MN State Fair Beers Announced

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

I too am interested in this new ideal--the flavorless counterpoint to all these danged "wine cooler with hops added". What should we call it? Alcohol-flavored water?

 

But you put blood orange in this year's helles. It's now a gimmick. Sorry.

 

Yeah it's quite frankly ridiculous that people are making flavorful beer. I need a nice clear, light, lager with minimal taste so I can drink 12 of them and look down my nose at the people enjoying flavorful beers that they like.

 

Howdy, Sean. Enjoying the conversation. We'll subscribe to your newsletter, too.

 

Jeez-o-petes.... It's a state fair beer! OF COURSE it is a gimmick (although this one is a lot less gimmicky than plenty of others, IMO.)

Personally, WRT the future of craft beer, I'm a LOT more disturbed by this kind of trend:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/36843/280242/
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/36843/348160/

I don't care what people drink... drink what you want... but when a brewer thinks they need to brew beer that tastes like cocktails, I wonder where this industry will be in 10 years.

 

I do see all the sides of it. It is the fair, nothing wrong with some gimmick candy beers. The fair is not a special beer connoisseurs sampling/testing ground event. And as point before why pay big money for the common standard line beers.

 

I was being sarcastic if that wasn't obvious.

 

Only enough hops to provide the minimum antibacterial properties. If the hops are added too late in the boil they start to contribute flavor. And no residual malt flavor either. The malt is only there to provide fuel for the yeast.

 

Sorry, ... I missed it.

 

Maybe "the brewer thinks they need to brew beer that tastes like cocktails" because they are trying to diversify in a highly competitive market?

 

From now on beer should never be packaged in anything smaller than a 1/2 bbl keg and said kegs must be transported without aid of any of these newfangled modern forklifts, trucks, and other machines which takeaway from the purity of our daily travails. I need to know not only that the brewer is skilled in making traditional beers without gimmick but also that he is of strong physical fitness.

 

Yeah, most of the food at the State Fair is terrible too. Much of it is just old-fashioned carnival food like funnel cakes and cotton candy. In recent decades and especially in recent years, there has been a tendency to drive publicity via gimmicky treats specifically designed to accentuate the awfulness of carnival food. There's a split among local foodies between ironically reveling in the gimmickry and decrying the State Fair for failing to showcase the best of Minnesota's culinary scene, just as there's a split among beer enthusiasts ("beeries?") regarding the gimmick beers. In addition, as you point out, the gimmick foods are mostly limited to State Fair-like settings, whereas the gimmick beers have invaded many local taprooms, beer bars, and liquor stors, so what can be a fun novelty on the food side is a broader industry phenomenon on the beer side.

You work in the industry, indeed for a brewery that proudly mostly sticks to classic styles and is well known for mostly avoiding the sorts of beers about which I'm complaining, even if you'll engage in the occasional indulgence, including recently at the State Fair. With which of my points do you disagree and for what reasons? Or is "Simpsons sh!tposting" part of Summit's new social media strategy?

It's revealing that some people seem to think that not relying on the crutch of flavorings* or techniques to mimic flavorings results in "flavorless" beers or beers with "minimal taste."

* By which I mean flavoring adjuncts like fruit and chocolate (and excluding hops), as opposed to malt adjuncts like rice and corn or malt substitutes such as candi sugar

 

No it's not. It's revealing that you are now walking back your argument against new hop varietals. I'm simply bringing your original argument against "flavor" to it's absurd conclusion. Build a better argument.

 

Oh no, to the contrary, @islay. This was a Simpsons quote deployed with sincerity. We enjoyed reading what you said about how hard it is to get a lot of people to enjoy the taste of craft beer without flavoring it to taste like something else. Something we often hear at Summit and tasting events is "Which of your beers tastes the least like beer?" (It's a tough question to answer when our beers all taste like beers, and decidedly so.)

These flavored beers can be fun and interesting, especially when they're balanced and still reminiscent of traditional beers, and they certainly get people drinking. These new customers, like you said, are "an opportunity for conversion as well as a danger to the industry." What's dangerous for beer is the possibility that these consumers will continue to look for those flavors in wine and cocktails, rather than exploring a wider range of beer styles.

Anyhoo, we welcome anyone who's willing to taste our beer, and we hope they find something they enjoy. With all the other options and changing trends out there, it's a point of pride that people continue drinking our beer. So you do you; reading your posts — and all the others in the forum — just helps this social media intern get a better idea of what people are looking for.

 

I've always gone with the live-and-let-live model.

Many, many years ago, a local brewery that I like put out a beer that was clearly aimed at yuppies who liked the idea of drinking craft beer, but didn't really want anything more flavorful than the swill they were drinking. At first, I thought it was the beginning of the end. They had sold out! Then I realized that if that's what they needed to do to stay in business (so they could keep brewing the porter I liked), then more power to them!

I probably won't go to the State Fair this year. But if I do, I'm sure I can find a good beer. That's really all I care about. If other fair-goers want to drink beers that taste like sushi or jelly donuts, why should I care?

 

At which booth can I find this sushi beer at?

 

On a related note, by my count, 53% of the over 120 beers (new releases and re-releases) listed in The Growler's latest instance of "The Mash-Up" are flavored beers. There's some overlap with the State Fair beers, but most of these are not State Fair beers. A sizable chunk of the remaining 47% are NEIPAs (or NEPAs or NEDIPAs). This list depends on what The Growler and the breweries it contacts choose to highlight, but, again, I'll call it a bad sign that this is the sort of stuff they believe is beneficial to emphasize, especially in a beer-oriented publication.

 

We're drifting a bit from the topic of State Fair beers, but among all the focus on big beer as the "enemy" of craft, it is overlooked many times that the "enemy" of all beer is wine and spirits/cocktails. There was an article linked on this board, probably in the general beer talk forum, about this trend recently and what brewers are doing to respond. The flavored beers as you mention (including the cocktail-flavored beers I linked to above) are part of that response.