I love Alesmith… They are just becoming more readily available in these parts. The robust Porter was kissed by Jesus!
At NHC last year Alesmith was stellar. Modern Times was good. Went out to Apline and was underwhelmed, beer was good, but I could not taste the hype.
I had a Duet a few weeks ago and was not impressed, especially given what I had heard about Alpine.
I actually always felt like they were over-hyped, and then I haven’t heard anyone mention them in a long time and I haven’t seen a new release of theirs on the shelves in probably two years. I feel like Green Flash, Alpine, and Stone get so much buzz up here (Portland, OR) that I assumed it wasn’t so much a distance thing, but a reduction of buzz. Maybe they’re focusing on the local market more - which would explain it.
To be clear, my original posting wasn’t about not liking older breweries, quite the contrary. I miss pale ales, balanced red ales, porters, and stouts on nitro (every other style is on nitro now in bars except for stout!). I am sick of IPA’s with added flavors. If I never drink another $11 “farmhouse ale” again, it will be too soon. In fact, 95% of what I brew or buy is standard to-style beer, and I sometimes miss the beers that got dropped from my local shelves and taps when breweries have “freshened up” their brand (RIP BridgePort ESB and Sierra Nevada Porter). I just didn’t understand how/why. Now I think you guys have brought up some points.
- Head brewers leave (I never thought this would make much of a difference in larger breweries, but apparently it does).
- Distribution/Marketing/Etc means that I may not see/hear about a beer, because someone else does (may be the case with AleSmith)
- Small business capacity issues and willingness to remain in a sustainable niche market (if it pays to make Old Rasputin all day every day, why would North Coast do anything else?)
- Expansion-related issues limit experimentation.
- Corporations buy breweries and ruin them (Red Hook, Pyramid, BridgePort, Mendocino) - but maybe the most recent round of buy-outs will be better-handled (Ballast Point, Lagunitas, Elysian, 10 Barrels, Cigar City)
Ugh, the hype word…
Too often this just involves (over)doing what is popular. I think not participating in that ridiculousness is different than going stale.
Had a guy visit my basement a while back, mostly complimentary but just couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to oak age several of my beers. And why wasn’t I doing “advanced” (his word) stuff with wild yeasts?? …Tour over, ya know?
Post on HBT couple weeks back said everything was underwhelming and he was just mixing all his beers with bourbon, which was much better. Mkay.
I guess I’m saying the hype trains have historically included too many like those two guys. I appreciate subtlety. I appreciate clean beer, lack of batch variability, and freshness. If I had a brewery, and lost some previous “hype” over some wax dipped “rare” monstrosity, I’d say Good Riddance… Maybe then I could make what I fricking want.
/rant
Cheers–
–Michael
Im a little late to the Great Lakes decline diversion but it seems awful fitting to read some thoughts after dumping an infected 6 pack of Edmund Fitzgerald down the drain last week. I can’t get their beer around here and seek out the Ed. Fitz. whenever I am out of town. I had not enjoyed EF in quite a long time so you can imagine how disappointed I was when I opened that first bottle and it was foamy, tart and harsh.
Wow! I think that they should know of these occursnces. All breweries should be let known if their beer is infected. Not so much to bash, but in the effort to promote better quality control. Eddy Fitz can be a real treat. That would be disappointing.
I also don’t want it to sound like I was bashing Great Lakes. I just used them as a local example of what the OP was describing.
Totally agree. Craft breweries frantically searching out the next “thing” instead of focusing on the quality and consistency of their flagship beers is what will ultimately be the doom of craft brewing, and the consumer is driving the train here. I refuse to participate, possibly to my detriment. To be clear, I sell out of all my flagships constantly and have a hard time keeping up with demand but it drives me CRAZY to see the hype “beer aficianados” give to really poorly executed high gravity beer styles. And FTR I think SNPA is a far better “session IPA” than any of the other hyped up garbage session IPAs out there.
I do plenty of fun things and love to experiment, so don’t get me wrong. Our 3rd anniversary beer was a black Belgian ale with black and white pepper, vanilla bean and orange peel and it was awesome. 5th Anniversary was a smoked saison with orange peel. I have a Rye Imperial Stout recipe that has caused some women to swoon over me. I am about to launch a “hop lager” as a hopeful 4th flagship. Our most popular beer is a belgian wheat beer made with lime leaves and ginger as opposed to traditional Wit spices (which has now been copied by two other south east breweries). But I am still old school and I want the flavor of the beer to come over first and any other ingredients need to be in the very background. Just because you can make a beer with bold flavors that wows someone who can only drink 4 ounces of it doesn’t mean you have made a great beer.
This effects home brewers too (a wee bit). I like to give beer a way. The last few people I have given beer too were looking for IPAs. I like IPAs but they are at every bar and beer store in massive quantities and variety, so, I have not felt the need to brew one in quite some time.
100% agree. Nothing fancy but a solid beer with rock solid execution. It’s my auto-default beer when I’m suffering ‘choice fatigue’ at the bottle shop.