"Does American craft brewing have a quality problem?"

http://theweek.com/article/index/26...aft-beer-ruin-the-booming-craft-beer-industry

 

No it wont.

 

I think you have misrepresented this linked article. The article is about the quality problem with small and start-up brewers, not about the bubble bursting. In fact, in the conclusion, it states the opposite,

I think it is a serious article about a serious topic that craft brewers should take seriously!

 

Me, too. In my head I was about 150 words and twenty exclamation points into my reaction to the original Pipeworks post before I realized...

[Sipping Ninja vs. Unicorn at the moment--and fortunate to have been able to obtain it. Christmas season shopping stripped my local bottle shop of every Pipeworks offering (Sure Bet; Nelson Sauvin; and, usually, many more). Only an emergency shipment provided the N vs. U.]

 

This post jist keeps on a' truckin', Mr. Kidden.

And yet, 8 months later, what do we know for sure?

- The number of "Craft Beer Breweries" has expanded, and at an exponential rate.
- The number of Stock Keeping Units (SKU/s for short, just so we're all on the same page) has also expanded.
- There is more: "infected" and infected, and Past-Code, Craft™ Beer on the shelves than ever before.
- The sales of Craft Beer accounts for +/- 19% of the TOTAL beer market in the continental/territories of the U.S.A.

I am personally torn between "Ticking" a new brand/six-pack (and in Minnesota I have that luxury, vice E.G. the Pennsylvania Case Law straglehold) for the sake of trying something new and staying with the "tried and true." But as a budget-conscious Geezer, the latter suits me 90% of the time.

I expect very little to change in 2015...

 

This why Bud is the king of beers and you sheep drink piss.

 

As another Geezer, one thing I like is the expansion of the craft brewers here in MN creates new beers (that are NOT overpriced, by and large!) faster than I can get to them. And, I'm just talking about what is available in bottles/cans. Lord, if I ever get into growler fills, it truly will be never-ending!

I still pick up a Summit EPA 12 pack from time to time, though.

 

I don't think its a "problem", per say. I think the industry is just growing really fast. Like most things, "consistent inconsistency" eventually weeds itself out. I live in St. Pete and we happen to have many budding breweries around here. Some are great. Some are boring. Some are inconsistent. So my frequenting habits are dictated accordingly.

And besides, it makes me really appreciate when I get a really great beer that I've never had or maybe never even heard of.

 

There's too much on the market, too many choices, too much old product sitting on the shelf. If it doesn't sell it sits, and when a guy buys old stale beer it sucks, well ya. This is a completely different topic from the opening post, but how many mediocre IPA's are there out there? They're mediocre fresh, old they're a drain pour. Tired of turning over dated cans and its 8 month old, well how about the undated shit out there? So yes there a major craft brewing problem.

 

“…too much old product sitting on the shelf.” I have been a little frustrated on this topic of late. I am concerned there is not an easy answer here. The overall beer distribution process has so many moving parts:

· Breweries project demand for their various beer brands and produce certain amounts accordingly

· Wholesale distributors purchase beer brands from a large portfolio of breweries (again based upon projected demand)

· Beer retailers order beer brands from wholesale distributors based upon their judgment on what beer consumers want

Of the above it is my guess that the brewery/wholesale distributor is the ‘weak link’. I have seen too many older beers showing up at my local retailers fresh off the truck. For example, I noticed a ‘new’ stack of SNPA at one of my local retailers a week ago and those beers were already 3+ months old. That retailer has very quick turnover so there is no doubt that they received these beers with this amount of age from the wholesale distributor. I do not anticipate that SNPA will just ‘sit’ at this retailer but let’s suppose this beer was an IPA or DIPA and the customers are similar to BAs who demand hoppy beers be only 1-2 months old. These types of consumers would refuse to buy these 3+ month old beers and it is easy to see that in a few months these beer will still be ‘sitting’ and then will be 5+ months old.

I also discussed this topic here: http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...h-west-coast-ipas-in-snj.238644/#post-3088345

Cheers!

 

It has been awhile. A long while. And I apologize in advance if this has been tackled in the previous ten pages, but with possible repetitiveness added, one huge contributing factor to the debate of "mediocrity" coupled with the issue of "quality" at least in my neck of the woods are start up distributors. These new entrants have been wonderful in that they open the door to beers that otherwise would likely not have made it to the market. So what is the problem you say? Entire portfolio's built on the new next big thing are not going to be sustainable, not in the current craft market place.

A brewery trusts their shipments will be taken care of but when a distributor is trying to grow and maintain its relationships with the retail market it HAS to bring something new to the table constantly. And in the wake is the brand before or the couple of brands before.

And I would be clear, I don't believe that this happening purposefully. That is to say, I do not think that a new fledgling distributor has intent to do damage, it is simply the market conditions.

 

I think it takes any brewery when starting up some time to get it right and some never do. There are one time screw ups such as gushers, infections, bad materials, etc. and ongoing technical issues like not adjusting your water. In this past week I uncorked a tremendous gusher from Great Divide that was bottled on June 6, 2014 - I don't think age would cause the gushing. Even when they get it right, too often sending a beer from your brewery to the consumer is a lot like sending your kid to kindergarten for the first time. There are all kinds of bad things that can happen on the way to school and that can happen once they get there. Yesterday I opened a skunky bottle of Stone's Stochasticity™ Project Master of Disguise. I was only 6 weeks old but the bottle was sitting at the top of a vertical display basked in fluorescent light for six weeks (the top beer in the column) and it was probably my bad for picking the top bottle and the retailer's bad for not rotating the bottles in the column. I have had Sam Adams, Deschutes, Widmer, Avery all served from bad beer lines in the past six months.

As much as we like to bad mouth A&B, Adolphus Busch was a maniac for quality every step of the process and would show up at bars and other establishments to make sure his beer was being served right and the Busches who followed him (especially Gussie I and III) pursued quality with the same fanaticism. They would pull out of date beer off the shelves and insisted on refrigeration to make sure their beer maintained its quality. If the industry does not want to be owned by the likes of AB InBev then they need to remember the Busch's mania for quality.

 

I think quality is always an issue, it has been since I started to drink craft beer circa-1980.

To me, quality issues mean technical faults. If a beer is not open to question as a technical matter, even though it may suck as an example of style, that is a different issue. It isn't unrelated, but is a different issue. There were always great, middling and poor beers and always will be. But someone trying to make a great beer shouldn't be hobbled by technical problems and that is where "product support, information and education" come in as Todd states above. I agree with him too on the point of honesty. Too often people don't want to say what they think for fear of embarrassing the brewer but they may be doing more harm than good. There is a way to be diplomatic, as well.

Tech faults I have experienced since craft beer started include damp paper oxidation (probably the biggest problem); acetic or lactic development not intended; yeast infection; the taste of cleaning chemicals in the beer; a "worty" taste from (probably) improper mashing temperature; a weird estery taste sometimes with a garbagey smell (excessively high fermentation temperatures?); a stale, cereal taste, probably from malt not stored properly or too old.

Probably sometimes it is due to the condition of the serving equipment at the bar or the way it stores or rotates kegs, but in general I think it is the beer itself doing this.

Producers need to do everything they can to overcome these problems. I'd rather drink a clean, mass market beer than a potentially great craft beer ruined by damp paper oxidation.

Style faults, for lack of a better term, are a different matter and more contentious. But that is important too. The other day I had a dunkel that was awkward and very fruity-tasting, it reminded me of a home-brewed ale by someone just starting out. Lagers that smell and taste overwhelmingly of DMS or hydrogen sulfide (even). Stouts with a taste of scorched raw cereals. Beers so cloudy from rough filtration that the predominant taste is yeast. And so one. But different issue.

 

That can be a problem but date coding on the label or can can do much to reduce risks for the consumer. In general, I find anything bought within a couple of months or so from packaging is usually reliable. Even if it has been stored badly, it will usually be okay. I sometimes won't buy beers not coded so as to tell the production (or at least packaging) date.

 

I guess looking back at what I wrote I was not really giving a good picture. When you bring a brand to market, you want to move it. You make noise about it. Run events. Special tappings, etc. The problem with many of the very new smaller very eclectic distributors, IMHO, to survive they really can't live off of a few entrants alone. They are trying to carve their own niche to bring more interested breweries to their doorstep, in the process they are not paying adequate attention to nurturing their portfolio. And say for example if you are a brewery in Florida and you are sending your beer to for sake of argument New Jersey, you don't really get much of a shot to make sure it is being taken care of, you maybe have a couple of sales people and they need to be everywhere. You are counting on you distributor. Who is looking for the next big thing, likely in someone else cupboard.

 

At least Mitch isn't putting his fingers in his ears unlike Greg Koch.

 

Okay I see that's a different point than I was addressing. Distribution, which varies with each market, is key to business success. Not easy to do well.

 

I work for a macro (cool the comments folks, none of us would be here without them) and there are folks that make high 5 and 6-figure salaries to ensure quality and consistency.
Move down a level to New Belgium and Boston Beer, among many, and I'm sure they have QA on a similar scale.
I love popup breweries, have my opinions on every one I visit, and know that the consumer will ultimately determine the success or failure of each site.

 

I am all for quality and consistency, but there comes a point where it adds little value. The whole point of it was to showcase flavor and quality. When there is little flavor, the perfect presentation matters little, IMO, other than making something tolerable a shade more so.

 

I posit that all beers' perceived quality has been knocked down a notch. The only quality problem I see is that we (very broadly, the beer enthusiast/geek set) are so tragically, wonderfully spoiled by the vast ocean of choices that great beer has become average beer, and God help the average beer, much of which has been damned to chain restaurant mediocrity Hell. Actual mediocre beer (think BMC stuff)... Drain cleaner. Frankly, I'm 100% good with this status quo: we are awash in great beer. I can get great beers from the likes of Sierra Nevada, Deschutes, New Belgium, Sam Adams, and others at a kickass prices. Mostly, I can honestly say that since I've become a BA (about 1.5 years now), about 90% of the craft beers I've had (~300 ballpark) have been at least "good" beers, so I guess I just fail to see any real sweeping quality issues... Amongst medium to large breweries.

Now, as far as the article goes, it looks very much like they're talking about very small breweries and fresh upstarts, and I have no doubt the master brewers are spot-on in their assessment. It really doesn't surprise me at all that those types of establishments don't have their QC in check for whatever reason (money issues, ignorance, arrogance, etc), but to say that American craft beer as a single entity has a quality problem... I don't think so.