I always enjoyed their beers when I used to visit the Berkeley or the Sacramento taproom. I was never big on their hazies, though it seems like Pulp was an early example. They expanded to lots of taprooms back when that was a bold proposition. But they never seemed to bail out. Looks like they still have 9 locations, all in the bay area. I never hear anything about them on this board, and irl no one is amped about them, but they still show up at the best beer bar locally from time to time. What do local folks think of them, and do they distribute south at all?
Their beers taste nothing like their beers from 2016-2017 in their heyday. They were my favorite hazy brewery for some time. Those early Pulp or Galaxy Juice batches were a revelation and I excitedly took home crowlers that I shared with friends and coworkers. Today, for my palate, their beers are undrinkable. Their haze in particular just reeks of yeast gone wrong. I do not know how they were able to expand as much as they do as no one I know still drinks them. I keep trying them maybe once a year to see if they improve, and I kinda feel like they're getting worse.
I don’t get them as often in my current geo. I like pretty much all their beers when I get them, though their hazies are 98% of what hits distro and are barely discernible from the other ten hazies at a decent beer bar. I’ve been to the Sac, San Ramon, Berkley and San Mateo in recent years. Their taproom experience has always been better than their distro. Lagers and other styles that never see outside the taproom. Nearly all of those places were packed when I was there. I think they really make their bank on location. I had Gold Label Pulp back in February and it was an absolute banger. That won a blind taste test among friends.
@unlikelyspiderperson your post together with some thoughts I have around Dragons Milk has me thinking of the wider world out there, beyond our BA niche. For every highly regarded local or regional craft brewery there’s a number of more popular and successful businesses—I’ll find Fieldwork on tap at places I don’t consider beer bars, which I think speaks to their distro deals. (Fort Point comes to mind as well.)
FW had a huge issue when 1 of the 2 owners/founders had to divest from them following some sort of road range incident. Guessing that might have had something to do with slipping of quality/interest. On top of that FW has always been wildly inconsistent, recipes and releases, etc. Which they seemed to pride themselves on that too. When I worked down the street from them in Berkeley I visited nearly once a week, and had a hard time finding anything that really stood out. It all seemed decent enough, it always felt like weaker versions of whatever styles they were aiming for. When I can get tastier stuff off the shelf, for less, I just started to do that. Years ago, maybe 2017-2019, I lined up for the BA cans, Viking, Eliza, etc. Those were AMAZING back then. RIP The good ole days.
He pleaded no contest in 2018 after being arrested for allegedly following a car that he almost collided with at a stoplight, getting into an argument with the people in the car and beating up one of the passengers.
Fieldwork beer has been terrible for years, at least the ipas. The taprooms are pretty popular with local folks who apparently don't care what their beer tastes like. They started canning their ipas and now they are taking up shelf space at Berkeley Bowl, and there was even a bunch on draft at Toronado. Whoever pushes their distro pushes hard, and I'm betting they'll start showing up outside the bay area soon enough.
Went to their Berkeley location a couple of times when I visited the area. Also their Monterey location when we fly there for to the day. This was pre pandemic. Had them shipped to the house twice during the pandemic. I always enjoyed their hazies and west coast. So can’t say how their beers are today.
I think there's a few factors affecting Fieldwork. One is that while they've expanded, their brewing is still centered in Berkeley (as their expansions are treated as "satellites" and not an actual brewery). Couple that with their cans being found in grocery stores now and all that distro can make it difficult for them to lock-in recipes, which was never their strength to begin with. So we have more exposure to a brewery that was already inconsistent to begin with. The second is that, whether we like it or not, people value "newness". It's not terribly surprising that the time that most people feel Fieldwork was at its best (2017-2019) also coincided when they were still new to the game and their expansion was "only" 4 additional locations. Same reason that this forum doesn't talk up Cellarmaker as much now that they've expanded or (down in LA) why Monkish doesn't get talked about as much. You start growing and that "specialness" doesn't feel so special now. In terms of distro, you won't be able to find them south. Their focus has always been on doing distro themselves to limit the middleman and I'm not surprised it took this long for them to finally be in grocery stores in SF. LA is simply too difficult for their existing business model to work and would require them to completely revamp and build a production facility, which I don't think they want. TL; DR. They're a brewery that has continued to expand but was never known for being consistent, resulting in more people trying inconsistent beer. In addition, that ubiquity has resulted in them being "known commodities" and therefore results in less interest than when they were the new kids on the block.
Are they like Moonraker at this point? I've only seen ONE person post a Moonraker beer. I still buy Electric Lettuce if i go past cowshit town( the grapevine) on the 5 up north.. What happened to them
Zach Frasher left Moonraker to be the head brewer for Slice Beer Company, which he then left to found Shred Beer Company. I haven't had a ton of their beers to know how things changed but certainly losing your head brewer is going to affect things, especially as he's working for local competitors.
For what it's worth - and I don't live in Sac area - so this is very limited sampling but... I've tried Moonraker after Zack left, and although not terrible - beers are kinda forgettable. I've tried Slice after Zack left and they're still pretty good! Happy I get to go to Shred in a couple weeks for my annual California International Marathon trip...
Hit the nail on the head. They are no longer the "new shiny object". Cellarmaker is still one of my top three in the Bay Area. As for Fieldwork, I haven't been in 4-5 years. Between COVID and living in the South Bay, I just never made the time to visit them again. Also, while I found them as good, I thought of them as a step below Cellarmaker. Add that I rather go to Wonderous if I'm in that general area and it's probably not likely that I will go back.
Their "specialty" stuff isn't widespread down here, but their American Lager and Pilsner are turding up the warm shelves at big box stores all across SoCal.
Fieldworks, Moonraker and a few others not mentioned were at the top of their games post pandemic. At least IMO. Coming from North Orange County I’ve explored the Bay Area many a times when times were tough down here. And when times were good as well. But haven’t been back since 2018/9. Back then I was more into hazy’s. They and Alvarado (Monterey area) were always my go to when visiting. We would end up driving to Santa Rosa or Windsor and stop in RRBC. I’m sure times have changed.
Speaking of their specialty stuff, the last beer I think I had from them was their imperial stout Death Will Tremble and it was excellent.
I think there's two things going on. One is that Fieldwork isn't part of the cool kids crowd anymore, so you don't hear about it so much in beer circles. That may or may not be a result of the second thing going on, which is that their quality and consistency isn't what it used to be. The Pulp in particular just doesn't wow me anymore. They do still put out some very good lagers and wcipas, in my opinion, but they're less reliably excellent than they were 5 years ago.
I think @ConorM nailed it, but I'd put all the emphasis on inconsistency. I'm an absolute fool for Nelson hops. I don't care if it's a lager, NE or WC IPA, etc, if it's single hopped with Nelson I'm going to go for it. So, a few months back, fieldwork released a great batch of "Imaginator", which is a Nelson hazy ipa, as well as their "Supreme Diesel" which is basically just the double version. Both were fantastic. Honestly, if you like Nelson, I thought they were just really on-point and this is coming from someone who has always been somewhat skeptical of fieldwork and pretty much had written them off, but have to give credit where it's due. Flash forward to last month (or maybe two months ago, where the fuck did November go? but I digress), they did the same release, and the beers were almost undrinkable. I had bought a 4 pack of both thinking "these are going to be great". They were horrible, but my dumbass had paid $42+ tax for both, so I begrudgingly drank them. As a result, (and even though they have a taproom a mile away from me), I've just written them off. I love consistency with a brewery. I'll pay the premium for it. If they can't be consistent, all while charging over $20 for a 4 pack, I'm out.
I always assumed the reason they had so many similar IPAs with different names was to cover for the inconsistency. Pulp? That batch wasn't Pulp, it was uhhhh Plup, yeah, don't think too hard about what that one spells if you reverse it. That was a close one boys, whew.
