List the breweries that have lost your favor within the last year or two, and regale us with the why? (Here's my small rant, apologies ahead of time) The biggest one for me, and the reason that got me on this topic, is Toppling Goliath. TG was my "localish" brewery since around late 2012 when my brother moved to Decorah for work. He was excited as we had just had the chance to try fresh kegs of Sue and Zee at a awesome joint in Chaseburg WI a few weeks back. Long story short between him, my wife, and I, I feel like there isn't a beer from them in the old days that we didn't get to try. While I am not a fan of Stouts, I can see why theirs are a cut above most. But their IPA's, back then, we're just other worldly. Fast forward 12 years and I think I can truly say our love affair might be done. We had a few strenuous moments for sure in the past, I.E. Mike leaving (which I wish he would of left for good and started his own brewery), bad cans from FL, dealing with Clark's nonsense back in the day. But last year they crossed the line. How dare they f..k with the perfection that is Zeelander. They didn't stop there though did they. How about F.S.M? This recent trend of TG increasing ABV and changing their classics is just gut wrenching. Not everything needs to be a god damn DIPA with 7.8%. My wife and brother seem to have lost interest in their stouts as well, as last year is the first year none of us have been to any of the releases since 2012. She chalked it up to "too expensive and uninteresting after so many years." Others I have lost interest in is Bell's, mainly due to not wanting the 20th version of Two Hearted. Founders, mainly due to the same thing but with All day. God do I miss Mosaic Promise.
Any brewery with a heavy focus on Murkbombs and Addjunk Stouts. For me locally, that's Structures. They opened a 2nd location that's family friendly, in the space that used to be home to Chuckanut Brewing. We started calling it Struckanut. Well, they really leaned into the family thing, so much that we now call it Struck E. Cheese. But, at least they kept the OG spot open, and 21+. Well, they closed that down for a remodel, where they're gonna be doing coffee, food, and be all ages. I hate coffee, and don't want to drink in a room that smells like the inside of a coffee pot. So, I'm pretty much over them, unless friends want to meet for a burger at Struckanut.
One I was just looking up is The Bruery in San Diego County. Ten and 12 years ago I reviewed 15 of their beers, which were quite interesting and leaned toward the Belgian side. Now it's primarily a factory for bizarre imperial stouts. Thanks, I'll get my blueberry pancakes at HoJos.
There's so much seltzer, cider, alcopop, and RTD crap clogging the shelves now that a lot of the breweries I used to like have few, if any, selections available now. The stores used to have lots of singles, which are all pretty much gone now unless you want a stovepipe of some high ABV stuff which I do not. To answer the question, Sixpoint and DFH. And TG, whom I love but since I don't buy $18 multipacks of anything they're pretty much out nowadays. Come to think of it, maybe this is the reason why craft beer is going the way of the dinosaur (if indeed it is).
I’m basically done with Sam Adam’s. They don’t make any new beers worth trying, the Fezzi’s I had in 2023 were subpar (didn’t even bother with last year’s), the last few variety packs I bought from them were shit, and they mostly switched over to cans which really irks me as a bottle fanatic. I’m not totally against buying their shit, especially Oktoberfest, but I don’t see any reason to patronize them at the moment.
Tröegs. Other than Tröeganator, which I am burned out on, and their Spring Seasonal, Lil' Nator, nothing else from them does really anything for me. Not that they're bad beers, but just not in the styles I prefer. And they're all overly hopped, to my taste anyway. I don't like their Pilsner, Wheat or any of the non-ales they've released lately. I don't know how far they distribute outside of Pa.. I'm sure some of their "Scratch" beers are good, but I'm not going to the brewery to try them. It's basically a tourist trap now, especially when Hershey Park is open. Everything is overpriced.
For the most part, any of the places that have like 40 hazy IPA's that all taste the same. Same yeast, same timings, same everything, just different combos of citra/mosaic/galaxy/i7/etc. Even if they're good (or at least not bad) are all those variations really selling better than just sticking to 2-3 recognizable names? Or are there some kind of retail trickery shenanigans that encourages 500 SKUs? Either way, I've stopped even looking at the vast majority of silver 16oz cans with white sticker labels. Plain 'ol Juicy Bits > all of 'em.
I used to really like dogfish, all the extreme beers. I took a pilgrimage down there a couple of years ago, and was really disappointed
Cnut only ever had the one spot in town, so if we went there, that's Struck E Cheese now. Structures still does all their brewing at the OG spot on State Street, that they are currently remodeling.
Dropped Founders the first time, gave them another chance after some signs of progress. After the second time I haven't looked back.
I have stopped buying beer from a number of the big(er) craft breweries choosing to purchase locally brewed beers instead since I think these locally brewed beers are higher quality. A list (non-inclusive) of some of those big(er) breweries: · Stone · Lagunitas · Founders · Bell’s · Dogfish Head · Etc. Cheers!
Dogfish Head Lagunitas Sam Adams (Boston Beer Co.) Stone Hooker Thimble Island (CT centric) Victory Just don't look at them anymore. Just feel meh about them. However, given those over mass market beers I would order any of them.
I have started to get off my local kick (SF Bay Area - San Jose) of the past five years. Just too average. I have started going back to Stone, Great Divide, Deschutes, and other oldies, but goodies (select beers, not a large number of styles). Some like Dogfish Head and Bruery I dropped several years ago. Life changes and choices change...
They've always been good to me, esp latelty with these classic releases, but if they disappeared i wouldn't really care for anything except the staff.
