Their pizzas are fantastic. Again, how's the beer? It's ok.
KETTLE sours. I love a great barrel-aged sour (so long as fruit isn't the main selling point), but we don't need 8 variations of the same base Gose that you mixed with some aseptic puree.
Depends on what you're going out for. Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh has just ok beer, but the food is great (or at least was back in the day), and the atmosphere is incredibly unique. Worth the trip. I still miss The Weeping Radish. Just such a great memory from childhood. Fishing/beach all day, dad got to drink what were, for the time, great US made German-style lagers, I got a big plate of sausages, red cabbage, and German potato salad. Was the non-fishing highlight of Outer Banks trips when I was growing up.
Understood, but then limit the number of samples rather than offering none. I've always self-policed on samples and I presume most others do as well. If I get a sample or two, then I'm buying something even if I'm not super fond of anything.
Yeah — the plastic cups thing at a brewpub really does get to me. We’re far enough past the COVID thing that if the beer is worth selling, drinking, and enjoying, then it’s worth glassware.
My biggest annoyance also is when the tap list is boring and you can tell when a place is trying to brew for "real craft beer fans". If you have a list of standard American stuff and a few ipas and then something billed as a "real Czech pale lager" or a random English style with a super jumped up name, I'm not trusting it. Same with randomly barrel aged styles or adjuncted IPAs/sours. I see it a lot in TN where a brewery will have a board pushing their hard seltzer or light beer/a standard NEIPA, and then a random "gose" or "Belgian style barrel aged dubbel". Sends me bc those are not good representations of the style and gives a casual fan a bad impression of lesser known styles.
What about when a brewery makes something once to extraordinary acclaim and then refuses to make again even once.
If I had to guess, it's a legal issue or/and a version of the one-off thing mentioned by @MostlyNorwegian. I seem to recall that at least at one point, if you listed the ABV, it had to be pretty accurate, and that it costs to get said accuracy, in some fashion. That said, I am thinking of packaged beer, and not the ABV on a tasting room menu, so I don't know if it applies.
It's a brewpub! You might be disappointed, but some others might like the beers. If the food is good enough, I'd go even if I thought the beers were lacking, and ended up drinking water. I've had practice. I've gone to restaurants in 70s, 80s, even 90s, when the "best" beer on the menu was Michelob.
A few years ago we were at a hot springs facility in Bavaria that had a bar in the middle of the indoor pool. They served any drink you wanted except for beer because they would not serve beer in a plastic cup.
That one drives me up a wall. Sure, it may not be a legal requirement depending on what state the brewery is in, but it's just a common courtesy. Especially hate it if it's an Imperial anything. Could be 8.5%,could be 15%. It's honestly kind of irresponsible now that I think about it. Maybe a pro brewer can chime in and make sense of why they would omit such crucial information
Alcohol content was prohibited in most circumstances for decades after prohibition. Many states limited alcohol content. (Oregon's limit for malt beverages was 8%wt /~10%vol. into the 70s.) If alcohol content is posted, it needs to be accurate within tight ATF limits. It can be a hassle to determine alcohol content for every small batch of specialty beer. Ask a knowlegeable employee; that person should be able to give you a good idea.
It boggles my mind. I too would like to hear the rationale for not doing it. Is it to save chalk on the chalk board? Save space on the menu? I don’t get it.
