The craft beer industry: beer quality problems

I agree that QC in brewing is not treated as proprietary (although there may be exceptions - for example, how AB-Inbev manages to keep all of their breweries brewing their brands to taste exactly alike... AB may consider how they do this proprietary).

In fact, IIRC, one of our larger craft brewers here in MN, with an in-house QC lab, has offered access to their lab & expertise to any local brewers interested. (I'm going by memory here,.. so, caveat... )

 

Yup, Summit. Wonder if any competitors took them up on their offer?

 

Yup, that’s what I meant too. As in ‘look at craft legend and one-time trendsetter Sierra Nevada taking tips from little guys with their hazy.’

I don’t think the heavy hitters in craft have the ability to shame the little guys into doing anything anymore. Not when their $9.99 six packs collect dust and people are standing in line for $19.00 4x16oz cans that will explode after a week unrefrigerated.

I hate to throw all the responsibility on the buyer, but if some popular brewer isn’t date coding their beers and they still sell out in hours, why would they change anything? We as consumers have to stop rewarding bad behavior.

I have a list of breweries that I don’t buy from for certain reasons that are important to me and I never make exceptions, even if it’s beer that I really enjoy.

If someone is passionate about quality, they should have the same approach. If enough people stop buying, they can force change.

 

Right. And if they DO consistently sell out in hours, why would we care about date coding?

I agree with your larger point, however.

 

It’s not throwing all the responsibility on the buyer to point out that there are many customers who buy undated or out of code beer. In many ways they are more to blame than any other link in the chain. As you say, if there are lots of folks who buy undated or out of code beer, it sells. Yet many want to simply assign the responsibility and/ or blame to one or more other links in the chain. Consumers have responsibilities too.

I think It May be a good time for an old thread and poll to come back to life.

 

If every brewery was as quick to print a legible "packaged on" date, not a date code or an enjoy by date, on all of their products as they were to adopt the BA "independent" seal, craft beer would be a much better place.

Quality and freshness should trump independence every time. Too bad that propaganda trumps the truth most of the time.

Yeah . . . but more untrained chefs suck than well-trained ones.

If they aren't looking at the dates, especially on beers that fall off quickly, that's their problem. I want a date on all my beer, regardless of style. I don't feel that that's too much to ask.

I view that as very unfortunate. Fresh beer is better beer. If craft brewers and their association can't get behind the fact that the consumer deserves to know when their product is packaged, I dare say that craft beer is going in the wrong direction.

 

Any consumer who buys any undated or any out of code beer for any reason, regardless of what they think they know about, is part of the problem.

 

Agreed, but waiting for that to happen isn't going to fix the problem.

 

I don't think the problem will be addressed until consumers start refusing beer that isn't legibly dated.

 

Or until states start making it a requirement to display the date on the label.

 

I suppose I could call the lobbyist for the State's beer distributors but there are more amusing ways to waste my time.

 

Well since not all states require dating of perishable food products that can make someone sick, I think there will be an even longer wait for that to happen.

 

Who's waiting for that? Some of us are being proactive about it.

 

So . . . every single beer that you drink is dated? OK.

 

IIRC it's not proprietary and the knowledge of how they do it is fairly widespread. It involves, however, that one spend money on quality control measures.

 

Yes. Good guess! That's absolutely correct. I don't buy beer where I can't establish it's freshness.

I also often take actions beyond simply not buying.

 

The AB reps are the only ones that rotate beer locally. The others duck the question or give me an evasive answer.

 

Same here. But then AB as a brewery has the clout with distributors (sometimes called "money" or "loss of profit") that they pull the beer when out of code. Very very few craft breweries have that much clout with their distributors (aka their customers).

 

I certainly applaud you for your effort, but I don't think that most breweries care enough to date their product or they purposefully don't date it because they want to be able to sell out of date product.