Selling out breweries...

I think the real problem with hopcat is that the burger deal was $6, then it went up to $7, and last week I went in there and it is still $7 but they are charing a $1 extra for cheese... That, and they started charging $1 for a sample, which honestly makes me not explore the menu as much.

Completely off topic, but THAT is the problem with hopcat. If you don't know about beer, you go to a beer place to learn. Get the right bartender and he'll show you what you've been missing.

 

This is the most entertaining post I have seen in a long time, keep them coming. There are 2 camps here and I have to say I don't get the OP and his (her) side. I think your post puts it into perspective. Touche.

 

Pretty much "the peasants are drinking my beer"...

It's kind of a fucked up way to make the point about "bandwagons" - which is at least a partially cogent point in the rant. Hell, if my favorite brewery is selling every drop, I say more power to 'em even if I miss out. They'll make more.

But I will say I have noticed people buying beer just because "I've heard about it" - not because they are fans of good beer. I've heard comments like "I don't drink this stuff, but I heard it is really popular" in stores recently. And mules and people snaking whatever systems are in place - yeah, that's bad, m'Kay?

Still, no one is any more entitled to the beer than anyone else. What's the brewery or store supposed to do - check every customer's BA karma before selling the beer? "Our" beer is a hot trend and the casual fans are going to climb on board that hype train. They'll weed themselves out eventually when something else gains their ephemeral attention.

 

I don't think I'm more deserving than anyone to get a certain type of beer. But, I'm also not complaining when a beer is sold out before I get to it. That's life. But I do think micro brewing is a trend and I do think the market will shrink over the next few years. In the regional area where I live there were ZERO breweries 3 years ago. Now we have a dozen with several more in the process of construction. We have our own craft beer week. We have Facebook pages dedicated to regional craft beer. The only reason this stuff exists is a large upswing in demand for craft beer. Part of that upswing are people who will lose interest. There is no way you can expect 100% of the people who are demanding craft beer to be drinking as much as they are today in 5 years and I think it's a stretch to expect all people who lose interest to be replaced by another person when advertising and hype is reduced over time. It doesn't mean they won't still drink beer but waiting in line for the newest IPA to be tapped won't be worth it to some people any more. Like I said above, I saw golf go through the same thing. People would pay high green fees and wait in line to play. Golf shops were open on every street corner. Now golf courses are closing, country clubs are reducing membership dues, and the five golf shops in the area are down to one. Think about all the other "trends" that are going on now or have been around in the last few years.

Crossfit
Tough Mudder
Gourmet coffee
Moonshine

All of these trends started from somewhere and they all still have their place even some of the crowd have moved on. You are correct in that lots of people drink beer and drink good beer. You're also correct in that many of them don't think about it as much as we do. Those are most likely the people that will move on to something else when it comes out. It may be craft wine next. Who knows?

 

Man if it werent for cool bar tenders with some patience I and I would wager alot of people on here wouldnt know as much as we do now. When did it become unacceptable to engage a bar tender and ask them questions.

 

Queuing is purely a result of the product having been priced at some amount below the market-clearing price. Breweries could quickly and permanently eradicate long lines by increasing their prices sufficiently. The fact that many breweries choose not to do so indicates that the lines offer more value to the brewery than the revenue lost by pricing the beer below equilibrium levels.

Long lines can be excellent sources of hype, generating favorable word of mouth and news coverage about the brewery that makes such great beer that people line up down the block to purchase it and drawing the curiosity of passers by. Underpricing also rewards the customers with the best connections or who are the most plugged in. Such customers find out about special releases and get in line early, and they often are disproportionately active and influential in forums like this one. They appreciate paying artificially low prices, as they already have spent their resources (usually time more than money) gaining connections and plugging themselves into the beer scene. Thus, charging intentionally low prices generates positive goodwill among the most vocal and thus most highly valued customers. The flip side of this phenomenon is that if a brewery suddenly did raise its prices significantly, that action surely would generate a wave of consumer backlash.

Make no mistake: Long lines and the low prices that generate them are marketing tools that breweries deploy knowingly and strategically.

 

EXACTLY...I dont know when asking recomendations and questions from a bar tender became a problem.

 

How do you know they are without jobs?

 

As an interesting note, last week I was talking with a guy at the bar who happened to work for a local bank doing loan approvals for small businesses. He said that 5-6 years ago, if someone came in with a loan application to start up a brewery they pretty much would be approved immediately. However, today, there's incredible scrutiny on applications for breweries as banks do recognize the bubble/saturation and are aware this craft beer gravy train could/will come to an end in the near future.

 

I agree that there will be some contraction, but I think this is the new normal, for the foreseeable future. I'm not a golfer, but to try to relate to you analogy, the difference between a shop or course (as far as I can tell) is that it's not the location that makes for an exceptional experience (but correct me if I'm wrong). Whereas with breweries, you've got the Trilliums, Treehouses, Alchemists, Toppling Goliaths, etc. The lines may get shorter, but I think there are still going to be lines for a very long time, unless they somehow manage to get to Sierra Nevada or Lagunitas levels of production. Those breweries make exceptional beer, which (mostly) you have to stand in line to get. You can only get their beers at those locations, whereas with golf, you can play a round at any golf course. But like I said, I could be wrong about that.

And then there are the people the love the idea of local. They'll buy beer from an iffy brewery because it's the 'right' thing to do because it's local. Either way, I think those two teers (Small/exceptional and small/adequate) will be in business for quite a while.

Obviously trends ebb and flow, and we very well may return to a point where the entire landscape is desolate, but I don't think it's showing any signs of slowing yet.

 

Thank you for explaining this phenomenon, which has puzzled me since I heard of it (and which is not found to any significant extent, AFAICT, in the wine business) I thought it had something to do with hype, but your point about the impact of a select group of tastemakers who benefit from this on market perceptions is a fuller explanation.

I hope that by the time I graduate from "entry level craft beers" to the sought after "best beers on the planet" (if that ever does happen) the market for the latter will be less dominated by such tastemakers.

 

While I understand what you are saying, I don't see this as a problem. When a decent brewery is "discovered" natural human tendency is to see what it's all about (at least for beer drinkers.) Marketing and promotion helps to move this along, and BA along with Untapped.com and Ratebeer.com are great social media sources to accomplish just that. Call it "bandwagoning" if you will as there will always be newbies less knowledgeable about beer as well as those who simply want to drink it with no desire to learn about it or the terminology that goes along with it.

Good beer always find a following, great beer will always be limited in supply as even the most "beer inept" want it just to say they had it. Also, it most likely is the brewery that create the demand causing the two hour lines on a Thursday knowing that the prized beer will be out quick, but they will most certainly have plenty of other beer they will sell you at a higher profit margin.

Just my thoughts on the situation.

 

In the wine world, the taste makers are disproportionately wealthy, and they would much rather pay a premium price than waste their valuable time either standing in a queue or continually perusing Twitter and Facebook to find the timing of the next big release. In addition, part of the social cache of being a wine aficionado is that it reveals a certain reasonably high level of income and/or wealth sufficient to afford pricey bottles. If any schlub could cheaply obtain a world-class bottle of wine by standing in line for two hours, wine's role as a class signifier would be devalued. Wine's premium prices (at the high end of the market) play a large part in its elegant image, just as beer's low prices (even among the most in-demand releases) play a large part in its egalitarian image.

 

Definitely agree. And not everyone who goes to a brewery is trying to get into beer, or even wants to understand what a pilsner or a pale ale is. They just want to do something fun and new and maybe they like lighter drinks so they politely ask for something lighter.

The kind of snobbery in this thread is what turns a lot of people off. It's just beer and a lot of people want to drink it. Its significantly more difficult for me to buy Toppling Goliath than it was 2 years ago, but I still get by whether I snag a bottle or not.

 

I think it may also be that professionals such as Parker have a larger role in wine, whereas the fact that craft beer came into its own in the era of web 2.0, smartphoine apps, and crowdsourcing, means that amateur taste makes are relatively more important.

 

That's an interesting note, and I may do some informal surveying myself to see if I can confirm it. However, I'm not buying that time frame. 5-6 years ago (2009-2010, along with late 2008), credit was as tight as it has ever been in American history aside from the Great Depression. No new business was being approved quickly and easily for a small business bank loan. One of the necessary conditions for the craft brewery boom of the past few (say, three or so) years is that credit has finally loosened since the credit crunch / financial crisis has passed.

 

I hope you're right (not about the hipster part as making fun of hipsters is so tired) but about the scene calming down in a few years but I doubt it. I think the more popular and "hyped" places are going to be insanely popular for a long long time and the ones that make great beer will retain their current base and only continue to add to it. Pretty much every popular brewpub in NorCal is packed at all times that people with 9-5 jobs could be there. I do think a shakeup is coming where some of the crappier places will fail but that will just drive more people to the survivors.

 

Wow. There is so much outstanding beer available. Take off those whiney pants. Put on some big boy pants and drink it! In all seriousness, you're coming across as the opposite of a beer advocate.

 

guy could have been full of it..who knows. simply made for interesting small talk rather than staring at the tv.

 

1. Drink beer
2. Respect beer
3. Respect people who drink beer