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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

#81

Post by Linell »

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…

Completely agree. A good IPA can be great, but I feel like they've become almost synonymous with craft beer in general. I've heard people order "the hoppiest beer you've got" because it's gotten to the point where hops == good_beer and it just rubs me the wrong way.

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

#82

Post by m-ee »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #79
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As someone that just wants a refreshing but quality lager there's nothing for me in this current wave. It's all group think. IPAs and Imperial Stouts everywhere. To the extent that you will find entire categories of beer on beer rating sites with nothing above a 4/5 in that category due to the groupthink that says more flavor = higher ratings. Refreshing, crisp and other such metrics don't count right now due to the…

I was a beer snob but find myself mostly drinking mexican lagers these days. It's summer and I don't want an 8% imperial stout or a brewery's mediocre first attempt at a hazy IPA

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

#83

Post by dmurray »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #59
monocasa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you from the UK? Cask is considered a sub genre in the US, and not something to shoot for in the general case here. Most consumers here don't want a cask beer, but instead a carbonated one from a keg. If you serve them a cask beer they think it's flat. There's a craft brewery near me that specializes in cask (shout out to Hogshead in Denver if you've never been), but they're embracing the niche aspect of that rat…

Cask is a sub-genre in the UK as well, limping along with a hyper-nationalist identity. Dude is feigning ignorance.

Correct. Even in the UK there are plenty of craft brewers who don't produce cask beer. Nobody really thinks all beer should be distributed in casks and other storage methods are only "low-quality shortcuts", despite chrisseaton's four posts in this thread pretending to be shocked.

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

#84

Post by AndrewLiptak »

bluntfang wrote: post #3
freefal wrote: post #2

#9 is one of my favorite beers so I was bummed to see the title of this HN post. Reading the article it sounds like production is just being moved to Rochester though.

>production is just being moved to Rochester though. I don't think this really captures how important small business is to Vermont. This is likely culling a lot of jobs across the whole supply chain that locals rely on to survive.

Fortunately, the space is being taken up by another brewery, Zero Gravity (which produces really great beer), and I believe that they're picking up some of their employees.

I honestly don't think it's detrimental to the industry here: there are a TON of smaller breweries that are all doing really well.

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

#85

Post by AndrewLiptak »

freefal wrote: post #2

#9 is one of my favorite beers so I was bummed to see the title of this HN post. Reading the article it sounds like production is just being moved to Rochester though.

Production is moving, but what struck me (and what made me think HN readers would be interested in it) was that the business seems to have fallen victim to a classic problem in business: being sold to people who don't understand the culture / product, and can't effectively sell it or continue it in a meaningful way. From the sounds of things, they're not selling all that well because of that.

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

#86

Post by linuxftw »

pessimizer wrote: post #70
linuxftw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 price…

> 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.

This is not really what I meant. I mean to say, for instance, I prefer Sam Adams over 90/100 microbrews I've tried. Name the top 6 non-economy beers in the supermarket, I enjoy most of them more than 75/100 microbrews. Taste-wise, I think most microbrews are a bad product, even if they were priced less than the premium national beers, I wouldn't buy them.

In many ways, it's like self-proclaimed 'audiophiles' and people that love vinyl. It's about something other than just the enjoyment of music. Similarly, as you suggest as a result of market forces, microbrews are about things other than taste. That explains the brewery's side of the equation, but no so much the customer's. Are people drinking microbrews simply because it's cool? Probably, and probably most of them.

I often visit local breweries when I travel as a form of supporting local businesses and such. I do enjoy trying new beers. I found, up until about 10 years ago, a local beer that had supermarket distribution was usually pretty dang good. It was the 'locals beer' which is not really the same as the microbrews we have now.

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

#87

Post by blackfawn »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
StrangeDoctor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be a bit of confusion here, on tap, in the us, usually, just means coming from a keg. Having 40 draft lines is not that odd and beer lasts a long time in a keg. If you meant 40+ cask served beers, then that would indeed require a lot of turnover

Right, but that's what I mean. Instead of a couple of carefully produced natural cask beers, they have forty mass produced Pasteurised, carbonated kegs. Quantity over quality.

In the US, casked "real ale" is rather uncommon and many people prefer kegged and force carbonated beer. While I enjoy and seek out casked beer when it is available, most people I've talked with actively avoid it with comments of it being "flat" or "warm". Even the places that have 20+ taps (kegs) will only have 1 or 2 casks at most, but typically no casks. More often than not, casks are only available for special events/beer releases.

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

#88

Post by sharadov »

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 used to love Belgian beers and now I've come back full circle to them

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

#89

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

sharadov wrote: post #88
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 used to love Belgian beers and now I've come back full circle to them

I get the impression that Belgians are going to be the next IPA. I'm seeing lots of mediocre ales slapping on the "Belgian-style" moniker with nothing in the bottle that justifies their claim.

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

#90

Post by tomlagier »

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…

Huh, I've actually seen a move against that. A few years ago, the "West-coast style" IPA with enormous amounts of hops was the vogue beer.

Today, you're much more likely to see a "New England IPA", "hazy" or "juicy IPA" in the star spot. This style is much less bitter, with a bigger body and a ton of sweet juice notes. It's a heavy beer but man is it tasty and refreshing.

Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing is a good example of the style that's widely distributed. Almost every craft brewer has one or two offerings of their own that are typically just as good.

I'm not much of a hop head but the New England style IPA is by far my favorite on the market. I'd encourage you to give it a try before swearing off IPAs forever.

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