Area Man Briefly Gets Into Home Brewing, Decides Not to Open a Brewery

Just another reason to check out their solid brews. Fantastic satire, that.

I think that it might be just me, 'cause I'm an old fuck at heart, but I'd be pretty happy if no more little local breweries opened, as most of them are doing the same thing with different wrapping paper on it. Just doesn't interest me at all.

 

My wager is that we end up with something like another 5 or 6000 total breweries over the next 10 years, most of them not bottling/canning anything just serving the neighborhood. I think we are just 10 or 20% above the total number of breweries we had preprohibition but our population is several hundred % higher so I'd wager we end up near the same ratio. How many breweries per person does blegium or germany or the UK have?

 

I couldn't disagree more. I love the bakery model. Among many other benefits of the proliferation of small craft breweries, it has successfully put pressure on previously staid breweries like Summit to make more interesting, more varied, and better beer.

Mark Stutrud, the owner of Summit, has been railing against his smaller competitors for some time now, accusing them of denigrating his profession by putting out low-quality product. He wants to build barriers to entry in his industry by burdening burgeoning breweries with cumbersome quality control expectations or requirements. He has even publicly floated sympathy for the decidedly consumer-unfriendly idea of mandatory occupational licensing for brewers (not just breweries, but the people who make the beers themselves). This little stunt is merely the latest salvo in Stutrud's one-sided battle, an effort to mock small craft breweries and shame those who patronize them as well as position Summit in the public's mind as synonymous with quality in craft beer. I strongly suspect Stutrud is motivated less by altruistic concern for the industry or consumers and more by frustration at losing market share and experiencing sales declines due to increased competition, much of which, contrary to his narrative, produces decidedly superior product. Summit could benefit, for instance, from lessons in brewing German styles (allegedly an area in which it specializes) from the tiny and recently opened Waldmann Brewery, just a couple of miles up the road from it in St. Paul.

 

Lmao.

 

If I could be sure I would be alive in ten years I would bet against with every dollar I have.

 

The previous peak number of breweries in the US was 4,131 in 1873 (nearly half a century before the Prohibition era) when the US population was around 40 million - so, approx. 1 brewery for every 10k people. But, in the 1870s, two US brewers (AB and MC) did not produce nearly 3/4 of the beer consumed in the country nor, needless to say, did imports make up another 13% or so of the market.

The average brewer in the 1873 had a yearly barrelage of 2,300 bbl. and the largest 2 brewers, Conrad Seipp and Best & Co. (predecessor to Pabst), the only 100k bbl. breweries, each had about 1% of the market.

Very different markets - which makes comparisons to the peak brewery total in the 19th century with the current US population pretty much worthless.

 

If your local bakery made similar bread to a larger bakery, but you had to travel there and pay more for it, would you still patronize said bakery?

While I certainly agree that this stance may be more self-serving than anything else, that fact makes it no less true.

 

I've voiced my high regard for Summit before, and also my disinterest in the majority of newer Twin Cities area breweries for many of the same reasons that Stutrud derides the for... lack of quality and, in my opinion, lack of well executed beers in general. However, I would be vehemently opposed to increased regulation on breweries in the manner you described (which I know you are not advocating). The lack of quality control is many breweries does not create a health hazard to the consumer, just product quality, so leave the regulations out of it and let the consumer decide. As much as I don't care for the vast majority of new breweries, I would say there hasn't been a better time in history to be a beer consumer in this country.

To your last point about Waldmann - big fan. I've had a couple trips there so far, and they tick all my boxes for well executed, nuanced, classic beers. Would love to see more breweries like that around here (there are a few in my book).

And finally to the original point of the post... I thought the article was hilarious, but I recognize that it just mirrors my own view of much of the new brewery landscape.

 

I think this is a fantastic idea, but I wouldn't count on the BA to advocate it. I don't think that they'd want to imply that some of their members are not interested in making the highest quality beverage possible.

 

The nerve of some people!

 

Bryan with a Y's self description would have been letter perfect if he'd said: "I've got lots of tats and piercings, am already losing my hair, wear a driving cap t-shirts and shorts year-round, and am grossly obese!"

 

Sans the logo, the Brewers Association does have several mechnisms in place to reach out to/work with brewers who are willing to learn about improving quality.

https://www.brewersassociation.org/best-practices/quality/quality-ambassador/

https://www.brewersassociation.org/best-practices/quality/beer-quality-workshop/


etc.

The problem that worried Gatza the most was encountering several brewers who didn't even realize they had quality issues.

 

Good programs, to be sure, but recognizing those who put certain procedures in place would be a boon to the consumer, IMO.

Hugely problematic and something that won't go away any time soon because there are a lot of homebrewers turned professional brewers that simply don't know what the best practices are.

 

It's clear from interviews that Stutrud is demanding a level of quality control that is simply economically unrealistic for most small craft breweries. He's not just talking about simple QC procedures and best practices that can be done inexpensively and already are widespread (though not universal). He's talking about dedicated labs with scientists, the sort of operation that everybody knows is never going to happen at a nanobrewery (unless that happens to be the background of the brewer). It's a level of burden that, if legally required or successfully demanded by consumers, would prevent the existence of a large majority of craft breweries, some of which eventually would organically grow to the point that rigorous QC programs would actually make sense.

Apparently some people (certainly Stutrud) would welcome a massive contraction in the number of craft breweries. I definitely wouldn't. I'm sure the vast majority of the great craft beers being brewed in the United States, beers better (tastier, more enjoyable, etc.) than Summit ever has or likely ever will brew, are being produced by breweries that don't meet Stutrud's self-serving high standards for quality control. Emphasis on rigorous QC is the kind of thing that sounds great on the surface but would have far-reaching consequences that may well help established players like Summit (by limiting competition) but would harm consumers (by restricting their choices) and potentially be devastating to the small breweries that are driving growth, interest, and innovation in craft beer.

 

The article was funny, and the discussion it’s birthed is very interesting. I also have found the quality of some green brewers to be lacking (although it has gotten better), and have seen new brewers put out objectively flawed beer.

Some kind of voluntary service that would test beer quality also seems like a good idea, but is somewhat complex and controversial.

First there is the issue of funding. Lab testing is expensive, which is why many breweries utilize in-house labs. Who pays for that? All BA members see an increase in their dues because certain ones don’t want to pay for a lab? That’s a tough sell. “You need to pay more so that your competition doesn’t have to pay anything.” We aren’t talking about food stamps here.

Or does the brewer who wants testing have to pay his own lab fees? Many brewers already do exactly this; either sending beer in to a local large brewery, or White Labs, etc. No need to introduce a middleman.

Then there is the issue of subjectivity. Non-lab testing is essentially just tasting panels, and there is an element of subjectivity to them. Also, it’s not the hardest thing to do in-house. With constantly shifting style parameters, an outsider’s opinion on whether or not your beer is flawed can be irrelevant. How well do we think these hazies would have fared at this hypothetical sensory evaluation 10 years ago when the came to the ‘visual’ portion of an IPA evaluation sheet?

I’m not a fan of having some kind of sticker or ‘passed independent inspection’ indicator. The brewmaster should have the final say on whether his product is up to his standards or not. The free market can do its job from there.

Ultimately, I think the ba and state guilds should keep doing what they’re doing: providing education, grants, scholarship, training, trips, etc. Opportunities for brewers to become more educated. The responsibility to use that information and produce good beer and to dump bad beer lies on the brewer. The responsibility to vote with your wallet lies on the consumer.

 

I do not want current product makers to find a way to limit consumers access to new/other products. If consumers want an “inferior” product so be it.

 

This is basically saying "caveat emptor" without any training on why certain things aren't acceptable. This mentality is decidedly bad for the craft beer industry.