Biggest/Most Surprising Change/Development in Craft Beer since you started?

I would agree that it changes the local beer culture indeed. Every new beer release at my two favorite local breweries Noble Ale Works, and Bottle logic people would camp out for it. I don't have time for that. Now though the vast majority new releases are online sales, which I endorse.

 

When i started 4 years ago, NJ only seemed to have Carton which is still rare and River Horse. Now there are at least 2 dozen that distribute and its awesome.

 

I voted Other -- traditional styles are shit upon. It saddens me that the reason I even got into craft beer was for styles like brown ales, amber ales, oatmeal stouts -- these styles are yawned at by everyone in the craft community. I'm really tired of breweries that have 15 different IPAs and not a single dark beer. Just my opinion, obviously one that is rare lol

 

Can you please provide specifics here? How exactly do the online sales work?

Cheers!

 

There are only two breweries in decent distance a third is opening. If you've ever been to Long beach island, theres the pines and the beach. Tiny semi desolate area. One down the street and another on the island. I enjoy ship bottom but the cops are sharks on the island and im usually always the driver anyway. Iblook foward to trying the other 2 within my area. Cheers.

 

I hear what you are saying here!!

I took to homebrewing so that I can readily drink the styles that I like.

Let me tell you about Oatmeal Stout. This style is the most popular of the beers that I homebrew with friends/family which kinda dumbfounds me since this is not a popular beer style for commercial craft brewers. I used to make two batches of Oatmeal Stout per year to ensure I had enough 'inventory' to keep folks happy. Over the past 3 years I have been making three batches a years due to my 'customers' insistence that I need to brew this more.

Just last week my wife brought a 6-pack to her girlfriend as a part of a birthday present. Yesterday I read a nice Thank You note that her girlfriend sent thanking for all of the gifts but she was most effusive with her thanks for the beer. A nice way of saying: please brew more!?!

Cheers!

 

I am not familiar with Long Beach but I can tell you that the very south Jersey beach area has really improved (in terms of numbers) over the past 1-2 years.

I took a tour of Cape May Brewing last year and I visited the Tasting Room this year. They have notably expanded in the past year. The outdoor area now is tented so you can sit and enjoy beer in inclement weather. Over the past year they have added a canning line. etc.

The two new breweries I saw on taps in Cape May was Tuckahoe and Ludlam. I did not have any Tuckahoe beers but I had a Brown Ale from Ludlam which I really enjoyed.

Things are indeed looking brighter IMO.

Cheers!

@JuicesFlowing I suspect that you too would have enjoyed the Ludlam Brown Ale - they call it Bay Muck Brown Ale. I am uncertain whether this name is good marketing though?

 

Yeah, like that Korean BBQ at the National Folk Festival last weekend! Met some great people from across the country as well.

 

Boy, do I ever miss Young's Oatmeal Stout! I sold the draft to a few accounts around here back in the mid 90s and old customers and friends still mention it. The bottles were great, but the draft was pure silk.

 

I agree on the can thing. Along with that, it seems that a lot of attention is being given to can design. Euros seeking out American beer is interesting, especially after decades of jokes (e.g. "It's f****** close to water").

I also voted for taking pictures of beer, but is that really a thing for anybody except us?

 

Real quick with little though

Cans being accepted for non AAL

Amount of breweries making "craft"

Prices being asked and paid for beer


Many good things have happened and some are not so good. I remember the 1980's and today is beer heaven compared to then

Enjoy

 

I agree about cape may. Theyve started distro into southern ocean county. But sadly the brewery is 1.5 hour south of me. Rinn Duinn is a fair distance north as well. Im closest to ManaFirkin, Pinelands, Oyster Creek (soon to open) and Ship Bottom if you know these. Backwards Flag is also within 20 minutes, my forner employer, so 5 is definitely better than most areas. These people are just new though so its usually tap only at the source. Ship bottom distributes but only ti the store im banned from lol. So i go to the brewery for crowlers. Cheers.

 

The beer, sales date and time are usually announced on social media. Online sales are usually done through brown paper ticket or eventbrite. You log in as close To the sales time as possible fill the cart and checkout as fast as possible. Many beers sell out instantly so people get butt hurt and complain it's not fair. The difference is with online you aren't guaranteed the beer as opposed to the people who are willing to wait in line at 2am, because it could sell out super fast. If you get the beer or don't the total investment time is minutes.

One online sale I bought the beer while in the car sitting in traffic.

For me I don't have to have the beer so if I get skunked I don't care and if I do get the beer then I am stoked.

 

Some more NJ brewers hopefully youd see especially in cape may is Slack Tide, 7th Mile and a new one in wildwood the name escapes me right now. Also garden state brewing close to atlantic city opened. Icarus in Lakewood and Asbury Park brewingvalso have not disappointed me. Cheers.

 

Yup, Oatmeal (Flaked Oats) does indeed provide an enticing quality. I use the word "smooth" to describe my homebrewed Oatmeal Stout but I have a friend Matt who prefers to use the word "silky".

Cheers!

 

I have heard of Ship Bottom because for a period of time they were operating not too far from me in Wallingford, PA:

http://www.brewersofpa.org/member/southeast-pa/ship-bottom-brewery/

I have more than once said to myself: you should travel down to Wallingford and check them out. I never listened to myself here.

Cheers!

 

Could not agree more that is a change for the worse. But I think that all the people waiting in line for beer so that can trade/sell the beer may be what is driving the change. That may be where the issue really lies. People won't wait in line but are happy to trade for the beer others wait in line to get. That's why half the line is traders. Just to preface this I rarely wait in line and I don't trade or sell the beer I drink it.

Cheers.

 

Most surprising to me is probably the emergence of hyper-local breweries as the fastest growing and (still) most sustainable segment of the "craft" brewing movement. I would have thought that the moves by national and regional players -- setting up new production facilities to ensure freshness, keeping prices reasonable, and building on proven quality -- would have put more smaller, local places (that can't compete on price and even, lots of times, quality) out of business by now. Actually the opposite has in many ways occurred.

 

Yup.

I purposefully used the verbiage of "change the local beer culture" because I too think that a significant portion of the folks waiting in these long lines are traders/entrepreneurs. The folks on the other side of the country who obtain their beers (e.g., Californians obtaining Tree House beers) from these mules likely view this line buying as a good thing since they as individuals benefit here (i.e., obtain Tree House beers). But in my opinion this is not a good thing for the local beer drinkers.

Cheers!

 

I agree 100% with you. I tend to go to the ones I know well and its consistent and also fun because they do experimental items and its cool to try new stuff and one off's. I will check out some of the new guys but I always ask friends for input if they have gone or look up reviews. If the place is hitting the mark I will stop by and sample. As a whole I think a lot of the new guys are doing ok, some times they miss the mark but I also give them some grace since it takes time to dial in your beers but if they always seem bad I don't go back. I feel pretty lucky because most of the guys around me make very good product to the point I cannot keep up LOL, its a good problem to have I guess.
Cheers.

 

My general rule of thumb is to wait at least one year before visiting these new breweries. Let them 'work out the kinks' on other beer drinkers. Needless to say but some small breweries never 'work out their kinks'.

Cheers!

 

That is true, I always feel a new place should have 1-2 killer beers to start, the ones that got them some notice, then grow on that. I am the same way, I don't jump into trends too fast, if a new guy opens I wait and see the feedback and all, once I see they are doing great I stop in. Like you said, so many good guys out there why rush, enjoy the great beer and see how the new guys/gals do and then sample.

 

I'm also going to vote "great beer in cans"

Definitely a positive development in my mind.

 

Fwiw, parts of the US were a beer destination well before a decade ago.

 

This kind of ties in with how @Squire123 observed that it seemed to take a long while for the beer scene to gain traction.

What has been happening in NJ recently can be directly tied to a change in legislation making it more attractive to start a small brewery in the state. Similarly, this process has been happening throughout the country since the 80s, with each state taking their own path.

 

It sure seems like the modern beer geek is more impressed by the bells and whistles than what's under the hood these days.

 

Since no one has voted for I guess you might be. At this point I'm not even sure who / what a hipster is. Except that it's not me. lol

 

ain't dat da truth. The tasting room has become the largest source of income for many of the new breweries.

 

I am trying to think of what has surprised me, and I honestly can't think of anything. Here's what has come close:

1) That lagers gained enough acceptance in the craft crowd that we now have canned Stone Pilsner and canned craft Zwickelbier and Kellerbier (at least in name).

2) That people on this site engage in an annual tradition of lining up for AB-Inbev beer.

3) That the term "craft" is as indestructible as it is (note the thread title and my post for example).

Nonetheless, the above couldn't qualify. Nothing has surprised me.

 

Canned beer = inherently better beer. Maybe a better vessel, but I keep coming across this notion that a beer in a canned release is somehow a better offering than one in a bottle.

I had a guy hook me up with some beers from across the state earlier this year. Apart from reimbursement, all he asked was "cans" in return. When I threw out a couple quality options, his only question was "are these canned"?

 

Well this old fart agrees with you!

 

Great topic. I selected the number of converts (which is directly tied to the number of breweries we have, which truly amazes me), the prices for some beers (I'm willing to throw some cabbage around to acquire beer, but some of the price points astound me, and not in a good way), and taking pics of beers in drinking and posting (if you'd told me I'd be thinking, "I gotta get this on BA" whilst drinking a beer at the beginning of my beer nerd journey 12 years ago, I would've told you that you were nuttier than a fruitcake).

 

This guy thought so, well before "a decade ago":

 

In some ways, it's silly when people are more focused on the package than the packaging (or even the packaged).

 

If you told me 10 years ago that I would pay $20 for a four pack of beer I would have laughed in your face .

 

The one thing which has surprised me (I'm like zid in that very little of what is taking place today surprises me) has been the lack of interest in the range of flavors produced by basemalts. The craft breweries market themselves as being against uniformity of flavor, yet when it comes to the most fundamental flavor of beer, malt, they mostly stick to the conventions of the modern big brewers of using a majority of pale malt (pale, pale ale or pilsner) combined with a flavoring malt, and or a coloring malt. In my own (highly amateurish) ventures into homebrewing I have come to the realization that there is a world of flavor to be found in the world of basemalt, yet this aspect of beer seems to me to be neglected. Color seems to be more important than flavor, and if the right color can be achieved by a singular kind of specialty malt, or combination of specialty malts, then it's mission accomplished.

Why does everything have to be a combination of pale, caramel and or coloring malt? Oh well, that's my rant.

 

Cape May Brewing is one of the places I REALLY like and one of the VERY few worth a repeat visit. Too bad I live almost 2 1/2 hours away :

 

I've always loved Boston. Many years ago we would visit, have Sam Adams (then) Stock Ale seemingly anywhere, and Harpoon IPA on tap at Neptune Oyster with lobster rolls and oysters from all points. Great memories...

 

The out of control demand for beer that doesn't taste like beer.