"Does American craft brewing have a quality problem?"

Infection is due to a problem with sterility, not necessarily brewing technique and overall skill.

 

In the same way that McDonald's produces world-class burgers, just in a style of burger that I don't like. The relationship between quality and consistency has been long argued will never be resolved.

 

“It will take one glass of shitty beer to ruin it for the general public. So yeah startups. Don't fuck this up for us.”

@patkorn, first let me emphasize that I am not purposefully singling you out but your above statements clearly ‘summarize’ sentiments expressed on numerous posts in this thread.

I am personally at a loss of understanding the notion of “one glass of shitty beer to ruin it for the general public”. For example I have had less than pleasant meals of a certain food item and what I learned is not to order that dish at the offending restaurant (or don’t go back to that particular restaurant). If I had a bad beer from a given brewery (e.g., Lazy Magnolia) I would conclude that Lazy Magnolia does not make good beer so I will buy some Sierra Nevada (or whatever) beer instead.

One of the wonderful things about living in the US is that with our free market economy where companies produce goods that we demand there are lots of choices. For those companies that make products that do not meet our needs/wants, we simply do not purchase them and those businesses will either adapt (make products that we need/want) or they will go out of business.

There have also been posts which suggest that beer drinkers who drink poorly brewed craft beer “don’t know any better”. A beer consumer only really needs to know: is this a beer I enjoy drinking? Think about the millions of folks who like and enjoy drinking BMC type beers. Do those people really “don’t know any better”? I personally think not, they know what they like and what they want to purchase.

I repeat myself but: for those US craft breweries (new or otherwise) who produce beers that beer drinkers do not enjoy and do not want to purchase have two choices:

· Learn how to make beer that beer drinkers want to buy

· Go out of business

Cheers!

P.S. To put a finer point on the topic of “beer that beer drinkers want to buy”, these beers do not have to be of a standard that is appealing to Paul Gatza, Mitch Steele or Jeff Erway. The beer just needs to be appealing to the beer consumers who have wallets.

 

Most at GABF/WBC are pros, educators, or established beer writers.

Jeff Erway is a pro.

 

Which makes him an exception and not the rule. I would love to be able to elevate others, and myself, to a level of understanding anywhere near his dank-a-bility. Hence my attempt to pick his brain.

 

As an ordinary consumer, one thing I have learned is not to buy anything without a date on it. I have picked up twelve-packs that are more than a year old.

So, brewers, if you want me to buy it, date it!

 

This is perhaps the most useless urination contest I've seen in quite some time.

If you like it, drink it.
If you don't like it, stop buying it.

Don't worry about anything else, and don't worry about anybody else's opinion. I'm the only person I know of about 30 of my closest friends who loves Indra Kunindra.

Am I to stop buying it because they say it's terrible?

Nopers. I buy and drink what I enjoy.

If a brewery's beer isn't selling, that's their problem, and they have all the means to fix it. Let them worry about it.

 

Having a flaw, ie. contamination, fermentation issues, improper brewing methods are different then not to style or needing more lagering. I would speculate that at 8 out of 10 they were not all errors but some of the later issues I mentioned. As a side I have had errors like those I named first from large craft brewers both on tap at their establishments and in a bottle. As a brewer I think we all have errors but the difference at the top is whether they serve them or pour them down the drain. I will drink my mistakes or cook with them but it really bothers me to pay to drink someone else s!

 

lonlonmilklover in two sentences captures all that really needs to be said:

“If you like it, drink it.

If you don't like it, stop buying it.”

Cheers to @lonlonmilklover!

 

Disregarding things like infections from barrels (I at least understand how that can happen to even the best brewers) - there are STILL a lot of breweries with major technical issues out there.

 

I think overall quality has improved immensely. In the late 90's, I felt many of the "new" breweries were substandard, but competition and awareness has improved everyone's game, at least among the survivors.
While every beer & brewery isn't great, I think there are many more than there has ever been.

 

I don't see why this topic is remotely controversial or questionable.

Quality control takes a serious investment of money, time and expertise. Most breweries cannot afford these and have the oversight which they can afford.

If you really get to know the operations at the handful of world class breweries which are capable of maintaining this level of quality, it is easy to see how the other 95% (no, seriously) fail in this regard. The larger production gets, the more difficult and expensive this becomes.

Does this mean those other 95% make bad beer? Of course not. And most people cannot tell the difference.
Perfection in anything is rare.

 

Gtreid, you are pretty much right. Big Flop is just a not working and their new beers are not making me interested (when did fruity beers make a brewery?). JDubs is good, though. Darwins has a lot of promise. The beer at the restaurant is excellent. CCB is the Florida standard. Hopefully, the owners of these brewerys will sober up and pay attention to detail and quality. They are not going to make it otherwise.

 

I think it is a combination of the consumer's taste becoming more defined and many brewers failure to produce strong traditional styles. One must perfect the basics in order to build on top of them in a market that becomes more saturated with every passing day.

 

There are some brewers out there that make crap. That's a sure thing. At the same time there are also places that make great beer. The market and consumers will decide who remains because you can't keep a losing business open forever. The unfortunate side effect is that a few great ones with poor marketing or poor business skills may die off along with them and the best that we can hope for is that their talented brewers get jobs with other breweries.

 

I don't think it's controversial that some breweries are bad or that bad breweries will go out of business. If it gets controversial, it's the idea that bad breweries are ruining it for everyone else or are doing harm to others and must stop immediately.

I'm also curious how many bad breweries there are elsewhere. UK, Belgium, and Germany don't have the number of breweries sprouting up that we do, but I'd have a hard time believing there aren't bad breweries in those countries also.

 

I am not trying to start any (new) controversy but …

What is your definition of a bad brewery?

Cheers!

 

Yep. We need measures that tell us at least two things. How many "new" breweries are making beer with off flavors, AND how many are not, AND how many established breweries are making beers with off flavors, AND how many are not. Untill we have that information in hand its all just speculation and bias.

 

I think the real problem has to do more with distributors, liquor stores, tap maintenance, home storage. While some brewers might not have the quality control measures as others it is very hard for them to control and maintain optimal temperatures, lighting, storage , clean tap lines, once the beer has left their possession. So I would be more interested in knowing how many of the defects are caused after its left the brewery

 

That's fair, I don't really have one, more just responding to the people that seem to, for whom it seems "puts out beer with obvious flaws" is the clearest. If your flagship is riddled with diacetyl, you're a bad brewery?

The crux though is if two bros open a brewery and it goes bankrupt in 6 months, did they bankrupt themselves, or did they cause real harm to all the brewers around them?