Sixpoint thinks we need more Haze

I have not Jack. I had a bunch of it last year and loved it, but I just haven't gotten it this year yet.....soon real soon. Loved it last year.

 

I'm grateful to in the the Philadelphia area where the variety of beer distributed to us and in turn selection available has been and still is one of the best in the nation. Philadelphia has it's share of good local breweries in the area too. However, I've noticed the similar trend stated by Islay and JackHorzempa...

Bar draft selections is really heavily skewed to the NEIPA now. There is a clear reduction in variety on that front.

Yes, I can drive to some breweries and get different beer styles, but even then many breweries are predominantly NEIPAs/pastry stouts. Breweries used to be reliable places to find variety, now I have to choose breweries carefully, and those less common beer styles are often one-offs/seasonals that don't go to distribution, where it's more convenient to get them.

Regarding the Beer Distributors mentioned by Jack above, it's certainly still the place to go to find variety here, but I've watched the IPA/pastry stout shelf grow and push other styles off the shelf there too. And then I'm often still relying on the old standbys for my "variety" of beer styles (e.g. Sly Fox Helles, Victory Prima Pils, Yards Brawler, Schlenkerla rauchbiers, Brooklyn [Vienna] Lager). And of course one can point to a handful examples of breweries that are the shining exceptions (like Von Trapp or Jack's Abbey), but I feel like for every one of those, you can point to some other classic non-NEIPA or classic imported beer that dropped off the market. Maybe choice reduction is too strong an argument, but it certainly feels like stagnation, or as I said above...

 

Out of all the Sixpoint beers I drank, I just never could drink Resin too often, it was/is way too boozy for the abv.

Anyway, I think the haze craze will eventually fade to be replaced by the new craze some day. What that is or will be? I have no idea.

 

Maybe it depends where you are, because even here in NYC where the local scene of new breweries is dominated by "haze," you'd have to be blind to not find pretty much anything you're looking for.

It is true that on the internet and social media, NEIPA is uniformly dominant, and that does extend to some specific breweries and bars, but if you can't find good beer besides NEIPA, you must live in a really shitty beer area.

 

In general pricing is higher than I think it should be for a lot of things. Some brewery taprooms have some decent pricing. Bars price high. The only place where we are very fortunate with pricing is with some imports at the government liquor stores. Because all alcohol coming into the province has to go through the government monopoly, they are one of the biggest buyers of alcohol in the world. Thus, we get some excellent prices on things. For example, Sam Adams Utopias has been about C$110 the past two releases. Things like Rochefort 8 and 10 are C$3.50 and C$4.40 a bottle. A can of Jever is C$2.20 and often quite fresh. When you consider the current exchange rate, I think that is better than most places in the world outside the originating countries.

This is the best, and perhaps only good feature of our system.