Are We Killing Beer?

Depends on what you would accept as innovations, if it has to be a eureka breakthrough, a new style, a new technique, etc.

Simple fact is the usage of hops and yeast has advanced exponentially in the last few years with more breweries experimenting with more varietals, combinations and hopping schedules. On the wild side mixed fermentation beer is exploding at a rate that seems insane when you realize 20 years ago it was barely a thing in the US at all. The science and understanding of these two things has progressed massively over the last five years. I'd call that innovation.

 

So, why pick on beer? I guess that means you only eat food and drink other beverages made from ingredients grown on other planets?

 

Innovations are game-changing events and they tend to be few and far between.

The only things that I'd consider innovative in this realm would be 1) the use of highly flocculant yeast strains to produce hazy beer and 2) dry hopping during fermentation. I cannot think of another innovation that involves either hops or "normal" brewer's yeast in the last 5 years or so.

Certainly WAY more stuff going on there. Much too much to even start commenting, really. Everything from techniques to microbes. Unsurprisingly, they can all be found in one place. The Milk the Funk wiki: http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Main_Page

 

The word “innovation” always seems to be a ‘hot button’ with some folks saying x is an innovation while others say no.

Permit me to discuss some recent ‘new’ aspects of hops. There is now a new ‘version’’ of hops available to brewers:

Cryo Hops – as the advertisement by YCHHOPS in my recent Zymurgy magazine details: “Cryo Hops represent the most innovative hop product technology available. Utilizing Industry leading cryogenic processing, whole leaf hops are separated into lupulin and bract at extrememly low temperatures…."

And then “Designed to enhance flavor, aroma & yield.”

Cheers!

 

Few hundred miles in case you're in the middle of no where. Doesn't sound like you are though.

15 local breweries producing solid beer-flavored beer is good, especially when you have another 15 producing more experimental beer, whether preferable or not. Sounds like your beer culture is doing well despite some social media attention to non-preferred breweries.

Now if you had only a handful of breweries in the area and they all stuck to glitter, heavy adjuncts and lactose - I'd be worried.

 

Variety and choice is never a bad thing. I love it when people complain of too many breweries, that just means that we will always have variety and choice even when the market corrects.

 

Many people's opinions in this thread put the cart before the horse. It is the consumer that drives the market, not the market drives the consumer. Brewers don't make beers because they hope to convince the public to buy them, they observe the tastes and demands of the publlc and brew beer they hope to sell to them.

Of course there are those brewers who do brew only what they themselves like with no one else in mind. They are called home brewers.

 

Personally, I welcome the variety and experimentation. Without variety and experimentation we'd not experience change and the good (and bad) things that comes with change.

 

No. You are living in a golden age, don't handwring.

 

How are you defining "golden age"?

 

Well whatever yo guys want to call it...it was a sub-par pilsner regardless (IMO of course), which sucks because I was really looking forward to it.

 

Not to but in, but @sosbombs is probably referring to statistics like the one in this oft-used graphic below (courtesy of Brewers Assocation)

 

You're welcome to participate and I would think that's to what he was referring, but I'll politely disagree that more breweries means "golden age".

 

Yes and no. In any business you can either listen to your customer and give them exactly what they ask for or you can listen to your customer and understand what their needs are. When you give them exactly what they ask for they may or may not be happy because they are [generally] less educated on the products than you. When you try to educate your customer and steer them towards what their real needs are then you almost always have a happy customer.

So take the situation where a customer comes into a brewery and asks for a NE IPA because they don't like bitter beers and they've heard NE IPA's aren't bitter. Does that customer only want a NE IPA because that's the epitome of beer for them or because they don't realize that other styles might fit their needs just as well? If you get them excited to try other styles you now have a customer who might continue to seek out craft beer even after NE IPA's aren't popular any longer.

I think a brewer would be crazy these days not to brew beers that are popular today but I also think it doesn't help that a lot of brewers are not broadly focused. Success isn't always an indicator of a good business plan. Not being focused on what's going to continue to excite your customers a year or two down the road isn't a long term plan for success.

 

Remember in the 90s how everyone was asking Apple for iPhones?

In other words, you need to both fulfill their current wants AND set yourself up to fulfill their future ones. Ones which, very probably, you will be able to dictate.

 

Yeah, I’ve not tried it yet, but am not expecting it to be on a par with Staudts, Sly Fox, Troegs, Victory, or Neshaminy Creek. I do think though it’s reviews are interesting for the number of folks claiming they taste corn in what’s said by the brewer to be an all malt beer.

 

DMS?

 

When I had it I also thought there was some corn flavor but I likely mistook it for DMS like @EvenMoreJesus said. To me, it definitely tastes more like an old school pre-prohibiton pilsner than a true-to-style German pilsner. I'd even consider it closer to a Czech-style than a German one. It was a big miss for me, which is unfortunate because I think they did a good job with their summer hefeweizen and their octoberfest, wich was also solid.

 

I suggest this point is a difference without distinction.

 

Well....

There is an important difference. In the first case you just look at what consumers buy and give them more of it (e.g., AALs). In the second case you give the consumers something to buy they didn't know they could experience and then, if they like it, give them more of it (e.g., Anchor Steam, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, etc....)