Craft Beer Trends - Maintaining the Image

There are certainly breweries opening just to cash in on crafts popularity, and they very well may turn people off of craft by offering poor products....but really, how long can a brewery stay open producing crap beer? I'd venture to say not very long given the cost it takes to run a brewery.

The bad breweries will fizzle out and the good ones will continue to grow.

 

My craft brewery business plan:

1) Grow Beard
2) Get Tattoos
3) Get gullible passionate fans to give me free money via Kickstarter
4) Start thinking about making beer, I guess

 

I don't think this perspective reflects how the market economy works. While "big business" controls much of US consumption, it's been fairly striking in the past few years that word-of-mouth and genuine quality seem to be shifting American perspectives into a willingness to spend more for a higher quality product, hype or not.

The reality that the author ignores is that craft breweries are closing, too. Many upstart breweries don't make it, and some of these new ones won't, either. If a new brewery comes along and brews nothing but cheap swill, it's going to fail.

A more interesting question is how many new breweries of quality can make it. I'm not worried about the "image" of craft brewing, but I think there are a number of smaller breweries making outstanding product that are having a very tough time of it.

 

Every time I see a great brewery (Avery) leave the area, and it gets replaced by two 'Joe Mediocre Brewing Co's' selling their flagship medicore IPA and Pale Ale.. I shed one small Indian tear.

 

I don't even know where to start with this.

 

There is a brewery in my state that produces some of the worst beer I've ever consumed - commercial, macro, homebrew or otherwise. They have been open since 2002 in a tiny town out in the middle of BFE.

 

I should have specified, crap beer as in crappy to everyone, not just us. There are breweries that I find meh that people flock to because they brew beer close to macro, so people can feel like that are drinking craft while not giving their palate a workout.

 

Here's the link to the article OP mentions: http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/...t-brewers-conference-2013.html?ref=pop_drinks

 

You need some Flannel as well to produce quality craft beer!

 

I have yet to taste, see, or hear about a beer that has ever been made that is crappy to everyone.

 

Which is why a lot of these mediocre breweries remain open. That's all I was getting at.

 

It's not that <anonymous brewery> makes bland beer, their beer is just horrible. It definitely has all kinds of flavors in it; great flavors like bandaid and garbage water. It is truly amazing that they are still open.

 

Maybe just a rich owner? I mean it is one thing to make beer that doesn't appeal to the hardcore, but if it is just straight up nasty....who the heck is drinking it to keep the lights on?

 

If I read your first post correctly, you seemed to be getting at the opposite of this.
But it seems like we're all on the same page now.

 

This was definitely a major issue in the great microbrew bust of the 90's - so many bad beers flooding the market that it turned people off. Now I'm not so worried about it, but I do understand the concern. I also think some people will just get burnt on all the hype surrounding craft beer and say "enough already!" But that's true with any trend. But good beer has turned a corner in the US and I can't see it turning back at this point. Shrinking a bit? Sure, but people have the taste for it now.

 

Does this brewery have the the name of a fictional fighter, and the name of a dam in it's name?

 

I knew it wouldn't be hard for PNW people to figure out who I was talking about.