The Problem with Turning Beer into Dessert

Discussion in 'Beer Talk' started by Dansac, Apr 23, 2021.

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  1. defunksta

    defunksta Grand Pooh-Bah (4,164) Jan 18, 2019 Wisconsin
    Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Agree. But when your favorite beers are replaced by them on the shelves, then it could become a problem.


    My opinion, I have a feeling the whole dessert beer trend will come full circle. Super Size and Big Macs were popular twenty years ago, before a turning point occurred that made in an unpopular and unhealthy to make those choices. Drinking dessert beers does not seem to be a sustainable lifestyle in the long run, so I suspect that trendy "session" beers and other alternatives will be released to help with the fatigue.

    What happens to some of the more original lagers though? I share the same worry that some of the "session" dessert beers could wipe out the popularity with the more traditional styles.
     
  2. Dansac

    Dansac Pundit (912) Dec 6, 2014 California
    Trader

    Again, I'm fine with variety and everyone getting what they like. What I find sad is when breweries stop producing or offering beers that are exemplary to cater to market. If Other Half made IPAs how they used to and had on top of that beers for those who like sweeter stuff, great.
     
  3. anfield86

    anfield86 Pooh-Bah (2,606) Nov 21, 2006 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    FWIW, I had some Hop Showers and ACE last month and they were both every bit as delicious as I remembered them beinc. They’re running a business so you can’t expect them not to chase after where the money is....in my opinion at least.
     
  4. bret27

    bret27 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,064) Mar 10, 2009 California
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Please elaborate what hop showers and ace are? I have no idea.
     
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  5. Harrison8

    Harrison8 Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,285) Dec 6, 2015 Missouri
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I can't help but think forums, like this one, are responsible for this shift (at least, in part). There was, at one time, a focus on encouraging others to get creative with home brewing, or take up randaling (sp?) to impart new flavors to a beer.

    Now those people have opened businesses.

    Sounds like it was novel and fun when others were doing it, but now that it's caught on with general market consumers, it's obtuse and offensive.
     
  6. Harrison8

    Harrison8 Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,285) Dec 6, 2015 Missouri
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Don't get me wrong, I've cut ties with my favorite local brewery over their current production. Based on conversations with people in the industry, it sounds like that brewery should come back around once they're open for on-site consumption, but in the meantime, I haven't been able to have their beers for over a year.

    Is this unfortunate? Absolutely. Am I still drinking great beers? God damn right. But someone else is making them now.

    (And yes, I do miss Stone's RIS, but to be honest, I'd only buy maybe a bottle a year at this point anyway.)
     
  7. Leighton_

    Leighton_ Initiate (194) Jan 31, 2021 Minnesota
    Trader

    Well those kitchen sink kind of beers are what I'm talking about, I'll use Drekker's 'Slang Du Jour' series as a concrete example. The adjunct list (and this is excluding the rotating fruit(s) addition) includes granola, brown sugar, cinnamon, lactose, and vanilla beans. The beer is as thick as the heaviest stouts you can find and swirling the glass you can literally see the bits of granola.

    On paper there's a lot that could go wrong but in practice they nail it. The fruit additions and other sources of sugars are balanced by the lactic acid, never too sharp, never cloyingly sweet, just layers of rich juicy flavor where you can't tell exactly where the beer ends and the adjuncts start. Then the malt, granola, brown sugar and cinnamon really ground the rest of the flavor with kind of a 'pie crust' finish that lingers on the back of palette.

    The end result is a can of beer that I would gladly take over the dessert it's trying to represent, is it the pinnacle of brewing? hell no, but its certainly delicious and isn't that all you can ask for in a beverage?
     
  8. Dansac

    Dansac Pundit (912) Dec 6, 2014 California
    Trader

    Again, I've said this several times, but I think these styles can be done well, and I do enjoy them as well from time to time. I am saying the problem is when breweries stop doing what they originally excel at and shops/taplists stop carrying beers that one loves and respects because of chasing the market trend.

    If every craft brewer started doing smoothie seltzers and stopped making everything else because it sold way more, we would all be justifiably sad.
     
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  9. Dansac

    Dansac Pundit (912) Dec 6, 2014 California
    Trader

    I'm glad to hear. I had 15 OH beers last year and they were nothing like the ones I had years ago. I didn't get to try Hop Showers again though, which is probably top 3 IPAs of all time of all time for me.
     
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  10. Dansac

    Dansac Pundit (912) Dec 6, 2014 California
    Trader

    Also, I have spoken to a few local breweries who have started doing these styles against their desire to satisfy market trends. I'm not going to throw names out for obvious reasons, but a lot of brewers do not want to be brewing these beers; they are forced or at least pressured to do so to precisely because people want them. And while they like the extra buck, they are not passionate about what they are doing.

    Think of a brewery that wants to make barrel fermented, elegant sours, inspired and informed by the lambic tradition, but they people are asking for fruit puree slushy sours.

    I think there's something to be said about a brewery, like Hill Farmstead, SARA, or Side Project, who could make much more money exploiting market trends, but decide to keep their integrity as representing the highest standard of brewing.
     
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  11. BillAfromSoCal

    BillAfromSoCal Pooh-Bah (2,415) Aug 24, 2020 California
    Society Pooh-Bah

    Actually I think you have said quite a bit more than that using some pretty critical terms..." surrender to vulgarity"?...what? because the brewer selects a style you find offensive?
     
  12. Dansac

    Dansac Pundit (912) Dec 6, 2014 California
    Trader

    Yes, that is my opinion. Some people find West Coast IPAs disgustingly bitter, or whatever.

    That's not my problem with it; I can just avoid the things I don't think are good, for whatever reason. It's when the things I love are compromised that I have a problem. And yes, I do respect breweries that don't compromise their artistic vision. Just like I respect a musician that does the music he/she loves and doesn't make music to sell records, even if this means relatively fewer income.
     
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  13. melzie

    melzie Aspirant (295) Dec 31, 2007 Alabama

    The basic definition of dessert is "the sweet course eaten at the end of a meal." So a "dessert beer" is drunk at the end of what? Key lime pie is a dessert usually eaten at the end of a meal. A key lime sour, I can drink before, during and/or after a meal.

    Me thinks the real issue is sweetness and the number of beers now being produced with various levels of sweetness. Dansac mentioned "milkshake ipas with no bitterness but high tropical sweetness and creaminess." The milkshake IPA's I've had from Westbrook were more bitter and far less sweet than the actual fruit. I've had the Raspberry Cheesecake IPA from Untitled Art which still had some bitterness of an IPA and was nowhere as sweet as a raspberry cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. In IPA's I do tend to those that are tropical connotations to them but the ones I prefer are still hop forward and anyone who doesn't like IPA's still won't like them. And I recently bought some Waldos Special. Talk about dank!

    I also noticed in Dansac's post that he focused on just a few breweries. I would need to use my fingers and my toes to count the number of different breweries I have a beer from in a typical month. The beer bars and beer stores I visit here haven't been taken over in any shape or form by dessert beers and I have no problem finding a wide selection of classic IPA's, pale ales, stouts, etc. And I'm in Montgomery, AL which doesn't come close in selection to choices available in Birmingham, Atlanta, Nashville, Ft. Worth, etc.

    The only way that I see this "trend" as a problem is if you primarily drink beers from a narrow range of styles or at a brewery which will have a smaller selection of beers than beer bars and beer stores. If so, that to me is a self-induced problem. I enjoy any style that's done well and there's only one brewery in Montgomery and less than 1% of my beer consumption is from them. And within 2 hours driving distance there are enough breweries, beer bars and beer stores with a large enough selection to satisfy most of the pickiest.
     
  14. Dansac

    Dansac Pundit (912) Dec 6, 2014 California
    Trader

    I drink from a wide variety of breweries, routinely: SARA, ASB, HPB, Madewest, Pizza Port, BW, Beachwood, YOE, De Garde, 3F, Cellador...

    I like all kinds of beers: stouts, pilsners, stouts, IPAs of all kinds, lambics, wild ales, saisons...
     
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  15. Leighton_

    Leighton_ Initiate (194) Jan 31, 2021 Minnesota
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    But whats the root of the problem, greedy brewers chasing the latest trend to make more money? Or is it a passe product that no longer garners interest and is in low demand? And when it comes to replacing those brands do we expect another anachronistic style just to please the folks who were there when the brewery was in its infant years? Or should they meet market trends and demand by making something that appeals to their customer base?

    As amazing as it would be if brewers could make the most funky, unique beer they desire it's a reality that breweries are businesses with employees who have to keep the lights on and food in their stomachs.

    While its a shame when your old favorite isn't an option anymore reduction on the supply side increases demand for other options and helps keep a style ubiquitous even if the options are reduced.
     
  16. unlikelyspiderperson

    unlikelyspiderperson Grand Pooh-Bah (3,966) Mar 12, 2013 California
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Are you saying you think that the characteristic you're talking about are the result of extracting more hop oils into the beer? Thinking its some technique that the breweries employ to extract hop oils more efficiently?
     
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  17. Leighton_

    Leighton_ Initiate (194) Jan 31, 2021 Minnesota
    Trader

    It's also worth mentioning that smoothie-beers are in some ways more enjoyable or less painstaking to produce. Tweaking your house lager to be a little more this-or-that is a painstaking process, an error wastes gallons of product and can take months to realize. Smoothie beers with their cold-side additions can be worked thru in a matter of hours with near instant feedback.

    Bit of a double-edged sword as the ease of production has certainly contributed to their ubiquity and that ubiquity is why subpar examples of the style have come out in force. Yet for the brewers who are really passionate about this new fangled mixology it allows a lot of tweaking in a short period of time and weekly rotations without months of prep has become very possible.
     
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  18. Dansac

    Dansac Pundit (912) Dec 6, 2014 California
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    If by "passe product" or "anachronistic style" you mean that it doesn't sell or doesn't sell as much then yes, that's a problem. By that metric, Beethoven is a "passe product," Kant is a "passe product", etc. And that reflects something about the culture more than the product that doesn't sell itself: its propensity for crass, immediately enjoyable, over-the-top entertainment. It's the same in movies, music, and everything else. Pop music, pop candy, pop soda, and pop literature. It is named pop for a reason: it is popular.

    And if a publishing house, record store, is only obliged to produce whatever maximizes profit, then yes: they should make slushy sours, Katy Perry albums, and Deprak Chopra books.

    But I don't judge a work's quality by how much it sells, because what is good for business and what reflects popular cultural sensibilities is not necessarily what is good for the product or art itself. And I don't think quality is measurable in terms of how much something sells. People have a desire for obscurantism, decadence, vulgarity, stupidity. I think that reflects something rotten about the culture, so yes, that is a problem.

    I don't think ASB or OH have any trouble putting food in their stomachs or paying their employees, nor did they have any such problems before they did what they have done. They wouldn't have grown as much as they have, but again, I don't think one's aim in life should be financial success alone. And I know breweries and brewers that effectively are doing something to appease the market, because they can make more money out of it. And I respect those who don't, even at the cost of revenue.

    I apply the same principles to my own work. There very obvious things my field of research wants that can get you quite far in the academic world. But I don't believe in them, nor am I willing to sell my integrity as a scholar just for careerism, even if it would be economically beneficial.
     
  19. Leighton_

    Leighton_ Initiate (194) Jan 31, 2021 Minnesota
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    Correct.
     
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  20. cavedave

    cavedave Grand Pooh-Bah (4,157) Mar 12, 2009 New York
    In Memoriam Pooh-Bah Trader

    And just because you like Beethoven, Brahms, Miles, and Mingus doesn't make that music better in some objective way. I'm a classical music lover and, frankly, the arrogance and closed mindedness of some of my fellow classical lovers makes me sick to my stomach.
     
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