Are We Killing Beer?

Who said learning about beer involved reviewing beer or taking tasting notes?

People who are invested in craft beer culture educate themselves about beer styles other than just the ones that are popular and seek out different experiences because of the traditions behind them. I'd say that sounds like more fun than doing the same thing and drinking the same beer every time you drink beer.

 

This is definitely FOMO culture. "Maybe the next canned NEIPA will be the one of my dreams? I'll never know unless I drink them all!"

 

My point is that you were saying/implying that Yuengling's Golden Pils is an American Adjunct PIlsner style. It isn't. It's an All malt German Pilsner style, i.e., it has the correct style designation here on BA.

 

A new brewery opened in Newport, RI and I was stunned they launched with a basic porter available. Of course the other 6-7 beers were pale ales/IPAs (maybe a gold ale as well). I would not have been stunned 10 years ago..I actually would have the opposite reaction - surprised there were so many IPAs available. But that's all that sells these days.

 

Our hobby has had folks who love the slippery slope arguments for a long time. Many different predictions given along the way, all of them ridiculous in retrospect, since we know that for almost all the time these slippery slopers predicted imminent doom we averaged double digit growth.

I used to point out the fallacy of logic that slippery slope arguments are, but I have realized that perhaps there is more than a correlation, that maybe the folks predicting doom were part of the causation of our hobby's tremendous success. So keep those slippery slope arguments a'comin'!

 

WE HAVE THIS THREAD EVERY DAY AND EVERY DAY I FEEL MORE AND MORE YUCK ABOUT IT

 

I think the backlash is because of how bold you went with your initial write up. I could Google it, but I've never seen a beer with: hamburgers, fries, whole cakes, or even glitter. I would agree that all those ingredients seem gimmicky, but as I've never even heard of any of those until now, I would say it has very little impact on the beer culture - let alone killing it.

Out of legitimate curiosity, how many breweries are within 100 miles of you? And of those breweries, how many produce any beer with the above 4 ingredients on a regular basis?

 

As I previously stated, the recently emerged and unprecedented presence of sweet-beer-suckling scenesters in the craft beer customer segment represents both opportunity and risk to the craft beer industry. It's best to ignore neither. The challenge is to wean them onto the good stuff lest craft beer (possibly? probably? almost certainly?) lose them forever at the next turn of fashion.

 

There seems to be a lot of sentiment here that the proliferation of beer brands, the rise in local breweries, and the abundance of options available to people means that we are living in some sort of record-breaking beer utopia. While I think that these are good developments rather than bad ones, my POV is more restrained. More doesn't always mean better.

Last week, I was looking for a specific European 750 saison and any Kolsch from Germany. I called a shop I haven't visited in a while. One of the best places to go for Belgian imports. I expected them to tell me that they didn't have that saison. Instead, they told me that they only had one beer in the store in a large bottle. One... in the store?! I asked them if they had any German Kolsch and they told me about the Kolsch beers they had from NY.

I decided to drop by the store anyway. I was stunned. They used to have a great selection with genuine variety. Both locals and imports got major love in the past. Which is good, because Other Half and Boon are two different breweries and one can't substitute for the other. It was a really good mix... or at least it used to be. This time, every cooler in the store was filled with 16oz cans. Every frickin' cooler. I never saw such visual homogenization in a beer store. Not even in the stores that primarily move the likes of Bud and Corona. The Fantome, 3 Fonteinen, Tilquin, etc was nowhere to be seen. No German Kolsch or whathaveyou.

I bought some New York brewed Kolsch-style beers. I liked one, but the others didn't do it for me. None of them were close to being something I'd prefer over a German Kolsch. In all of NY, there's only one brewery that I think consistently makes lagers that are actually something special. They make a good Kolsch. If I wanted to have any of their beers in my home, I'd have to drive 3 hours one way, spend $40 in gas and tolls, be there during their very limited hours, and spend a lot of money on the one expensive canned lager they have available that day. Yeah, not gonna happen. I ended up buying some German Kolsch at a big chain store that is loaded with old beers that just sit there for eternity.

Seeing rows and rows of sticker cans of beer produced close to the buyer is something that fills most people here with excitement and pride. I'm not trying to take that away from anyone, and I'm not immune to those charms. Far from it. I spent my money on some of those 16oz IPAs. I just know that everything has a downside. This isn't utopia.

There's something to be said about beer coming from a community vs being imported from elsewhere. Unfortunately, the growing culture is focused on disposability. Brewers make a brew. Customers try it. Everybody moves on. Next. Compare that culture to the cultures around the beers no longer at the store - Kolsch and Lambic - the polar opposites of this disposability. A variety of beer is better with a variety of ideologies. Glitter beer and lambic.

Are we killing beer? No. Are we living in a magical time when all of us are surrounded by true variety and incredible quality? No. It's all fine and cool that there are local brewers popping up all around me, but beer can also shine a light on something far away from my neighborhood. Seems like that's being valued less at the moment.

 

I agree that import selection generally has gotten considerably worse in the last decade or so as American craft beer crowds imports off the shelves. While I think the best fresh American versions of classic German styles generally eclipse stale German shelf beers (though often not the rare fresh examples), very few American breweries brew English styles such that they taste like most English imports, and, though they've made strides in the 21st century, American breweries still fall very far short of the best of Belgium when tackling most Belgian styles.

I'll also note that true IPA fans -- those who rightfully scoff at the nonsense that "5 years ago the IPA was 'perfected' hence the soft hazy non bitter IPA maybe originally brewed in New England" (as some misguided soul stated earlier in this thread) -- have seen brighter days, as the ubiquity of the "soft hazy non bitter" lobotomized version of the style has reduced the presence of the real deal in bottle shops, bars, and taprooms. And heaven help the poor consumer seeking a Reinheitsgebot-compliant imperial stout in 2018.

 

That's funny.

Beer here just keeps going up and up.

Enjoy

 

I was seeing the same, seemed like it just kept going up. Then I saw my local guy drop his price, I was really surprised and won't complain. I have not see all the locals do this but it will be interesting to see if they follow.
Cheers

 

Hmm, interesting takes on things. It does make me wonder two things, and I understand you are young so you probably don't remember what it actually was like here for imported beers years ago.

What time and/or place do you think is better than what we have here now, and why?

And I am sure you can find great Kolsch in Cologne. How far do you think you would have to travel in Cologne to find 29 more styles done well? Or at all?

I am not worldly enough to know the answers to these questions, but interested to hear your take, since you obviously were comparing our present culture unfavorably to others you have in mind.

 

And just a quick couple questions to those who bemoan that brewery A might not make the exact beer you like, and might make a beer that you don't like because it is a good seller. My questions are these.

Do you think every brewery should make styles you love?

Do you think breweries should make styles that don't sell well, or styles that sell really well (even if it's a style you don't like)?

 

My hope is the focus turns from making loud beers to making clean beers. The selection of organic beer is miniscule. Just about everything is made with genetically modified barley, wheat and oats. Basically the entire country is growing this crap! These are roundup-ready grains that are immune to roundup, a pesticide. As a result, beer is tainted with glyphosate, the key ingredient in roundup. So, for every beer you drink you are ingesting glyphosate, which among other harmful effects, kills good bacteria in you gut flora.

 

Your proof?

We are still waiting for you to provide your triple checked evidence that proves your claims.

 

I'd like to see that proof, as well. Best to get comfortable, it's going to be a while.

 

Especially since there are no GM varieties of Malting Barley approved for commercial production in the US.

 

Craft beer, like our current administration's foreign policy, is hyper-focused on the short term. That doesn't bode well for the future of either of them.