Why is craft beer so hard?

http://meridianpint.com/beer/

out of 21 on draft (not counting the Cider) I see 12 Va-DC-Md , so over half, but still quite a few taps left over for non locals. and still no more than 1 or 2 from any given local brewery.

Bottom line - if you want to find out of town craft brews its easy - there are some craft bars more locally oriented, and some not locally oriented at all, so the choice is yours. If you really are a fan of a particular local brewery your best bet remains the taproom by far. There is no general difficult getting "the best beers on the planet" because of locavorism.

Edit - i forgot to note the house beer and featured beer, both local - but most of the bottled beers appear to be non local

 

man they have finally gotten better at updating and keeping their draft list current on their website, big kudos to them.

 

Who defines what's 'average'? This is a dangerous game to play, and it's not as clear-cut as you are making it out to be.

If it's the ones checking in to Untappd, or whatever, I have this bad feeling that they will proclaim Mahr's U or Augustiner Edelstoff or...<fill in the blank with any other world classic>...to be 'boring'. How dare they produce beer that doesn't meet the needs of today's cutting-edge beer evaluating elite?!!

 

thats interesting. I work at a restaurant in Tysons that is farm to table and they serve only VA brews, it seems to be a movement synonymous with intimate, farm to table cuisine/culture. That being said, I've voted against us having only VA beers repeatedly.

 

I think 3.5 is a decent score. People should find reviewers they trust. Sometimes the "negatives" that people describe in a beer is just what I'm looking for.

 

people return beer?

whaaaaaa?

 

When buying singles at the store, I just go with my gut and buy it. Sure, it helps if I'm familiar with the brand but most of the time it's really about the exploration. I check the BA scores after I've opened one just to make sure I'm getting the same vibe as the majority. Happy hunting!

 

Neil House had a couple decent beers, but it was mostly just not good. I think people were just into them because they were new on the scene in a time where there weren't 8 new breweries opening every year in the Columbus metro area. And for another comparison for restaurants, what about Bob Evans? Ate there last night after not eating there for a couple years, and the food was decent, but mostly meh. Granted it's a destination for older people, the place is always packed and the food just isn't that great.

 

Well, as noted above, in the 1910's there were about half that number of breweries in the US - during that decade, the number would be further reduced because of a number of factors - statewide prohibition laws mostly in the south and west, and then grain rationing and other measures during WWI taken by the Federal government under the Lever Act (so-called "Wartime Prohibition").

Here's the official count for those final years before National Prohibition from the IRS and the US Brewers Foundation:

Since that first graph I posted above didn't work, here's another one - from the Civil War (and the early years of the mass popularity of "lager beer" in the US) to the dawn of the Craft Era in 1980. Clearly, the US lost more breweries (both in number and percentage wise) before Prohibition than during Prohibition, going from that peak year in 1873 of over 4,000 down to just over one thousand in 1918. (Due to a Lever Act proclamation in September 1918 by Wilson, all malt liquor production was prohibited after Dec. 1, 1918 and most breweries closed. Under 0.5% "near beer" was then permitted after Jan. 1919 when that proclamation was modified).



Prohibition didn't particularly help the brewing industry (nor did the fact that Repeal happened - not coincidentally - during the Great Depression) but the normal shakeout of a maturing industry due to consolidation, increased average barrelage thanks to automation and industrialization, the benefits of increased economies of scale, and improved transportation had as much to do with the decrease in the number of US breweries in the century before the modern post-War era than Prohibition did.

A decade and half of Prohibition no doubt helped speed the closing of many "marginal" breweries reluctant or unable to afford to grow or modernize, and also made it impossible for many to reopen after Repeal.

 

Some small breweries produce quite good products, some produce average products and some produce poor products. (Sometimes even within the same brewery there will be a range of qualities you like in the beers on offer.)

The "hard" you are describing is a natural by-product of increasing diversity and increasing demand for any beer that's not produced by a mass market brewery. The more options you have to choose from the more chance there is you will not like something that's out there on offer. So yes, if you want to avoid disappointment, you need to research beers before you buy and check the dates every time (even to the point of not buying undated bottles or cans).

But the filp side of the coin you are describing is that overall the availability of good quality options is actually increasing and the situation now is much better now than it was when all we had on offer were the safe, reliable, consistent offerings from the mass market brewers. Then you were able to safely choose a new beer with out it being "hard."

The only way I can figure that you can avoid the "hard" with craft beer is to either turn/return to those mass market offerings or do more date checking and researching of choices when you can. That way you increase your chances of success beyond those offered by knowing the name and/or label on the beer.

 

Yeahright

Founding Farmers? While that is a bit extreme (and odd to exclude DC and Md) I can see it fitting a locavore restaurant philosophy. That is not exactly the typical beer bar though,is it. I would be curious to see the range of PCB offerings, but can't find the beer list on yhe mobile website.

 

The purpose of the Beer Judge Certification Program is to:

• Encourage knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the world's diverse beer, mead, and cider styles;
• Promote, recognize, and advance beer, mead, and cider tasting, evaluation, and communication skills; and
• Develop standardized tools, methods, and processes for the structured evaluation, ranking and feedback of beer, mead, and cider.

We certify and rank beer judges through an examination and monitoring process, sanction competitions, and provide educational resources for current and future judges. -bjcp.org

What happens when you don't pay to submit your brew to a competition?
Are only BJCP certified judges allowed to tell us what we should consume?
What happens when a brewery does not brew to these style guidlines?

As @TongoRad said "its a dangerous game to play". My 3.5 might be someones 4.5 or someone elses 5.

“ What really caught me off guard was that a lot of beer fans had exactly the opposite expectation. They expected generic food, and initially, a very vocal minority were very upset that they couldn’t find any. I was shocked that they were angry about not getting mediocrity. People should feel free to limit themselves all they like, but don’t ever try to limit us. We have no intention of being limited.” -Greg Koch of Stone Brewery in April's issue of BeerAdvocate.

Works well with beer too.
Am i saying you should be happy with what you deem as sub par? No
Are some people happy with what you feel is sub par? Sure.

 

To pick up a bit on what @Relik started, the BJCP does list commercial examples of each style within their description, but that is simply to give the reader a better idea of what they are describing.

In the end, all the BJCP is doing is setting guidelines to judge homebrew competitions. If you are going to enter a brown porter, for example, then they are establishing ahead of time what standards it will be judged against- this is necessary in order to bring some sort of objectivity to an inherently subjective process. Out 'in the wild', though, porters won't necessarily be brewed to those standards, and will still taste great all the same.

Right- and sometimes people will eventually change their minds wrt the same beer .

 

The BJCP sanctions home brew competitions. Home brewed beer, cider, and mead are what are entered into these competitions. These are brewing competitions, to see who can make the best beer in a style/category.

To answer your questions:

Entry fees cover the costs of the competitions. No entry fee paid, why would the beer be judged?
The judges rate the beer in the style it is entered in. There is also an open category where anything goes. No one tells what should be liked, or what should be brewed.
If a home brewer does not brew to the guidelines she/he gets a low score, and advice on how to brew a better beer next time.

Breweries enter the GABF or WBC. Different guidelines, more categories, and those are judged by industry people, not BJCP (though some Brewers are BJCP certified).

 

@hopfenunmaltz oh i totally understand that, i was just using the BJCP as a more recognizable body.

 

Well, mainly because it's still young, and and learning.....

 

I research almost every new beer because so many of them are crap.

No matter how big craft beer gets, people will always return to something with a known quality and taste.

Reminds of the "buy American" thing with cars.

Pay more for a lower quality product just because it is "made" in America? No thanks.

BTW, many "foreign" cars are made in the US.

 

Should I be sorry that settling for what my limited budget and time allows is "hurting" the craft beer world?

It's all about context. Not everybody has the time/money to chase whales all the time or live within the distro area of the highly rated brews. I understand that many of you here have dedicated a lot to this hobby(?) and your standards are set pretty high. Maybe that's the reason that makes it "hard" for you. At the same time there are a LOT of beer fans out there that (like me) are just starting on this and are technically still exploring what's out there. Every drinker has his/her own story, preference, and stages, and I'm glad that most breweries recognize this and usually have products available for the wide range of consumers. I really admire the knowledge and experience of some hardcore fans and how dedicated they are to this, but looking down and bashing companies or other drinkers just because they're not at your level is just silly.