New Brewery - Bad Beer

I'm at a point where I don't even visit a place unless they've been open a few months to get those early kinks worked out.

 

(Reposting from the other thread)

I understand your frustration, but this is unrealistic and naïve. As someone who brewed at the opening of a smaller brewpub, I can say that this problem is unavoidable. It takes a while to really get used to new equipment and processes, for the yeast to acclimate to the new equipment, and to find that sweet spot for each of the different beers. Plus, until you actually use the equipment, it's difficult to tell if there are any minor problems with it that need addressing. There also are myriad other issues that can impact a newer brewery: inability to acquire raw ingredients (especially specialty/rare hops), prohibitive cost to acquire all of the ingredients you would prefer (special-ordering that few grams of specialty malt needed for the first "test" batch is significantly more expensive than substituting some two-row, which is already on hand), lack of knowledgeable FOH staff to explain the beers, trying to get the water just right, etc. There's no way to avoid it.. the beer won't be as good at first as it is a year later. It's just a fact of opening a new spot. No amount of waiting to open will change that. Like ANY job, there is a learning curve.

Could you dump out the first 10-20 batches of beer? Sure. But that's thousands and thousands and thousand of dollars down the drain (literally), and most smaller brewpubs don't have that much capital. In fact, most have debt that needs to be serviced and rent due and utilities due and wages that need to be paid. Very, very few breweries open with all of the capital that they need; most have just enough to get by.

The long and short of it is, you shouldn't ever really judge a brewery until they have been open for a bit. If, for you, that means not going until later on, then that's the choice for you. But many of the best breweries around right now wouldn't be around today if not for those local patrons who saw the potential--even if the beer wasn't quite there yet--and kept supporting their local brewery while the brewers learned from their initial mistakes. I didn't know the name of a single person who came only to our occasional bottle releases of RIS's and sours. But I knew the names of the people that had sat at our bar from the very beginning and told us kindly that our beer was getting better ("this batch is the best one yet").

For me, seeing a brewery progress--even if that means drinking shitty beer occasionally--is worth it.

 

I tend not to let my opinions on the brews at a newly opened brewery hold much sway in the long run. As some brewers have mentioned on these and other threads, they more or less have to sell their first few batches of beer to pay rent, utilities, their mortgage, etc. - even if those first batches aren't firing on all cylinders. A trip back in a few months usually shows marked improvement, and if it doesn't, then I may not find myself returning.

 

E. Other (you forgot that one!)

A new brewery has problems from the start, right? Naturally!

Circa 2006 -to- Present I've come to expect every start-up brewery (owner, brewmaster) to be in way over their heads. It's the nature of the Craft Beer Industry, and not just in Minnesota. But these are the growing pains that we need to cope with to ensure the growth of Better Beer culture -- right?

I mean, we surely can't expect commercial grade beer right out of the gate?

Of course, even I have my limits: If a brewery is still brewing flawed or below average beer after a year or more, I probably won't revisit them for a couple more years -- if that. Of course, that doesn't mean that there aren't tens of thousands of other consumers who won't line up to drink their beer or beer of a similar level of quality or professional execution.

Altogether I don't drink much new beer, and pay much less attention to new beer than the rate of brewery openings.

 

100% this in my opinion.

 

From my experience, if the beer is bad the first time I go it usually doesn't get much better. Unless you can come out with 3 or 4 really good beers right at the beginning, I don't know why you decide to become a brewer in the first place. Yes, you may learn some tricks along the way and the beer will definitely improve. From the first time I went to 515, Confluence, and Firetrucker I thought they were making some good beers and all 3 have gotten better over time. I won't mention names but some of the others in the DSM metro have been bad from the start and once in awhile will have something that is average.

 

Thanks for the industry prospective, but I think you're a little off topic. The OP specified that he was talking about beers that are "full of diacetyl, underattenuated, infected, or otherwise brimming with off flavors, not just something you don't personally enjoy". If these types of flaws are in a brewery's beer I'm certainly going to think twice about going back to that brewery regardless of how long it's been open. I understand where you are coming from in that there is a lot of tweeking that happens with a brewery's beer the first year or so they are open. However, there is a big difference between a beer that needs a little tweeking, and a beer that is flawed.

 

To me this is like any other product/business. You only have once to make a good first impression. I'm not saying that it has to be the best beer ever made but something good enough to bring you back.

 

I think we can, and should expect commercial grade beer out of the gate. I mean they're selling it commercially. Should we expect world class beer right away? Probably not, but it should be free of flaws.

 

If you don't have a good business plan or the capital required by your business plan to open, you shouldn't open/start the business. Make a new business plan or wait until you can put together the proper capital.

 

I chose D. My two cents are there are too many other local breweries that I can go to and enjoy very quality offerings, so why waste my time going to a newer brewery in which I've had a bad experience(s) unless the word gets around that they have improved.

On the flipside, if my first experience with a newer brewery points to potential, then I will return. If it's downright not good from the get-go though, I'll avoid a return visit.

 

Something for a new brewer to look at. 2/3rd (26/40) of respondents so far would be unlikely to return if they were served bad beer.

If you cannot afford to dump a batch that is not up to your standards, then you are not capitalized to open the business, and doing so is shooting yourself in the foot. Asking people to pay for your mistakes so you can learn isn't accepted in any other industry, why would we accept it in beer.

Especially in this day and age where there are lots of brewpubs and breweries, and I have multiple options for my disposable income.

 

I'm in the "D" camp as well. Sisyphus was a perfect example. I didn't follow them closely, but I did recall hearing that their beer was awful so I never made an attempt to go there. After some decent/good reports starting coming out on here and from a few friends, I was still skeptical. However, I needed to host an event at a "free" space and they fit the bill so I thought I'd give it a shot, and the event day coincided with the release of Piney But Younger and Canadian Lunch Stout. Those offerings, coupled with a few posts by the brewer/owner on here, turned me around on the place.

 

I understand all of your points, but just to respond to some of them from the other side's perspective.

Yea, I can see that. But the problem is, "off flavors" can be caused by a number of things, but most prominently is caused by yeast and other living organisms.

For example, he listed diacetyl. A huge reason diacetyl is present in beers is because of bad yeast performance. Almost every beer has diacetyl present at some stage of the brewing process (it's an almost unavoidable byproduct of the brewing process). But the yeast usually will eat the diacetyl when it's done with the sugars (or at the same time). So by the time the beer is finished, the diacetyl is gone. If you've got yeast that is not performing quite how you expected, diacetyl will remain.

He mentioned "brimming with off-flavors". This yeast issue is true of many "off-flavors" as well. They are almost always caused by yeast performing differently than expected. (Also, I would add that many experienced beer drinkers sort of expect to taste "off-flavors" when they visit a new brewery. I've certainly witnessed people describing off-flavors while at new breweries that I did not perceive at all.)

He mentioned underattenuation. This, too, is caused by yeast not performing as expected.

Why do I bring these things up? Because yeast often does not perform as expected the first few (or maybe few dozen) times it's introduced into a new system, even for very talented brewers. And there are other reasons for poor yeast performance. Maybe your glycol system operates more or less efficiently than you thought, and it takes a few runs to get the fermentation temperature nailed down. Maybe it doesn't flocculate as you expect. As the brewer gains experience on the new system, the beer gets better.

Infected? I would agree wholeheartedly. That's a sanitation problem and should not be accepted, ever.

Look, I'm not disagreeing with any of you guys. You have a right to not patronize any place you want. Everybody understands that. My point is only that I believe a brewery should not be judged until it's had time to settle in.

 

Holy strawman. No one here has ever said that brewers should ask people to pay for their mistakes. Only that you shouldn't judge a brewery based on one bad experience within the first few months. In fact, here is my direct quote, which explicitly recognizes that if you don't want to visit a newer brewery, you shouldn't...

"The long and short of it is, you shouldn't ever really judge a brewery until they have been open for a bit. If, for you, that means not going until later on, then that's the choice for you."

 

Irritation, may or may not come back. Until I hear otherwise, I'd likely avoid a place that I'm not impressed by the first time through. Exceptions may be if a group of friends is going there or something like that, but I wouldn't recommend it if I've been there and didn't like it.

If I hear people start to say they are good or turned it around, then I'll give it another shot. Sisyphus is the perfect example.

 

While I wouldn't agree with that, it's the exact sentiment which is quintessential to the Craft Beer True Believer's lifestyle.

Another way to say the same thing:
"Being a true lover of Craft Beer means drinking shitty brews. Anyone who can't suffer for someone else's art is a poser."

At the larger level (where beer is packaged for distribution from wholesale-to-retail) there are dozens of reliably consistent breweries which have worked their way up from local to regional and even national distribution, and whose beers are being given short-shrift or displaced on the shelves. This is happening largely because the Craft Beer hobbyist mindset isn't tied-in to consistent support of a particular brewery or even style of beer, but rather to an endless sense of dissatisfied "dabbling".

At the local level -and especially in recent years- there are now more Taprooms and brewpubs than ever before. Places that probably won't ever be distributed by way of a wholesaler, or in more than a few areas outside of their own self-distribution range (where that is allowed).

I'm not saying that someone who supports their local through thick and thin is wrong -- ultimately, it's their money.

But again, the operative sentiment in the Craft Beer hobby has for a long time been:
"Drinking beers that are otherwise drain-pours for the sake of supporting a brewery is a virtuous act, and he or she who does so is a True Craft Beer Believer. Long live the True Believers~!"

For a growing number of people, there's something about that which strikes them as not necessarily "right" thinking.

You missed my use of a rhetorical device to drive the point of absurdity to its maximum causative allowance.

It's okay, I was on a caffeine bender.

 

I reread your post after I replied, and thought you might have been being sarcastic.