End to the bubble discussion

The key point here:

"How many neighborhoods in America can support a new high-quality brewpub down the street? (Note the quality part: that’s a minimum to play these days). The answer is probably a lot, just the same as a new, high-quality restaurant, or a great new bar."

If quality were consistently high, then I would agree that a continuing, steady climb leading to at worst a leveling-off would be the inevitable direction "craft" brewing will take.

Problem is -- and what I think more and more consumers are figuring out -- that more often than not, the quality of these new breweries simply isn't there. In this case, it may be safer to assume that just as many of these places will disappear as quickly as they appeared.

 

People mistake boom and bust cycles for bubble. It's because of the real bubbles like Tech in late 90's and housing market that the word bubble has been overused. Bubble implies investors drive up the cost based on speculation without change in captial. 50% of new resturants close every year and there is no resturant bubble.

 

Most people will find one beer they like and be OK with that. You are giving the average consumer way too much credit when it comes to variety in craft beer.

 

I was just reminiscing with somebody about the first wave of Brewpubs to hit Long Island in the 90s. We just didn't have a really good one out there until Southampton Public House came along, and that was mostly because the early ones played it too safe with their beers. Ultimately (and it wasn't even that long for some of them) that decision backfired and they went out of business. The thing is, if you aren't going to please the "beer community" and bring them back as repeat customers, then why invest all that money in the brewery in the first place? It wasn't too long before my friends and I just decided to go back to our local watering hole and drink Anchor, or Catamount, or Sierra Nevada, etc. rather than spend more money on pretty bland, lifeless brewpub offerings. Phil definitely raised the bar at SHPH, though, and it wasn't long before people were going the extra mile (or 50) to get his stuff.

Anyway- I never really thought of that as a bubble- more of a separating the wheat from the chaff.

 

Yea, not a bubble or a house of cards about to collapse; but I think it's reasonable to think that a bust could be just as precipitous as the recent boom has been -- and not simply a leveling-off or gradual decline at worst.

 

Well, it could definitely make people think good and hard before investing in a new startup- so you may indeed see fewer of them. But, if they have the goods then they will have a better chance at success. That's probably the lesson of the first 'leveling-off period' of the late 90s on to today- that later waves didn't seem so timid (at least here on the east coast).

 

I agree with the restaurant comparison. Now there's an industry with a high failure/bust rate.

 

I'd also argue that even though the quality isn't there, many of them are still in business anyway because the nouveau mainstream craft consumer doesn't know any better. Local IPA is local, has a cool sounding name, tastes nice and tropically fruity and such, so therefore they continue buying it. Nevermind that they haven't had the best IPA's in their region from a big bottle shop, nor have they compared them side by side (blindly either). This is one major negative of craft beer going mainstream for its growth instead of growing from a smaller consumer base of beer geeks - the mainstream people don't know anywhere near as much and are, relatively speaking, ignorant consumers. But their dollars count just the same. So, we might have a lot of mediocrity out there that just won't go away.

 

Add in that even experienced beer drinkers frequently can't tell apart the differences in various IPA's when drank blindly.

 

By default, most beers and breweries are going to be "average". You have to balance that fact with the desire to eat and drink local, a desire that I think will keep many a brewery going for a least a good while.

 

Not according to the ratings on this site.

 

One article isn't going to put an end to any discussion. Here's another listing potential problems that may lay ahead for the industry:

http://allaboutbeer.com/full-pints/2013/09/potential-pitfalls-of-the-craft-beer-revolution/

 

“How many neighborhoods in America can support a new high-quality brewpub down the street?” Since this is BA it makes sense that folks concentrate on the topic of beer but a brewpub is more a restaurant than a brewery; in other words the food offered is more important than the beer. For a brewpub to be successful it must offer good, value food (and good service). If the food is bad or not representative of ‘good value’ the business will not succeed. A brewpub that provides good value food but only OK beer can succeed. A brewpub that offers good beer but substandard food will not succeed (just like a non-brewery restaurant that doesn’t offer good food will not succeed).

Cheers!

 

Ha, I work for the company mentioned in the article as a salesman. There is a bit of a bottle neck at the distributor level due to the sheer number of brands we carry and focus you can allocate to each of them. Certainly brewery funded incentives help with that but often times new to the area breweries just expect us to create some huge buzz and launch party for a brewery hitting the market.

Sell through is going to be the biggest challenge going forward with the huge explosions of options but reasonably steadil growing number of drinkers.

 

Also, keep in mind that everyone's tastes are different. What is mediocre to you could be phenomenal to someone else. For instance, I dislike olives, but that doesn't mean that local olive farmers are assholes.

This is why people think of beer geeks as snobs. You call someone ignorant for being a casual craft beer drinker, rather than devoting all of their free time hunting a Pliny or KBS. It is also absurd to call someone ignorant because your tastes differ. At least they are drinking craft. I consider myself a huge beer geek. I spend my time seeking some of the best beers, following breweries' social media pages, talking to distributors, researching the latest and greatest, etc. This is an enjoyable hobby for me, but I do not want to be associated with this condescending attitude.

 

Bale Breaker just posted it on FB as well: http://nwnewsnetwork.org/post/northwest-craft-breweries-keep-pouring-market-there-bubble

 

I was concentrating on the idea of quality, which is discussed throughout the article (did you read it?). Here's another excerpt:

"Now none of this should be taken to mean that double-digit production growth is assured. For one, as mentioned above [ed. note: by "above" the author is referring to the aforementioned quote about brewpubs], all of this assumes that quality remains high. Brewers that enter a more crowded market without high quality beers that differentiate them from the field will soon discover the harsh realities of the sector: increasingly crowded shelf-space, existing competitors with greater access to capital and/or technical knowledge, and global players that are increasingly carrying full-flavored, locally-targeted brands of their own."

 

I feel like we're already in a bubble that needs to burst, in terms of bottle selections here.

There's tons of Double Trouble sitting on the shelf, and that was brewed how long ago? Still sitting there, at full price, collecting dust. Meanwhile, Breakfast Stout has been released, and I've seen only one store with it on the shelf. Are the others waiting for the Double Trouble to grow legs and walk away before they put new stock out?

It's a weird problem to have, but I think we have too much beer here. Or rather, too much of the wrong kind. Some bottles come in and out in a day (Stone Enjoy By, for example), others come in, get partially snatched up by those who love it and will pay the premium for it, and then sit around for months. Every single store I shop at still has 2012 Black Chocolate Stout on the shelf at $8/four pack. I know some people enjoy it with a little age, but I like it fresh, and I'm not going to pay that for something that's been sitting in the light at room temperature for an entire year. And apparently no one else is either, given how much of it is left.

My favorite store carries most of the Maine Brewing Co. lineup. Everyone one of their bottles has a born on date, and a note suggesting the consumer enjoys it within 90 days of that. Guess what? NONE of those bottles, not a single one, is under 90 days old. Each and every bottle on the shelf is past the brewer's recommended date, and they're all still sitting there at full price and probably won't be re-ordered until someone who doesn't care about dates happens to buy the rest of the stock.

What I'm getting at here is that I feel there's more than we can support here - if we want fresh and rotating varieties, we need to bring in less.

 

“What I'm getting at here is that I feel there's more than we can support here - if we want fresh and rotating varieties, we need to bring in less.” Yes, the amount of non-fresh craft beer on retailer shelves is a genuine issue. There is hopefully a better way to manage this isse.

It was extensively discussed in this thread:http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...is-there-so-much-outdated-beer-around.117040/

Cheers!