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Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

theatlantic.com

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Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#21

Post by throwaway5752 »

snappy173 wrote: post #16
throwaway5752 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. Craft breweries are businesses and they'll sell what makes money. Also, IPAs are incredibly hard to brew, store, and distribute consistently. Hops are probably the most seasonal part of a mash bill, and high quality finishing hops are in heavy demand. And the hop acids are subject to spoilage by heat, light, or oxygen. If you want "smothering a beer's other flavors" then look no further than whiskey/…

or macro-brewed lagers. bud used like a dozen different hops in their flagship beer in order to reduce the effect if a particular hop is unavailable.

Yup. But I also understand that some of them use hop oil extracts (could be wrong). Never tried it, but I have to think it loses some of the nuance of whole leaf or pellet in the process. Which is fine, they are optimizing for consistency and scaling. McDonalds vs Five Guys.

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#22

Post by trowawee »

chx wrote: post #14

Eventually alcohol usage will be looked upon with great fascination of a custom of a barbarian age: "They used to actually drink poison for thousands of years but we have moved on." It'll take time but it'll happen.

Not sure I'd take that bet. Finding some way to get drunk appears to be one of the few real constants of the human experience.

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#23

Post by dsnuh »

bsder wrote: post #12
vkou wrote: post #2

> Large breweries ignored burgeoning niches, Watson said, particularly hoppy India Pale Ales, or IPAs, which constitute a large share of the craft-beer market. He's reversing cause-and-effect. IPAs are incredibly popular among microbrewers, because it is incredibly hard to brew consistently tasting batches of beer. Smothering all of a beer's other flavours, by dumping buckets after buckets of hops into it is much eas…

> It's why eight out of every ten craft beers are incredibly bitter IPAs. I always saw this is a US West Coast phenomenon. Stone, in San Diego, sort of popularized the trend and then people started rolling with it to extremes. I have a similar issue with barrel aging. I love Victory at Sea from Ballast Point (since bought out by Constellation Brands) and similarly dark "toxic sewage" as my friends so happily classify…

San Diegan reporting in! It's gotten absolutely ridiculous. They have tapped out the "like eating a cone of pure hops" quintuple imperial IPA market, and now the trend is additives. Ballast Point and Modern Times are the worst about this. We are at the "add some truffle oil it" stage.

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#24

Post by plandis »

40acres wrote: post #5

I wonder if marijuana will also be able to avoid being crushed and consolidated by monopolies. I don't think the cigarette industry was able to avoid it but I am not well versed on tobacco industry regulations. My gut tells me that since at the end of the day marijuana is an agricultural commodity large players will come to dominate the market. But on the other hand there is a decent variety in strain types and flavo…

I don’t care much about smoking but I like edibles. From my own experience it’s entirely possible to differentiate your product as an edible and I see others finding brands they like and sticking to them. When I’m with friends buying plants they don’t seem to care as much about strain/grower (but that’s anecdotal).

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#26

Post by sf_rob »

40acres wrote: post #5

I wonder if marijuana will also be able to avoid being crushed and consolidated by monopolies. I don't think the cigarette industry was able to avoid it but I am not well versed on tobacco industry regulations. My gut tells me that since at the end of the day marijuana is an agricultural commodity large players will come to dominate the market. But on the other hand there is a decent variety in strain types and flavo…

In Oregon, AFAIK the laws were structured in such a way to help local growers. Growers had to be residents for X months and were quite limited in operation size to spread things out.

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#27

Post by wickawic »

plandis wrote: post #24
40acres wrote: post #5

I wonder if marijuana will also be able to avoid being crushed and consolidated by monopolies. I don't think the cigarette industry was able to avoid it but I am not well versed on tobacco industry regulations. My gut tells me that since at the end of the day marijuana is an agricultural commodity large players will come to dominate the market. But on the other hand there is a decent variety in strain types and flavo…

I don’t care much about smoking but I like edibles. From my own experience it’s entirely possible to differentiate your product as an edible and I see others finding brands they like and sticking to them. When I’m with friends buying plants they don’t seem to care as much about strain/grower (but that’s anecdotal).

I think edibles will be mostly taken over by concentrates. Instead of (in WA for ex.) paying $40 for 10 10mg edibles, I’ll pay $20 for enough concentrate to make 80 edibles.

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#28

Post by mathattack »

jallmann wrote: post #18
electricslpnsld wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's why eight out of every ten craft beers are incredibly bitter IPAs. Is that really true anymore? If I roll by one of the local breweries, they'll have an IPA of course, but sours and saisons seem to be in a bit of renaissance right now. Hell, half the IPAs I see now are New England IPAs that barely budge the bitterness scale.

Maybe so, but sours/saisons are also much more forgiving to brew than lagers or even IPAs. Any hint of contamination in a lager is immediately noticeable. On the other hand, sour brewers have turned what would normally be flush-worthy batches into "limited releases" characterized by barnyard funk.

My problem with sours isn’t they all taste like barnyard funk to me. I’d go for hops overload every night if it weren’t for the next morning...

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#29

Post by sxates »

vkou wrote: post #2

> Large breweries ignored burgeoning niches, Watson said, particularly hoppy India Pale Ales, or IPAs, which constitute a large share of the craft-beer market. He's reversing cause-and-effect. IPAs are incredibly popular among microbrewers, because it is incredibly hard to brew consistently tasting batches of beer. Smothering all of a beer's other flavours, by dumping buckets after buckets of hops into it is much eas…

I'm totally with you. Every time I go to a bar or beer garden it feels like the menus are 75% IPAs. I'd rather drink sea water.

Re: Craft Beer Is the Strangest, Happiest Economic Story in America

#30

Post by monocasa »

40acres wrote: post #5

I wonder if marijuana will also be able to avoid being crushed and consolidated by monopolies. I don't think the cigarette industry was able to avoid it but I am not well versed on tobacco industry regulations. My gut tells me that since at the end of the day marijuana is an agricultural commodity large players will come to dominate the market. But on the other hand there is a decent variety in strain types and flavo…

It's already happening here in CO. The amount of consolidation going on behind the scenes over the past couple years is staggering.

On the plus side it's mainly dispensary owners selling to other owners rather than Philip Morris.

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