Interesting article that compares craft beer to punk rock. Misty talks about how session beers are the new fad (have been in some places) but also throws in the “selling out” jab.
While it doesn’t directly cover selling to multi-nationals, I do see the same arguments as I saw back when punk bands went mainstream.
So I guess that makes Sam Adams the Blink-182 of the bunch. 
That’s a good article. I hope the author is right. There is nothing I hate more than going to the beer store and finding a bunch of extreme this and that and nothing to style.
One of the things, I really like about Yellow Hammer (majorvices brewery) is pretty much everything fits in a style. It’s just good beer.
Sam Adams still has its fans, so I’d say they are more like Greenday
I like a few of their beers, just struck me funny.
Haven’t read the article yet, and I’m not a punk aficionado, but I’ve always kinda liked the Meat Puppets.
So, punk fans who might be the Meat Puppets of the craft brewing world. Just curious.
I’m going to that Extreme Beerfest in February…can’t wait! Last year was great but damned if I remember half of it.
You find these kinds of arguments in every alternative or counterculture. It comes along with defining yourself in opposition to a mainstream element.
I disagree that the extreme beer element is over. You can’t go very far in any craft beer circle before you hit people who might shotgun some session beers but the majority of their beer consumption is still the biggest stout and highest IBU IPA on the menu. There are a rare number of beers under 6% that get traders excited. There will always be a craft beer market for the biggest and craziest beers.
The rise (or perhaps return to) lower ABV beers isn’t a sign of defeat of craft beer’s desire to push boundaries. It’s a recognition (or remembrance) that good beer flavor doesn’t require running away from the AALs that craft beer initially sought to flee. Craft beer is no longer avoiding the pale color or lower ABV of Bud Light. We can now feel comfortable accepting that beer is most often drank by people who want to relax with a few easy drinking beers. It’s unfortunate we’ve had to throw the session term around to take classic craft styles and make them popular again.
Well said.
I think there are 2 levels of “crazy beer”
a. Huge tasting, hoppy, high % IPAs and stouts
b. Session beers
These beers I think are legitimate and is part of a style makeover or addition.
Odd combinations. Peanut butter and jelly beer, banana doughnut beer, etc. Unless well done (which very few can pull off), it’s just a novelty to pull out during a party to split a bomber between several people.
While they can be fun to sample and worth the price as a conversation piece, I think these beers are doing harm to the industry.
I actually think there are far too many options on the shelves today. As long as that’s the case, we’re going to see new versions of beer by everyone. There are huge companies that don’t even sell their flagship products in many retail stores because it won’t sell as good as their new “seasonal”.
We need to get back to a level of selection where all of the breweries sell flagship true(er) to style products imo.
Thanks Tommy! That’s a great compliment and exactly what I am trying to do. But I have to admit that extreme sells. I still don’t have the urge to make crazy-■■■ beers. I want to make beers people can just sit down and enjoy. My bock is a little darker than the “guidelines” and my schwarzbier is a little maltier but I hope you will find that the beer we brew are all extremely drinkable. That doesn’t mean we don’t have high end beers, right now we have a Belgian dark strong that is aged on cherries and then aged in red wine barrels. But it is balanced (and not aged on the barrels for so long that all you taste is wood and oxidation.)
One thing I have noticed about lots of new drinkers is they expect a hell of a lot of flavor, even if that flavor is BAD flavor. They want coffee this, and hoppy that and the darker the better. Especially in Alabama where people are new to the craft beer scene. I know of many people who are so disappointed if you don’t have an IPA on draft that they will simply not come to your place. (So, of course now, we always try to keep an IPA on draft). Same with dark beers and stouts. New beer drinkers have it in their heads that super hoppy beers or extra dark stouts are the beers that show off a brewers skill, while we brewers all know differently. Try the lightest kolsch to see a brewers true craft.
The biggest selling 22 oz local beer around here was a beer so bad that it had the lowest review in Malt Advocate (by the magazine, not the public) that I have ever seen. And the beer was truly awful. But it was a "Peanut Butter Porter and of course everyone just had to try that. People still talk about that beer, a year after the brewery shut its doors (not because they couldn’t sell the crap load out of PB porter though).
I’m waiting it out and hoping people’s taste grow up. We sell plenty of beer but we don’t always get people as excited with our beers as I think they deserve. But as a rule I don’t brew beer much higher than 10% because I don’t really care to drink those beers (except for some rare instances) and while I have a Belgian Chocolate Stout in the works I refuse to make gimmick beers just to sell. If I can’t drink it, you won’t find it on tap.
I think this is to be expected though. It’s like telling a kid at Disney World not to run or get excited.
New craft beer drinkers are used to Bud Select. If they are feeling frisky, maybe they will order a Budweiser or Corona.
When they commit to trying craft beer (after the gateway American wheat, Hefe, real lager, etc), they are left with an explosion of new flavors. Who knew beer could be citrus, chocolate, coffee, vanilla, pumpkin spice, etc flavored. It’s a completely new world to them and I’m happy to introduce them to something completely different than what they are used to.
I think there is plenty of time to go back to the dunkels, tripels, California, kolsh, etc later. In fact, they would probably have a better appreciation of them later too.
I think homebrew is more like punk rock… DIY. Nano/microbreweries are like the origial punk labels that made enough money to stay in business. “Craft” is popular enough that you get a mixed bag… popular breweries like SN that still stay true to their principles, and unoriginal ones that went into business to be rock stars among the new, uneducated consumer and financed by a money man who probably made the “artist” commit unsavory acts to get the job.
I think you nailed it. It’s a much better comparison to homebrewing - it’s all about DIY in either case. No company or board of directors to answer to. If you do it your way and you know you nailed it AND people then like it, you won on your own terms, nobody else’s.