Mediocre local brewer opens 2nd location

Wow, that would take massive balls to take that risk.

 

Thank you for that. There are also objective criteria like undesirable off-flavors, oxidation, etc.

 

I am not too sure about this. I am a trained beer taster/judge but sometimes a beer comes along that I simply don't like very much. I could rate it highly on a technical basis but it isn't something that I would drink all night. Other people have different tastes.

 

I think you're seriously overestimating the quality of discernment among raters on social media. Ratings are driven overwhelmingly by a combination of hedonic pleasure (a legitimate individual criterion but not necessarily applicable to anyone else and at best very weakly correlated to fundamental quality or brewer's skill) and hype, both of which are heavily dependent on the preferences of the mostly young and impressionable drinkers who dominate activity on such sites. I think ratings here and at Untappd are virtually worthless to anyone besides the rater himself in 2019, beyond those that call out legitimate quality problems at some actively bad breweries. But good luck getting scenesters to admit that the local ultrahip pastrymurk brewery-du-jour has quality problems; the people who hype up those places are mostly clueless to that stuff.

By the way, a minute or two of research suggests the OP is talking about Smoketown Brewing. Correct me if I'm wrong. Looks to me like a potentially solid spot that doesn't bend over backwards to be trendy, and credit to it for tackling a variety of styles that people who like the taste of beer (more than tropical fruit juice or desserts) like to drink. More locations of breweries like that, please!

 

Are you a punk fan, by chance?

 

Wait-in-line beers are totally overrated.

 

Let me guess. The second location is in OC?

 

Funny, I’m originally from a bit south of there (Fauquier County VA) and I knew immediately city number 2 was Frederick. I was going to sleuth this out myself but you beat me to it. The reason I see for the move is, Frederick is probably 10x the size of Brunswick. Get your act together in the small town, then hit the bigger, competitive city with a mature, kinks-worked-out program, sort of like the way Broadway shows used to work. Nowadays I think the kids call it “Proof of Concept” or something....

 

Very telling. Beer is about individual tastes and preferences what one likes others may not. So as you mentioned a beer may be correct to style, but you may not like it, another reason I’m dubious about ratings in general. You look at Pils rating in general and it takes a fine one to reach mediocre ipa scores. There’s BAs I’d trust their judgment on certain styles though.

 

A related problem with beer ratings for non-sexy styles at Untappd and BeerAdvocate in 2019 is that they amount to "What do young superfans of turbid juice beer think of this pilsner [or fill-in-the-blank style]?" That usually means that, first and foremost, the pilsners and the like produced by the breweries known for hip styles will get the highest ratings based on a halo effect and the generous rating standards of the undiscerning customers of such establishments and, secondarily, that the sweeter, fruitier, less bitter versions of these styles will get higher ratings. So you can't even just compare ratings within a style if you don't share the palate preferences and biases of the sweet-toothed majority.

 

As someone involved in AML . . . that is a possibility. However, a nearby brewer in my area took a few years to improve their brews beyond mediocre. Perhaps this brewer is working on improving their product and are taking advantage of an opportunity that was not expected.

 

It's happening in Albuquerque too. 90% of these places arent very crowded 80% of the time. They aren't crowded at their first location, yet now have 2-3 around the city/state.

They must make a killing on the weekends or something.

Let them all fail. Im sick of $6 guinea pig pints.

@denver10 im glad you see it too. I won't name names but there's about 8 of them that have expanded to multiple tap Rooms. Some are even going down south. I guess you try to see what sticks. Very low costs apparently.

 

By that standard, 90-95% of all beer sold in the US is "mediocre" and yet hundreds (by now - thousands?) of those beers' breweries as well as tens of thousands of wholesalers, importers, bars and off-premise retail stores stay in business - and expand in some cases - and make a profit by selling those beers to apparently happy and satisfied consumers which number in the millions.

 

AALs dominate sales world wide, time to stop viewing the beer world thru BAs eyes and according to this site. In the real world these beers make millions of dollars and are available and enjoyed everywhere. I’m not one to look sideways because a guy likes Miller or Bud, good for them it’s about enjoying your day, nothing more.

 

A brewery opened in my small town about 8 years ago. The beer was bad. Although they have improved, the beer is still not very good in my opinion(3.28 BA Avg.). It all has the same bad aftertaste to me. This brewery seems to be doing well (packed parking lot,being given more shelf space at local retailers), but their success seems to be linked more to tourism, community involvement and the food they serve at the brewery than the taste of their beer.

 

At the end of the day, if you don't have a lot of competition, you only need to:
1- Have a space more comfortable than the local bars. Breweries seem more kid friendly and tend to have more outdoor space and it is seems more socially acceptable to take your kids to a brewery than to say we are taking our kids to the bar....
2-Be slightly better than the macros. If you can have people saying this has more flavor than Bud or Miller, it doesn't have to be world class to sell to the non-advocate crowd.
3- Be a different style than the macro lagers people are used to. The casual fan may not understand styles and try something like a Belgian style beer and associate it as a unique thing to that brewery rather than knowing it's a common style of beer elsewhere.

 

I've long said that the idea that beer quality drives success among breweries is wishful thinking. Many other factors come into play that often dominate the beer. Also, to the extent the beer matters to the success of the business, styles and twists on styles that resonate with the palate and cultural preferences of consumers -- be they sweet and hip styles aimed at young, urban consumers or traditional styles aimed at older, less urban consumers -- tend to matter far more than fundamental quality concerns. Many of the highest-rated beers and breweries are riddled with technical flaws, and many perfectly executed beers get low ratings merely because they don't resonate with the people who tend to do the ratings. I think that's okay; I believe in hedonic ratings scales at sites like this; but that means those who rely on ratings need to be very critical of the raters themselves. That last part is where I don't see nearly enough engagement and attention. Instead of saying something like, "Wow, the high ratings must mean this beer is great!" people need to be thinking, "This beer has high ratings quite possibly because raters tend to have poor palates for identifying flaws and questionable-at-best taste preferences."

 

LOL

 

Yes. This is why I tend to look at individual reviews on Untappd and here rather than the aggregate scores. Aggregate scores (aside from always seeming to be in the 3.5-4 range) don’t tell you anything about the reviewers or why they rated the beer so highly or lowly. I tend to scroll through until I find a review mentioning a technical flaw (diacetyl) or at least some explanation of their rating (i.e., “Too sweet for me.”). That way, I can see if others’ perception of the beer aligns with my own preferences.

Nothing bothers me more than the one-word review, specifically “Smooth.” Seriously? That seems to be the go-to word for people who don’t know anything about beer, wine, spirits, etc.

 

Now happening in Colorado Springs... one of the true "fast food cities" in the country, and like the love for cheap food, some mediocre (or just bad) breweries are doubling here too. It's baffling to me.
But to each their own... cheers.