The Problem with American Craft

I can see all sides of this. Supporting crummy breweries whether they are local or not, seems to be a problem. And time doesn't always sort this out, and bad beer can seemingly last forever. Some examples I think many would agree with would be "name any American adjunct lager", piss beer, macrobrewery, or whatever you want to call it that have been around for a long while. For many, those Breweries aren't local, AND their product sucks. Double whammy. Conversely, "whale hunting" (that term makes my stomach hurt) is dumb too. To one of the main points in the original post, there is no doubt an overabundance of hoppy ass beers. I'm not a hoppy beer hater, but if there are a million IPAs/2IPAs/Pale Ales etc how many can possibly be that good? Yet we still see them packed on the shelfs and lining many taps. There is definitely lots of good beer in various styles available. I do agree that the craze is hops, and there are also some poorly executed beers, really poor examples of a style, and some with goofy ass flavors thrown in that I could do without.

 

Too many culinary beers down here in SoFL. Fruit beers are one thing, but everybody and their mother are incorporating some kind of coconut or peanut butter or agave and spices etc into their core lineups. Mostly the breweries doing this don't even bother to brew basic styles well, they pretty much give brewing fundamentals the middle finger in pursuit of the immediate spotlight.

Consumers are just infatuated with this style of brewing now, but I think & hope it's only temporary. Hopefully consumers in this market will wise up and start demanding quality brewed beer, not flawed beers bombed with additives and food items.

 

A wilds-focused brewery is currently surviving in Georgia (Orpheus), which in my admittedly under-informed estimation is not as great a beer state as Florida. New Glarus wilds and Funk Factory here in WI are both doing great as well in a state that consumes largely macros and Spotted Cow and has a heavily German heritage.

The thing about wilds is that in most cases they are small batch by virtue of the methods that create them. This goes double for new breweries who do not have the means to crank out huge batches of anything, let alone wilds. Wilds are just coming into the height of their vogue, so I'm sure Florida will have no problem supporting J Wakefield; in fact, I doubt J Wakefield will be able to keep up with demand if they are any good at all.

 

Question: Did Ben Franklin say "Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy?"
Answer:
The short answer is no. There is no evidence that Franklin ever said this. Well, no evidence aside from that quote being attributed to him on tee shirts hanging in the gift shops of 90% of brewery gift shops and that this misquote is trotted out every time a journalist is assigned a beer story which he researches only as deeply as Wikipedia.

To be fair, there are so many sources that use this quote that it is easy to understand when someone believes it to be true. Besides that, it is such a lovely idea and who else would have said but our beloved founding father who also told us to fart proudly.

Franklin did write, "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy."

 

There is no "problem". Those beers and breweries that are truly not good will fail and vanish. Help them out by not drinking them. None of this is a problem.

 

Possible unpopular opinion incoming. Mediocre breweries like Ale Asylum, Wisconsin Brewing Company, Capital (besides their doppelbocks), etc. are still pretty popular here, largely, I think, because Madisonians like to buy things made in and around Madison; it comes with the über-liberal, vaguely hipster ethos of the city. I used to work in a liquor store there, and people would come in all day buying these mediocre breweries when great stuff like FFF, Victory, Great Lakes, Central Waters, and even New Glarus just sits on the shelves next to it. Wisconsin has great distribution, but we've lost both DFH and Stone in the past due to blind local loyalty being so dominant in the marketplace here. I do think it will eventually work itself out, but I'm not sure since people buy awful shit constantly even when there are so many good options on the same shelves.

 

The cream always rises

/endthread

 

Sierra Nevada self distributes in the immediate Chico CA area. They choose not to do the rest of the state. Over 30 states allow self distribution in one form or another.

 

Wow! I could copy and paste your post but change the city names and brewery names.

 

I hear where you're coming from, Yemen, and I don't at all suggest there's a shortage of mediocre brews on the market. The hard part for me -- and I apologize in advance as I have a feeling I probably won't articulate this very well -- is that those popular locals that grab tap lines may be popular for a variety of reasons. True, it purely be because they're local, and people care only about that. However, I'd like to give craft fans a bit more credit, in which case I have to consider that some of those folks find those beers really good. The brews may not align with your tastes, but they appear to be aligning with a lot of others' folks tastes. Again, assuming some other motive isn't driving their drinking choices, like local preference. I guess what I'm trying to get it is that identifying people's motivations for choosing and supporting a particular beer seems darn near impossible.

Now, does that mean that whatever's popular is "the best"? Surely not. Lots of people like macro. Lots of people like McDonald's. Lots of people like Top 40 music. A lot of us would agree those aren't best-in-class examples. I just wanted to be clear here that I'm not trying to argue that the ubiquity of the local IPA you despise but others like proves its worth/quality. It's just the arguing the converse has its own challenges.

I added @herrburgess to this, because, again, I sympathize with where he's coming from. Versions of Oktoberfests he loves and that are generally regarded as world-class are falling by the wayside in his area to other versions. My question is simply: how do you correct this? One might surmise that the stores in his area stopped selling HP/Spaten/etc. because people weren't buying it. Why weren't they buying it? Maybe because they're locavores. Maybe because they have crappy palates and prefer inferior products. Maybe the versions making it to the states weren't up to snuff. I don't know. That's where I'm stuck. I don't know why they don't prefer the generally agreed upon better versions. And because of that, I'm not sure how you combat it, other than to continue to patronize the breweries whose product you respect, buy their stuff whenever you see it on shelves, etc.

 

Except, as noted, in many places these mediocre beer have already pushed world-class ones off the shelves.

And falls?

 

I see where you're coming from, but to throw in some objectivity I think I could point to some noteworthy reviewing agreement on some of these breweries, especially if you read the out of state reviews. They thrive on other factors, whether it be the buy local motivation, that many markets like AZ are really behind the times and a lot of consumers don't know any better, etc. If Old World Witbier, Porter, or Red are the only style examples you had, you wouldn't know how bad they are, for example. But for FFS, they just won't go out of business, even with articles in the local paper about them having rat infestations and such. Someone is buying that beer. We can speculate how it is selling, but one thing I'm rather confident about is that it isn't because they're a top tier brewery producing top tier beers.

 

So does the scum. :-)

 

But hasn't this always been true? Even today mass market beers still sell approximately 90% of the market....

(And IIRC there was once a beer that "made Milwaukee famous." :-) )

 

“One might surmise that the stores in his area stopped selling HP/Spaten/etc. because people weren't buying it. Why weren't they buying it? Maybe because they're locavores. Maybe because they have crappy palates and prefer inferior products.”

First, let me don my flame proof suit. OK, I am now ready.

It seems to me that lots of American beer drinkers like to drink Oktoberfest beers with a noticeable caramel flavor. Think of Sam Adams Oktoberfest here. So, those folks are less likely to buy German brewed versions of these beers since those German brewed beers do not suit their tastes.

Now, for transparency I will readily admit that I am not a fan of caramelly Oktoberfest beers. I would prefer to drink a Hacker-Pschorr over a Sam Adams Oktoberfest for example but I am only one beer drinker.

I would suggest that the retailers in South Carolina are responding to the palates (and dollars) of their customers in that matter. That is how a market driven economy works.

Cheers!

 

Can someone actually track how often a poster tries to quote Ben Franklin, only to be corrected? I'm reading on page 3 and thinking to myself, "oh boy, that is a BA faux pas, he's going to get corrected". Page 4 comes, and lo and behold, there is the correction.

 

It's not shady practice its more the norm in capitalism. It's what Toyota and Honda did with their vehicles. Sold the Camry's for much cheaper 20-30 years ago than American comparable mid-size sedans, but they were so well built, the newer models now adays are more than the American models because they won over consumers of the long-term with their higher quality and thus more demand for that product at a higher price point.

Example: If a nano startup brewer releases their a pale ale for $3.99 a pint at the local bar where the national pale ale goes for $5. If the new pale ale starts getting rave reviews, get lots of repeat buyers, word of mouth expands to bring people in to try this great beer etc. the brewer can begin to make more beer, raise the price, or a combo of both because that is what the LONG-TERM market will demand for it. If that same pale ale is just a so/so beer, then keep it at $3.99 a pint for the long-term as the lower price-point will help balance supply/demand. I just see new nano-brewers jumping into the market with inferior products and high price points, and it can only be a short-term win for them or none at all depending on how mature/educated the craft community is in a given area.

 

Pricing seems to be a problem as well. Whether this is a function of the 3 tiered system or the breweries themselves, I am starting to notice more and more beers priced at that range that will make me say to myself "That beer is staying right there on that shelf"

 

I never had the misfortune of running across Old World on tap during my times in Phoenix, though I did have the misfortune of stopping into the brewery. Infections. Infections everywhere. In any case, is OW stuff really so ubiquitous? If that's what's driving good beer from local bars' taplines, then my sympathy is tenfold for you I was thinking more along the lines of something like Four Peaks or SanTan -- an assumption on my part, I admit, that perhaps you're not a fan of some of their brews. If that were the case, I'd offer my humble opinion that most of those brews, if not world-class, aren't so bad that they'd make me wonder how in the world they're displacing other offerings.

 

Yep, it often appeals to the lowest common denominator.