Be honest, at what point do breweries get "too big" and suspect?

SN has my vote.

New brewery, great beer, still making a lot of styles.

Always doing it right.

 

You're not a sellout until the quality declines.

 

What I was going to say.

 

I think you're going to see responses that reveal a lot more about consumer psychology than anything that has to do with any actual discernible change in the product in the glass.

 

Victory. Yet, still has quality as the main objective.

 

Anything over a two barrel system.

 

Two barrels? Filthy profiteering, that is. Focused only on making a buck.

Anything over a five gallon system. Otherwise, you're making it to sell some of it and tainting the whole batch with greed!

 

When the owner doesn't know the name of the person who empties his office trashcan

 

Well, quality and price can have a relationship. If the quality of a beer declines, but the price declines proportionally further - resulting in a better cost/quality ratio than what was in place before... is that necessarily a bad thing?

 

They only get "too big" when they start cutting costs by using inferior ingredients. If a brewery is worldwide and still offers quality product, they aren't "too big"

 

As soon as they are no longer privately held ventures.

As soon as they go public, the makers start answering to a board of directors that steadily dilutes/cheapens/destroys a specialty product in order to make it appeal to more people. In other words, the bottom line becomes the priority, not quality or purity. It happens a lot.

Greed has destroyed many great companies and products.

 

At that point, it's a question of value versus quality. Pretty common situation for consumers to face. Good point.

 

Agreeing with earlier posts, Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas come strongly to mind as breweries that have stayed away from what we consider "big beer". I'd actually even argue for Sam Adams in some respects. I think that they are jaded and live in the past, but I think a lot of people take easy shots at them solely for their size.

 

Yeah, like at Mercedes Benz.

 

And the almighty dollar. Corporations have no soul, there one and only objective is to make money for the shareholders.

 

When Pliney sits on store shelves in every state in America collecting dust and everybody says "Pliney? Meh!" Then Russian River will be in that category. But we all know that will never happen. So they get my vote.

 

Once they have nationally televised commercials. Two HUGE names that come to mind: Sam Adams and Leinenkugel. It seems Sam Adams just puts stuff out to get it out. I've never considered them "great quality" but now its just a joke. And Leinie's should just rename themselves to Shandy Shanty. I actually didn't mind drinking Leinie's before, Honeyweiss was the best in college, but once they put themselves out there on the boob-tube I quickly lost interest.

 

Why all this emphasis on so-called "innovation" ? Apart from the fact that there's actually very little new under the sun , what's wrong with breweries which simply brew great beer again and again ? I see so much new stuff from breweries which doesn't appeal any more than what they brewed before and get the impression that it's done to be different. But different doesn't mean better so stop reinventing the wheel and stick to what's best.