Are We Killing Beer?

That's not really what I was trying to express. I honestly don't know what time and/or place is/was better. I don't think the here and now is bad. It's not that things are better in Cologne or were better in 1997... or better here and now... it's that things are different.

When one walks into a store and finds that most of the product has become 16oz cans produced within a certain mile radius, I think many beer geeks just see the positive side of that. Yep, it's great, but what was the cost? Everything has a cost. For some, the cost is $6 IPA cans rather than $11 sixers. For me, I wasn't presented with the option of drinking something from Belgium. For you, you might pause at the consequences of Bauxite mining. All of us are still happy to enjoy what we have, but we also comprehend the "price" and quite frankly someone should.

While it's great if you or others think that this is the greatest time ever, I just don't think in those terms. Not because it is or isn't, but because I prefer to see it from multiple angles.

Take a look at the famous Toronado barley wine festival. Supposedly the largest of it's type and an institution going back decades. It used to draw a crowd. A few years ago, they cancelled the festival. One reason for this was the growth of San Francisco beer week. Sounds like a contradiction but it isn't. SF beer week had latched itself onto the barley wine fest, and once it got bigger, there was just too much competition for the Toronado event to be sustainable. That's a case of the collateral damage of the growth of local craft beer. Is this actually a good or bad thing? Is one event "better" than the other? I have no idea, but I see the price and I won't pretend that everything is rainbows. The Toronado event actually came back from the grave at a different time of the year though... so maybe I'm just a touch too dour.

These questions weren't directed to me, but I'll answer them too. First question: No. My Kolsch story illustrates this. Second question: Breweries should make what allows them to stay in business. In a perfect world, an environment would exist that enabled this with a variety of customers, product, and brewers.

 

American Malting Barley Association Opposes Post-Heading Treatments on Grains
MILWAUKEE – April 20, 2016 – The American Malting Barley Association, Inc. (AMBA) strongly opposes the use of desiccants or herbicides such as glyphosate for post-heading treatment of malting barley, wheat, or other grains in North America being processed for malting, brewing, and distilling....Glyphosate is not labeled for post-heading application on malting barley in the United States as a pre-harvest aid to kill weeds, as a desiccant to dry down the crop, or for any other reason.

 

As with everything, there's plusses and minuses but I'd give the overall edge to now. Someone who is a devotee of British beers might not feel the same way, though. Youngs alone took several exceptional beers with them.

A dynamic environment is always preferable to a mundane one. For every shop who goes all in on the current fads there will be someplace who picks up the slack. It's our job to find them; and even deserts have oases.

 

Faddish and expensive beers will come and go. Well crafted and reliable products will be a staple of the industry.

 

Excellent points, all.

 

You forgot the word "hopefully" at the end of the second sentence.

 

One interesting sentiment here is that "we" need to get these people drinking hyped beers to drink other "better" beers. Likewise that these people have less refined palettes. I do agree we should be trying to get them to learn about other styles that they might equally enjoy but you don't do this by telling them their "baby is ugly". There's really no reason to scoff at these beers. They are what they are, I may not find most of them appealing but that's my personal opinion that I don't need to impose on others. I don't like milkshake IPA's but I don't really care if someone else does. No need to scoff at them (ok maybe just a little bit, this is BA after all ).

 

I don't think anybody's saying that everybody needs to drink a wide variety of beers or that everybody needs to drink the same beers. What people are saying is that educated consumers are better consumers and that learning about all types of beer is what makes a better consumer, regardless of which beers that you drink more regularly.

 

Man you need a Total Wine or something like that in your state, would solve half your problems.

 

Hilarious thread.
1. We are not killing beer; the scene has never been better.
2. There's no such thing as the "good old days."
3. Nostalgia often just leads to "get off my lawn" syndrome...

 

I'll tell you what I think and offer the opinion for free. I think brewers should make whatever they want and if I like it I'll buy it and if I don't I won't. I also won't buy into them charging more for less (64 ounces in a 16 oz 4 pack as opposed to 72 ounces in a 12 oz 6 pack or just going to 48 ounces in a 12 oz 4 pack) because they apparently believe craft beer pricing is a rising tide. I've been around coastal areas long enough to know tides rise and fall.

 

Your perspective might change were you old enough to remember good old days and, for the record, it is my lawn.

 

I think hype plays a large roll in the popularity of certain styles, breweries, and beers. This is especially true for many of the culturally aware, socially (or at least social-networkly) connected young consumers who have provided so much of the recent growth in craft beer's customer base. People new to craft beer see excited discussions of the latest sweet IPAs and pastry stouts in social media and their high ratings here and on Untappd, and they fall for the fiction that those beers are the best of what craft beer has to offer. Whereas really they're seeing merely the collective wisdom (or ignorance) of people barely more veteran or knowledgeable about beer than they are. They're being miseducated about craft beer, and I'm encouraging an effort to correct the record for their benefit.

I understand the desire to avoid directly informing them that what they're drinking is bad; the problem lies in the fact that currently they're being told that the gimmicky, murky, sugary concoctions they're drinking represent the very pinnacle of millennia of brewing history. Perhaps a little counter-hype is valuable on the net. I don't think the phenomenon that cloying equals cool can be sustained (that juicy bubblegum bubble is bound to burst at some point), and I don't know if those image-conscious customers can be retained if the only styles for which they've developed a taste become passé. That's one reason it would behoove the industry and people who are enjoying the fruits of the continued proliferation of craft beer to encourage them to broaden their horizons.

 

I wouldn't say "except", since that's arguably THE fad.

 

"The scene" =/= "The product"

Says you.

Sure, that can happen, but, as others have said, there were good things about the past that aren't as prevalent in today's craft beer culture, just as there are things that are part of it now that are an improvement on the past.

 

It'll be fine, I wouldn't worry so much about them. They got over the Jamba Juice smoothie fad, they'll get over this.

 

Everyone knows that if you want to have a highly rated beer it needs to have at least 3 of the four following characteristics:

1. Limited Quantity
2. Expensive
3. High ABV.
4. Limited distribution footprint

 

Did you respond to the wrong message? My post said nothing about thinking people are saying "that everybody needs to drink a wide variety of beers or that everybody needs to drink the same beers.".

 

You could look at it as though everyone is trying to be the most outlandish, and some breweries definitely are. It's not just that though, there's also the part where a lot more breweries aren't afraid to break rules, experiment and take risks.

Do I like this? Yes and no. The good is that we are seeing innovation at a rate that's never existed and the one upping does fuel that. The downside is people get so caught up in the hype train and the latest crazy 1 billion IBU beer to notice how awesome Pilsners, ESBs, etc are.