interesting, but sad trend

there are MANY delicious smaller beers, but when i can get something bigger for the same price....i tend to gravitate in that direction.

 

I work at a beer bar and I can't stand people who order "whatever is the strongest" or immediately order a beer to show off to their buddies because "it's like 12% alcohol bro!!!1!". They usually end up not liking it too!

 

To each their own . . . while I'm mostly an IPA/IIPA guy, I love sessioning a bunch of Hell or High around the campfire. At the same time, last year I bought a couple of pretty mediocre sixers--either an off batch or maybe it had been sitting on those shelves too long.

 

The owners of Beers of the World are friends of mine, I don't blame them for the queue of people at their door when they opened. I also don't think I will boycott Founder's, I just got mad and as I mentioned in another thread I am trying to spend less on beer right now.

Just for the record, I enjoy Imperial Stouts and IPAs. Imperial Stouts are incredibly tasty beers but I only drink them a handful of times a year, around the Holidays (I have a BCS cellaring right now for December). I prefer Porters as everyday dark beers. American IPAs are fine but it is not a style I consciously seek out. As my reviews can attest I prefer English Bitters as my everyday beer and Belgian Darks or Porters as my 'event' beers.

I don't think enjoying a few IPAs after work makes anyone a jerk and I generally have come to adopt a live and let live attitude toward all beer drinkers, only the past few weeks have seen me out of sync, so I apologize if I ruffled any feathers. I guarantee if KBS was made by Rogue or Stone or DFH I would not have reacted the way I did. When Worldwide Stout and 120 min came out I had offers for both and said no. Founders and Goose Island are my two favorite breweries and I would have been just as pissed had I missed out on the BCS release. Fortunately I was able to score a bottle of that and I am cellaring as I hear it mellows with age. The only other BA Imp. Stout I have ever had was BA Blackout (on tap) and that was a little too boozy.

I guess, when push comes to shove I just want good beer from Breweries I respect to be available and affordable. When I see that made impossible by people who aren't everyday drinkers loyal to certain brands I get angry.

 

KBS is a solid, well-made, flavored stout that tastes pretty strongly of coffee and bourbon. Don't know if it helps, but IMO you're really not missing all that much.

 

A series that I hope becomes the forerunner of a trend is Evil Twin's "Hipster ale" series. I've had a few of these so far and oh man there is HUGE flavor in these beers and they are all around 5.5%. You could hand a pint to anyone and say it's 9% and they might believe you.

We need to learn to drink for flavor. If you really just want to get all whacked out, just drink more! I love the huge bruiser ABV beers as much as any craft beer nerd, but I also like to hang out for more than one hour coherently, and I like to be able to try a bunch of beers in one sitting -- without falling over -- if I can. So I'm learning to seek out lower ABV with higher flavor. It is possible and the industry needs to focus on the taste and experience, not the booze.

 

Could it be the time of year? I think of summer and hot days when I think of Hell/Watermelon.

 

Nobody should always assume that those who seek out higher ABV are just after a quicker buzz.

My experience is this: I have tried many, many beers around 2~5%. Some I quite like. Most have underwhelmed me. It just so happens that the vast majority of beers that I have REALLY enjoyed and found delicious are at least about 7%. Maybe I just have a crummy selection of lower ABV beers to choose from because I live at the edge of the earth, but I really DO have good reason to be a bit more biased toward choosing something that's around 8% over something around 4% based on what I've tried and liked the most.

Of course a big part of this tendency of mine is based in the fact that my favorite styles are generally styles that are pretty much always on the higher ABV side, like Belgian strong ales, Russian imperial stouts, and barley wines. Also, a great bonus about these higher ABV styles is that they stay good for so long and don't require refridgeration! (fridge space is always low). I never like to feel rushed about getting around to drinking my beer...

My overall point? Some people have perfectly sound reasons for gravitating toward higher ABV beer. It's also kind of nice sometimes to be able to be put in a good mood by drinking just one beer instead of half of a sixpack.

 

I agree. I attended a local charity beerfest last week and was hammered after drinking only one and a half shaker pint in over an hour.

 

The way I try to look at the increasingly fragmented and fast-forwarded evolution of styles and flavor profiles within the craft beer segment and beer segment overall is that as long as I can have what I want and like, other people can get what they want, whatever that may be. I'll start worrying when the beers I enjoy start to disappear from the shelf. So far the market is expanding the number of different options and alternatives available rather than killing off any particular beer styles, and so all is well from my point of view. I personally don't want the beer I drink to be anywhere near wine in alcohol level but it's not like other people enjoying beers over a certain percent hinders me from drinking what I want.

If anything the people who are buying up all of the high-abv stuff for top dollars are contributing to the continued growth and economic viability of the craft beer segment as a whole which helps protect the segment and allows the breweries to continue to pump out the type of beers that I'm more interested in of lower abvs. I just don't see the beer market turning into the wine market where the low-abv options start at 10% or something along those lines, even as "abv creep" seems to have put the average new craft beer at around 6%. Still I see alot of lower abv beers being released and "session" beers becoming a part of the craft beer segment. Even as Sweden only recieves a sliver of all of the craft beers released in the US, the number of releases that make it over here are set to grow in the years ahead would be my prediction, including beer styles which may not be the most hyped ones atm, like sessionable styles. Such a development would also fit nicely into the current strategy pursued by the monopoly of offering more alternatives at or below 4.5%.

 

No ruffled feathers here, friend. Just thought I'd offer a fresh perspective. On a side note, I think the September bottling of BCBS is drinking excellently right now, though the November bottling is still a little hot. Cheers!

 

Well Hell or High Watermelon is just gross, so people probably bought it up last year thinking it looked/sounded cool, and then realized it was bad and aren't buying it again... Other than that, yes I think some people do look for higher abv beers to get "more bang for their buck" as well as assuming that higher abv = higher flavor, which in their defense is often, but not always the case.

 

I agree, some of my favorite beers are lower abv English bitters. I've found that English bitter or brown ale can have some really great flavors to them.

 

The only time I ever look at abv is if I am specifically looking for something on the lower end of the scale for times when I want to drink over a prolonged period of time without getting too inebriated.

 

You would be a great trading partner!

But in all seriousness, people on this site would claim they drink good beer in spite of any ABV. I'm sure there are tons of people who only look at ABV too.

 

I couldn't care less what the ABV of the beer is ... I just want it to taste good. Like I said though, bigger beers tend to equal more alcohol, and I don't like them all that much more times than not (Hopslam's a great example of an exception though).

 

I'm thinking the people that view beer as an "event" instead of a coping mechanism are probably looking at beer in a much healthier way than you do.

You believe the way you treat beer is the right way, and other people are wrong... that sounds very smug to me.

Boycotting Founders because you didn't get a chance to buy KBS makes you sound pampered.

Drinking a six pack a day could be considered self-indulgent.

 

Hey, if you ever bought an Anchor Steam or a Becks from a cooler at a mid-'80s show from a kid in a Black Flag shirt, nice to have met you!

As to the OP, I've noticed the growth of the Big Beer sector as well, but in the more immediate past I've been noticing more references to and efforts at creating more flavorful lower-ABV brews. I find this heartening. I like a higher gravity brew I can sit and contemplate over the course of an hour or two, but knocking back a number of smaller, less obtrusive beers is heaven too.

 

There are thousands of beers available, and all of them appeal to someone- be it for taste, abv, price, image, nutritional value, etc. I like beers along the lines of DIPAs, Imperial Stouts, Belgian Strongs when I get home from work at 2am and only want one beer before bed. If I'm tailgating, barbecuing, relaxing at the beach- I enjoy something a bit more sessionable that allows me to drink for distance. Drink what you like and let others drink what they like. Why concern yourself with trends when there is something for everyone?

 

I think there will be equal space for both standard ABV and high-gravity brews in the future of craft simply because I see a growing demand for both. I tend to lean toward more of the standard ABV beers - to be honest, I'll take a brown ale or English bitter over most hop bombs, but my palate is open for anything.

There will be an ebb and flow in demand for both kinds of beers. The interesting part to watch is how brewers are responding to the situation and how they will respond to future demands from consumers.