Are We Killing Beer?

I agree. I've only been "into" craft about three years, so this seems normalish to me, not having experienced it before the changes the OP mentions. Seems to me that the market for beers will be like the market for clothes. If beer doesn't change somewhat based on demand then breweries will fail. At the same time, like jeans are to the clothing industry, breweries also need to produce traditional beers. It's all good.

 

My guess is that places with a relatively new craft brewery scene (wasteland up until 5 years ago) are more plagued by this phenomenon. I'm definitely not hurting for a breadth of styles around here.

 

Maybe it can seem like a problem if you look at it like craft is one thing, a singular community. But it isn't and never has been; it's always been grass roots, customer driven by smaller niche consumers going out of their way to get what they enjoy. I always say, I don't need my thing to be the most popular; I just need for it to exist, and I'll do the rest. There are numerous factions in the beer scene now, and that's great. Just do your thing, support the places who take care of you, and things'll be fine.

Like @cavedave suggested, it's never been a better time to be a niche consumer, whether it be beer, music, movies, books, food, etc. So much is at our fingertips now, so enjoy what you got.

 

Every brewery wants to make beer that sells, and can pay off the massive amount of money they put into the effort of opening, and staying open. To keep all of the people happy who invested in them. If all you see are the bells and whistles. Perhaps dig deeper, or go two doors down in the cooler. It gets hard when you put your own blinders on, but as you say. The culture is very different. That also includes the amount of shelf space devoted to beer is also very different and it's probably like the cereal aisle is at the grocery store. You have dedicated shelf space that is at eye level for children where all the sugar gimmick cereal is. So, look up, or walk to the end of the aisle where the beer that isn't fussy, or graphic intensive.
As well. The social media landscape is now a "mature" space, and advertising has burrowed its way in to it. Where as ten years ago. It was not fully understood just how valuable the space it provided for marketing product, or how that could be harnessed to create online hype, which in turn created actual sales.
Beer, at large, is going to be fine. And even healthier for it, because of the outlandish phase we are in the midst of. The learning curve can go back into making quality beer with the four base ingredients.
Too, look at what else has happened in the last 5 years with historical styles being re-introduced. And sometimes brought back from being nearly extinct. Sure, breweries will probably also use them as a playground. But, that's what craft beer should be doing.
I'll say for my neck of the woods. We have the bases covered with breweries that are pretty determined to tweak perception of what is acceptable in an IPA, or a Stout. And we have breweries that refuse to make them because they are into sours, or just lager. And then middle ground of breweries that try to nimble enough to do all of them.

 

"We" ? My conscience is clear.

Beer will survive, hopefully the craze to brew these "innovative" beers will die like so many fad beers have over the decades.

 

Personally, I don't think there is a too much. Experimentation will only lead to evolution in the beer scene, which is never a bad thing. Anything that doesn't taste good will die off, and the successful experiments will continue to improve and evolve. Social media definitely has impacted the beers brewers are making; like you said they are doing everything they can from marketing to the beer itself to stand out in a sea of options. Taprooms will always have the more simple/traditional styles as options, but I don't see foresee the experimentation dying down any time soon. You're seeing it in the food scene as well; new, stylish, "hipster" (if you like to use that term) restaurants are opening with creative, experimental ways of preparing and delivering your food. Being a millennial, creativity and just being different is what sells in a demographic that is extremely tough to market to.

 

I don't think it's possible to kill beer unless you mean to "kill" a sixer . In fact i see the role of the conoisseur as very important to beer in general. What I see as a detriment to beer is the idea that anything popular could subvert or determine a style. It's not that I mind the pastry stout or the IPL's presence on the shelf but I would not prefer to determine that style by something that is made to be an exaggeration.

 

I'll chime in from SE PA to simply say that the Beer Culture described by the OP is not what I'm seeing here. Just as @cavedave and @SFACRKnight have described there's a rich variety of choices here, both local and imported, and more than there used to be 10 years ago.

When it comes to the concerns expressed by the OP, frankly I'd favor the old fart's view of things. As has so often been the case, social media is creating/has created a distorted picture of the reality on the ground.

 

I am reminded of the quote by Mark Twain: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

There is no “killing” of beer occurring today. In fact the opposite: there are more types of beer available to me today than ever. More than I can buy and drink. Today is a GREAT time to be alive as a beer drinker.

Let the good times roll.

Cheers!

 

It's hilarious and becoming somewhat of a pet peeve of mine when people complain about milkshake beers, assuming they've dominated the entire nation's beer culture.

For the record, Kansas City does not have anybody producing milkshake beers, nor do we have them sitting on our shelves. In fact, we only recently (within the past year) got NE IPAs with more regularity than twice a year. The only triple fruited IPA I can think of landed on our shelves from New York and seems to be one and done. Pastry stouts are a rarity around here, save for a handful of distro'd beers. I can walk into a craft establishment and order a craft lager and follow it up with a hefeweizen followed by a DIPA.

In conclusion, I think the beer culture in my area is fine. Don't get caught on the things you don't like. There are thousands of breweries out there, some one has b

 

+1

Couldn’t agree more .. There are so many great choices in so many styles that it’s hard to make a decision most days when reloading ..
Sadly though I think with so many options , there will be some brews that will fade out unless the craft culture continues to boom , because there will be some shelf sitters just like in the food industry .

If distro also continues to grow with some breweries then that will add even more options . My bankroll runs out before the beer options in my area .

Cheers !!

 

In the 90s people were griping about fruity beers, today people are griping about haze/pastry/sparkles...etc. Only difference is now everybody has a voice on the internet so the discourse is a little louder. Somebody will always be drinking, brewing or celebrating something you don't like, and the beat goes on.....

 

For better or worse, there are quite a few people drinking beer now that don't actually like "beer flavored beer." I don't know if that's good or bad, but it does seem to offer growth opportunities where they previously didn't exist. It does make me wonder if we'll look back on this era like wine drinkers look back on the Bartles & Jaymes era of the 1980's.

 

I love Holler for pretty much all those reasons, I am assuming thats who you are talking about

I am really enjoying the new Gently IPA and Saison they have.

 

The difference is the market is different. It is a much broader market now. My significant other who never cared for beers now drinks quite a few thanks to the approachability of juice bombs and pastry stouts. There are more people drinking beer now more than ever, and to get your share of that market you make things that don't sound like beer. Then us beer people will find what we like and stick to it while everyone else is waiting for the next can release. It is fine, it is evolution and progress. There will always be good lagers and pilsners and west coast IPAs out there. It's ok

 

Speaking as an old fart I agree. I've been drinking beer since before many posters here were born. This is a golden age for beer no doubt about it.

 

Here's the issue. "Beer Culture" and "Beer Availability/Diversity" are two, very different things.

There is no question that great beer is more available that it used to be. It is, literally, everywhere.

Although I believe that diversity is suffering, the overall amount of beer produced and the amount of breweries producing that beer is increasing, so you get more people doing more different things, like great lagers, than you did before, even though overall diversity is waning.

Beer culture, on the other hand, is horrible. Most people don't want to learn about beer any more. They just want to stand in line for cans of hazy NEIPAs and drink at the new neighborhood brewery with their friends and their friends dogs and/or kids. Both of those things will lose their shine in rather short order, so although it might seem like craft beer culture is growing, it's not. More breweries don't mean better culture. More breweries just means more breweries.

The lack of interest in craft beer by the average craft beer consumer coupled with waning diversity are things that I believe will hurt craft beer in the long run. Like Ragnarok, it has already started.

 

Interesting you mention cost. I was just looking at one of my local guys who has been booming. They just lowered their costs on 4 packs, their flagship IPA is now $14 a four pack down from $18-20. Their DIPA 4 packs were running $22-20 a 4 pack now $18. And their new offerings are coming out around $14.
I think we may be seeing the beginning of pricing wars, with so much beer out and its cheaper and cheaper the hot breweries are being forced to now play ball or maybe lose sales. Curious if this starts to happen all over country. Would love to hear from others if they are seeing cost reduction anywhere?
Cheers.