"Does American craft brewing have a quality problem?"

"A year ago at a tasting of Evil Genius Brewing’s IPA at a local beer store I had the unfortunate experience of drinking an IPA that absolutely reeked of diacetyl. I took a little sip (from a small pour) and handed the beer back to the Evil Genius sales rep (who happened to be the younger brother of one of the owners of Evil Genius). I handed the remainder of the beer sample and provided an education to the young fellow on what diacetyl is and the likely cause of its production at their contracting brewery."

Cheers!

 

Well, that settles it.

 

I think the truth is in the middle. Flaws are more glaring when the flavors are gentler and more subtle (which is why the Seibel tasting kit advises something flavorless like Miller Lite), but the idea that you can turn a flawed beer into a good beer by dumping in a bushel of hops is flatly wrong. The beer will still be noticeably flawed. It may harder to identify the flaw, and the beer might be less terrible as a result of the flaw than it would have been otherwise, but it will still be flawed.

 

OK now that Jack id'ed (sufficiently clearly for somebody 2000 miles away) who ABC is, I looked at the place reviews. For the H-burg facility, BA rating = 90, or outstanding.

(Stakem gave it a 3.4, an rDev of -15%, but with a quality rating of 2)

I begin to see why Jack is so stubborn about his point.

 

I don't disagree with the degree of your opinion. But as someone who as tasted plenty beers from brand new home brewers, start up breweries, and what I would consider poor breweries (if I may judge), a consistent theme is that their IPAs and stouts tend to come out better with fewer glaring problems than lighter beers and lagers. I admit to being somewhat biased on this topic as well, after hearing several well regarded brewers espouse this point.

 

I'm not so sure it works in such an analytical way with consumers, which is how I experienced things. It's more like, after a certain point, you just say "the hell with it, I'm sticking with what I know from now on" and stop even considering new beers. It could have been anywhere from 30-60%, but it's more the piling up of bad beer after bad beer over months and months that becomes the issue. At least, that's how I went through those days. Plus- there was still plenty of reliable and great beer still available and easy to fall back on.

Even to this day, I won't get something new until I've checked it out first. That is easier to do nowadays, so there is a point to be made for different circumstances leading to different results.

As to what Gatza is saying, I am just reading that as an anecdotal way to broach the subject, and that things have gotten to the point with him where things need to be said and done after one too many disappointments. The most telling thing about all this to me is that the owners/brewers seem to be clueless about their flawed product, even more so than any percentage you can break things down into.

Hopefully this opening conversation is part of a continuing way of dealing with these things productively.

 

A close friend of mine owns a brewpub here in town that has been in business -- quite successfully -- for almost 20 years. In the beginning, his beers were basic, if well executed, 90's "craft" styles: pale ale, ESB, Porter, Stout. He is an educated brewer who is professionally trained (worked for a number of years at a fairly well-known brewery in Washington State).

His place was the sole survivor of the 90's shakeout in our town, with 3 similar places going under. In the past 5 years or so, he has had some problems with beer stone and what seems to be some stressed yeast and/or slight oxidation. From all indications, his sales have not slipped at all, and may, in fact, have gone up. Most of his regular customers -- who come for the food, music, atmosphere, and beer -- have stuck with him. He also has an excellent location, right between the university and the downtown government and business offices.

But a small subset who have begun drinking more of the newer "craft" beers have recently started grumbling, with many saying that he has "lost it" and the beers were actually very poor in comparison to what they could now find, with increasing ease, elsewhere. Surprisingly, no one -- seriously not a single person -- ever told him their thoughts about the perceived (or real) slip in quality.

When he recently told me that he was making a move to start a production facility, I brought up some of the grumblings. He was shocked to hear that people were thinking such things. And he was visibly bothered, if not worried. At any rate, he's moving forward with his plans for a large (30 BBL) production facility, and is even planning to stick with his current styles.

Now, are the locals who have developed some sort of "brand loyalty" toward his product jumping ship? Apparently not. Are the newer generation giving him low marks? Absolutely. Is his move into production brewing going to be successful? I have my (serious) doubts. At any rate, his beer still has technical problems that are more or less undeniable to anyone with a bit of brewing education.

And while I wish him well, I have also told him that I think there are major risks involved in his plans and advised him to address these regardless of what direction things take. And I truly believe that if more people would speak up about the issues -- be they truly technical or simply comparative to the better examples of the styles -- he will ultimately be better off for it. I think the same applies to any new or established "craft" brewer that is having even the most minor quality problems.

 

That's a fair point, I won't spend more than $5/bottle blind on a brewery I haven't heard of. More than that and I look it up first.

Yeah, I see defensiveness and unwillingness to learn/change as a bigger flaw in a brewer than just starting out with poor beer.

Is there a good source (lengthy blog post or something perhaps) for more information on what went on then? I only know of it from occasional anecdotes on BA.

 

Not that I am aware of. Interestingly enough, one of the places that closed was owned by another friend of mine. As to what led to the closing, he has many reasons he can outline. But what happened among consumers is that people tried to like their beer at first, but increasingly found it to be qualitatively poor(er) than much of what they could easily obtain otherwise. Sound familiar...?

 

“…his beer still has technical problems that are more or less undeniable to anyone with a bit of brewing education.”

How is it possible that a person who has been professionally brewing for almost 20 years and “is an educated brewer who is professionally trained” is incapable of discerning technical problems in a beer? That is mystifying to me.

Cheers!

P.S. It would appear that the proposed solution of @drtth of providing education to new brewers is not a panacea?

 

Thought someone might ask this. He actually stopped drinking beer a while back, so I don't think he has anything to compare it against. Still -- like Jeff Erway mentioned about some of the beer he's presented with these days -- I, too, am shocked that he doesn't notice these things. At least 2 dozen friends of mine with no brewing experience have picked up on these flavors. (And a number of them have even advised me to go professional with my brewing and "put him out of business" since they find my stuff that much better.) The first time I mentioned it to him, he brushed it off...and still seems to do so to some degree. Perhaps he does not want to recognize the problems and is somewhat blinded by his ongoing "success" and loyal customer base. I honestly don't know.

EDIT: to be fair, he did get the beer stone problem resolved. And some of the yeast issues may be a result of him sourcing it from the place he trained at in Washington, and the issues originated there. Still, baffling.

 

As a long time homebrewer I personally am my harshest critic. I know when I ‘hit the ball out of the park’ and when I don’t. My recent Kolsch is a home run. My recent Bohemian Pilsner is too muted in terms of hop aroma for my taste but I am sure that this beer will be a winner with others.

If any of my beers suffered from diacetyl, DMS, acetaldehyde, off flavors from infections, etc. I would know it (and be disappointed).

There is one thing for poorly educated or inexperienced brewers to be ignorant of brewing flaws; they just don’t know any better.

For a professional brewer who has been brewing for almost 20 years (and has been educated) to be incapable of discerning brewing flaws is just plain baffling.

Cheers!

 

The problem I have with Gatza's anecdote, beyond the question of how representative it is of the real problem, is that he doesn't seem to add much if anything to what Jordan said the year before. (At least based on the published accounts to which we currently have access.) So while he reinforced her points, based on the account linked to in the OP he did not propose a reasonable plan to move forward, and instead chose to tell the choir yet again that there appears to be a problem and "those new kids should be listening to us." As the current BA president he could well have used the anecdote to dramatize yet again the need for the BA and top established brewers to work out a plan and proposed some positive steps towards change. So far I've seen nothing to suggest he actually did more than reiterate the theme that "Hey Sports Fans, we have a problem and those new kids won't listen to us." Which most everyone there seems to have already believed anyway.

 

How do professional U.S. "craft" brewers drink authentic German Hefeweizen for years and when brewing their own "classic" examples manage to botch things so severely? My only explanation is that despite their years of experience, they never focused on, trained toward, or worked on fully mastering the traditional base styles -- preferring instead to 'add a twist" or carve out a niche among a public simply happy to have a(ny) local "craft" option.

 

I'm wondering if there's more going on in the background. Professional whisky blenders often don't drink what they blend but still know what it tastes like from direct experience.

 

“How do professional brewers drink authentic German Hefeweizen for years and when brewing their own "classic" examples manage to botch things so severely?”

The US craft brewed Hefeweizen beers that I drink (Troegs Dreamweaver, Stoudts Heifer-n-Wheat, Sly Fox Royal Weisse, Iron Hill Brewpub Hefeweizen, etc.) are by no means botched. I could drink a Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier side-by-side with a Treoges Dreamweaver and thoroughly enjoy them both.

I bought a six-pack of Yuengling Hefeweizen (Summer Wheat) this weekend for $6.99 and even that beer is brewed very well.

I personally do not have any experience with a “botched” US brewed Hefeweizen (although I don’t doubt there are some out there).

Cheers!

 

My professors at Siebel made it clear that everyone's palettes have different thresholds to detect different flavor compounds, and there are some people who can't detect certain ones at all. That was clearly demonstrated when we had our sensory training exercises. That's why QA should involve more than just one person.

 

I am aware that some portion (I believe the value is 20%) of the population is insensitive to the presence of diacetyl in beer.

Do you have quantitative information on other compounds (e.g., DMS, acetaldehyde, etc.).

Your point of “That's why QA should involve more than just one person” is very valid. I happen to have that: it is called a wife. The descriptors she uses to describe some of my Belgian beers are things I could not type in a BA post; she is not a lover of the flavors that some Belgian yeast strains provide.

Cheers!

P.S. Perhaps I have poor appreciation of other peoples palates since I am capable of perceiving compounds like diacetyl, DMS, etc. at low levels (low ppb levels).

 

That makes a lot of sense. I will have to pay more attention to this issue going forward.

 

Nope. Just the first-hand experience of the class and huddling with 6 or 7 other people in our row... and people's tastes do change over the course of their lives, so there's that, too.