The Next Big Thing

Perhaps a salad bar type dealio, with all sorts of berries, fruit, chocolate, nutella, coffee, or whatever, and french presses at your table. Sort of a "Build A Beer Workshop" bar.

 

Agreed. Brewers need to get back to basics and nudge off the temptation to lead with their creative foot. Quality control and craftsmanship will be the weed out factor over the next few decades I think. We are in the middle of a brewery boom, but let's face it - too many places are putting out too much subpar, masked by flavor additions beer. I think brewers will start geeking out over quality control and improvement and start tapering off of extreme, creative beers as the market becomes saturated with that.

 

“… start tapering off of extreme, creative beers as the market becomes saturated with that.” If the market does indeed become saturated that will indeed happen. What I have been noticing (and I recognize this is anecdotal) over the past few years is that among many BA beer drinkers extreme beer tastes have ‘diversified’. I do not know the precise order but maybe it is something like: hoppy/imperial -> barrel aged -> use of ‘interesting’ ingredients -> sours -> etc.

The interesting thing is that as more extreme type beers have come in vogue I have not noticed an appreciable diminishment of the earlier iterations of extreme beers. For example, as far as I can see hoppy beers like IPAs are just as popular today (more popular in terms of beer volume consumption) then they were 5+ years ago. I have seen no diminishment in the popularity of barrel aged beers and I fully expect Goose Island to continually expand their barrel aging program. There seems to be no end in the selection of using ‘interesting’ ingredients; I have had two beers brewed with Hibiscus in the past month. I also see no diminishment in the demand for sour beer and the recently announced expansion of Cantillon to double production could have been an announcement of a 10x expansion and that would not have been enough to fulfill demand.

Maybe you know something I don’t but I personally do not see the market for “extreme, creative beers” being fulfilled (saturated) anytime soon.

Cheers!

 

Rye and other adjunct grains. Had some rye beers I really liked lately. They've been around for years, but not much until lately.

 

Agreed. A poor beer placed in a barrel does not suddenly get better.

 

Hybrid styles. Combining things like an IPA with a stout, or any two(or more) drastically different beer styles that can make a freakishly tasty love child. Not sure if it will be integrating recipes or blending, but I think that this will become a much more popular trend.

 

That's usually true but in some cases it makes an OK beer excellent. An example I'd submit is the recent gold medal winner from Milwaukee Brewing Company called Louie's Resurrection. Their basic Louie's Demise is just OK. The BA stuff is absolutely fantastic.
Normally, I agree with you but not always

 

Latzenbier!!!

 

You don't know how lucky you are. Used to be seeing Sam Adams in a bar was a thrill. Don't look the gift horse in the mouth.

 

Could call it Randalls!

 

http://lagunitas.com/beers/

 

Hmmmm judging by the landscape of the mass market I'm guessing pear cider shandy

 

Nanos everywhere.

 

How about this. More bistros and restarurants employ brewers to come up with a complimentary flight to their menus. Could be a great way to give lots of brewing opportunity without the commmitment of a brewpub of one's own. Places like Ithaca would love it. It's local, it's in the present tense and it's friendly. Can you brew beer in a restaurant?

 

Craft beer>>>>ciders>>>>>mead

 

I'm thinking we will see a lot more craft style beers from the big brewers (Anheuser Busch) in order to gain a foothold in the market.

 

Triple barrel aging, then naturally quadruple

 

For a variety of reason, I absolutely think we're going to start seeing tons of smoked beers in the next couple of years.

 

Had it quite good as is there hop nosh