IPA Factory Breweries

The tell tale sign for me was when the stores that didn't know beer all that well but at least knew enough to carry lots of IPAs because they sold started dropping their prices and moving some of the high quality and/or more sought after ones to the singles section. Once I saw that happening I knew that the bubble was bursting.

 

They sit here in MN as well.

 

Blackstack Brewing in St. Paul is an IPA factory. Every week is a new $20 4-pack. Don't know if they are good or not as I was done after the 1st one and decided the NEIPA was not for me. But they sell. The best beer they have done IMHO was their witbier. So they can do other things, they just choose not to. From what retailers I have spoken to, is that mostly young guys are maxing out their credit cards to buy $200 worth of crowlers per visit of the latest hazy IPAs milkshakes, pastry stouts, because there are always 10-20 new ones.

 

At least that one dude who tried to go through their line twice can now easily get their beer. This dude, for reference:

 

This ^^ a hundred times over!

We have a few IPA-factory breweries here in Germany now as well. Basically only brewing "new" IPAs every week (same base recipe, new hop combo, new name, and naturally, new artwork on the can...). The breweries that I trust, I buy a few singles from various online retailers or a mix-pack direct (because I am a ticker at heart...). But I can't stock up on these individual beers, because by they are worth the price, the beer is generally sold out (or getting old).

As a consequence, I find myself spending most of my beer budget on old favorites, beers that I know I will love. If these IPA-factories would produce a couple of standard flagship IPAs, I would gladly order multiples of those that I like. But their one-off business model makes that impossible. So they get a bit of my money, but they could get so much more if they had a couple of flagship beers that I was comfortable buying in bulk.

In my opinion, this strategy actually destroys the middling breweries. There are a few mediocre IPA-factories in Germany where their "great" IPAs are so outnumbered by their "mediocre", that I simply won't buy their one-off IPAs anymore. I don't play the lottery. If they reliably produced the good ones, they would have a loyal customer. Yet, this one-off model makes them a brand I refuse to drink.

 

But needless to say other customers are buying them (I presume).

In the US this is often detailed as a customer base which are "tickers" (i.e., the part of the craft beer consumer base who have a constant 'need' to always seek out something new). Is there a portion of the German beer consumer base that are "tickers" as well? A number of consumers sufficiently big enough to keep the small number of German breweries that are constantly producing new brands in business?

Cheers!

 

I guess there must be enough consumers, because these beers don't seem to linger that long on the websites of online retailers. Either that, or the actual production numbers are pretty low. Then again, there aren't that many such one-off IPA breweries here, maybe 5 or so that are worth paying attention to. Regardless, it is a trend that I don't care for.

 

I hear you here and I personally agree with your sentiments but...

Cheers!

 

Other half and EQ IPAs are sitting on shelf’s here in the LA area... which is crazy. Monkish just did a pretty big release today and I was able to grab the beers I wanted an hour into the release and it sold out way after that. If you told me I could grab some OH and EQ IPAs in a random Los Angeles liquor store at my convenience a year ago I would of laughed.

 

Regarding the bubble aspect of the phenomenon, the insane growth of places like Tree House and Other Half will definitely stabilize a bit, but at the same time, I do think that the New England/hazy IPA may have a considerable amount of room to grow in terms of consumer base. Even 3-4 years into the haze craze, the average person who likes alcohol probably still thinks IPA are all clear and bitter, and many of them would probably enjoy a straightforward hazy juice bomb.

Sure they may not all end up going to far flung breweries, lining up for releases, or paying $25 for a 4 pack, but craft beer has usually had a reputation for being unapproachable, which the NE/hazy IPA definitely is not.

 

Not that there isn't room to grow, but SN Hazy Little Thing was the 6th biggest (by sales revenue) IPA brand in its second year of sales. I feel like we're already approaching a point where NEIPA is main stream and people know or at least enjoy hazy IPAs.

 

Man that is crazy! Well can't blame you all for letting it sit. There is a plethora of fresher, just as delicious, options within NorCal.

 

I'd agree with the original premise of this post. I've been to local breweries where I cannot find a west-coast or even original IPA. There's an imperial, hazy, and pastry stout loaded with alcohol or alternatively a fruited sour. I think that every brewery should have a base IPA or west-coast IPA, which isn't necessarily easy to do well. If they'd spend more time creating a proper base beer that could become their legacy beer rather than a new haze or pastry stout every other week, then I think they would do better in the long run.
The beer follows the sales though and so they must be doing what works. Agree, that I wish they'd focus on some of the base beers or more creative and European styles such as Kellerbiers, Helles, European Export lagers, Schwarzbiers, etc. Those are my favorite breweries.

 

I’m torn. My favorite style is a simple IPA, but in fact I rarely buy. Why, because most are meh offerings, it’s not just the money but I refuse to but mediocre IPAs. I’d willingly spend $30 on a great beer, but I won’t spend $15 on an average beer. There’s way too many of the latter on the shelf. So I pick my spots with other beers.

 

That's an awesome breakdown and would be completely hilarious if it wasn't so damn believable!

 

Lived in PA all my life, until we moved to Florida 5 years ago, and I don't remember ever having an issue with Tröegs. Victory and Free Will were also a solid go-to. I miss all 3 now.

 

I am fully on board with you and I imagine that the response is typical of folks in our generation (I'm assuming you're in your 30s, may be way off) who have been into beer for a while. For me, "craft" beer was a small but exploding segment as I was coming of beer age. As someone who grew up drinking whatever was the cheapest we could get (the older guys buying for us always had.their tax so pennies were at a premium) I was flabbergasted by the variety of flavor that I encountered as I discovered the whole wide world of beer. I think that that experience, coinciding with an exponential (almost literally!) growth in breweries and the debut of fairly novel styles led to a fairly logical mindset of open experimentation and a willingness to try the "new shiny can".

With a little age, a little experience, and maybe a hard fought smidge of wisdom, we come to realize that paying a premium to be a guinea pig is a bit of a raw deal. There's only so many breweries that actually produce that premium-worthy product (to our particular taste). And the mirage of variety that a constant rotation of hop blends provide is just that, the mirage of variety, not even the real thing.

All of this leads me to suspect that the " shiny new thing" brewery business model is reaching it's logical conclusion. The cultural knowledge around beer is growing, other beverages have emerged that have a much easier time emulating any flavor you can imagine (I've got $20 on there being a beer style flavored seltzer for sale before 2030) and the apparent novelty of local breweries has worn off most places. I think that the next decade of craft beer will really highlight the breweries that are able to capture the right blend of quality, consistency, efficiency, and availability.

I definitely suspect that a culture wide palate acclimation is at work here. I don't remember my first "hazy" IPA but I do remember trying an M-43 some years ago when it was pretty rare, and I remember stopping into Cellar Maker in SF on a whim while waiting for a ride that was coming over the bay bridge, and both of those times the thickness and the big citrus flavors were somewhat shocking. Waaaaay to unusual and unexpected for me to make a valid assessment beyond a bit of startled curiosity and intrigue.

Since then, of course, the style has proliferated and I've had the chance to try it many, many times, always with an increasing calibration on what to expect and look for. At this point, I can appreciate it's historical place in beerdom, can hone in on versions I will prefer, and feel comfortable rating producers based on how they hew to my preferences.

Ultimately, this costs every beer in the style the "surprise" bonus.I'm not caught off guard by a beer that tastes almost just like pineapple juice anymore and so there's no subconscious bump in appraisal from doing something I didn't expect.

I do wonder about breweries in this position. If you were head down in a startup and your day to day experience was that you could not possibly make enough product to keep it in stock, despite the crazy work schedule. You heard people were reselling your product for 2x, 3x, etc your price. You saw raving reviews on all the ranking and social media sites. How likely is it that you would be able to pullout to 30,000 ft and see the broader wave you were a part of and keep your expansion goals in check.

I've been a part of a tiny, bootstraps, manufacturing concern that can't seem to keep up with demand. We expanded hard and fast, turning profit back into the business as fast as we could and selling out double, triple, quadruple our original batches instantly. And we ultimately couldn't keep up with the wave we didn't realize we were part of and disbanded, sold a bunch of machinery at fractions of what we paid for it, and wondered where the hell all that money went.

^this guy sciences right here