Jeff Williamson OUT at Flat Earth?

There's plenty of shit beer in cans and plenty of good beer in bottles. Attributing Surly's success to just cans is not fair.

It might sell once if it stands out but what keeps pulling people back? I buy Surly routinely, can't say the same about Flat Earth even though I have had plenty of their beers on occasion.

 

I think what he was saying is that the can art is the attraction more-so than the fact that it is canned. Could be (probably am) totally wrong.

 

Honestly the thing that keeps me from Flat Earth more than anything else, is the Large bottles instead of 6 packs. I would buy 6 packs from them pretty regular. I have liked all the beers I have tried from them (even the wildly inconsistent Black Helicopter) but getting a 22 is a bit harder, because it means I have to drink it all at once, and its just a bit more of a hassle.

I don't know why they went that route to start, but I think it has hurt them quite a bit.

 

That's what all those "+++" were for, Mr. Water Tower!
Ambleside was a classic case of ambition>$$$ and perhaps being a bit ahead of the craft beer boom. Tyranena bought all of Ambleside's brewing equipment, and if I remember correctly, I believe Fulton now has Ambleside's filter. Let's just say I learned a lot of what NOT to do during my stint there.

 

Cygnus is to the "T", a English style porter. It is great. And I would not compare it to Bender, or other American Porters, because they are not trying to be the same beer.

I agree, that it is more likely a marketing issue than anything. You don't see them at a lot of bars besides in Saint Paul.

I also don't get how people can complain about bombers from them, but not from Steel Toe. or for that matter, the 1000's of other breweries that only sell in bombers also. It baffles me...

 

Are there breweries out there that put out all of the their product in bombers at a 'low ' price point like FE does? There are breweries surviving on bombers im sure, but they are higher ABV/higher priced(Boom Island does, but they are probably too new to be bankrupt yet if things are going poor). I just cant imagine you would be able to move enough product selling one bottle at a time, even at five bucks. How many guys are going to throw a party and go buy 10 bombers for 50 bucks, when you can buy five quality six packs for the same price? I just dont care for bombers in general, but especially so for 'regular' offernings. Steel Toe IPA is top notch, but even so, i have only purchased on a couple of occasions. If it was in a six pack at ten bucks, im game. Im just spinning yarns here, maybe places like FE/Steel Toe have low enough overhead(or thought they did) to justify only doing bombers/kegs/growlers.

Its too bad for Jeff.......isnt Surly looking for another brewer currently?

 

I don't buy a lot of bombers from anyone, haven't yet bought a Steel Toe product partially because they don't disto to my neighborhood haunts yet, and partially because I'd have to buy a bomber. I haven't bought a Leech Lake product yet either for the same reason a bomber is not something I purchase often because it feels like a bit more of a special purchase. The bombers I have are for the most part big beers that I am saving for certain times, not just everyday drinking stuff. I don't buy many bombers of everyday stuff, I would buy 6 packs of it though as there are times I want 1 beer and would love something from Flat Earth, but I don't want 2 beers (which is what I consider a bomber to be)

 

Definitely not a quality issue anymore though, it seems there was an infection in a line for that while, but it hasn't been an issue since. I drink it regularly and haven't run into an issue.

Bottle dating, though, would go a long way, in any brewery.

 

FYI - At Flat Earth we specifically went out of our way to brew differently from Surly, and Summit, and Schells, and Town Hall (where Jeff came from), etc, etc. How else should a new brewery define itself? Bender and Cygnus are TOTALLY different beers. That's funny anyone would think they are similar. I would agree our marketing wasn't that great, but we just didn't have it in our budget and we were relying on our distributor to help us with sales and marketing.

 

Actually, they are bottle dated. Look on the bottom of any bomber. Jeff had been doing that for at least a year.

 

Are they really so dissimilar that the comparison is funny?

 

Cygnus is a great beer! I don't think you can it is to a "T" qn English style porter. The addition of the rye malt make this porter very unique.

 

Met Jeff at the brewery a couple of times. Nice fellow and a nice wife. Sorry to hear that they are leaving.
I can not explain why Flat Earth did not click with me. The beer was good but it did not seem to make me want to buy bombers of it very often. I would have bought a six pack from time to time like I do with Summit and Brau Bros but they never went that way. Still have a Helicopter in the fridge I will drink this week in honor of them. Good luck.

 

This is sounding like an obituary for Flat Earth. The brewery will continue on. A leason reinforced is never give up control of the business you built or else these things happen.

Since we are airing our general opinions of Flat Earth, I will air mine. When Black Helicopter is good, it is very good. Bermuda Triangle is one of my favorite domestic tripels. But my introduction to FE was the bottles. And quite frankly it was poor. Maybe one out of four bottles was good. The others were either flat or explosive. Maybe it was a good thing it was bombers so people did not remember six bad bottles they had bought instead of one. My local enthusiastically carried Flat Earth, but that quickly went away after a couple months and people refused to buy the beer. I haven't seen FE their for a few years now. And bombers are stupid. I love Steel Toe beer but I am done buying their bombers and overpriced growler fills as well. Put Size 7 in a $10 6-pack for fucksakes! You would be more successful than Surly.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess you have never worked in the small craft beer industry, nor do you understand the first thing about the economics of running a small brewery.

 

Is that all you got to bitch about in my post? And you would be right about my experience in a small brewery. Other small breweries seem to offer 6-packs at competitive prices. And bombers will always suck .

 

Jeff and I don't mind the critics. The moral of the story is that every brewery has it's own niche that it wants to carve out in the market. The more variety the better, but to compare quality or character of a beer to that of another brewery doesn't make sense. No other brewery wants to compare itself to Surly or any other. Each brewery wants to set itself apart with it's own identity.

By the way, Bender is a hoppy brown ale. This does not compare to an English porter, and that's what makes it funny.

FE did experience quality issues, but I also know that EVERY brewery in this state has, too. But, because our quality issue was so high profile, we never really recovered from that PR disaster. What I can tell you is that we fixed those problems and never had a quality issue since that incident. Yet, people love to bring it back up. Whatever. I'm still enjoying the quality beer my husband has been making for years. You're missing out if you're not with me.

 

Cygnus is a delight, I don't know why I don't get it more often.

 

It'll be interesting to see how this change impacts the beer.

And I'd be a lot of money that there are scores of breweries out there that would LOVE to be compared to Surly...