Remember when anything "craft" tasted good?

Well, back in the very early 80's Full Sail's lineup intrigued me to no end. A massive departure from what I knew as beer at that time. The only other local craft competitor in the area at that time was Redhook, but it was no contest as far as I was concerned.

 

No, it's not just you. It's me, too. It certainly doesn't help that alot of the new folk don't know what good beer tastes like because they're too busy chasing what's rare which only makes other think that if "so many people are chasing it, it must be good." The backlash is that chasing bad beer encourages the creation of more bad beers like it. Rare doesn't mean good and apparently neither does "craft" anymore, either. The market is flooded with shit; both people and beers.

 

Yes. It's just you. Sucks to be you, huh?

 

I am very careful about what I buy, when I first started in craft I'd buy anything just to try it. Now unless it is from a brewery I have faith in or has good scores online I'm not touching it. So I rarely run into really disappointing beers.

 

Go on a craft fast. Put down your craft beer and stock up on some Bud. Drink only that for a month.

 

Don't expect every beer to be perfect and appreciate each one for what it is. Not every one is supposed to knock the crap out of your taste buds and make you walk crooked.

 

There seems to be an increasing number of threads addressing being "ruined" by certain beers, wherein you just can't go back to stuff you used to like.

I recently saw a video in which David Chang put instant ramen seasoning (which he maintained just has to taste good) on top of the block of dried noodles and take a bite right off the thing. If he can do that, you can still enjoy "lesser" beers. Just don't take things so seriously.

 

Shit, we're in crafts hey day rright now. I remember when craft beers took up one shelf in the cooler and most of what wasn't bmc was imported. Luckily I was into mickeys, little kings, and oly at the time simply as a delivery device for alcohol. Then I picked up some sunshine wheat and it all changed. After taking a drinking hiatus and coming back I haven't even scratched the surface of what's available locally. Quit bitching.

 

I like beer lots.

 

As others have said, I pay quite a bit more attention to what I'm buying now, so the bummers are a few and far between. It also helps that I'm pretty open minded, and try to go in with a blank page with each new beer. Like ice cream. Is there really such a thing as bad ice cream?

 

Yeah I sorta agree. I just finished a Sam Adams Summer variety pack and the remember when anything craft tasted good definitely applies here. It was just one average to mediocre beer after the next.

 

Ditto, but unfortunately I feel that back then (5-8 years ago) everything from a craft brewer was an outstanding example of a style with a nice, subtle signature from the brewer. These days, I feel like I really have to do that research or I'll fall into that little zone of drinking those "we're all the same" brews that basically float between Victory, Stoudts, Yards, Goose Island (-BCBS), Evil Twin, Mikkeller, Coronado, Left Hand, Long Trail, Wolaver's, Otter Creek, Avery, blah, blah, blah. Shit, Clown Shoes Miracle tastes like every other lame IPA I've had in the past two years. Three years ago, if I ordered an IPA it was outstanding. Everybody tried to hop the gravy train and to me 99% of them failed. I think the last great beer I had was The Poet by New Holland or Samuel Smith's Organic Chocolate and I don't even really know why I was drinking stouts, because I'm a Scotch Ale and IPA guy. It's just too few and far in between that I find a beer to write home about whereas before I specifically remember the beers that just weren't up to what I'd expect from a craft beer artisan, because everyone else that was in the business was in it because they really had a few recipes that stood out.

 

No, but I remember when "microbrews" tasted good.

 

Same here. When I first got started (not that long ago really) Leine's, simple Sam Adams stuff like Boston Lager, and imports like Fosters and Red Stripe seemed pretty fantastic compared to Busch Light and Keystone.

 

I would rather spend all day at the mall with McNab.

 

I've only been on the craft "craze" for 3 months and I've had 60 of the Beer of Fame and 57 on the Top 250. I'll see where it goes and whether I get your same problem. I don't think I will though.

I generally enjoy all styles, which is great. I know when I run out of new beers to try, I can always take a roadtrip to pick up beer and I'll surely just buy beers that I've had again. It's fun to re-review a beer 6-12 months after you've had it.

My palate is always changing. I'll always love beer.

 

Never happened for me honestly, because when I first started I didn't like anything super hoppy and my tongue didn't like stuff like Quads and Barleywines, but I tried them anyway because I was new and trying to learn. And once I started figuring out what I like I started trying more breweries and figuring out what they did that I liked and didn't. Now that my palate is opened up I still am going out of my way to try things I may have missed before or trying more breweries that don't really have penetration in this part of the country and whatnot. I may be a "snob" but I've always been honest with myself too, so I never let me convince myself something was good just because it was craft.

 

I'm scared that I am becoming what you fear yourself to be. It seems sort of like "imperial palate syndrome", but to a different degree. It isn't just "big" beers that I need to keep me satisfied, the beers have to be top-notch, or I think they're borderline awful at best. Looking at my reviews, I massively overrate things, but I avoid reviewing things that are so mediocre that they don't seem worth reviewing. I think I just review largely amazing beers, and when I encounter average beers, I tend to consider them to be of a much lesser quality than they actually are.

It's almost like people like you and I, OP, are spoiled children, always tasting the best that there is to offer, and when we taste the average representative of a given style, we turn our nose up at it. Is it wrong? No. Does it suck that we can't appreciate what others deem good beer? Yeah, to me it does suck, very much so.

I judge every IIPA by Alchemist Heady Topper and Odell Myrcenary standards; I judge every barleywine by Sierra Nevada Bigfoot standards; I judge every BA stout by Goose Island BCBCS standards. Ad infinitum.

 

Are the 90% of your beer purchases bad or just boring to you?