This is definitely true, but this is why I mostly go to only three bars in my area. They have a great variety of styles and they get imports I don't see anywhere else. While your typical Buffalo Wild Wings has 30+ beers on tap, and I usually will find something acceptable, it's not somewhere I'm going to go to for the beer. It'll be mostly local hazy IPAs that equate to that "variety".
Something that's mostly gone the way of the dodo, or maybe I just go out enough anymore, is the place that would have 4-8 carefully selected taps of different styles from different breweries, and a well curated, somewhat short bottle list. You actually have to care, do some research into the breweries, and think about what your customers buy to do that so that you can have good turnover. It's really easy to just bring everything in.
I should add that breweries having to send everything to distribution versus going with a direct to consumer model has changed the game as well. As a consumer, if I want to pick up beer on a regular day, I don't really go out of my way to a brewery. I am going to a retail store. Lots of breweries have tons of variety but you have to go out of the way to get them. At least I do. Maybe they send their flagships out to distro but you may not see their whole portfolio and you may not see a beer that interests you. You might have to go to them. Financially, that's probably better for the brewery but it makes it harder to get access to that variety.
At least on my end of things, I've often wondered who is calling the shots with all of the IPAs gathering dust and dying on the shelf. I can never tell if it's the stores, the distributors, the brewery investors, or the breweries themselves. I get needing to have one or more in your taproom. People are already there - give 'em what they want. Sending kegs around makes sense, too. It's pretty unusual that you'd be competing with more than a handful of other examples most of the time. It's a different thing entirely to think that places can (and should) compete with dozens if not hundreds of other extremely similar options on retail shelves.
FWIW In think they are all culpable here but ultimately it is the brewery owners which have the most ‘fault’ in this matter. If they decided to not can so many IPAs those products would not be sitting on the beer retailers’ shelves collecting dust. But it seems that no one brewery is willing to start a ‘trend’ of not canning so many IPAs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Cheers!
I will say that the selection on the shelf per brewer is down to their most profitable and what's currently trending. I.E. I used to see a broader selection of SN from the pale ale to stout, porter, keller etc. These days it's the PA, Torpedo the usual seasonal crowd and of course the trends hazy/NEIPA/low abv etc. Same with many of the bigger national craft brewers who had in some cases more than a dozen offerings on the shelves, now it's their flagship stuff and not much else. I find that this has me buying more local/regional brewers as they tend to have a bigger variety on the shelves, closer proximity fresher product, and helps the local economy.
Yup, as you know I'm a big fan of Idle Hands and Notch beers. When I buy their beers to go it's often from the brewery. Beers on store shelves are limited and/or old. This is a good point. I get how we got here, but why are we still here?
I am blown away at the amount of old beer at the places that for years and years were considered the best craft beer shops around. The stuff just sits there and sits there and sits there. Stores I considered the best just a few years ago are now places from which I regularly walk out empty-handed.
Over the past few years have you purchased more packaged beer directly from the brewery (e.g., taproom)? Cheers!
I hear you. I don't touch any of that stuff. But are they really "stealing shelf space from real beer?" I wager they are just stealing shelf space from hazy IPAs with witty names, diabetes stouts, and old and poorly made pilsners.
Yes, a lot more. I wager this is for three reasons: 1.) There are fantastic breweries an hour south of me (Fox Farm) and an hour north of me (Treehouse). 2.) I have the income to spend at those breweries, which I didn't years ago. 3.) Local bottle shops are packed with old beer and I have become pretty aggressive in my quest to only drink stuff that is reasonably fresh.
When it comes to packaged hoppy beers, I only trust a few places. The bigger players like Sierra Nevada/Lagunitas or the local wunderkinds like Westbound & Down, La Cumbre, and Weldwerks. Beyond those, it's either taproom purchases or blind luck with places like Breakside. Small brewery from an hour away selling rando haze cans for $20 per 4-pack? Yeah, not happening.
Replying to my own post here....I have to admit the possibility that these same stores may always have had old beer and I just wasn't checking the dates. Also, there may have been fewer brewers who dated their beer.
There's a part of me that likes this. During the peak I would sit in a solid beer store for a half hour or more perusing, checking dates, considering the ABV, whether to buy a single or full four pack...then wondering how I was going to drink all this beer during my personal "freshness comfort zone". Also worrying about the next seasonal that would be out soon and having to make room for that. Now it's all relatively straight forward. There's only a few labels I care about, I grab a four pack or two (or come out empty handed as you said), and the fridge isn't jam packed.
I feel like these days we are borderline overwhelmed with choice. 10 years ago I could track almost all the major releases in my area and even a good number in the broader national scene. These days there's so many things getting released all the time I can barely follow, let alone drink them all. It feels like Pokemon starting with 151 in gen1 and decades later we have 1000+ and I can't remember which goddamn creature is fire/water types and has the special ability to chug.
Don't forget the pre-NEIPA days of craft brewers simply adding the word "keller" to any beer style when clarity deviated from consumer expectation. These guys were doubling down:
