Craft's Proliferation Problem

In less refined company, I may have somewhat less tame turns of phrase to describe the phenomenon.

That's if taste is all that drives this phenomenon, which I don't think is necessarily the case. It's a factor, and likely a big one, but there's other pieces to the puzzle - locavorism and "I never drink the same beer twice, don't care how good it was"-ism being two that spring directly to mind.

 

Random thoughts...

-Bad Water Brewing and Phoenix Ales are pretty bad examples of local beer. That sucks that they've overtaken your local watering holes's taps, and I feel for you. In the places I drink at in Phoenix, there are usually many more options, but I understand your frustration.

-Sucks about your nephew, too, though if he's as young as he sounds, I wouldn't put much stock in a youngster's palate

-Your second reply is the most telling to me, because the gist of it is really this: you don't think top-rated American beer is as good as top-rated German or Belgian beer. Very well, that's entirely your right and palate, but it makes me just as mistrustful of it as someone from the US declaring that all of our beer is inherently better than any other country's. It just comes off as shockingly close-minded.

-From what I gather, other countries aren't always so, shall we say liberal, about the virtues of foreign beer, such as German perceptions of Belgian beer. However, because that's all we had in the US for non-BMC beer for so long, some folks here feel differently. Curious indeed.

 

Sounds good then, as I think we're understanding each other better.

If that's your stance on closed-mindedness then it also applies to a high percentage of the people on these boards and Americans in general - the norm I encounter is that American craft beer is believed to be the best on earth. American exceptionalism is no less common when it comes to beer.

I hold a contrary view. I think the best beer on earth is still in Europe. I'm willing to make a concession though. American craft has only had a few decades to work on it, so maybe it isn't fair to American brewers in the first place to be making comparisons.

 

Clear as crystal -- thanks for taking the time to clarify. And, certainly, my stance applies to those who would blithely assume America produces all of the world's best beer. They are truly (and sorrowfully) mistaken. I, personally, think you're missing the boat when it comes to some of the great beer this country does produce (not to mention I think trying to compare, say, a world class IPA to a world class lager is foolhardy), but I respect that you simply prefer the Euro stuff.

Hope some nice, fresh Euro stuff pops up on tap (or in a shop) near you soon!

 

Those are about what we pay here in Los Angeles. 7-10 is the normal range per drink at the places I frequent.

The people that have mastered something are typically better. But that is not saying that Americans are unable to brew some beers just as good, or better. It doesn't happen often, but there are cases that it does. I would rather have fresh originals, but if they are not available, I would rather drink a fresh local and not an import that may not be the best quality still

I prefer to buy local wherever I am at. When I visit my parent in Central Illinois, I drink local there. When at the wife's parents in Chicago, I drink local beer. If I am on vacation, I drink local to where I am at.

That said, I don't like the sports analogy. As a Cubs fan, I wouldn't root for any other team no matter how good/bad they were. I would tend to think that a Phillies fan wouldn't root for another team when their team is awful, or a Yankees fan, or a Patriots fan, or a Seahawks fan, or any other team. Sure you may prefer one team or another to win the championship, but you are not going to change your team.

If it is a bar that deals in imports, then yes they should. If it is a bar that does not deal in imports, then they shouldn't. If I am going to a Mexican restaurant in Finland, I would hope they at least tried to get a few Mexican beers. If it is an American style restaurant, get some American beers.

Same here. If the bar has a German theme to it and has German imports on tap, they should do their best to get the best German beers. Same with a anything else. English style pub? Get English beers. It is no different

I guess I am lucky. If I said I wanted to go to Belgium and tour monasteries she would love that. I wouldn't be able to get away with Germany/Czech region as easy, but I am sure I could come up with a cool trip that she would love and would have a strong beer influence.

 

As a side note, I get why brewers might love to follow a trend of making mostly ales, and making different ones all the time. Commercial brewing is hard to do, lager or ale - but if you find out come time to package or barrel-age or what have you that you messed up, you've got at least 50% less time (read: money) sunk into a batch of ale than a batch of lager. You also don't have to worry all that much about consistency as far as getting every batch to taste exactly like the one before (as far as actually possible) if you're rattling off new beers all the time, and not worrying about maintaining them all as a portfolio. From a purely business perspective, I'd wonder why one would go any other route, especially given any market trends that indicate it'd be supported or encouraged.

I just don't like seeing manifestations of that approach, and I'm going to pout about it on occasion. Just with slightly more verbosity, and slightly less extension of my lower lip.

I also get why the sour wave may be welcomed - there's a local brewery in Cincinnati, Rivertown, that was historically known for serious consistency issues. So they recently rebranded, and started up an extensive sour program, which seems to be a little more forgiving as far as not every batch tasting the same, slightly different yeasts cross-contaminating, and the like. I now pick up some of their stuff on occasion, but I can't help but opine when I do that their sour program may have been driven at least in part by their consistency issues.

 

Totally conceivable. I also wonder if there's just a knowledge deficit when it comes to lagers. I wish to heck that we had more formal brewer training programs here in the states, in the same way that I wish more guys went to Germany (or Belgium, or England, or wherever their interest takes them) to learn the styles. Big assumption here as a non-home brewer, but it seems like ales have been more prevalent in that arena. Would love to see lagers (in all their forms) proliferate there and, hopefully/eventually, build the collective knowledge base and experience with those styles.

 

I'd agree. After having had a few New Glarus beers* and then learning that their head brewer spent some time apprenticing at Ayinger, I just nodded and said to myself "that'd be why Staghorn is such a good marzen".

* - I've thanked my girlfriend for being from and having family in Chicago on several occasions for that, since Wisconsin is a short drive away from visiting them!

 

Indeed -- I probably should've been more specific and requested folks heading to Doemens and the like, with the intention of producing authentic versions back here. I'm fine with both, of course -- traditional and non-. It would just be nice to see better representation of the former.

 

The conundrum is, of course, that not buying local led us to the beer scene in the 70s.