Established breweries vs. beer trends.

“How does a brewery like Russian River (or even Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head, and Lagunitas for that matter) stay relevant?”

I do not think that Russian River needs to worry here since their business plan is different than the other breweries you mentioned. Russian River has purposefully chosen to not greatly expand and even with a second brewery they can’t produce enough beer to meet demand.

Permit me to discuss Sierra Nevada as an example. In 2016 sales of their flagship beer (SNPA) were down. In 2016 they made a decision to add two new beers to their year round portfolio: Sidecar (which is brewed using oranges) and Tropical IPA. It appears that Sierra Nevada thinks that adding more beers to its portfolio of products is one way to “stay relevant”.



“Do they change the beer they're making and re-brand?”

Well, I already discussed this for the case of Sierra Nevada. Now, let me discuss Stone. Last year Stone made a decision to ‘update’ Stone IPA, which they rebranded via Stone IPA v1.1. Stone also reworked their releases for 2017 such that is very, very much hoppy beers. It seems that Stone decided that the path to financial success in 2017 is to service the hoppy craft beer market.



“Do they even need to?”

Again, let’s discuss Stone here. Last year Stone laid off something like 5% of their employees. My guess is that Stone really thinks they need to do ‘something’ in 2017 in order to improve their financial performance.

Green Flash also recently had lay-offs. I would guess that they are also thinking about how to do things differently in 2017.



“Do they stick with what they know, but try experimenting with some more trendy styles?”

For the case of Stone Brewing it seems that they are concentrating on their ‘core’ of hoppy beers. Sierra Nevada also added two hoppy beers to their portfolio.


“Does it even matter?”

For those breweries that would prefer to not lay-off more employees I would think this matters greatly.


Cheers!

 

Nice response from Jack. I'll add a few things:

Large breweries like Lagunitas and Founder's are releasing more and more funky beer variations, which some have speculated as them trying to bring folks over to the craft beer community (Founder's sugary-sweet barrel aged series), or prove their ability to nail multiple styles at a very reasonable cost (Lagunitas One-Hit series).

With people still talking about High-Westified, Waldo, and other One-Hit series from Lagunitas, I think it's safe to say breweries do have to adapt their business plan and beer line over time, but that doesn't not mean they'll have to add NE IPAs to their line up to stay alive.

Any business that wants to continue to thrive will need to adapt in some manner. New regulations, technology, trends, etc. create a world where businesses need to adapt in order to continue to pay the rent.

 

I agree that adding murky IPAs is not a requirement but in my opinion this year's Lagunitas Born Yesterday was a so called 'NE' style IPA and it was AWESOME!! I bought several 6-packs of that beer. Even though I continuously stored those beers cold, they didn't hold up all that well for my palate. About 1.5 months post the bottling date those beers started to 'turn' (and needless to say not for the better).

Generally speaking the so called 'NE' style IPA is a delicate beer style. Perhaps best left to local, smaller breweries or a one-off/seasonal release by the large(r) distributing craft breweries (e.g., Lagunitas Born Yesterday).

Cheers!

 

As long as it continues to be profitable to do status quo, then there's no reason to change.

On the other hand, there are definitely breweries out there where their market share is slipping quickly (see: Speakeasy Ales & Lagers) and they need to evolve or die.

 

Ah, yes. I totally forgot about that beer. It was absolutely delicious. I worried I paid too much to try a 6 pack when I only saw one pack, but I'm glad to say the WBAYDN threads around then led me correct.

 

I believe there will always be those "classics" that are timeless. I believe those beers are so classically great that some brewers may not feel a drop in sale in lieu of the trendy beers.

For example. Stone to my knowledge does not like those juice bomb milkshakes Hense a quote from tangerine express "this is not one of those orange juice ipas. We like our ipa to taste like beer" something like that. And they are still incredibly popular.

Some on the other hand like dogfish are coming out with new releases after what seems forever since a new recipe.

 

I wonder if Stone could develop a stable (i.e., a beer that would last on shelves) Milkshake type beer if they would change their tune here?

Cheers!

 

I would definitely try it. The quote I mentioned is not exactly but something along those lines. I know they have done unfiltered ipas but can't remember a new England style if you will call them that.

 

I drank a glass of one of the Unfiltered Enjoy By releases. That beer was good but I personally did not notice any difference from the 'regular' (i.e., filtered) Enjoy By beers.

In my opinion Stone does not produce beers of the so called 'NE' style IPA. The only large(r) production brewery that has made this sort of beer is Laguntas for this year's release of Born Yesterday.

The so called 'NE' style IPA is generally not suited for long term storage (i.e., sitting in wholesale distributor warehouses, on beer store shelves,...). Maybe someday one of the breweries (e.g., Sierra Nevada) will develop brewing techniques to address the beer stability issues of these beers? Until then your best bet is to travel to Tired Hands for these beers.

Cheers!

P.S. Or maybe Brotherton would be more convenient for you?

 

Russian River is an interesting one. When I joined BA they were the brewery on here. If you roll up the current active thread content surrounding the top five or so most talked about breweries - that volume existed solely around RR. The front page of beer talk on the forums (was it called beer talk or something else back then; I forget) usually had 5+ separate discussions around either comparing or acquiring PtE. They were very much at the forefront of conversation.

Fast forward six years and while lots has changed in craft beer and on BA - it doesn't appear much has with RR.

Before I get flamed - I'M NOT SAYING THAT IS A BAD THING WHATSOEVER. There's no reason for them to mess with something that works. And I'm glad they don't feel compelled / are confident enough in their existing product not to make an orange juice-like beer, or a double rum barrel aged imperial stout brewed with artisanal coffee, rare chilis and a variety of vanilla only harvested once a decade.

And an additional disclaimer is that while I've visited a few times, it's been probably around 4 years since I last went. So if there has been a big line-up change or something (didn't appear to be from a quick google), then my bad.

But, even though by all accounts it seems that they're still very popular / not keeping up with demand / often long waits at the brewery, it's almost as if they're frozen at one point in time. Sort of like a mecca for the pinnacle of craft brewing circa 2010. From the look of the place, to the ~18 beer flights, to the food they serve (cheesy bites), it's all heading to blast from the past territory. And there's much to love about that. And thanks to what Vinnie & co have done for the beer scene, they can (and deserve to) dine out on that for a long time. But I just wonder what their long, long term plan is - because surely at some point in time changing tastes etc will outweigh RR's legacy.

 

I find that indeed brotherton and also bolero snort are my go to ipas when looking for the NE ipa haze. Cheers.

 

I honestly think that you can make a different IPA every time. I like the brewers that have a stick to it attitude about the styles they want to bring to you. Like ellicottville and their fruit beer. They also make a terrific oktoberfest. That's a big part of beer is the brewers love for what he or she is doing. When I look at styles on the shelf I tend to look for favorites and that keeps me fortunately in my regionals. I have saranac who seems to keep up with craft beer just fine. Even when I did not buy their case of IPA's they still had one. You stay relevant by brewing lots of beer.

 

Yay.. Another NE IPA thread. The whole world doesn't feel the need to drink hazy juice bombs exclusively.

 

In a way. The larger breweries have to factor in what the smaller ones are doing when trends in beer uptick their sales. Russian RIver is not actually involved in expanding. They've hit their fill, and seem to be quite content staying at that capacity. ANother example of a brewery with a limited market is New Glarus. They have their market already set, and they can still grow sales in it for some reason. They seem to get interested in newer styles every now and again that come along, and may eventually have a go at making this oat heavy interpretation of the IPA that is currently trending. Surly I can see getting a little wild over them simply because they are already an IPA heavy facility. 3fff as well.
Niche buying in the craft world is always changing. It may impact sales of core brands, a bit. No one mentions Lagunitas IPA, but it's percentage of the breweries overall sales is still nothing to scoff at. These breweries have a large enough portfolio overall, and also can be diverse in their output in ways the smaller breweries often times cannot. Lagunitas could afford to annoy people with how it released Sucks while also affording to invest in a separate piece of equipment for 32 oz bombers all because the owner thought it'd look cool to have them roaming around in that section of the cooler.
Overall, there are so many more breweries and more options with more buyers, that these beers are a very small part of the overall sales, for now.
The larger breweries are probably seeing how the sales of these styles are increasing in barrel output. They'd also be testing them out on the pilot system, and getting feedback on them at the taproom. You can bet a few more will be on the market soon enough.

 

Good article discussing just this type of thing.

https://www.bevnet.com/magazine/issue/2017/over-the-hill

 

But somehow the ones who don't like it feel compelled to constantly let us know it, and constantly disparage the style.

"Yayyyy, I'm soooooo cooooool I don't drink those NEIPAs, no man. I'm no hipster or group follower, but what a bunch of foolish trendoids those folks are who enjoy that style of beer I don't like, and look how cool I seem now that I am posting about it."

 

I like what Foothills in Winston Salem does with their IPAs. They have their basics such as Hoppyum and Jade, but they also do an IPA of the month. Each month they feature a different hop or hop combo, and it's been successful. Your also assured of the beer being fresh. Please less of the watermelon and guava in my IPAs, try crafting the final product by mixing and tweaking the hops available. The fruit to a beer is a shortcut IMO, I can do without them. I will admit the Grapefruit Sculpin was pretty good, but you can achieve about the same results from hops alone too.