Do you "drink local"?

People definitely have a “problem” with the grass is always greener effect. It’s human nature. We are always wanting more/better, and it is easy to feel that way. That said, I’ve never experienced this based on town, but psychology research shows the feeling is pervasive.

You also brought up a second concept inadvertently, which is when people notice something that seems unusual (or uncommon) and then notice it more. That’s another psychological principle at play, although I forget the name. It is most often demonstrated when someone buys a new car. They will often say that they had never seen that model before! Then, once they own it, they start to pick up on seeing it (although if it is more uncommon, you can only see it as frequent as it actually occurs). People will often notice these items in clusters (which is literally referred to as clustering in the literature), and comes from studies (if I recall correctly) that originally looked at people that forage for food. They would find none, then a group, then none, and so on. When they looked more carefully it was clear that the items were not actually clustered, it’s just that once you find one you are more aware and looking harder/more carefully and thus find more in the immediate area more quickly (ie they appear to be clustered when they are not).

 

Thanks for the assist, Jack!

 

I can't say I've observed the "grass is always greener" effect in the beer scene much these days. There's the tickers quest for newness that drives some people to seek distant markets for sure. But most of the people I know seem to have a slight bias FOR their local beer, not against it

 

I will say that I don't have a "walking distance" (regardless of how it is interpreted) brewery near me, but there is one that is just outside of the five-ish mile radius. To me, local is more like any place I'll drive to in "day trip" mode, and that includes a fair amount of real estate for me here in New England.

So - expand local to mean in immediately surrounding towns. Sure - that now means there's a a couple handsful of breweries and some of them put out very decent product, some are OK/average, most have been mediocre. But I will try and buy local if I like the product. Maybe that is only one beer out of the many they try to produce. I'm fairly particular, I admit, but with limited consumption as part of the picture, having a beer takes on a different meaning.

So if I couple the somewhat meager surroundings with typically drinking two beers a week, that makes my outlook different. I'm not much interested in mediocre or even average beer when I can make my "neighborhood" within 50 miles of home and drink outstanding, even world-class, ales and lagers. If I expand a bit more I have a true embarrassment of riches from the New England area, mostly available at the package stores I frequent. Said stores usually have a good selection of regional and semi-nationally distributed brews (Founders, Boulevard, etc). Consistency and my own satisfaction with the product matters a whole lot more than supporting a local who's "giving it a good try" or "figuring things out" - not saying I won't give them chances, but I have too many easy alternatives that allow me to avoid repeatedly running into a brick wall. If I was drinking volume like I was when I was young(er) and foolish the bottle contents wouldn't even matter as long as it was cheap and included alcohol, but those days are thankfully well in the rear view.

What's local anyway? If a brewery is ten feet from my driveway and imports their grain from Europe or even the midwestern US and hops from Europe, New Zealand, or Yakima Valley are they really "local"? Or do they just happen to brew nearby? The "neighborhood brewery" one can walk to is certainly a great concept and it has been discussed before. However, it's hard to pull off in rural areas where support and population density may be lacking or inconsistent. If I lived in Framingham and was ten minutes from Jack's Abby or lived in the neighborhood around the industrial park corner in Portland, ME I'd think differently. While I do a lot of "try me" purchases from lots of breweries and tap room visits are something we enjoy, when it comes down to it I'm taking less of a chance buying even a new beer from the known quantities.

 

I'd do the same thing, even though I am not totally religious when it comes to date checking - getting better, but still far from thoroughly scrupulous. That does add yet another dimension to the equation, however. Maybe not as much for me - I'll still take a little older Jack's Abby or Allagash brew over most of the "local" products. If we go back to the very short drive model, there's just not much that close to me that I'd call a "go to". In most cases I can read about a release from one of my preferred breweries and it'll typically drop in my area a couple weeks later, so even then it doesn't make a huge difference (assuming it is distributed vs. tap room only and the beer folks in the store manage their inventories).

My wife had her AP environmental science seniors do a study on various terms like local and organic as part of their semester long them on basically farm to fork. It was amazing what they found and how much data they could find (carbon footprints, diesel fuel usage, miles to market, true sourcing, cross contamination, etc) demonstrating the vague nature of those terms. It was like an infinite onion of information - the more they dug the more they found and even Mrs. Rose the Skeptic was truly astonished. They essentially concluded that in quite a few cases it comes down to marketing words. Hmmm..."craft beer", "independent craft beer"... (NB: before I need the asbestos long johns, I did say "quite a few" and did not say all since "quite a few" were also legit claims).

Off topic: You know I played heavily in the Cellaruary thread - I finally did a seek and destroy level inventory and found at least a dozen more totally forgotten candidates. I even did some executive level decision drainpours (which I never ever do) based on style and instincts - ultimately justified by the quick sip before dumping...never once thinking what I would do with a pile of 22 ounce open bottles if they had tasted decent...

 

I try to support local. Thin Man is my go to lately for accessible BA imperial stouts, and Mortalis for some of the more hyped and limited stouts of the same ilk. They are both kind of “adolescent” age wise, but they are big on collabs and learning things from what I can tell. Some of the OG brewers are stuck in ruts or follow every new trend, and the offerings are usually nothing beyond one and dones. New breweries pop up quickly now, so it’s difficult to know about them (no real beer media presence other than a FB / Meta site….and I’m not on FB…) much less try them all. Plus, they usually all opt for the quick-turn-around beers, a.k.a. Yellow, so I’m not too inclined to go out of my way. Now bring me a Jackie O’s dark, barrel-aging monster brewery, and I’ll just sit all day waiting for the next offering.

 

Local as in-state? Sure
Local as in same city? Nah

 

Where I live there are so many local great breweries and I don’t mind supporting them. I do like beer from breweries outside my area but I tend to stick to small breweries.

 

@UcDru and @mervmurry are Mr. Cincinnati for the beer scene. Maybe they can give you some help.

 

all the time, except for the beers that I buy that aren't local.

 

In regards to your BA Stout and BW comment...I'm curious how many of these you've tried...A short list off the top of my head...

Highgrain Brewing Co. Maul (& variants)

Rhinegeist BA Ink (& variants)

Rhinegeist Mushhushshu

50 West 10&2 BBA

50 West Death Valley Shootout (& variants)

Streetside Brewery Demogorgon (& variants)

Taft's Brewing Company Big Silky ( & variants)

Listermann Brewing Company Cranium ( & variants)

Madtree Brewing Company BA Axis Mundi ( & variants)

Nine Giant Brewing Heavy Metal Drummer ( & variants)

 

I buy a lot of local beer if they distribute their product, I don't go to the actual breweries themselves. However, I don't strictly limit myself to local beer - I buy what I like to drink and luckily, most of it tends to be local. I define local as a MA brewery and that could mean Eastern MA, Central MA, or Western MA. I also like a lot of Vermont beer but i don't think I would call it local.

If they don't distribute their beer and force me to have to go to their brewery to buy it, then I simply don't buy their beer - I can think of one very well known example in my immediate area. Too much BS to get their beer and I'm not so enamored by their beers to go out of my way to get them.

 

I was pretty close to 100% local for a year or so but then I got a hankering for an SNPA…one thing led to another and I remembered how much I liked Lagunitas IPA…I’m probably about 70% local 30% other.

if Comrade Brewing ever got into packaging it would go back up to 90% local though. All my out-of-state WCIPA purchases would go to Superpower.

 

Where I am if I drank exclusively "local", I would not drink very much at all. I am certainly on the lookout for quality beers in the state of Florida, but I'll enjoy any beer from the four corners of the world as long as it is quality.

 

I try to "drink local" as much as I can, but not to the exclusion of brews from elsewhere. Practically speaking, this means that when I'm trying to decide what new beer to try on a given week, I'll look first for a local interesting offering before expanding the map.

 

Five years ago I would have said I buy what’s good without much regard to it being local or not. Today I buy almost exclusively local beer, but that’s largely a function of my local beer being generally better and fresher than non-local options. I really have no need to venture outside a 100 mile radius of breweries. It’s a good time to be a craft beer drinker.