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Anchor Brewing Company ends national distribution, kills Christmas Ale

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

#151

Post by eyelidlessness »

shaklee3 wrote: post #146
eyelidlessness wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really much of a problem. Beers that go skunky are typically sold in green or clear bottles. It really is the exposure of hops to light that causes it (and I have confirmed it with homebrew batches where some bottles skunked up rapidly while others lasted multiple years with no such effects, and even aged quite well). For beers like Bud that are mostly sold in cans, and/or Bud Light often sold in brown bottl…

Again, so this isn't confusing for anyone, this comment is totally wrong. Beer breweries do this because there's a clear change in flavor for beers left unrefrigerated and/or exposed to light.

They do change flavor over time, as do wines. It’s not necessarily a problem. My comment never claimed that there’s no change in flavor, only that flavor worsening and in particular skunkiness is trivially controllable. If you or anyone else disagrees with this, I invite you to try the oldest Deschutes Abyss you can find and describe exactly how it’s worse than the current year, or how you found even a hint of skunk in it.

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

#152

Post by analog31 »

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #150
analog31 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've noticed (purely my opinion): 1. We've reached Peak IPA. It was novel a couple decades ago, but geez, you can't taste the beer for the hops any more. 2. "Craft beer" has become a branding exercise. A lot of it is being brewed in contract breweries that will make a batch of whatever recipe you provide, with any label art you want. Bingo, craft beer. A couple of breweries in my region, in conversations, people…

Beer, coffee, hamburgers, pizza. They’re all solved problems. The only thing that makes a difference is the marketing.

Likewise wines with exactly 90 points.

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

#153

Post by kevinmchugh »

cratermoon wrote: post #89
kevinmchugh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trivial and cheap to make water harder, home brewers do it all the time to replicate specific styles. It's more difficult to make hard water soft. Also while hops have terroir, hops are dried and vacuum sealed and kept cold so that they can be shipped with no change in flavor. (Except of course for once-a-year wet hop beers which truly are very local)

> t's trivial and cheap to make water harder, home brewers do it all the time to replicate specific styles I'm aware of this. I did it for my ribbon-winning brews. It is cheap at the home brewer scale, but at commercial scales, maybe not so much. > can be shipped Sure, it's possible to get genuine Saaz hops shipped from the Czech Republic to California. Again, A home brewer might be willing to shell out top dollar fo…

The popularity of American hops in American craft beers is in large part because Ken Grossman wanted to use American hops and wanted to set himself apart from European-style hops. To my knowledge that's pretty different from terroir as it's typically meant, and also Sierra Nevada is pretty far from where Cascade was grown when they started buying it.

By the time you get to Stone or Lagunitas and their West Coast IPAs, the hops are being packaged as I described and again we're not really dealing with terroir. The Chicago Lagunitas products tastes identical to the California ones.

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

#154

Post by eyelidlessness »

shaklee3 wrote: post #144
eyelidlessness wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skunky odor/flavor comes from light exposure to hops and it’s easily prevented with dark bottles or cans. Other herbs work well as preservatives and don’t get skunky at all. Beer can be shelf stable basically indefinitely if well kept, and often ages very well.

That's absolutely not true. IPAs cannot be shelf stable past a few months if unrefrigerated. They start to lose the hoppy aroma and taste and taste more muted. The longer you go the more skunky it tastes.

It is fair that IPA hop aromas do diminish over time, it really depends on the beer how that affects its quality. But if you don’t expose them to light they definitely don’t get skunky, at any temperature over many years.

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

#155

Post by ninth_ant »

bsder wrote: post #83
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #65

>sold to Sapporo in 2017 Ah, I was wondering where the pressure was coming from. The idea that this 150 year old brewery is closing down a truly cornerstone beer in craft beer history because the label art is expensive - despite weathering untold recessions and tough periods - strains credulity

What is happening in the craft beer market? Ballast Point had a similar trajectory. They got bought for a gigabuck and now are just gone . Why the hell would you buy a company and then screw it up ? In the case of Ballast Point, all Constellation Brands had to do was leave the bought company alone . And, no, I don't believe that the issue is because you can buy great beers in every market. Hogwash. Maybe I can buy IP…

> Why the hell would you buy a company and then screw it up? In the case of Ballast Point, all Constellation Brands had to do was leave the bought company alone.

It would almost never make economic sense to buy a business and then leave it alone. The profitability of the current operation would be factored into the price, so leaving it alone means you're just wasting money buying it. There are obviously exceptions to this but that should be the general rule.

No, you buy a company to make changes. Perhaps you intend to find synergies to cut costs or expand distribution -- or other ways to increase profits that the current management isn't doing. Obviously they wouldn't intend to screw it up, but I'm sorry that your beloved brewery was a victim to corporate shenanigans.

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

#156

Post by brewdad »

pdntspa wrote: post #143
vrosas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped drinking Yuengling when they got cozy with Trump in 2016. So many other superior breweries in Philly - Yards, Victory, Attic just to name a few.

I don't really believe in this whole stupid 'boycott them because they don't align with my values' bullshit, people should be free to express their political opinions however they see fit

And I can choose not to give my money to someone who will use it to fund politicians who want to actively harm members of my family.

Ain’t capitalism grand?

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

#157

Post by shaklee3 »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #151
shaklee3 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, so this isn't confusing for anyone, this comment is totally wrong. Beer breweries do this because there's a clear change in flavor for beers left unrefrigerated and/or exposed to light.

They do change flavor over time, as do wines. It’s not necessarily a problem. My comment never claimed that there’s no change in flavor, only that flavor worsening and in particular skunkiness is trivially controllable. If you or anyone else disagrees with this, I invite you to try the oldest Deschutes Abyss you can find and describe exactly how it’s worse than the current year, or how you found even a hint of skunk…

It is a problem; that's why they put dates on them. You claimed it's for marketing, and it's not. Wine in supposed to be aged, most beers are not (sours and stouts are the exception). It's like eating day old food from a restaurant and pretending that's how the chef intended it to taste.

I've had almost every year of abyss going back to 2011. You picked a beer and a style that is intended to be aged, and the flavor changes over time much like wine. That has nothing to do with Budweiser, IPAs, pilsners, etc that are not supposed to be aged.

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

#158

Post by ojbyrne »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #7
version_five wrote: post #4

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 (…

> 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…

Pretty sure it’s an IPA. Sigh

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

#159

Post by phillc73 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #90
bsder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is happening in the craft beer market? Ballast Point had a similar trajectory. They got bought for a gigabuck and now are just gone . Why the hell would you buy a company and then screw it up ? In the case of Ballast Point, all Constellation Brands had to do was leave the bought company alone . And, no, I don't believe that the issue is because you can buy great beers in every market. Hogwash. Maybe I can buy IP…

> I can buy IPA, IPAer, IPAest, and IPAestest in every market--maybe. However, dark, heavy porters I'm totally with you, though my personal love is sour beers. IPA rules the market, to the point where I have trouble distinguishing between whichever super-hoppy IPA is currently the best. But good sour beers are not nearly so common. If someone ever buys Cascade Brewing and kills it, I will be wildly irritated. I do se…

I think Cascade Brewing Co. is already owned by Asahi. I didn’t know they did a sour beer though!

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

#160

Post by brewdad »

shaklee3 wrote: post #146
eyelidlessness wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really much of a problem. Beers that go skunky are typically sold in green or clear bottles. It really is the exposure of hops to light that causes it (and I have confirmed it with homebrew batches where some bottles skunked up rapidly while others lasted multiple years with no such effects, and even aged quite well). For beers like Bud that are mostly sold in cans, and/or Bud Light often sold in brown bottl…

Again, so this isn't confusing for anyone, this comment is totally wrong. Beer breweries do this because there's a clear change in flavor for beers left unrefrigerated and/or exposed to light.

Too deep in the chain to reply directly but I opened a 2009 Abyss a few months ago and it was still delicious. The label even tells you to wait about 18 months after bottling before even considering whether to drink it.
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