111–120 of 168 posts
It’s very hard for me to reconcile. I love what craft brewing has done for the industry. But it has gone to a ridiculous and antithetical place. The culture has more in common with wine than beer at this point. It is no longer an “Everyman” drink. Waiting in line for releases. $10 and $15 pours. It’s a turnoff.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I always thought Dogfish Head was the most well known company doing super hop forward beers and they're on the east coast.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The mediocre old domestics cost $7 to $10 around most of the US No they don't, not even close. The beers you're referring to cost that for a _12_ pack. 6 packs are ~$5.50, and you can walk into a bar and get a draft old domestic for around $2.00. Wherever you're buying your e.g. Bud Light, it doesn't represent "most places".
you can walk into a bar and get a draft old domestic for around $2.00 Not in San Francisco.
What I dont understand is that in Europe there are dozens of delicious lagers, in the US I can't find any local copies. Mexican or Central American beers come closest. Surely with literally hundreds of microbrewery options there should be something close. Any recommendations?
Craft brewers don't do many lagers for two reasons. The first is that they're "boring". You can already get lots of different mass market lagers, and they're all similar. The second reason is that they're hard to brew. You can hide the fact that you're a shit brewer behind malt and hops (to an extent). You can't cover up poor technique in a lager. The big megacorps have got their technique down to a tee.
Love craft beer and I am glad my 125K city has 5 of them, but /r/starterpacks was dead on with this one: https://i.redd.it/fio3hqlmuofy.jpg I will be confused if I ever walk into a microbrewery that doesn't look like that!
It’s very hard for me to reconcile. I love what craft brewing has done for the industry. But it has gone to a ridiculous and antithetical place. The culture has more in common with wine than beer at this point. It is no longer an “Everyman” drink. Waiting in line for releases. $10 and $15 pours. It’s a turnoff.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Craft brewers don't do many lagers for two reasons. The first is that they're "boring". You can already get lots of different mass market lagers, and they're all similar. The second reason is that they're hard to brew. You can hide the fact that you're a shit brewer behind malt and hops (to an extent). You can't cover up poor technique in a lager. The big megacorps have got their technique down to a tee.
Macrobrew can also get away with adjuncts - making their beer from corn, and cheaper - while a craft brew audience is going to be wary of corn beer (unless specifically marketed as such) and expect a more expensive malt bill.
Summary: benevolent regulation caused the craft beer boom. I call bullshit. Look at this graph [1] and tell me again how great the three-tier system was for market diversity. America went from 700 post-Prohibition breweries to less than 100 in 1978. That was the year homebrewing was legalized, and it's a pretty steady climb back up from there. Brewpubs -- which circumvent the three-tier system and its all-too-easily-…
The author really went out of their way to talk about Anti-Trust concerns and had to get in a dig at Reagan for loosening them...yet the graph of breweries was up and to the right throughout Reagan’s time when Anti-Trust was paused then exploded in the 90’s.
I know people that run breweries. The Tasting Rooms are extremely important sources of profit. You can sell huge amounts of bottles, kegs and cans and only get a sliver of margin. The tasting room is a profit center because you get to keep most of the margin on your own alcohol (which is considerable).
Therefore, the idea that vertical integration is evil is wrong as well. It’s hard to turn a profit as an independent without a tasting room.
Is it so hard to believe that deregulation can drive economic variety and growth?
It’s very hard for me to reconcile. I love what craft brewing has done for the industry. But it has gone to a ridiculous and antithetical place. The culture has more in common with wine than beer at this point. It is no longer an “Everyman” drink. Waiting in line for releases. $10 and $15 pours. It’s a turnoff.
One of the things I miss about Italy is wine being an "Everyman" drink too. I wish people would kind of get over it being "fancy" in the US.
Summary: benevolent regulation caused the craft beer boom. I call bullshit. Look at this graph [1] and tell me again how great the three-tier system was for market diversity. America went from 700 post-Prohibition breweries to less than 100 in 1978. That was the year homebrewing was legalized, and it's a pretty steady climb back up from there. Brewpubs -- which circumvent the three-tier system and its all-too-easily-…
These graphs are quite convincing that the key events happened around 1978 and not decades prior to that. Amazing how a little data can instantly refute pages of exposition at a glance. The author really went out of their way to talk about Anti-Trust concerns and had to get in a dig at Reagan for loosening them...yet the graph of breweries was up and to the right throughout Reagan’s time when Anti-Trust was paused th…
Growing up in the 70's, American beer was putrid except for a few, hard to find brands. It seems like microbrews followed after "imported beer" became a synonym for "brew that isn't horrible."
Edit: it really is worth mentioning (because the article somehow doesn't) that craft beer in the US (and earlier in England with the Campaign for Real Ale) was a consumer movement for quality as much as it was a movement of businesses. A variety of foods have had this but it's not necessarily something that can be easily transplanted to other products.