Any thoughts on the revamped 612?

I doubt they've improved. I'll never buy their stuff again. I think the issue stemmed from the management and culture of the company. AFAIK, the owners/management remain the same. I'll spend my dollars on breweries with pride and integrity.

 

Short answer: no.
Long answer: we're all over here talking about it already:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...-in-minnesota-2019.600503/page-3#post-6383727

 

612 is notorious in the industry for trash talking other breweries. That's why I'll never drink their beer regardless if they improve their quality.

 

They killed-off their lager as part of their "revamp." If anyone knows of another local brewery making a "pre-prohibition" lager with six-row, corn and cluster hops, please let me know. Besides Leinenkugel's.

 

If this brewery were smart they would change their name and start over.

 

“The Brewery Formerly Known As 612”

Hey, it worked for Prince!

 

And don't use an area code in the name, it's a brewery not a rap song.

 

I wasn't aware of this and find it funny because I know the reverse of this to be true several times over!

 

Does anybody else remember the 2014 or 2015 Thrillist article in which a panel of local so-called experts named 612Brew the third best brewery in Minnesota? I'd link to it, but the link now goes to an updated version of the article that scrubs 612Brew from the record. That was approximately when 612Brew was at its nadir of quality and its pinnacle of popularity. As 612Brew's beer has improved (and, to be clear, the beer has indeed improved), its reputation has nosedived. I suspect that has less to do with a lagged reaction to the problems with its beer than with increased competition that siphoned the cool young crowd from its taproom and a morphing of popular tastes, as 612Brew was slow to embrace the trendy styles that are crucial to the success of a marketing-oriented urban brewery that relies on a hip and happening image. I do think the 612Brew name was key to its once very successful marketing and sine qua non of its early success, although the name may well have outlived its usefulness.

 

Even if they were 612 Brewery I wouldn’t feel like I needed to take a shower after reading their name. 612 Brew? So much bro to unpack there.

 

Well, not really

 

You can't blame everything on pastry stouts & NE IPAs, son.

Their reputation nose-dive was 100% self-inflicted. Full stop. Put out shitty, infected, and/or tasteless beers for years ON PURPOSE and you've shot yourself in the chest.

 

612Brew's popularity has inversely tracked its quality. One plausible explanation is that its popularity is a lagged reaction to its beer quality. Another potential explanation is that its popularity never had anything to do with its beer quality but rather with its marketing, image, taproom atmosphere, trendiness (or, now, lackthereof), etc. I think this market (along with many others) is very forgiving of poor quality beer, this forum (which represents the values and preferences of a small and atypical subset of Midwestern craft beer consumers) much less so except when it comes to trendy styles from effective marketers. Regardless of whether customers were driven away by bad beer or other factors, 612Brew's biggest problem today isn't its beer but that it's uncool. 612Brew can easily withstand a few people on BeerAdvocate withholding their consumer dollars; what's hurting it is the broad perception that, if you frequent 612Brew, you're a rube.

 

I poured myself less than an ounce of one of theirs last week at Tap Society. I can’t remember what it was, but it still sucked.

 

That's a lot of bold speculation dressed up like facts.

Plus, the circular logic is interesting. They're not following trends, which are mostly of interest only to us rubes on BA, but since there only dozens of us, we can't hurt them by not going there...yet it's not following trends that's killing 612. See, just typing that made my head hurt. Unless, of course, your liberal use of parentheses meant something else. That's not a question. Please don't answer it.

In all likelihood there are probably several interlocking issues weighing down 612. But Occam's Razor would suggest that putting out shitty beer, for a long period of time, means word of mouth got 'round. And not just to us rubes. Hell, my mom knows they make shit product.

 

Who said trends are mostly of interest to BA users? My positions consistently have been that 1) trendy styles are first and foremost aimed at the scenesters* and 2) scenesters constitute a large portion of the craft beer consumer segment in the late twenty-teens, especially in urban areas. I believe 612Brew lived and then died by those scenesters, and one of the reasons it died with them is that it failed to keep up with style trends. Another big reason is that its once top-notch taproom venue was surpassed by many competitors. This is a common phenomenon in restaurants, bars, and nightclubs; a flashy new place opens with style over substance, initially attracts big crowds, and then deflates as the novelty wears off and as the place fails to keep up with fashion. Its clientele quickly moves on to the latest and greatest. Also, for the record, I didn't call BA users or scenesters rubes; rather, I implied that they are -- or at least are perceived to be -- anti-rube.

* By "scenesters" I mean people interested in the craft beer social scene more than craft beer as an imbibable product in its own right. Some of them use BA, but the vast majority of them don't. (Footnote employed to minimize use of parentheses.)

 

I don't have anything to say about their beer, past or current, but if I'm advising them, their mea culpa does not contain a *hint* of self sorrow or suggestion that their potential customer base should be treating them better.

 

Should have gone for the head