The Problem with American Craft

Yea, to suggest that JA is primarily popular for something other than their beer geek styles (i.e. hoppy and/or BA) is, IMO, very disingenuous.

 

This is no different than any other artisan offering: there are way more musicians that put out crappy music than those that are putting out quality material. There are a lot of crappy food joints. Etc. There are a lot more average beers in Indiana, for instance, than there are quality craft. That doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of quality craft though. Once you are familiar with it, navigating through the crap to find the craft becomes relatively easy.

 

I can’t comment as to what make Jack’s Abby “primarily popular” but Jabby Brau and Smoke & Dagger are very good beers.

Cheers!

 

Popular with who? BA people? Then yes, you are correct. As for what sells to the public at large, I think you'd be wrong. They sell a lot of Hoponious Union six packs, that's their staple beer. There is a crapload of it at my local Trader Joes. Kiwi Rising is a limited release as are the BA Framinghammers, some of which are brewery only. The regular beers, including the less hoppy ones, keep the doors open. I love Lashes Lager. Hopstitution, despite the name, is not a very hop forward beer.

 

"The brewery's Hoponius Union, an india pale lager, is their best-selling beer and considered the flagship line."

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/framingham/2012/07/framinghams_jacks_abby_brewing.html

EDIT: In all seriousness, JA made their name on hoppy lagers. And while I agree they make some excellent balanced and non-hoppy beers, I'm not sure why anyone would suggest that their popularity doesn't primarily have to do with this fact.

 

They mostly make lagers to suit the ale drinker's palate. Jabby and Frammigham Lager aren't keeping the doors open. Lashes is a hoppy red lager and Hopstitution may not scrape away taste buds with hoppiness but it's a simple lager made only to display the characteristics of random hop varietals they get in short amount. They try to create a lager version of every style du jour. They are thriving on the back of that and sales of HU.

I'm sure we are not too far off from a gose attempt called Lager? I barely Gose her.

 

And that exchange highlights my problem with the original premise of this discussion [and many similar ones on this site]. "Quality" and similar terms are very squishy and they mean different things to different people. Many people throw these terms around authoritatively, but it's really impossible to quantify them in any meaningful way. Ultimately enjoyment of a beer comes down to the individual's personal tastes and opinions. Furthermore, we've had plenty of discussions about numerous factors unrelated to the actual product that can influence people's tastes and opinions (e.g. physical setting, taster's mood, interference from other food/drinks/smells, hype, advertising, homerism, expectations, product pricing, taster's knowledge/ability, smoking, glassware [or lack of], clean tap lines, etc. etc.). So, apologies to @JackRWatkins but I think the foundation of this discussion was weak and unstable from the start, which resulted in this long, messy, and somewhat random 8 page discussion. My only takeaway from all of this is that we need to be better about definitions and recognizing what can actually be quantified meaningfully and what is just a matter of personal opinion.

 

Ok, maybe we are just looking at this differently. I don't consider any ordinary IPA (say, Harpoon, or Sam Rebel) to be a BA hophead focused beer. That's just an ordinary style, with mass appeal. Certainly, I'd say Lashes is mildly hopped (less so than Harpoon IPA or SNPA). Hopstitution is no hoppier than many pilsners, which is ultimately what it is (with rotating hops). I don't think of pilsners as hoppy beers. Maybe they were once, but not anymore by comparison.

If you removed all of those beers from all brewers, that would eliminate 70% of the beer on the shelf. The baseline level of hops in any "craft" beer is going to be much higher than in BMC or than in most Belgian styles or British Bitters. Do we need American craft brewers trying to re-create super bland under-hopped British Bitters? That's the answer? Those things would be shelf turds forever. IPAs and APAs sell. If you are a new brewer and you don't have an IPA and APA, good luck surviving. That's not compensating for lack of skill as the OP suggests, it's common sense. Look at who has grown? Stone and Langunitas both make predominantly highly hop forward beers. It's what sells.

 

Yes. Hops sell. In good "craft" beers as well as in not so good ones and even in some truly terrible ones. And, as you point out, to abandon that winning formula for even the best-made UK bitter or traditional German pils (which is hoppy, just not hoppy enough for U.S. "craft" drinkers) would be unwise in the current market. I think this is exactly what the OP is saying: bad beers + hops sell better than good beers - hops. This is, IMO, a problem, as it reflects poorly on the "craft" culture as a whole.

 

Very hoppy offerings do sell. They are also one of, if not the largest, "beer geek style". JA is popular based more on beer geek styles than anything else. That was the point that you seemed to be trying to downplay.

Lashes is quite hopped, it is just balances out more with the malts than the IPA you mentioned, and rightfully so. Hopstitution being no hoppier than many pilsners is fine if you are talking about Americanized Pilsners. It's insanely hoppy compared to traditional pils. If you didn't find calyptra hoppy, you might be the only one. Not being over the top equaling not hoppy is a trend I've been seeing way too much lately.

 

I'm a fan of giving local a try and supporting them if it's good enough to compete with regionally or nationally distributed brands, but with that being said, I am completely in the "like" tank of what you said.

 

This is the unfortunate truth that has me scouring tap lists for something I can actually drink when I go out, and has me spending an excessive percentage of my craft beer budget on imports to encourage the few stores around I can find them at to keep them on the shelves.

Heck, even on this very website, any discussion thread started about any IPA beer ever brewed by anyone racks up several pages of comments in the first day, but a thread about eisbocks, easily as complex as any quad ever produced, just sort of floats out there with a few people saying anything.

 

I almost completely agree with most everything you've said but would like to introduce a couple of slight modifications.

First, I disagree that it is "impossible to quantify them in any meaningful way," but it is really really difficult and not done simply through casual observation, anecdotal evidence, and/or personal taste or opinion. Nor will there necessarily be universal agreement on a particular quantification. But at the end of the day what will count is whether or not one can predict an outcome significantly better with the quantification than not.

Secondly, I'd suggest there is another takeaway. Recognition of what can be meaningfully quantified isn't going to happen in a situation where one is limited to short bursts of the written word with random interjections and interruptions or where people tend to invest more in arguing for the correctness of their own opinion than in understanding the problem and ways to approach it. In other words, there's a reason why in this electronic age with Skype, etc., large screen displays, and other group meeting support tools that certain issues still require face-to-face, in-the-same-room communication and collaborative problem solving.

 

There is no problem. Im much happier w craft beer now than 10 years ago so something's working. Competition stimulates better ideas and the pressure to produce higher quality products. Supply n demand will weed out crappy breweries eventually.

 

Do you think it is a problem that is big/important enough to look into using such methods? The Brewers Association and many, many others seem to think it might be.

 

I wish I shared your optimism about crappy breweries weeding out. With craft beer going more mainstream, there are a lot of other reasons why breweries can stay in business (as much of this thread discusses).

 

But what is the problem if they do stay in business? How does this affect you and your beer consumption? There's competition in all aspects of life, it's capitalism and the American way. Craft beer has improved tremendously overall and any objection to that is ridiculous if you ask me. Buy the beers you enjoy, pass the others up. This is not open heart surgery or rocket science and no one is dying on the table... it's beer.

 

I vote with dollars.
I speak my mind to raise awareness about it. This is an appropriate place for that.

I think you might see it differently if you spent some time in parts of the country where the local breweries are very 'meh' and they're taking tap lines and shelf space from much, much better craft beers available from the distributor. I don't want to drink a Grand Canyon Pilsner on tap at a bar any more than I would order a Budweiser. Things are going in the wrong direction when Ballast Point Big Eye tap line is being replaced with Grand Canyon Black Iron IPA. Or the larger trend of most imports disappearing altogether and being replaced with 'meh' local state beers.

 

There's numbers to back up this argument, so I won't fault you for thinking this way. But that's a weak fucking excuse for breweries these days to be hop heavy. At one point in time Boston Lager and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale had to establish the market for better beer. Something as hoppy as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was most certainly not popular with the masses when it debuted.

A bitter can sell. Goose Island sells large volumes of Honkers Ale. And if you want a local example of something non-hoppy, low abv and "boring" selling, look no further than Notch Session Pils. At my local bottle shop in Somerville, Notch Pils is the third best selling beer behind Bud/Miller/Coors/Sam Adams products.

As far as I can tell, and Chris posts on here from time to time, Notch does just fine with ONE IPA, and nothing over 4.5%. He sells sessionable Czech styles that no one has heard of.........why? Because they're good.

While I agree, that a brewery would be smart these days to have one or two hop forward beers to bring more money to their business. I still feel you don't HAVE to. I am a firm believer, and always will be, that if you brew great beer, it will sell.

 

And they do make a more traditional German pils in Sunny Ridge. It was respectable, but no way near my top American takes on German pils, or actual German pilsners. They quite a ways to go on this one. This would be one example of a non-hoppy beer, and it shows their maturity as brewers in my opinion. Something you wouldn't pick up on with Hoponious.

I still think they're very good brewers, and their growth over the years is noticeable with Jabby Brau. This beer went from wildly inconsistent to consistently excellent. I have faith they'll dial in Sunny Ridge in later batches as this is much newer obviously than Jabby is.