Why are some breweries unable to brew great beers?

The beer you mentioned is rated 3.4 on this site. I've seen worse.

Particularly for IPA's, hops are a big cost driver. As they segment the market, perhaps they target a cost conscious customer where "price" is more important that "rating". Based on a target margin, they back into the cost of goods.

I haven't seen this particular beer yet, but I checked Total Wine's website and it's available for $7/ 6-pack.

Compare that to Ballast Point's Sculpin.....$13/ 6-pack.

I reasonably enjoy Sculpin, and at one time it was considered world class, but you can basically get the beer you mentioned for half price.

 

Water

Generally not giving a shit

 

There are a great number of us who value bitterness in an IPA. You like watered down fruit juice tasting beer, I don't.

 

I hate to single out and bash particular breweries, but that's how I feel about New Belgium. Everything I try from them just seems bland and mediocre. They always fall short of being great.
Founders, Bell's, Lagunitas, and even Sierra Nevada, on the other hand, are around the same size and are almost always excellent.

 

I know (from my experience) that some breweries are in it for the money rather than the beer. If they are in an area that doesn't have many or any other breweries within 25 miles, they get the local clientele.

 

Maybe it's just pressure on an inexperienced brewer or inexperience at creating a recipe for a quasi NEIPA style (part of the beer's name is juicy) from management to get something on the market and capitalize of the trend.

 

This. Following trends only works if you can put out a decent product.

 

Shiner, the brewery you mention, most certainly has the resources to brew anything they want, the way they want. I seriously doubt Wicked Juicy (not a huge fan - the Fresh Hop Amarillo beer was excellent, though - get it if you see it) is far off from what they intended to brew.

 

I guess "shitty" = "did not fulfill my expectations" in your book. Good to know.

 

Ehh . . . there are more variables than that, but I'll agree that anyone who is obsessed about beer isn't going to put out an inferior product. At least for an extended period of time.

If you think that everything from New Belgium is bland and mediocre, then there are three possibilities:

1) You haven't drank many beers from them.

2) You're drinking old beer

3) You don't like Belgian beer, because their straight up Belgian beers are nothing short of world class. I'll admit that their other beers may be hit or miss, though.

 

I respect anyone who takes on the task of starting up a brewery and marketing the product. In turn they should respect the customers enough to make beer that's worth the premium price. If they can't or won't do that then I can't support their business.

 

Sometimes I drink a beer at a small, local brewery, and I wonder if they've ever actually drank a good example of the style, or have ever seen a picture of it. And who told them it tasted good, and that they should invest thousands of dollars in opening a tasting room because it was SO good that they need to share it with the world?

 

The absolute worst is hearing about breweries that sell beer that they know to be subpar because it would "cost them too much" to dump it. Profitability is one thing, but that should only come after holding yourself, and your business, to the highest standard possible.

 

The market will flush these breweries out soon enough. There are enough quality options out there that breweries like this will not survive.
Gone are the days where any schmuck who knew how to homebrew could open a brewery and be successful b/c the only competition was BMC.

 

I would have thought that, too, but it's just not the case. The "drink local" movement has gotten people who don't know any better to support breweries who make substandard beer.

 

Their friends/family, with whom they shared their homebrew and:
1. Were not a very good taster.
2. Did not want to hurt feelings.
3. Even if the homebrew was good - brewing at a commercial scale is much different than brewing at a homebrew scale. Recipes do not scale up 1:1.

 

Sure, there will always be someone who supports a brewery simply b/c it is close to home (easy to do, admittedly; you want sooooo badly for your local brewery to be top notch). But in the long run that is not viable, IMO.

And more goes into it than JUST the quality of beer. Marketing, taproom experience, etc. KISS for example, knew how to market themselves, so even if they weren't turning out world class music (not a great example, as I love KISS, but just to make a point...) they were still attracting audiences just for the theatrics.

 

I read it like you did initially as well, but I think his comment was meant in the context of them naming it "Wicked Juicy IPA" and not a general statement of what an IPA should be.

 

It's really not that much different. You just have to deal with different equipment and different volumes. Recipes CAN scale up perfectly, but they usually don't. Mostly because of the equipment in question. However, it's not like they're going to be THAT far off as the scaling usually has to do with stuff like mash efficiency, isomerization, and the dynamics of condrocylindrical fermenters. "Problems" that should be solved pretty easily.

Again, I would hope so, but I know of too many breweries who have been around for a while and probably will continue to be around for some time to come who just don't make very good beer. Both flawed beer and beer that is meh at best.

Indeed. Sometimes the beer is secondary (even tertiary or quaternary) to the success of these places.