A question regarding "boutique" beers/breweries

All that is fine, but is Ale Apothecary all the guy does? Judging by the picture of his brewhouse, brewing is not a round-the-clock venture for him. His brewhouse looks much more like a homebrewer's wet dream than it does a production brewery that makes money. I don't mean that to sound disparaging - I think there will be more of this part-time nano-brewing going on in the future, and I don't doubt he breaks even at the very least. But this means that the model necessarily means there is a very limited supply of this kind of beer. So while it might be awesome if you happen to live near one, the actual market impact is marginal.

 

And there are tons of craft session beers already available. We didn't need 100 "session IPAs" to come out for people to have plenty of options for session beer. Hence the conclusion that this seems more like an instance where the producers are telling the consumers what they want, and not the other way around.

 

Your response makes it seem as if you think there is just one business putting out all these beers. If various individual breweries think there is a way to make money with a certain type of beer various different breweries are going to put out that type of beer. They are just responding to the demand. Eventually some of these beers will go away and some will remain. But right now, there's a lot of dogs in the fight. This is simply the competition phase of it all. I don't think that means it's the producers telling the consumers what they want.

 

Sure it does. If people wanted session beers before all of these session IPAs came out, there were plenty to choose from, many of which are deeper, more complex, and just simply better. These have been carefully marketed to convince people that they need an "IPA" that they can drink massive quantities of. It was a stroke of genius by whoever came up with it first. And if these mostly terrible beers stick around, then more power to them.

 

I am not sure what his finances look like, but I assume his overhead is really really low compared to other breweries:

He is the only employee, buys one type of hop from right up the road, bacteria is in the air, he has one steel tank (everything else is done in the barrel), his brewery is a shed on his property.

You can survive if your expenses are incredibly low, you charge 20 to 25 dollars a bottle and people want your beer. His stuff makes it throughout Oregon and even saw that it somehow gets to Vermont, so there must be some market impact. I think I remember him saying that he has run out of room in the shed though and is looking to maximize space/expand a little. I am pretty sure it is a full time job, considering his background as a long time brewer at Deschuttes.

As for market impact - I don't think he cares. And i don't really care about market impact either, but that's probably because i fetishize hyper-localized economies that are self-sufficient and stretching toward communist. I get what he's doing - making beer the way he wants, doing what he loves, and sharing it with his surroundings. Quality over Quantity, Art over Industry (that was taken straight from his website. Great Marketing).

I don't know how that is not appealing to everyone. But you know different strokes, different folks...all that jazz.

 

But these are being put out by breweries with broader distribution (like Sierra Nevada, Stone, Lagunitas, Founders, etc.). Sure there were some small breweries doing them here or there, but these guys wanted to do some too. I still don't see how that's them telling consumers what to do.

 

The invisible hand is holding the mash fork. I heard it said by yet another brewer, at a one-person outfit that does almost nothing normal, that even he has to offer something that he can consistently push through the distribution lines year round, or they -- and a key part of his customer base -- would seize up. The bigger brews and longer-aged brews are expensive to produce, would fetch a lower price if more available, and not everyone can be a CCB selling out its events.

 

Let's see Founders All Day IPA, Lagunitas Daytime IPA, Anchor Steam, Shiner Bock um...hrmm I'm drawing blank after those four (none of which are true session beers anyway, and I'm not sure I'd consider that last one craft, but let's not get into all of that). Where are these tons of craft session beers you're talking about? I'm talking about bottled or canned beers that are at least available in a few states. There are very very few.

 

That sounds like a great place to be if your into beer & coffee.. I know I am, so I'm a bit jealous of your culture out there. Markets like this are a rarity though. It's dependent on the market and vision a brewery owner is after. Like I said, this guy at Ale Apothecary is, from what I hear, killing it. Most brewery owners that Ive conversed with don't share his 'boutique' mentality, rather they want to expand their production + distribution rapidly and reach a broader market to take advantage of economies of scale. There's nothing wrong with either, but I don't see it very possible for a brewery to start boutique and be able to expand anywhere near the rate of a brewery producing regular styles. Time will tell though.

 

Actually the latter are called "beer drinkers," and the former "thrill seekers."

If your business model is to appeal to thrill seekers -- the way many "craft" brewers have for the past 5 years or so -- you're likely going to be engaged in a constant quest to one-up your competitors and yourself. This is what got us 1000 IBU TIPAs, Dark Lord variants, and casks filled with glazed donuts.

In the meantime, many thrill seekers who liked the IBUs, vanilla beans, and donuts more than they actually liked beer have begun to move on to the "next big thing." Others have begun to realize what some of us have known for a while: that beer is not a competition but rather something meant to be drunk in company and, yes, in quantity -- since many of the world's classic beers taste better and better the more you drink of them.

 

Pivo Pils and DBA are some of my favorite beers period. It would suck if FW stopped making those. I drink and enjoy those a hell of a lot more than most "rare and hyped" releases.

 

I'm not sure what "boutique" even really means in beer. The term boutique is used from time to time in regards to cigars as well and I never really got that either

 

So now craft beer needs to be available in several states to qualify? Seriously? Right here, I can buy several sub-5% beers made by Sly Fox if I want something low in alcohol that is sessionable. Phila. Brewing Co. makes Kenzinger. Yards makes Brawler. In addition to other low alcohol brews. I didn't need a "session IPA" to find sessionable craft beer. There is tons available everywhere, for anyone who cares to look.

 

Edit: your words "there are tons available" but in reality there are not. I used to live in Philly and they had a few more options, but in NoCal, they're very few and far between. Essentially, all there is are the beers I mentioned and a few stragglers. "Sessionable" is a pretty much nonsense term, especially when people consider 8% abv beers as such. There's a market for those lower abv beers that has been proven with the success of All Day IPA, which I would kill to have in my market, BTW. I say, bring 'em on.

 

Firestone Walker DBA and Pale 31. Russian River Redemption. Stone Levitation. Sierra Nevada Kellerwies. Etc. etc. etc. There are hundreds of beers brewed in California that are under 5% alcohol. People don't want them like they want "session IPAs," even though session IPAs are mostly terrible beers. If that isn't a prime example of marketing making something popular, then I don't know what is.

 

I think this aspect of your original post might have been missed by others. But I think you are basically saying that the breweries that are already "big" should stop making their core lineup and just make 1 or 2 "big beers" while smaller breweries focus on lower abv beers of more accessible styles.

For example someone like Dogfish Head just puts out 120 Minute and World Wide Stout while Troegs just makes Sunshine Pils and Pale Ale.

 

I've talked to a very nice person from Deschutes Brewery (former Goose Island) over in Bruges, he told me that a lot of these Barrel Aged beers are there for the fame and glory of the brewery. In many cases, they are not making a lot of money on these beers, since they are relatively expensive to brew. His words, not mine.

 

http://www.stonebrewing.com/levitation/

http://www.stonebrewing.com/gotoipa/

Hmmmmm..... so Go To is kind of a more bitter Levitation, then? Stone needs TWO sessions IPAs? Was there really so much demand for Levitation that they had to come up with a second iteration of a hoppy session ale? Or are they kind of jumping on board the session bandwagon in this instance?

Just asking.