"Does American craft brewing have a quality problem?"

Seriously in a market this crowded average will get you nowhere...

 

Good, I say let the process of weeding out begin and let the cream rise to the top...it won't be the first cleansing & it won't be the last.

 

Absolutely, in a free market it is not our job as individuals to judge an entire industry due to a cluster of lack luster breweries. It is our job however, to cast our vote by means of buying beer that we like and supporting the brewers and their companies that perform. I can't vouch for local beer in any area but mine. Are all 100+ North Carolina breweries and brew pubs world class? No, but there are many great beers coming out of this state. Bottom line is don't buy beer that you don't like and eventually, as sad as it will be for some, the bad ones will cease to exist.

 

@prevatt28 knows how a consumer driven economy works: “Bottom line is don't buy beer that you don't like and eventually, as sad as it will be for some, the bad ones will cease to exist.” In other words, the craft beer consumers will select the ‘winners’ and the ‘losers”.

Cheers to prevatt28!

P.S. The other option for the bad ones is to adapt and produce the types of beers that craft beer consumers like and are willing to purchase.

 

This is true in any business. Adapt or die. Only the really big boys can survive bad product (did I hear someone say "Bud Clamato?")

 

I'm not getting all this bagging on Stone. They have always done right by me. Although I'd prefer a Ballast Point Sculpin or Big Eye anyday. Give me one example of Stone's "Bad" beers.

 

we need folks to go back to making a Pale ale not an American IPA with a pale ale name. master the basics of English ales FIRST. or German ale/lagers. Belgians last, as they are hard.....to get right, frankly no 1 is the states has done it right yet IMHO.

but boy do we know how to overload the hops, I am surprised there is not a new hop shortage....

I tried every new brewery in the states of Georgia and Florida over the last year, it was my mission... and though they keep opening new ones. most of them frankly suck or have plain bland beer, that I can brew better drunk....
again just my 2 cents, but most of are waste of money....

 

If those are all 5 gallon batches that's ALOT of beer.

 

Great article. I agree with most of it as well. I don't envy people who are able to break into the industry with little experience. It can be intimidating. I realize that my dream of being a brewer or running a brewery just isn't feasible. There are too many people getting into that now.

 

By BA's standards, their bad beers have been recently Crime and Punishment (both disasters), Coconut IPA (not a bad beer, just void of coconut), and Suede Porter (a bit of a mess, but it wasn't the worst thing I've had). Their saison isn't great but I'd say Stone hits WAY more than they miss. Especially for a huge brewer like themselves that innovates as much as they do venturing into unfamiliar territories from time to time, I think they do quite well.

 

Yes and no - I honestly think they're a little threatened by all of the new upstarts. No, not all of them will be good, but some are exceptional. Some taste pretty damn amateur - but some are killing it!

 

There was an article a few months back in a BA magazine I read that highlighted this debate. I was hoping to strum up a conversation about it to see what fellow beer enthusiasts thought. What are you're thoughts on this explosion of growth?

In the past 5 years, we've seen the number of craft breweries pretty much double. With such an explosion of growth, it makes one think where all the "talent" came from. What professional experience or education do these new brewery owners and/or brewers possess? Are most of these new breweries opened by homebrewers wanting to take their passion to the next level? Are some opened by experienced brewers? By new brewers with professional brewing education?

While brewing is very much a form of art, there are fundamental evidence-based scientific practices that ensure quality beer is produced. Such brewing theory knowledge and experience with commercial production and packaging I would think would be paramount to creating a quality product and therefore succeeding as a business.

A trend I have noticed lately is a number of new(er) breweries that are seemingly neglecting the fundamentals of the brewing process and instead focus on the secondary aspects of the beer that illicit more buzz and hype, such as fruiting, spicing, culinary treating, and barrel aging flawed base beers. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the craft beer boom we've seen.. I just expect to see a "trimming of the fat" in years to come, where craft is re-oriented to an even higher standard of quality.

Thoughts?

 

I sure hope you're right about better quality control. I always feel like I don't drink enough local stuff, but since most of the new breweries around here don't date their stuff, and I prefer every style fresh, I rarely buy from those breweries. However, one recently updated their packaging this month, and when I saw some of the new packs at the shop Wednesday, I bought a couple 6's.

Cracked one open and poured it the other night, and as I started smelling it, uh oh.. buttery diacetyl.

 

Food for thought:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...t-necessarily-great-for-beer-drinkers.198141/

 

Great question. It reminds me of the mid 90s when the cigar craze hit the U.S. You went from shelves being filled predominately with expatriate Cuban brands (Hoya de Monterey, Partagas, Artuero Fuentes, etc.) to hundreds of new brands. Some of the new brands were very good; some were crap. Demand caused prices to skyrocket. One of my favorites, Partagas No. 10, went from $3 to $10 a stick almost overnight. Even some of the good ones failed, and they all faced dramatically limited shelf space.

Sound familiar?

 

I am sure in some areas there are really great brewers. You said about what many others have said already see @drtth post.

Now if you get local, each area is different in some ways, but in my experience in the south so far, its very similar.

To me it seems its get a beer out there before the wave is over.

most of what I tried is not very good.

 

My thought is that probably everything you mentioned in your post was discussed in this thread:http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...-craft-brewing-have-a-quality-problem.168942/

Cheers!

 

Kaizen. Why stop trying to make it better? Don't the people deserve it?

 

No.

It may have a creativity problem in that it's perhaps too wedded to variations on the same central IPA-centric dream.

It may make far, far too many big beers that, in addition to being costly, are so intoxicating that it's impossible to have more than one without being legally drunk.

But, no, I don't see a quality issue here, in that I run across very few core offerings that are just plain bad (I've had more than a few flat bottled of badly-corked beer, however -Unibroue, I'm looking at you - another kind of quality problem) . I do find miserable examples of experimental brews that never should have been tried. And I find lots of craft beers that I don't find terribly interesting. But I chalk that up less to the quality of a particular beer, than to the fact that in a sea of IPAs, etc., it's awfully hard to carve out a unique niche for yourself.

I certainly do not expect that '2/3' of them will close any time soon. The large majority of the craft breweries in the US are very small, local breweries (thank God). It's easy to forget that when you go to a good bottle shop and see row upon row of craft beers. These represent a tiny fraction of the craft breweries in existence. That invisible majority sells what they make within a very short distance of the place where it was brewed. It's expensive to ramp up production and get into bottling and regional distribution. As long as those breweries continue to make a go of it (i.e., stay profitable) by keeping it local, they won't be closing in large numbers. If those that make sub-par beer do close, good riddance. But that no more reflects any larger trend that American craft beers have a quality problem, than does the fact that shitty restaurants that close (and many do) means that American restaurants have a quality problem. In fact, quite the opposite could be argued. When the beer drinking population becomes discerning enough to not buy boring beer, it'll pretty much ensure that American craft beer gets even better. That is unless the so-called bubble of enthusiasm over craft beer pops; another stupid theory, IMHO. As long as demand remains strong (and I've seen nothing that implies it will not) it's hard to come up with a reason why the quality and variety of the beers we'll be offered by the American craft beer industry won't improve and expand, as well.

 

Most of it is unbalanced garbage. Although there are a lot of great craft beers, one has to keep in mind that an overwhelming majority of brews even produced by great breweries are still just mediocre.