5 Brewery Red Flags, According to Reddit

Yup. Or stand directly in the bartenders line of sight. Ya don't have to say a word, just be a presence they can't ignore.

 

Gotta have a variety of styles on the menu. After all, variety is the spice of life.

 

Went to local for the 1st time a few weeks ago, 10 on tap, 8 IPAs one sour and a light lager. Bartender said they dont cash. I left.

 

This one loses any business my patronage

 

Yeeaaah riiiiggghht. How very convincing.

 

I'm quite capable of requesting a beer or making my presence known. However, it is the bartender’s or server’s JOB- what they get paid to do- to monitor their customers and offer prompt service. Otherwise it is poor service. Similarly if I need a coonhound to track down the bartender or server then beg for a check so I can give them money, that too is poor service.

Such establishments suffer the cruelest of punishments. I remove their little red favorite heart from my google map.

 

I will look at these as if I was looking at a Golden Corral:

1. Pouring beers into dirty or previously used glassware NO SH!T
   
2. There are no “classics” on the menu…
3. …or the options consist of IPAs and only IPAs.
4. Bartenders not paying attention to guests.
5. Serving beers exclusively in pint glasses.

See above for1 in case you didn't notice... I said NO SH!T...beer on draft is expensive and I don't tolerate this mess

So 2-3 of 5... You're either an IPA factory or not a flagship factory. Both are... meh... but I lean on the latter as being the worse of the 2. I don't want 6/7 of 8 or 14 of 16 beers being IPAs like another poster mentioned.

4. You're gonna catch sh!t regardless of what business you have not paying attention to the client/customer.

5. I don't think glassware type has been a server issue at ANY beer-serving establishment I've attended.

 

Only IPA is not OK? If that is what they excel at and they choose to dedicate to that style, what's the problem? Personally I want variety where I go, but that seems like a silly, if not snobbish, reason to say a place is not good.

Would they say the same thing about a place only serving sours, belgians, or Pilsners? Hope no one ever good to Czech with all those red flag triggering pilsner breweries....

 

As far as red flags at a “craft” beer bar: refilling the dirty glass, (I’ve seen it done w/ different styles of beer) and chilled glasses. As soon as I see them pull out a chilled glass for my porter I’m done!

Maybe a stretch, but I’d like to see proper glassware used, like in Belgium. A SN pale ale in a SN glass, not a Coors Light pint! But that maybe asking too much!

 

One of the things that sets my favorite beer bar above most others is that they have tons of branded, unique, glassware that they rotate out based on what they have on tap.

For instance, they had Russian River Velvet Glow on tap for the last month or so and they serve it in this beautiful tall skinny Velvet Glow branded mug. It's those extra little steps that set a place apart

 

Absent a pandemic or staff shortage, plastic cups are a red flag for me. You go to all that trouble to make craft beer then don’t care enough to put it in a glass? While the standard pint glass isn’t a total red flag maybe pink flag, despite its advantages it also tells me they just don’t care enough. Variety of glassware is a definite green flag for me, shows they sweat the details and take pride in what they do.

I like places where the owners’ personality and maybe eccentricities are evident but overly thematic places don’t do anything for me. Fantasy sci-fi, historic warfare, golf, brewery masquerading as sports bar? No thanks. (Possible exception for cool cars or motorcycle theme however)

 

…or when they don’t serve sour beer styles but their Porter, pale ale and ESB are sour.

….or the beers have a taste of cleaning agents/chemicals


Yeah, those are 2 red flag situations that I’ve experienced and left very quickly.

 

Blue Point (before AB) would serve their tasters in plastic (but the first 3 were free!). And if you wanted the pint in glass, you paid a dollar extra -- but kept the glass.

 

Are the thimble tasters used at GABF still plastic?

 

Serve me beer in a red plastic cup, I better be on a college campus, there better be Greek letters on the building, and the beer better be free.

 

I don't drink at breweries much at all anymore, so I avoid most of these issues with the taprooms themselves. A lot of breweries make mediocre to poor beer, though. I think we can all agree on that. And a lot of modern breweries are just haze or smoothie factories.

Since I'm not really a taproom drinker, I'll say my number one concern with craft beer quality control--canning and bottling issues. I've encountered a few breweries that I had to stop purchasing from because too many of their canned offerings were oxidized.

 

I've had this experience; go to a place with friends, place only had kettle sours and murkbombs on tap, wasn't in the mood for either, I drank water while my friends had a couple rounds. If they had had a clear Pale Ale or a basic Lager, the brewery coulda sold a couple more beers.

 

Never been! Blue Point tasters were 3-4 oz. plastic.

 

In general a more diverse selection is ideal.