Breweries that have NOT lost their way.

Georgetown.

 

Drinking an Old Rasputin and growing increasingly disappointed in us all for neglecting North Coast Brewing. In the game for over 30 years and going strong. They do have a newish IPA (like maybe 8 years old at this point?) but pretty much just going strong with their red ale, pilsner, russian imperial stout, quad, and whatever they call brother thelonius (which I did see in cans the other day!). Haven't ruined a good thing and selling better beer than most at an amazing price (I will happily take the4 3 or Old Rasputins I can get for the same price over most of the new hip stouts)

 

Hair Of The Dog

 

Oh, you can find Bigfoot on the shelves where you are?

As I said before, I can't blame them. At their size they're in a tough situation.

But it almost appears as if they do both. Carefully select their portfolio for national distribution, but they still do what they always did at their tap rooms. I've heard you can still find beers like the Porter and Stout in the tap room, and they even brew beers like a Helles there as well.

 

Oh yes, at the taprooms their beer list is typically stacked with all the classics along with many other non-IPA options of many different styles. It's fantastic! In my experience, Mills River is the most loaded up with unique options, followed by Chico and lastly Torpedo Room. Stopping in at SN is always a must when within a few hours drive of one.

 

I totally agree, but still 1 more year till they make it to 10.

 

Yards Brewing Company. Their core lineup is solid, the new space is a terrific venue, and they are one of the few places around where you can get real cask ale (another is Forest & Main, but they aren't quite 10 years old yet).

 

They also brew a Dark Mild for distribution. Might be the only brewery that does that.

 

I find some of their offerings to be inconsistent.

 

I would posit that Stone has not lost its way. It's still cranking out hoppy, aggressive beers that a lot of us love as evidenced by their continued growth. Am I happy they've discontinued some classics? Hell yeah. At the same time, they are a business. B-u-s-i-n-e-s-s. I bought them, but clearly not enough people were. It reminds me of the people who get sadfaced when <fill in the brewery> shutters its doors and it's such a tragedy, then go on to reveal they wish they'd gone more than once a year.

Gimme that Enjoy By, ya'll can keep your hazebruh shit.

 

Could you call splitting the brewery into Both Stone (which now brews lighter less hop aggressive beers under the name) and Arrogant Brewing (which exclusively now brews hop forward, no matter the style, beer). And as for your "hazebruh shit" comment might I point out their Mojay IPA and Fear Movie Lions

 

I don't care about the "split" because it's in name only. Go to any Stone location (I've been to at least four different ones in the past 3 months) and they are still primarily hop forward beers. I'm fine if they wanna do other things. The haze thing was a joke, but go ahead and take that literally.

 

If I don't know you, humor can only go so far via text. That being said I can tell from your profile picture, a dissenting opinion about Stone isn't anything you're going to have a discourse about. Good day sir.

 

Up here it would be hard to argue for a brewery other than Steam Whistle. They have been around for almost 20 years and have brewed only one beer the entire time, a Pilsner. In fact, they are so clear in their path, that when they finally decided they wanted to brew another beer, they opened a new brewery with completely separate branding to brew it. And, it’s a Vienna Lager.

Unibroue is a great example as well. In fact, it would be tough to find more than a handful of Quebec breweries that have lost their way.

 

Out of curiosity, do you know if they have any kind of local-ish distribution near the breweries that's different from their nationally distributed offerings?

It's pretty cool that they have both the national and hyper-local taproom only experiences going, so why not throw their hat in the small regional game too?

Getting myself to either Chico or NC is definitely on my bucket list.

 

Orval

 

The only one I know of is Gothic Pils, which is amazing! Then I guess you can consider the classics as well, such as Porter and Kellerweis as those don't make main distro anymore it seems, sadly! At least, here in Cleveland...

 

Boulevard, Schlafly and Summit

 

Specifically, TH hasn't been around long enough for this judgement. Rock'n it currently though.