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Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

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Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#61

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

polygotdomain wrote: post #15

As a craft beer lover, I'm really at odds with what to think about where the scene is today. There are so many breweries out there that are brewing some really great beer and coming up with some interesting styles. In many places there's a recapturing of what I'd call "beer as place" with beirgartens, brew-pubs, and breweries themselves having a more open and inviting experience to hang out and drink beer. It's tasty…

I'm really getting tired of the IPA fad. I loved IPAs when they were a niche product and you could sample most of them in a reasonable time span. Now they're 90% of the shelf space and other deserving varieties are hard to find. Most of the newcomers are poorly executed hacks that follow the simplistic formula: IPA == bitter hops, therefore let's overload on hops. I won't drink any IPA that wasn't around 10 years ago just to filter out the garbage.

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#62

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

corporateslave5 wrote: post #13
seibelj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most beers are better at the brewery IMO, and most beers are better on draft. One beer I especially like in a can is Boddingtons because of the CO2 capsule that makes its pour quite similar to a draft beer. I think a few other beers have the same innovation. I believe I’m the only person at my local package store who buys it, as they order very little and I always seem to buy the last couple 4-packs.

Right, but I think because it’s an apricot beer, the freshness has more of an impact on taste than other beers. Just speculating

Fruit ages pretty well in general, but I'd strongly suspect that Magic Hat had DO levels back then that would horrify the industry today.

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#63

Post by astura »

chrisseaton wrote: post #58
astura wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must live in different parts of the country, I don't know a single craft brewery that brews 40 different beers at once, not even the huge multimillion "stretching the definition of craft" brewery around here. It's typically 4-10 at once around here. I don't think even Treehouse has that many and they have a ton (and limit everyone to 2 pours each because of the huge amount of traffic they get)

This is the kind of craziness I see when I travel to the US https://www.taptrail.com/world-record-for-most-beer-taps/ I really struggle to believe they keep 366 beers in the best condition possible. And I don't get why it's a goal in the first place. I don't think anyone is making a meaningful choice between 366 beers and I bet they often get a disappointing one when they select something that nobody else has picked…

Well, that's a bar, not a brewery, and the topic here is breweries, not bars.

If a bar has the sort of foot traffic/clientele/supply chain to support 366 different beers on tap then good for them, some do, it's not an easy operation to run. They also usually buy mini-kegs for quick turnover. If they are serving garbage quality beer that's been sitting for months then they probably wouldn't be in business.

The place I used to frequent that has around 25 beers on tap usually had a turnover of about 50% of taps/week from what I saw.

Shrug the Delirium Café in Brussels has 2000 beers on tap.

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#64

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

x87678r wrote: post #47
andygcook wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vermont has phenomenal beers if you like hoppy IPAs. Besides being a very fun city, most bars in Burlington, VT carry beers from the local breweries around there: Lawson's (Sip of Sunshine), the Alchemist (Heady Topper), Fourteenth Star (Tribute), Zero Gravity, Hill Farmstead, and more. If you ever end up in MA, Tree House is worth checking out and has 4 of the top 20 beers on Untappd right now. Vitamin Sea in Weymou…

> hoppy IPAs I feel like that is pretty much all craft beer in the US is. I just wish we could get some good European style lagers that are ubiquitous in Europe but don't exist in the US for some reason.

"New England" IPAs aren't overly hopped, have more of a citrus character, and are not as astringent as classic IPAs. I don't like super-hopped beers, but I like NEIPAs. But they're definitely "trendy" at the moment.

New England is much more heavily influenced by Ireland and the UK, and I think that's why we don't get many good examples of continental styles around here. I also suspect that a lot of people who move from a brewing hobby to a brewing business have a lot more experience with ales, and less experience with lagers.

I've never had an excellent hefeweizen made outside of Germany.

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#65

Post by Ductapemaster »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #61
polygotdomain wrote: post #15

As a craft beer lover, I'm really at odds with what to think about where the scene is today. There are so many breweries out there that are brewing some really great beer and coming up with some interesting styles. In many places there's a recapturing of what I'd call "beer as place" with beirgartens, brew-pubs, and breweries themselves having a more open and inviting experience to hang out and drink beer. It's tasty…

I'm really getting tired of the IPA fad. I loved IPAs when they were a niche product and you could sample most of them in a reasonable time span. Now they're 90% of the shelf space and other deserving varieties are hard to find. Most of the newcomers are poorly executed hacks that follow the simplistic formula: IPA == bitter hops, therefore let's overload on hops. I won't drink any IPA that wasn't around 10 years ago…

Really sorry you feel that way bud. Honestly, I totally get it — IPAs are way over-represented in the craft beer scene, especially in CA where I'm at. However, their prominence has led to a really interesting market of new IPAs that use brand new styles of hops, or hops that traditionally have been unavailable in the US market. For example, hops from New Zealand have made their way to the US and now that the trendiness of "magic mystery" hops from another place has died down, some beers made with them are just fantastic and taste nothing like the IPSs of yesteryear.

I totally get being tired out of an extremely prominent style, but I'd encourage you to seek out some brews made with new hops as some of them are just very different and exciting. Of course, there's tons of other beer out there that's not an IPA, so by all means please continue to explore those spaces too!

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#66

Post by vb6sp6 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #61
polygotdomain wrote: post #15

As a craft beer lover, I'm really at odds with what to think about where the scene is today. There are so many breweries out there that are brewing some really great beer and coming up with some interesting styles. In many places there's a recapturing of what I'd call "beer as place" with beirgartens, brew-pubs, and breweries themselves having a more open and inviting experience to hang out and drink beer. It's tasty…

I'm really getting tired of the IPA fad. I loved IPAs when they were a niche product and you could sample most of them in a reasonable time span. Now they're 90% of the shelf space and other deserving varieties are hard to find. Most of the newcomers are poorly executed hacks that follow the simplistic formula: IPA == bitter hops, therefore let's overload on hops. I won't drink any IPA that wasn't around 10 years ago…

> I won't drink any IPA that wasn't around 10 years ago just to filter out the garbage

You might be missing out on some really goods ones with this strategy

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#67

Post by dang »

coldpie wrote: post #60
itronitron wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're feeling down on the US craft beer scene just visit Europe (after Covid runs it's course) and you may realize that US craft beer is quite strong by comparison.

I started drinking in the mid-2000s. This was around when the American craft brew scene was really taking over the nation, but the jokes all my European colleagues told were about how American beer is piss-water. Imagine my surprise when I went to Europe, this fabled land of "real beer", and found that they had at most one or two taps at the bar, and asked if I wanted "dark" or "light". No brand names, no styles, no…

It's true, that reputation lasted for many decades. Here's Monty Python's classic "making love in a canoe" joke from 1979: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8aPABF7nW4 [1]. Also this from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4336790:

The old brewer's joke which goes like this (I'll use your examples): A Budweiser salesman, a Coors salesman, and an Anchor Steam salesman meet in the hotel bar at a beer convention. The Budweiser man says, "I'll have a Budweiser." The Coors man says, "I'll have a Coors." The Anchor Steam man says, "Just water for me." The other two look at him and say "What? Just water?" "Well," he says, "since you guys aren't having beer I won't either."

The American craft beer Renaissance has been an amazing thing. Thank you Jimmy Carter! https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/08/how-jimm... ... err, maybe: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/jimmy-c...

[1] One of the comments on that YouTube clip complains that it was originally a Canadian joke. The canoe makes me think that might be true.

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#68

Post by gbarnes »

beezle wrote: post #24
tarentel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawson's started brewing at Two Roads in CT and got a distributor in CT and it's been a lot easier to find at least here in NJ within the past year. I also recently got Heady and Focal down here but I am not sure where the distributor got it from or if it was a one off thing. You probably already know about them but Hill Farmstead is my favorite in VT. I used to go there a few times a year when I lived closer by.

Sip of Sunshine has always been brewed at TwoRoads. Super Session is also brewed there. The rest of the line up is local at the Waitsfield or Warren facility. Double Sip came before Sip as well. Alchemist AFAIK only has local distribution within 25 miles of the brewery in Stowe by their own trucks/vans. (adding) If you find yourself in the central VT area, the Lawson's tap room is really nice facility, definitely che…

Nah, Alchemist has been distributing much further for about a year now. Easy to get in NY and MA now. Like, on the shelf at Wegmans easy.

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#69

Post by coldpie »

beezle wrote: post #21

Never really got into most of the Magic Hat offerings. Single chair was ok. I was surprised they never really did much with the tap room, instead keeping it to just to small samples and merchandise rather than going full tap room like everyone else

> I was surprised they never really did much with the tap room, instead keeping it to just to small samples and merchandise rather than going full tap room like everyone else

I guess I'm not sure what you mean here. I was at their taproom in Burlington a year or two ago, and you could get full pints of everything they had on tap. I think when I was there, they even had a keg of something they didn't bother to bottle. There's also a really well done tour through the brewing facility, which I thought was pretty cool.

Re: Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont

#70

Post by pessimizer »

linuxftw wrote: post #34
pessimizer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that small breweries were caught up in the same trends that were going on in (hipster) food in general: it's easier to be incomparable than to be good. I don't know what to compare an apricot beer to, so I don't know if an apricot beer is a good apricot beer. If I'm the type of customer who is attracted to the high-concept of an apricot beer, when I get sick of it, I'm not going to find another apricot beer,…

I've tried many craft breweries all over the US. Most of the time, their beers are indistinguishable from one another, and most of the time the beer isn't very good. It's common for me to walk into a brewery and not like a single beer out of 6-15 beers. I don't consider myself a beer snob, I love lots of different types of beer. I'm a firm believer that most of the major brands of beer are big due to taste, other tha…

> I'm a firm believer that most of the major brands of beer are big due to taste, other than the economy beers.

I guess I agree with this in a way, in that what most people are looking for are water substitutes that will give you a low-level buzz. I don't think most people want "good" brews, they were just told that's what they should want, and since the mass-market beer prices rose to nearly meet small brewery prices, there was little benefit in continuing to drink cheap. Buying an apricot flavored light (colored) beer in my view is similar to buying something from the new "flavored water" category. Or a White Claw.

I think this is a market failure rather than a failure in taste, though. Distinguishing yourself by quality in a glutted market is not going to work. It's better to think of a variation that is easily marketable than to compete on quality (except in a luxury market, where you can signal quality through pricing and exclusivity and rely on the effects of conspicuous consumption.) It's going to be easier to sell an IPA flavored with violet essence with a lot of flowers on the label, strong branding through color, and an evocative name than a beer whose only notable characteristic is that it tastes better than others of its type.

All that being said, as long as I can still get Edmond Fitzgerald porter, all is right with the world.

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