Are Collaborations Successful? How Successful?

It's fun for customer and good marketing for breweries.

 

@cjgiant

A question for both of you. Why would we expect two different breweries that are doing test batches, etc. with their own new beers to abandon that practice when they collaborate on a single beer?

 

Some collaborations are good. Some collaborations are bad.

Some individual beers are good. Some individual beers are bad.

As to the question, one average both are good.

 

The best collab I had was... hm, I don't even remember.

 

Scheduling conflicts / time.

 

Successful for who? For hyped breweries that collab together like Other Half, Trillium and Monkish, they are hugely successful, the "unwashed masses" battle each other for the privilege of lining up for hours to pay top $ for these beers, glasses, hats, shorts, koozies, underwear, etc. and line the pockets of the owners of the brewery.

The beer turns out to be better, the same or worse than what each individual brewery puts out.

 

The few commercially made I have had were ok at best, one was a drain pour.

On the job,e brew side I've had the range from super to drain pour.

I do not look for them

 

Collaborations usually come off as lazy or half baked to me, as if the brewers just wanted a chance to kill two birds with one stone:

1) Hang out with and learn a little from someone they look up to, and
2) Brew some of their weirder ideas with the force of two breweries behind it

It oftentimes comes across as though they know a weird one-off might sell less if they were to do it on their own and release it with just one name on it. The likelihood of a collaboration being one of the weirder beers either collaborator has put out is pretty high in my estimation.

However, there have been a few outliers that really blew my mind. Like the Bruery and Jester King collab Imperial Cabinet, and the whole Cycle collaboration series that was recently done.

But really, it's the ones that stick around that show that collaborations can be successful and valuable from a learning perspective as well as a brand enhancer, like Sierra Nevada's Oktoberfest series, or the Stillwater/Casita stout On Fleek.

For the most part, though, I've been underwhelmed, to disgusted. Mikkeller is a major contributor to my hesitance on collabs, and, despite my above praise for Bruery, they too give me pause when I hear of them doing a collab. Then there are breweries like Other Half, who seem like they aren't doing anything different on their collabs than they would be doing by themselves, which really comes across like a cash grab on another clone of one of their hop bombs, like a pop single "featuring" some big name star who really only puts .5 seconds of their voice on the entire track.

 

Speaking of Jackie O's, they did a collab with Jester King, and basically brewed a lager. Neither brewery is known for the style, so when they announced their collaboration was a "Kolsch inspired farmhouse beer," it was probably one of the biggest anticipation letdowns in beer that year. I'm sure it's good, I'd love to try it, it's probably not your typical Kolsch. But the idea of two breweries that both make highly sought after, limited release fruited sours coming together had a lot of people waiting with bated breath. It almost felt like a troll.

 

It's strange to see the amount of negativity in this thread. Collaboration beers in some ways are like any other beer - some good, some bad. They have their own inherent pitfalls. Such as brewers literally phoning it in. To judge them as a category based on having had "several" or a "bunch" is a limited POV given how wide the category is. It's even odder to have expectations that 2+2=4 in this arena. A collaboration beer isn't going to be better than a brewer's standard lineup simply because it's a collaboration. That's a "but these go to eleven" mindset.

Collaboration beers (by name) emphasize the moment rather than something permanent, and as such they are often one-offs. More than anything, collaboration beers are a marketing devise that gets names out there and in the mouths of consumers (in two ways). With "Collaboration not Litigation" being the prime example, they are a key tool in the craft brewer's arsenal that exists to define the romantic notion of craft beer. (Is this tool losing power?) All in all, collaboration beers have been far from the worst beers I've consumed, and in a few cases, they are beers that I either anticipate every year or long for their unlikely return.

 

I've never had a collab beer that's tasted like the sum of the breweries involved. At best they've tasted like a solid beer that one of the breweries is fully capable of making themselves, but too often they taste like a compromise or confusion. This is why I now steer away from them.

 

I've had a ton of collaborations that are awesome, but they're never really "better" or that much different than the brewery as a standalone. For example- Other Half does numerous collabs that people go crazy for (Trillium, Monkish etc), but although they're typically outstanding, they're not "better" than the solo other half beers.

 

I just mentioned this scenario exactly haha. Still not sure why these releases are so much more hyped up.

 

I voted "No" to the poll, but I agree with this.

My expectation of collaborations is they should be drinkable and slightly different than what either brewery would do on their own, and most meet that relatively low bar, but that doesn't mean I prefer them to either brewery regular offerings (thus my "No" response). However, take my words with a grain of salt, because I rarely buy collaboration beers based on my low expectations. When I do, it's usually a Sierra Nevada collab, particularly their Octoberfest collabs with German brewers are a yearly must-buy for me.

My brewery collaboration dream: Sierra Nevada & Schlenkerla @sierranevadabill

 

Perhaps I miscommunicated. I don't view "craft" through rose-colored glasses at all. I appreciate specialization over "trying new things." It's not unreasonable to expect a collaboration beer to be good. It is unreasonable to expect a collaboration beer to inherently be better than what a brewery would produce on their own.

 

It looks like I share the same sentiment as others that voted no. Even though I voted no that's not because I think the collaborations turn out poorly, but they usually don't seem to embrace the idea of a collaboration at all. I also think that there's a three different types of collaboration beers.

There's the ones that are used to showcase another brewery. Like where Stone is involved; they typically share their label with a lesser known brewery. Which I'm sure is there mostly to just promote a small independent brewery. Although the end result beers never really feel like Stone contributed anything more than their label. But what do I know.

There's the ones brewed with the trendy guys (i.e. Other Half, Trillium, Hill Farmstead, etc) that really don't seem to serve a purpose, but for some reason builds an extra five hours worth of line hype. These releases definitely perpetuate that poor thinking where the beer will be better as a sum than its parts. These guys just brew another IPA that doesn't seem any different than what they normally churn out. I'm curious if anyone has a different way of thinking about IPA collabs.

Then there's the ones that I believe to hold the concept of a collaboration to my preferred definition. Where the beer that gets brewed is experimental and actually gives you an idea where each brewery imparted their own influence. These examples seem to be few and far between, but I think beers from Stillwater collabs are a prime example for this. They're usually some interesting combinations of styles and ingredients that give a regional example.

So usually I don't think that these collaboration turn out poorly, but I don't think they capture the essence of what it means to collaborate.

 

It’s because, not quite by definition, but with near-certainty, these are going to be one-off beers.

If any of the component breweries (OH, Trillium, Monkish) did a non-collab but made a big deal up front that the beer was a one-off, never to be brewed again, the results would be the same

 

That's a great analogy for this situation.

For any cave-dwellers who don't understand what "go to eleven" means, here:

 

I don’t think the point of a collaboration is to try to make a “better” beer than the individual breweries could make themselves. I think the point is in the collaboration process itself. I have been slightly disappointed by many collaborations, but I can’t really think of any off the top of my head that offended me or that I felt ripped off by.