The news that Black Raven will start brewing a few of Boundary Bay's brands started me a-thinkin'. There are breweries that used to get talked up a lot, were the new, hot, thing, big chatter. Black Raven was once the hottest thing around; releases anticipated, they had the longest lines at fests, stuff like that. Now, we only see them occasionally mentioned, etc. Same with some others, Fremont, Cloud Burst, and Holy Mountain as examples. The quality of their beers hasn't declined, so is it us? Are we just inured to these breweries? Do we just constantly seek out the newest shiny thing? Discuss.
I think that it comes down to human nature (shiny new thing), marketing, and beer experience (quality, available styles, taproom/brewery experience). My son and his family live in Woodinville and we visit 2-3 times a year. Two years ago, we went to Black Raven, Fremont, and went to Ballard (Reubens and Urban Family). Earlier this year, we went to Triplehorn, Watts, and Obec. Why not go back to Black Raven and Fremont? Combination of trying something new and life. It was easier to walk to Triplehorn from my hotel after working one day. Watts had some styles that I liked more than Black Raven. We went to Reuben's, but didn't get excited by the styles and decided to try Obec. I will end with saying that Seattle and Denver are spoiled. You have a hell of a lot of choices. I hope to visiting in late September for my granddaughter's first birthday. Where will we go?
I’m probably an outlier but I definitely do not seek out the shiniest, newest thing. I usually first hear about some hot new brewery right here in the NW forum but it almost never influences my behavior. I have my favorite breweries—tried and true over years of beer drinking—and I generally just stick to them now. The opposite of FOMO, I suppose.
I've kinda narrowed my focus the last 3-5 years. Not much interested in the Murkbombs, not much interested in big stouts, especially add-junk versions, either. I still will drill every Barleywine I see, and certain Porters, so it's not just ABV that isn't grabbing me. I love my Saisons, Tripels, trusted IPAs, and basic Pales. On the other hand, I'm still interested in checking out every new brewery I hear of, and look forward to certain releases (hey there FH season ). But, the big releases structures has done the last e3 weekends? I don't care. If I see a new brewery in the store, if it's a style I like, I'll grab a sixer. All that brings me back to this: why are we (not just us here on BA) as consumers not as excited for the newest Fremont release as before? The beer is still of high quality, why aren't we as interested in it? Black Raven still makes kick-ass brews, yet it's hard to remember us talking about them here. I dunno, people are weird.
Did you ever get into a new musical artist, or film director, or author, or hobby, or sport, or cuisine, or literally anything else that we humans do for enjoyment? Was your enthusiasm sustained at that same level indefinitely? I got seriously into beer about 15 years ago and I feel like I’ve experienced a good bit of what’s out there. So while I still love beer as much as ever, it’s just not the same as when I first started exploring. I’m sorry but the honeymoon is over. It was inevitable. Not quite “the thrill is gone” but I’m not sure it’s possible to stay that interested in something for that long. Not for me anyway.
To answer this question, I went back and looked at my BA posts over the past 3 months to find out what kind of beers/breweries I tend to chatter about. Some of the numbers surprised me a bit, but the breweries were no surprise at all. Based on my BA posts, it is clear that I tend to talk about the most are the breweries who: Make the kinds of beer I like to drink, Have produced high quality beers for a good number of years, Package their products, And sell them at a price I am happy to pay. The shiny new breweries don't usually tick all these boxes. Maybe they focus on popular/trendy/niche styles that I'm not interested in. Or they don't bottle/can their beers yet. Or they ask too much for a product that hasn't proven itself worth the cost to me yet. It turns out that there are four breweries (four!) which account for a full third of my posts. Those breweries, in order of post numbers, are: Fort George (by a wide margin, undoubtedly due to this being 3-Way season) Breakside pFriem Chuckanut I may be seeking out shiny new beers, but it's clear that I don't spend that much time seeking out shiny new breweries. There are plenty of reasons for that. One of the biggest ones is that the price of everything, including beer, is going up. My income remains the same, which means that my disposable income is going down. I love going out and having beers, but there's no question that it costs less to drink at stately Vurt Manor. So when a new brewery opens, it takes me a while to go visit them. And since I do most of my beer drinking at home these days, it helps a lot if those new breweries package their products for off-premises consumption. Not all of them do. Not all of them can afford to. (As a side note: The number of reviews I've been writing has gone WAY up. I figure if I'm drinking less, I want to get more out of the experience. Giving the beer my full attention, so that I can write a review, is a good way for me to accomplish that.)
Don't really have much to add, as the posts from @vurt and @Orca encapsulate my perspective pretty well. In my case, not only do I have certain favorite breweries I return to over and over again, I also have certain styles I gravitate to. Generally speaking, these days I find myself mostly drinking pils, helles, wcipas and BA stouts. So I'll sometimes try a new brewery if one of those styles is on offer from them. I do still drink other styles as well (barleywines, saisons, various Belgian styles, marzens around Oktoberfest, and the occasional smoked beers), just to change things up every now and again. I'm also excited about fresh hop season, and expect there'll be considerable chatter about those beers once they start to come on line. That being said, as @Orca alluded to, I know what I tend to like and I'm pretty content with what's available here in the PNW. Most beer I tend to enjoy is made in pretty decent quantities, so there's little basis for any FOMO posts. I hardly ever attend local beer events any more (as I can't really see the point), so that's no longer a source of interest or discussion. All that aside, I do enjoy and appreciate the opinions made by most everyone in this forum, and if several members recommend a particular beer I'll invariably try to seek it out... regardless of the style. Hopefully, the OP from Terry isn't a suggestion that there's no point in posting opinions in this forum. I would hate for that to ever stop
Oh no. Maybe I've worded it badly, but what I'm wondering is why we stop talking about the proven performers that we drink a lot of, and used to chat about endlessly. Except for NWWBAYDN posts, when was the last time Fremont, Black Raven, Deschutes, et al came up in discussion?
Probably because it's hard to expand beyond all of the great beers that they have brewed and continue to brew. I would add Sierra Nevada to the list above. I was at a soccer game last weekend and they had a season ticket event (free beer). Not at lot of selection, but a had couple of SN Hazy Little Thing. Dam, I forgot how much I enjoyed the beer. When we have the threads(s) about the one beer or brewery that you would drink if it's my only choice, I always say Sierra Nevada, but could easily add Fremont, Deschutes or a few others. The just make dam good beer across multiple styles. Not much else to say.
But, we did used to have things to say. We would talk about current or upcoming releases, look forward to seasonal drops, stuff like that. Are we, collectively, just over it? Are we so jaded that we no longer care? Has beer apathy set in?
Wanted to respond only to this part of your post, as I think these factors are related—they definitely are for me, anyway. When it comes to beer consumption in particular, and life in general, I’ve increasingly become a homebody. It probably started when I became a dad and kind of crystallized during COVID. What I’ve found, and I don’t find this at all surprising, is that I’m far more likely to take the time to review a beer if I’m enjoying it at home as opposed to when I’m out. If I am having a beer or two on draft it’s likely when I’m out to dinner or drinks with friends/family—and I’m not going to interrupt that social experience to write up a detailed review with ratings on my phone. Maybe I’ll try to jot down some quick impressions in the Notes app and try to convert that into a review later, but usually I don’t bother. So I would suggest that your pattern of drinking at home more often might directly result in a tendency to also review those beers.
Good questions. For me, a combination of no longer a new shinny objective, getting older (don't attend beer festivals anymore), and there are less seasonal drop to get excited (along with distribution being impacted by COVID). On that last point, I used to find Fremont, Founders, etc. in beer shops, but there is less availability and I got out of the habit of looking.
But that's exactly where I would expect discussion about such breweries. I mean, that's where we discuss not only the beers we're excited about, but also the beers we have right in front of us. The beers we laid down hard-earned money to purchase. It's one thing to say "I like Fremont." It's quite another to say "I like Fremont, and that's what I'm drinking right now." I suppose we could have brewery-specific threads like other regional forums do. The Pacific forum, for instance, has threads for The Bruery and Bottle Logic. Any NW brewery which does frequent new releases in addition to seasonals could have its own thread. (Uh, Fort George, Breakside, and pFriem come to mind...) For the most part, the only time I pay much attention to a brewery's release schedule is during fresh hop season, when I want to know what's out there, what's about to be released, and when I can start searching for it.
I mean, there is still an annual fresh hop thread—one of the highlights of the NW forum—as well as some annual “visiting Portland,” “visiting Seattle” etc. threads. But I’d suggest that, as people are increasingly settling into their favorite breweries and favorite beers, they naturally feel less compelled to chatter about them—of course this pFriem Pilsner is delicious, that’s why I’m drinking it for the hundredth time! An analogy might be the magnificent beauty of this place we all call home—especially as a transplant from elsewhere who chose to live here largely because it’s such a beautiful place, I’m sometimes still awestruck by a particularly stunning orange/pink/purple sunset behind the Olympics or a rainy stroll through a misty old-growth forest (though admittedly I also take these things for granted more often than I should)—but of course I am, it’s why I’m here. I think we still see some chatter about great new beers in WNWBAYDN, but maybe fewer dedicated threads about a specific brewery. I guess I just don’t find it that surprising or unusual.
@QuakeAttack Your last post gave me another possible consideration. Maybe another possibility is that it's just so easy to find really good beer these days. Back in the day I'd get excited about Holy Mountain releases, Fremont BA releases and HOTD special releases, because they were fairly limited and there just wasn't much out there comparable. That's really no longer the case, and while I still buy those beers when I can find them, I'm not particularly upset if I miss out. There's just so much other comparable stuff on the market. Hell, even Younger week isn't anything to get particularly excited about. If I'm around I can always find it without much difficulty (or I'll just ask about it in this forum and voila!). I saw online today that Grape Lotion is dropping BA French Toast this weekend. Granted, I'm not the biggest GL fan, but this is a style I'm typically interested in. Except Imperial has a ba Prairie IRS on tap right now and Belmont Station has Spirit Creatures on tap. I shrugged and moved on.
I don't have beer apathy, but I have almost completely let go of beer FOMO. What beers am I excited about? The beers which will be waiting for me the next time I go shopping for beer. I don't even know which beers they are yet, but I can't wait to try them. That's how easy it is to find awesome beer in the NW. Or at least in the greater Portland area. There is ALWAYS be something good on the shelves and in the coolers. ALWAYS. And I can trust, like @John_M said, that it will be "made in pretty decent quantities," so I don't need to drop everything and rush out to get it. There's more variety than I could possibly ever try, and it doesn't take much effort to get it. If I miss one particular beer, I can turn around and find something almost as good (or better!) without working too hard. No, I'm not apathetic. But maybe I'm lazy. Shrug.
Great discussion. I think you're all missing one important thing. I think that at the time when the aforementioned breweries were riding high, the business plan was 'cater to beer geek, extract maximum possible $ on big releases etc.' nowadays, savvy breweries across the board have switched to catering to everyone (adding seltzers, wine, cocktails, slushies, food, karaoke, yoga, ev chargers, etc etc.) because the geeks are aging out and getting healthier. so you're left with a brewery that's known for inaccessible items, so who the hell would want to drink their pale ale? their model was built upon appealing to a strange small percentage of beer drinkers that barely exists now. as stupid as the name and concept is, watch UPP. that type of stuff with mass appeal is the future of staying alive in this business
But that's the thing, Black Raven used to have the hype, rare releases AND the everyday drinkers. Same with Fremont. I wouldn't be able count the number of kegs of Trickster and Interurban we poured at the OG Green Frog, but it was a lot. And people still like those beers, and beers like them.
That’s my take too. I went to a handful of big releases at Fremont and Reuben’s back in the day, the longest wait was about 2 hours IIRC. But you’d also still see regulars in the beer garden drinking standard IPAs, pale ales etc. who had no interest in the release events. Now breweries seem to be focusing more on their bread-and-butter customers and less on the small, vocal beer geek contingent. I can’t say I blame them. No matter how much you make (if anything) on limited-release, fancy waxed bottles of barrel-aged beer, I’m sure it pales in comparison to kegs and kegs of your flagship IPA.
