More Craft Brewers = More Mediocrity?

Finite at any given point in time.

But in an expanding market, such as the Craft Beer Market, each day that passes, means there are more dollars in the market to be spent. Such a market is not a zero sum game. A new brewery doesn't necessarily mean that they are taken dollars from other breweries. If often means they are creating new customers.

This is why many small brewers collaborate. Working together to expand the market benefits all of them.

 

Sigh...every day there is more demand and every day there is more supply. I posted earlier that the numbers prove that (in aggregate) there is more additional supply than demand. In aggregate, beer is shrinking while the number beer packages is increasing.

 

The shifting baseline with beer consumers cheapens beer culture as a whole. We have been spoiled and now consider fantastic examples of style as mediocre or average examples. It's very depressing.

 

Yes, and some are very direct about it. The average guys need support, not the guys already making great beer.

One example:

"I support small brewers, even if they have average beer, because they are the future of the industry and they need all the help they can get. If you support the average brewer enough its only a matter of time before they start taking chances and become less average..."
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/why-is-craft-beer-so-hard.275644/page-3#post-3490861

Also have to agree with @TriggerFingers and @LuskusDelph it is a crapshoot trying new stuff. I'm done with it. Let the so-called tickers sift through all of the mediocre stuff and be the ones to find the occasional gem.

 

"Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

~ Garrison Keillor

 

So we're expected to pay top dollar for a new startup's homebrew experiments? No thanks.
The idea of investing money in a bigger kit and then jumping right into selling product that still needs to be 'dialed in' is ludicrous. An article in a local paper here even ran a story about a new startup and bragged the fact that the person doing the brewing had a whole year and a half of experience homebrewing.

But I do agree wholeheartedly with what you suggested in a later followup post:
"..None of these breweries owe you a thing. If you don't like their product, alright, move on to the next brewery..."
Excellent advice. But it is definitely a crapshoot. Thankfully there are shops willing to sell single bottles, and bars that have new, untried offerings on their taps.

 

Care to post them with references?

 

No, if I had wanted to or was allowed, I would have. Though, call up Nielsen or IRI, they're happy to take on new paying customers. If somebody else can prove my numbers are wrong and wishes to post their data, free country...

 

I'm not calling Sierra Nevada average at all. But the more breweries we get, I think the harder brewers try to separate themselves from the pack. For some that means making unusual beer, others get recognized for consistency and quality. In this case the rising tide is lifting all boats. The "average" craft beer in America is pretty good and arguably better than the average craft beer 10 or 20 (though I wasn't drinking at this time) years ago.

 

This is largely a regional issue.

If I lived in a place where Stone, Firestone and good European imports, were being push off the shelf for mediocre local products, as some have experienced, I would have a different impression.

But here in Los Angeles, Stone and Firestone are everywhere, and in greater numbers than years ago. European imports are as available as they have ever been. Even our imports from others states seems to have improved.

And yet, there is a strong growing local presence of local breweries producing really good beer.

Not only are there more breweries, but we have more bottle shops and more craft taps showing up in places that would traditionally only have macro beers.

So while some regions may be experiencing a negative effect from the growth in the number of breweries, due to poor local breweries crowding out better options, other regions are experiencing an improvement in the quality, diversity and availability of the really good beer.

For those of us in Los Angeles, these are "the best of times" for beer drinkers.

 

I hear what you are saying but when beer culture isn't satisfied with a fantastic example of a style because they now consider it average, and won't settle for anything but snobbish elitism in their beer, we have a problem. People are getting into beer these days and their baseline hoppy beer is zombie dust, their baseline stout is barrel aged, and they expect nothing less. They don't try a Kolsch or Maibock because they don't think they have enough flavor or they aren't rated high enough. There is very little refining in the new beer drinkers palette and they only jump into the highest rated beer.

We live in the greatest time for beer in the history of the world but we unfortunately have too many people being born, into the hard work of good breweries, with silver bottles in their mouths.

 

I never understand any negativity when it comes to our passion - to me it simple - its never been better to be a craft beer fan. The amazing number of choices plus its apparent to me that the competition is forcing brewery's to up their game which more and in many cases better options. Maybe the younger crowd doesn't appreciate as much as I do but believe me - I remember the days where your options were few and mostly awful.

 

It's already been said but can be repeated - it's proportional.

 

Not at all concern with all the crafter brewers opening, brings diversity, new flavors, new beers. Some will fail, some will flourish. If you brew a good beer you deserve to remain in business. While more craft brewers might equal more mediocrity, it also means that we may be introduced into a new world class beer.

 

I get some of the frustration coming out here, but take a step back. There are certainly a few newer breweries that aren't very good, but the idea that if a brewer's APA isn't significantly better than Sierra Nevada means they shouldn't bother brewing is a bit silly.

 

More Craft Breweries to me is more incentive to make better beer. Competition creates it, among other things. Just having 2 breweries in my hometown produced great go-tos. Now I have a couple more breweries in my hometown alone, never mind the whole adjoining area, to explore. To me its not about being mediocre or not, I just like tasting different beer.

 

There should be some type of Inquisition like tasting panel and any one who brews a substandard beer should be executed on the spot. We must always remember American exceptionalism and expect nothing less. It is the only way we can coalesces as a nation and all have the exact same taste.

Taste is so unbelievably subjective who is really to say what is mediocre and what is not beyond their own personal preference? While people wait in line for an hour to buy Heady Topper here in Vermont, I care for it so little I wouldn't drink one if it was free and sitting in front of me right now. Meanwhile my IPA or die friends recoils at the sight of my Chimay's.

 

I can't recall hearing such kvetching about producer proliferation in the wine world. Never heard of someone claiming that a locavore buying an over priced Virginia Cabernet ruined things for people drinking Medoc.

It seems it is different in beer because of A. The high perishability of hoppy beers in particular B. The custom of drinking on draft at a bar. Is that correct? I mean if you mostly drank bottled stouts say, woukd it matter that much?