I have to admit that I am now officially a spoiled beer snob. Last night I went out with some friends to a pub that heavily promotes their large beer selection. I spent a good 10 minutes going over their beer menu and was really rather disappointed. Ten or fifteen years ago a bar that offered 30 or more beers was generally a place that I’d go out of my way to visit just for the beer selection.
This bar had over 90 beers available, but the choices were primarily the flagship beers and IPA/Session IPA/Specialty IPA’s from many big regional and national craft breweries. There were no sour beers, little to no presence from our up and coming local scene, and barely any imports. The only German lager was Warsteiner, they only had 2 English ales, and despite being called “The Abbey”, the only trappist beer on the list was “Chimay” (your guess is as good as mine as to which Chimay it is). I normally get a sampler tray or two at a bar like this to try out all of my “want list” from their beer selection. Last night I struggled just to find two different beers that I wanted to drink.
The kicker for me was the sign for the Goose Island Tap Takeover in the men’s room. I’ve come to the realization that “craft beer” is on its way to killing real craft beer.
All that said, the food was excellent and the beer was served properly and in good condition. I really enjoyed Old Speckled Hen on draft. I’ve only had it in clear bottles and nitro can in the past. On tap with the proper CO2 carbonation it is a really nice beer.
I’m going to agree with you. I think the reason is distributors and/or the corporate heads of restaurants. For them, beer selection is a bottom line thing rather than a beer experience thing. Think the movie Office Space with a required number of pieces of ‘flair’ on the waitress’s uniform. Flair = number of taps.
I can go to the local (insert big name chain restaurant) and have a hard time finding a beer I want out of 30 taps. I can go to the local beer shop owned by a couple that loves good beer and out of the 25 taps I have a hard time deciding which beer to drink because the good choices are too many.
Couldn’t agree more, Steve. I think it’s getting easier and easier to advertise a large beer menu and get set up with a bunch of “safe” beers from a distributor. This place was advertised as a burger and beer bar, but it’s really just a burger bar with a large, uninspired beer list.
Sounds like my bog standard experience with the Yard House - woo - so many taps - so many meh choices. When they first opened up the very first locations here in LA, it was that same thing but all the taps were some crappy pilsner thing. Now it’s all IPAs.
I share the frustration, but replace “sours” with “good session beers” (“session” IPA doesn’t fit my definition of a good session beer) and you’re closer to what I’m looking for.
Why then the focus on IPAs, APAs that masquerade as IPA, and only a few other styles? Because they sell. And it seems the craft beer drinkers really aren’t that different from the oldschool BMC drinkers. IPA is this era what bottled Budweiser was to the 50’s/60’s: the cool thing to drink.
I’m becoming convinced that the average craft beer drinker is really not that discerning. The average homebrewer, however…
Yard house is overrated. I’ve been to the one in Palmdale, a coworker tried their “Maryland Crab Cake” appetizer to see how they stacked up.
They were about 1.5" diameter and a half inch tall. No Old Bay. About 4 bites of food, and I think he spent $20 on them.
Totally agree - good Office Space analogy. These places feel the pressure to have several taps to be competitive with other similar places, and the actual beer quality is often secondary. But you’re right - there are a few taprooms and beer pubs around here where the owner is obviously a beer lover and seeks out top notch, hard to find beers. Craft beer is getting like your favorite band before they signed to the big label. You felt like every song was for you and you loved their whole vibe, and then they went big, polished their sound, and started writing sappy ballads.
More is not necessarily better. 92 taps might bring people in who feel like they must be able to find something they like. People who are not well versed in craft beer they are likely to be overwhelmed, shrug and order whatever name is most familiar. Craft beer snobs expect 92 taps to carry enough diversity to find something interesting. Then we end up with the same beer selection available in the grocery store. It’s not that those beers are bad but I wonder why I am paying a premium for the same beers at a fungible bar experience. I also know there is no way they are turning over 92 taps with regularity so the freshness of the beer is questionable. If you’re carrying 30 IPAs that’s a problem.
Give me a far smaller selection with a well curated tap wall. It doesn’t have to be exotic or hyped up beers but just a good mix that includes a range of styles and includes some quality local options. I would rather give my money to a local business that appreciates craft beer like I do and really cares about my experience over a shotgun approach.
I can’t recall the name of it off the top of my head but there’s a place in Raleigh North Carolina that just opened up with 300 taps. I believe they have three levels, the top level being all NC local beers, the middle like Belgians and Sours or something like that and then the bottom level being all the big name nationwide distributed stuff, so supposedly something for everyone. I didn’t get the chance to go there while I was visiting the East Coast over Christmas but the review I kept reading over and over and over on Yelp and Google was that all that beer was going to go sour and funky because there’s no way they were turning it over fast enough. They’ve have to be blowing 100 kegs a night. I appreciate the focus on local but the rest just seems like overkill. On the one hand I wanted to try it out, but after reading the reviews I wasn’t sure it’d be worth it.
Another major complaint was the waitstaff had no clue what was on the taplist.
It was essentially a glorified sports bar near a college. They did have a wide variety of beers, many of the better selections in bottles and not on tap, but the ambiance was terrible. Like a Chili’s. Very corporate.
It also seemed like it was geared toward a much younger crowd than what I am today.
I’ll take quality over quantity and prefer to enjoy the setting as much as the beer.
You’ve got that right! I actually went to a yard house in Vegas last March, super excited to find some beers I couldn’t get back home, only to find they carried the same Dogfish Head, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada beers I could get in Fort Worth. It definitely made me appreciate some of the local beer bars I have here. Not a huge national variety, but the DFW brew scene is exploding with good non-IPA beers.
THIS right here. I’ve been thinking this for quite some time. So many of the “craft beer” bars have nothing but IPAs and Imperial stouts on tap, nothing but super high abv stuff. It’s annoying. There’s a place called El Bait Shop in Des Moines that has over 100 taps and I looked at the menu for 10 minutes, like Eric, couldn’t find a damn thing I wanted. The IPA and stout list was HUGE, there were no lagers, no wheat beers, a few sours (which I don’t drink). It was ridiculous. Plus, if they had something like Chimay it would be like $9 a pour. Screw that.
I mean, seriously, how much IPA can one take? There’s more to beer than hops.
Had dinner at a place on 101 with, shocker, 101 taps. 28 IPAs. I had a burger made with beef and brat and there wasn’t a decent lager to be enjoyed with it. Best they had was Krambacher.
Was at Whole Foods looking for beer to go with Salmon. Again, very poor lager selection and those there were mostly Vienna style.
A different time, a different perspective. There have been times I was not impressed by other places with high ratings.
El Bait Shop was a standout on a road trip to CO/UT/AZ/NM. We had a hotel in walking distance, had beer and bar food, and were saying that gee it was affordable. We were just in Chicago last weekend, that was sticker shock. We were happy with the selection at El Bait Shop, found what we wanted, and tried new beers from the center of the nation that we don’t get, and I think I started with a lager. Just looked at the online list, there seems to be enough lagers on the list that I could drink my fill in a night. Heck, I would drink all 4 of the Schell’s Bocks. The lines were all clean, and the server was knowledgable and helpful. For that many beers we are impressed.
The other standout was the stop at Le Cumbre in Duke City. They are know for the IPAs and Stouts. We had the taproom only Pilsner and Helles, which were darned good. Did buy some IPA and Stout to go.
My bride and I went to dinner last night to a local restaurant/bar that boasts 18 taps. There was one Pilsner, two winter warmers, three pale ales… and all the rest were IPAs.
I love IPAs - I drink more IPAs than anything else, but wow.
I can relate to that. I’m a huge hophead myself. Back in the day, whenever I discovered a new brewery the first thing I wanted to try was their IPA. Now I rarely try a new commercial IPA, and when I check out a new brewery I’m drawn to anything that’s not an IPA.
This. Any day. A cozy bar with 10 taps, all made in house and maybe one guest tap (or cider). They will usually not double up too many time. A pale, an IPA, a red/amber, a stout, some english style like ESB and then maybe (especially here in Portland) a couple high end versions of the previous i.e. Imperial Stout, Double IPA.