Live data from Hacker News

Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

sfgate.com

31–40 of 309 posts

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#31
post #14

Personally, I have so many great, local breweries, I never think to get anything from out of state, usually not even out-of-city. This sounds like a reasonable move seeing the proliferation of great beers.

I like trying different beers and having novel experiences. Trying a local beer isn’t always amazing, but sometimes it’s unique and great, worth the risk to me.

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#32
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate local beers. Local wine makes sense, there is terroir, a sense of place etc. Local beers are just some weird competition to see who can make the hopiest bitterest beer. I don't want to try a new lager every time I cross county lines, when I want beer I want something reliable.

Depending on the beer it also has terroir, from catching wild yeasts. Same thing with beers made from local ingredients

Local ingredients must be incredibly niche though? The amount of US beer that must use imported UK, German, Belgian hops? Even if grown locally, the varieties. at which point this is like comparing Shiraz & Syrah; South African Merlot with Australian. Except without a record of it making a difference at all itself - intuitively it should be subtler - hops are a component, 'grape juice' is the whole thing. The water used for ale (more analogous to grapes really) does have a documented effect. That's probably more homogenous than it used to be, and the big boys probably use distilled water and add whatever mineral components they want, but certainly that could be significant for US vs UK microbreweries, or certain intra country comparisons.

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate local beers. Local wine makes sense, there is terroir, a sense of place etc. Local beers are just some weird competition to see who can make the hopiest bitterest beer. I don't want to try a new lager every time I cross county lines, when I want beer I want something reliable.

Funny. I actually want to have a different beer every single time I get one to drink.

I'm the same, but that's partially a function of how rarely I drink these days.

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#36
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trying to out do one another across different dimensions (though mostly hops) In places with younger craft markets, it's like an even split between hops and extreme naming/label graphics. Here in Seattle, beer names are like Obscure Mythology Reference and you might enjoy the Wikipedia hole it starts you on while you imbibe. The first craft brew I remember seeing visiting my original home state, Virginia, was liter…

Raging Bitch is made by Flying Dog brewery whose art is done by Ralph Steadman - well known for his collaborations with Hunter S Thompson. I started drinking it because of that fact after reading Fear and Loathing for the first time in college. It’s also nice and strong - 9% iirc

> It’s also nice and strong - 9% iirc

As all good stouts should be, in my humble opinion!

My all time favourite beer is the BrewDog, Nogne and Mikkeller collaboration stout: the Black Tokyo Horizon. It's 17.2%!

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#37

I remember getting Anchor Steam in California nearly 20 years ago, having been told about it by a relative as something to try. And having been happy to try a different tasting beer. The other California one I liked was Sierra Nevada pale ale. I feel like that was a much more innocent time. Now no matter where you are, there's a pile of competing craft beers, trying to out do one another across different dimensions (…

Sierra Nevada here on the east coast is brewed in Mills River, NC, just outside Asheville. I guess there must be some economic reason (abundant skilled brewer labor force?) for locating their east coast operations in a place that was already one of the most thriving local brewing scenes on this side of the country, but it just felt redundant to me.

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have so many great, local breweries My city has a lot, but I personally can't share in them. I will instantly vomit if I drink any local brews (in any locale). Same with whiskey. I can drink nationally-distributed beers and vodka with no ill-effects. I have no idea why. I'm jumping on this comment because I imagine there are some HN readers that might have a theory and I would be very interested in hearing them.

I hate local beers. Local wine makes sense, there is terroir, a sense of place etc. Local beers are just some weird competition to see who can make the hopiest bitterest beer. I don't want to try a new lager every time I cross county lines, when I want beer I want something reliable.

local breweries are like the least competitive businesses out there; they seem to be really tight with each other since making money on beer is super hard these days

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#39
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate local beers. Local wine makes sense, there is terroir, a sense of place etc. Local beers are just some weird competition to see who can make the hopiest bitterest beer. I don't want to try a new lager every time I cross county lines, when I want beer I want something reliable.

People get it in their heads that small and local means good or at least better than the stuff mass-produced by MegaCorp, but that's not always the case. I think beer is a case where it's hard to beat Big Beer. Heineken, the second-biggest brewery in the world, moved 231.2 million hectoliters of beer in 2021[0], or nearly 19,000 acre-feet of beer (!). How many locally-produced lagers actually taste better than Heinek…

Well, one local example relevant to TFA and that I know of is the Bay Area.

Anchor, Drake's, 21st Ammendment, Lagunitas, Das Brew, Altamont, and Fieldwork all make better tasting beer than Heineken.

Re: Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

#40
I live in New England. There isn’t a single brewery in any New England state that would cause an uproar if it ceased to sell beer tomorrow.

Sure I have some preferred beers but they are all interchangeable in the big picture.

Such is progress - there is no more regional taste, only trend. Even the bottle conditioned beer you stand in line for on vacation - a bottle of Duvel will be reliably better and probably cheaper.

Post reply on HN