Are you seeing competition improving quality?

I see experience improving quality with the new brewers joining in and playing catch up, after the established breweries have shown the way.

 

Definitely.

NYC has always been relatively behind the curve (in relation to it's population, and just the fact that it's NYC etc) in the beer sense, but in the last year or so, we've had several new breweries open up that offer quality product, and lots of new bars as well that have really challenged the historical go-to places.

 

Just look at Long Trail and Otter Creek. Some brewers have stepped up their game to remain competitive. Others keep brewing the same 90's recipes they always have. Very few going out of business at this point, but it will happen eventually.

 

the first micro here has not changed much if you ask me. But I cannot honestly answer this question fairly, without sampling all of them monthly. many of them are 1 yeast and done places and therefore their beer is bland and taste nearly all the same. Our newest Micro that is got a firm lineup now is the most interesting. Still none of them beat good homebrew yet.

maybe one day we will have a world class brewer here. maybe.

I review most of them, and I try to be fair and honest. We just got another new place, and there is one about 30 to 40 miles away now I NOT tried. I am NOT counting pubs, JUST MICRO breweries.

I talked to most of the brewers, some more than others and they have THEIR vision. I only found 1 I agreed with so far, lol, sad.

 

I think several factors have led to the rapid growth in quality breweries.

The first would be increased education. There are more programs dedicated to brewing science now than ever, and more knowledgeable graduates in the field. The industry seems to be moving away from the "overgrown homebrewer" model of craft brewing to an industry of extremely skilled craftspeople.

The second, I think, is a culture of sharing and collaboration. Smaller breweries seem, remarkably, invested in seeing each other grow and find success. The story that most smaller breweries now tell is less about competing within the same market, but rather an ever-growing demand for a product that they can't keep up with. The brewers, for the most part, seem to reflect collaboration and cooperation towards a shared goal and shared interest, rather than a cutthroat desire to "win." As with many friends, the competition is a healthy one, as I'm sure they constantly want to impress and surprise each other.

The third is, as you said, competition - but competition that has encouraged new ideas and new directions. In New York City, I can't see more experimental brewers like Big Alice and farmhouse brewers like Transmitter finding success even four or five years ago, when getting a six-pack of Captain Lawrence was a fairly exciting find in the city. Now, with "good beer" permeating the market, newer brewers are invested in discovering newer "niches" to fill, more experimental realms to venture into.

Finally, I think communities like BeerAdvocate, untappd, ratebeer, etc., have had a direct impact on improving quality and innovation. The ability of consumers to give direct and indirect feedback to the brewers, gain greater access to the brewers and their ideas, has given brewers a much clearer sense of what their consumers want and are enjoying. Every release is now a "test market case," with a significant amount of feedback available for even highly limited or small-quantity releases.

 

@fredmugs You might want to define "quality" for this discussion. It means many things to different people.

Do you mean the taste of the beers?
Do you mean the technical quality control of brewing operations?
Do you mean the variety of beer styles?
Do you mean experimentation?
Do you mean the brewery experience (i.e. customer service or events)
All of the above? (get ready for a shit show of a "discussion" then)

EDIT:
I would also direct people to this recent thread, that although long, some professional brewers chimed in. Comments from Mitch Steele (of Stone) are particularly interesting.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...-craft-brewing-have-a-quality-problem.168942/

 

Good questions and its always interesting to see if the OP will actually post and run or stay and chat. I refereed to vision, some are so locked in. I think all of our Local micros are home brewers scaled up, and while some of those are great (in the country, not here), most that go to school some and all that jazz seem to make better beer, I could be wrong.

 

Not to be a wet blanket, but think BA ratings are a more accurate measure of hype and homerism than beer or brewery quality.

I think their staple beers were always good (I am originally from VT), and recently they have marketed themselves well through their specialty beers. I'm sure it also helped that a several years ago Otter Creek hired Mike Gerhart, a degreed brewmaster who worked for Dogfishhead before moving to Otter Creek [then Otter Creek was aquired by Long Trail].

 

Although not 100% accurate, I find the ratings to be the best measure we have. If more weight was given to members who have had a wider variety, it may help a little. There's no perfect system...sports constantly debate about playoff formats...but this is pretty good.

 

When I saw the title of this thread I immediately thought of Upland and Bloomington Brewing Co. I'm sure competition has something to do with it, but I also think the brewers are so passionate about producing the best beer possible that they stay motivated to keep improving.

 

Hard to say unless you know the brewers, but locally we have some with some serious attitude. I was watching that beer camp videos and they said they are hardly any assholes in brewing, sadly yes there are. Of course they will most likely never make a beer any one wants (not local) so its no big deal. IMHO.


ratings are a poor judge if there is NOT a whole lots of them from folks all over the world.....but its all we got.

 

I always liked LT Ale for what it was and I felt their original IPA was underrated, if it was consumed fresh (which was very hard to do). I was never a Double Bag fan and beers like Pollenator and Blackberry were weak. I felt OC's line-up was actually better at the time of the merger (loved Stovepipe), but there's little argument that Limbo and the new OC releases aren't better than the original beers.

 

Competition drives quality and when one brewery like NoDa hits a HR with an IPA, everyone else has to take notice. Lots of average IPA's here, they're not bad but cannot compete with HDR, so when NoDa can again brew enough to meet demand other breweries will have to re tweak or develop new products. The will just sit and die on the shelf and will then become old average IPA, possibly worse as they degrade with age vs 3 day old HDR. So they will have to compete or pay the consequences for staying the same. Wicked Weed is also pushing hard too.

 

There are lots of high quality brewpubs in Southeastern PA and I personally attribute that to competition. If a brewpub produces mediocre beer the customers have lots of other nearby options to buy tasty beer.

Just a few of the high quality brewpubs:

• Tired Hands (Ardmore)
• Forest & Main (Ambler)
• Barren Hill Tavern & Brewery (Lafayette Hill)
• Iron Hill (Media, etc.)
• etc

If you add in the brewpubs/beer bars that are affiliated with production breweries:

• Sly Fox Brewpub (Phoenixville)
• Victory Brewpub (Downingtown)
• Victory Beerhall (South Philly)

Cheers!

 

I think some brewers are concentrating too much on quantity and just throwing stuff on the shelves. But, I think over all yes, the competition will and is improving quality. There's a lot of great beer out there and if brewery's want their product to sell the will need to continue to step it up and be innovative to remain in the game.

 

On a side note, I think if you look at many of the longer-standing nationally-distributed craft brewers, you'll see in their product line innovation over the past few years. Now, whether that's due to brewmaster stagnation (and a creative desire to make new things) or competitive response (more likely) is hard to say, but probably some combination of the two in most cases.

Some examples:

Sam Adams and their barrel-aged series
Smuttynose and their Big Beer and Smuttlabs series
Sierra Nevada and Beercamp
Founders and their Backstage Series
Everyone and their session IPAs

 

...... it almost sounds like the assumption is that without competition a brewery would intentionally make mediocre beer on purpose, then all of a sudden someone else opens up in town and they say "oh shit, we better improve our game." Honestly I seriously doubt this EVER happens. More likely than not, the improvement in quality that you see is due to some mixture of:

1) more experience. as time passes, brewers just get better. practice makes perfect
2) more education. over time a mediocre brewer may get some tips, hints, or just flat more formal education.
3) different equipment. better, more efficient equipment might be affordable as a few years pass
4) new personnel. honestly a new employee at a brewery can make all the difference. maybe the new guy has much better sanitation procedures that seriously improve the quality of the beers.

The idea that a brewery would just sit there, make mediocre beer, and then ONLY improve when someone else comes to town is pretty suspect.