Why are some professional craft brewers apathetic?

Two scenarios. I have been to 11 Below in Houston twice and have talked to their brewers and owners multiple times. These guys are new on the scene and loaded with energy. I went to 8th Wonder last month and they are getting ready to start up their canning, they had some event going on that people took over the front street of their brewery (most weren't buying beer) and they staff was real nice, but I notice this guy running around taking care of stuff, cleaning up the brewery, moving stuff in and out, this is all taking place from the time we get there to the time we leave 6:00 pm until 9:30 pm. I am guessing this guy has been going at it all day. Let me point out I never talked to him, so not saying that he is rude. But I know he had to be beat, he has probably been there most of the day. So like all things in life, sometimes you are just tired. It is tough to be on all the time.

 

That's not my experience at all. And I've met a lot of brewers. Though admittedly I don't usually meet them cold.

 

I'd been obsessed with design from a very early age up until I started work as a graphic designer. I used to get home from school and spend all evening drawing stuff. Nowadays I can't bare to even think about design when I get home from work, as much as I enjoy my job.

 

Visit Jester King in Austin, Texas. Or Prairie Artisan in Oklahoma ... or go see that crazy man in Delaware at Dogfish Head ... you'll find passion there.

 

@Hoppsbabo nails the answer to your original question in the above quote.

I love golf. LOVE golf. But if I had to play 20-plus tournaments a year on the PGA Tour, I wouldn't last half a season. I've tried to hit 1,000 balls a day and it can't be done by anybody who isn't a Nick Faldo/Vijay Singh robot. And I've tried to play serious golf four straight days, and by the back nine of Day 3, I'm looking to grab the eject cords.

My bet is the average brewer works their ass off just to make a living. And even if it's a *good* living, it still requires 60 to 80-plus hours a week of honest work.

Probably what you're running into isn't a lack of passion. It's just dudes who are tired.

 

Fuck that noise. I changed careers when the same thing happened to me. But it was mostly because of the unreasonable demands of my last job. I'll be happy doing what I'm doing now until I'm dead.

If a head brewer has lost passion, I doubt I'd continue drinking their stuff.

 

That's precisely why I went travelling for five years, working in completely different fields in multiple different countries.

 

All the posts above explaining "why" are reasonable and possible, but if you are the owner/brewer of a brewpub or a brewery with a tasting room and you feel that way, why are you working in the very "public" position as the bartender? Being chatty or, at least, willing to talk sort of goes with the job and that is even more so the case behind the bar of a brewery.

 

Maybe they just had the same conversation you want to have, the last 23 days in a row with 5 people each day. Imagine if every person that walked up to you wanted to have the same conversation, about your job, every single day. You would probably be ready to kill someone by day 3.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Social Awkwardness can be a bit of a turn off to some. To me I can ask a few questions about the beer and be happy and let the head brewer be on his way. Yet ultimately if a brewer is making fine beer, there's always that thin line between Genius and Authentic Wacko.

 

Beside "their beer,brewing and the craft beer scene" what do you want to talk to them about?

 

Every one has an off day & you just may catch them on that day...just be you & keep it moving. I think we can all relate to having the same experiences meeting & greeting.

 

Don't confuse enthusiasm for their craft with enthusiasm for talking about it.

It's probably not applicable in your cases, but not every brewer is stoked about every beer they make. I bet some might even have contempt for certain product that they make to satisfy a segment of their audience. (be it an easy drinking pale lager or a big rich coconut stout)

Those are some big assumptions you are making. If those aren't assumptions, and the brewers told you that, then they don't sound too apathetic.

 

Now you're talking turkey and getting to another level of geek. I could see how a brewers eyes would light up a little bit because you are picking their brain about the stuff most brewers enjoy complaining, or bragging (to each other) about. Equipment.

 

1 word: pressure
Stress is the 2nd
Exhausted
Worried

They get 100 folks a day bugging them., it gets old. Some deal with it better than others, were just human.

 

I asked that question and the answer is simple. Its how most brew pubs/micros are designed and the taps are out front...
why they do not have taps in brewery or on the back wall, I guess some regs have to do with it? I never understand it.
Still I think most of the time, they open later in day like 3pm, and they been at it since 6am. they are tired.

 

I discovered a brewer that liked skiing and didn't want to talk about beer or brewing right then. So the ski talk started, man was he super-excited about it. A short time after I asked if he liked to have a lift-beer for the ride up. It enabled me to move to beer talk, starting with what kind of lift beer, and that led to questions about how he brewed his lift beers and why it was a good beer to have on the lift up.

 

When you leave the atmosphere and when it moves

 

Maybe the conversation you think is valuable sounds like nonsense to the brewer. Most likely, they are more in-depth with the craft and a consumer just has a shallow understanding. Consistently talking with a novice can be an eye-rolling experience.

Also, why do people expect brewers to be chatty? Seems like whenever a brewer is curt with someone they get labeled as a curmudgeon, reclusive, or even now... apathetic. Seems unfair to them. It has blown my mind how beer geeks treat brewers like celebrities.

 

I went to a meet and greet at a local liquor store with a rock star who was releasing the first viintages from his winery.
A couple months before, I had noticed a blurb about him in a boating magazine, regarding an historic sailboat he owned.
As I was waiting in line, I noticed almost everyone wanted to talk about his music, former band, and sometimes the wine (not as often as you'd think.) I got to the front and asked him to sign my copy of that magazine, and he starts going off on boats. I would have loved to stick around and shoot the breeze with him, and he would have done so for hours on end, but the handlers shooed me off for the next person. (The wine was excellent, by the way.)
My point is, like others have said, and it also does go back to the thread about store employees complaints about customers, if you have the same conversation, and answer the same questions, over and over, it does get monotonous, no matter how much you try to keep the enthusuiasm and put on a happy face for the public. I don't think they're apathetic per se, just worn. If you go back another day, I'm sure they're in much better moods.