Quality vs. Quantity

They could

 

I don't know a lot about brewing, but assuming they managed to get enough raw ingredients (especially hops) I don't see why they couldn't do it. Breweries like Sierra Nevada, BBC, Lagunitas, and Stone already pretty much do.

 

The stuff I like? Absolutely not.

 

I've only to think about what happened to Boddington's to answer "no"
To begin with the original beer was brewed with a particular malt which was in too short supply and this is the key. You can grow barley and hops pretty well everywhere but good barley and hops are mightily demanding.There is good reason why malting barley and hop growing happen in quite small enclaves.Increasing production is always possible; maintaining quality when doing so is a different matter.

 

Can it be done? In theory, yes. In practice, it depends. Will it be done with a particular product? Maybe, maybe not.

Mass production scale quality, any production scale quality, depends in part on the consumers and whether they will pay for quality. If they value low price over complexity, that's what they will get. It also depends in part on ingredient availability and ingredients aren't available and there is no suitable alternative, the product can't be scaled, and so on.

Large scale production of high quality expensive products is not necessarily cheapened by growing from small to large scale production. There are lots of high quality products ranging brom bread to commercial airliners that are as complex or more complex than beer and that are or can be available to those willing to pay the costs of production, distribution and a reasonable profit to the producer. Beer is no exception to the rules that govern the market place.

 

My gut says that most styles would scale up pretty damn well- all except for the ones favored by most who post here on BA . "Sours" and certain types of IPAs/IIPAs would do better to stay as regional as possible.

It sure would be nice to not have to worry about any genuine quality issues when opening up a bottle, though

 

Anytime the recipe is altered in order to increased the production the beer quality suffers

 

We're gonna find out real soon..AB recently bought Elysian..so time will tell.

 

As @mstrcrwly said, time will tell about altering recipes and adhering to standards established by the previous owners.

But could they scale up the production of any given recipe?
Sure - it's all about following the science. And they could make whatever they want with their money. Just because they increase production doesn't mean they have to alter the recipe either. That's a choice. If there is a shortage of quality hops or malts they could buy the land to grow more to meet their demand. All this would be very expensive, and it would bring their profit margins crashing down so they'd probably never go that far (after all, they love money more than they love beer), but if they had a mind to, they could replicate any beer in any volume they chose.

 

I just got some fresh Space Dust which I usually get when it comes out and no difference..so hopefully it'll stay that way.

 

Wrong.

 

Yes, but I'd actually argue that sours (as in spontaneously fermented beers) can be available anywhere, even to home brewers.

I can make sourdough bread any place in the world where there is wild yeast to "contaminate" the starter (in other words almost anywhere in the world). "All" that is required is time and the ability to prepare proper ingredients and container and the finishing equipment, etc.. The sourdough bread will probably taste differently depending on where I produce it and may require some adjustment in the ingredients for best effect, etc. but it will still be recognizable as sourdough bread. Now whether I will enjoy the result might be a different question. since the particular strains of wild yeast and their symbiotic bacteria are often different from one location to another, e.g., San Francisco Sourdough will probably have a detectably different flavor than New Jersey Sourdough even though it still is much the same, still a sourdough but might not be what I prefer.

This is one reason I subscribe to the argument that Lambic can only be made in a particular region in Belgium. If I build my tank and equipment in Maine (e.g., Allagash) I can make sours but the terroir is different enough that they are not lambics.

 

yes they could do it, and arguably they might even do it better - more consistent quality & results.

 

It's possible but they would have to make slight changes to get the recipe to taste the same on a different system due to differing efficiencies.

 

Bah! you're spoiling the romanticized notion that microbreweries are better at this. Do you go around telling toddlers about Santa Claus too?

 

Which is what is done. Brew a batch, taste it, analyze it, decide what needs to be changed, re-brew with changes, repeat until there is no detectable difference.

Every brewery that upgrades capacity and gives a damn about quality does this. Many have talked about what they do when making smaller changes like introducing different sized fermenters.

 

There are often problems with scaling up or even changing brewing equipment.When Youngs moved the brewery from London to Bedford it took them months to match the old with the new.Changing from open fermentation to conical fermenters seems to set back beer quality and this is often done when scaling up production.

 

We already found out with Goose Island. Increase in distribution without decline in quality, based on my own experience and reports of others reporting on BA.

 

Just to add a further detail to what Tom posted above concerning Goose Island. The core Goose Island beers (312, Honkers, etc.) are being brewed at AB breweries (e.g., Baldwinsvile, NY) and by all reports there have been no decline in the quality of those beers.

Cheers!