Craft Beer

[u/innsource]

So I run a liquor store which speciallizes in craft beer. #1 store in the state, to be more specific. I live and breath beer. If I'm not selling beers or ordering beers for the store, I'm buying beers, reading about beers, brewing beers, out with beer reps drinking beers. You get it.
Over the past few years I've been getting more and more disenfranchised with the what is being considered "craft" beer. This really hit hard with feedback from my last 3 batches.

Super crisp- clean, sessionable Lager: Too boring
Top tier West Coast IPA: Too bitter, not hazy or fruity enough
Marshamallow Dessert stout (I wasn't happy with sub-par quality) AMAZING!!!

Long story short, I want to brew more "Craft" beers. Does anybody have any recipes for a good New England Double Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Tropical Salted Caramel Double Dry Hopped Extra Oat Cream Vanilla Milkshake Chocolate Raspberry Icecream Sour White Stout Infused with Mint, Hibiscus and Truffle oil?

[u/[deleted]]

There has never been an easier time to access a huge variety of craft lagers than today and yet all you hear from beer snobs is “why are there so many IPAs? Why aren’t there more LAGER options???” It’s just the same shit you’d hear from beer snobs 25 years ago, except with the styles reversed.

I get it, you think the kids aren’t alright. You liked beer before it was cool. The good news is that there’s tons of beer for everyone. We’re spoiled for choice, I don’t get why we need to see this rant 20 times a day on beer reddit/Instagram/etc.

[u/HerrKarlMarco → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely correct. If you don't like the newer styles, don't buy them. But chances are, the brewery who makes your favorite Czech lager is making a pastry stout because it helps keep the doors open. Let the brewers make what the market wants, let the market buy what it wants.

[u/nrubhsa → u/HerrKarlMarco]

And when you can’t find what you want, brew it!!

[u/kelryngrey → u/HerrKarlMarco]

Yeah, there's a constant flow of whinging about places keeping the doors open. I hear it here in South Africa and we are absolutely not drowning in NEIPAs everywhere you look, but there are still people that are pissed that some exist. Don't like it? Don't drink it. Don't want to brew it? Close your business if it's the only thing keeping it open and you somehow can't stand to have a job.

You can brew all the old school Dortmunder Exports you want for fun, but a business lives and dies by selling product.

[u/[deleted] → u/kelryngrey]

Indeed so. When the going got tough, the tough brew lager. Look at Devil's Peak and Jack Black. While they're famous for what was once brilliant IPA, they are big because of lager.

Breweries that moan about not being able to keep the doors open in a market where craft is unpopular and all the beers are fringe recipes, clearly don't understand the concept of marketing a popular product and selling the less popular drinks on the side.

Let's take a burger joint. If they sell pizza, and people don't buy pizza from them, have they failed as a burger joint?

[u/kelryngrey → u/[deleted]]

I think the lager thing is a bit of a double-edge sword in South Africa. It can be a struggle to convince a not terribly craft savvy public to spend a lot more for a lager than they're used to paying for an SAB product. At least when you're making a funky wild hop bomb they can say, "I can't buy that at Checkers Liquor in the fridge for 30 Rand."

I think that's place where wine has an edge - people think novelty is worth money for wine everywhere. Beer has historically been sold and mass-marketed into an ultra common drink.

[u/TaiwaneseGoat → u/kelryngrey]

True true.... I understand that you have to keep the doors open but... making "craft" lagers in a market where you can buy Windhoek and Tafel (arguably one of the best traditional lagers money can buy) is not really adding to the variety out there and making beers the macro breweries can't make. But like you said... That is the problem with SA as a beer market, beer drinkers are just not into paying three times the price for a beer that they are not used to BUT they are also smart enough to not pay three times the price for a beer that is equal to or worse than the lager that is already in the fridge at the bottle store.

I remember walking into the Old Biscuit Mill market one morning many years ago (think it was around 2008) and seeing a small stand purporting to sell craft beer called Jack Black... They had a lager on tap... I asked them whether they had anything else to which they replied "not yet, we're starting with making a great lager to introduce the public to a better beer in a style that they already know. When they realize this is a better way we'll introduce different beers to them..." I was like oh-kay... I bought a pint and was thoroughly underwhelmed. Turns out, that lager is still the best thing they make and it's still not as good as the ones I mentioned above which costs half the price... So yeah...

Also, if you want any chance of getting different styles of craft beer, you can't leave Cape Town...

[u/Rsubs33 → u/HerrKarlMarco]

100% this. Forest and Main outside of Philadelphia opened focusing on English and Belgian styles and they were amazing, but you could only get some of their saisons in bottles and do some growler fills. They started brewing hazy IPAs which allowed them to expand increasing their production and allow them to start canning. I moved to NY, but when I visit my parents I love that I can grab cans of their ESBs, Bitters and lagers to bring back with me. I can go into my local Wegmans and get a bunch of Jack's Abbey no problem. People who bitch about the new styles just come off as snobbish and are just as bad as the people who look down on those who drink macro brews.

[u/HerrKarlMarco → u/Rsubs33]

Damn skippy, and you can read the same story in dozens of breweries. I admit I was a styles snob until I got employed in the industry and did work behind the bar and in the brewhouse. It really broadened my views on the industry. There's a time, place, and market for hazies and adjunct laden beers as well as to the BJCP style letter-correct styles. Just drink the beer you like and the beer that supports your local community.

[u/h22lude → u/[deleted]]

This may depend on location. I have maybe 12 to 15 breweries within a 20 minute drive of me. I have a bunch of liquor stores with great beer selections. There is not a huge variety of craft lagers here. And the lagers that are brewed aren't very good IMO. I do live in the NEIPA belt (North East). 50% of the beers at each brewery are NEIPAs. Each brewery may have 1 lager on tap and that lager will be slightly hazy with a strong hop presence. Luckily the liquor stores have good selection of German beers so I just stick with those.

I think people are just getting tired of the same beers on tap. I don't think this necessarily applies to canned beers. If you go to a liquor store, you will have more selection because you have all the breweries in one place. However, at least for my location, if someone doesn't like NEIPAs, they have a very limited selection on tap at breweries. NEIPAs are king. About 50% at each brewery. 35% will be sours and stouts. The remaining 15% will be others. So for those people that don't like the trending beers, they really don't have a good selection. And I can see why that would get annoying. But it is what it is. Breweries need to sell beer and that is what is selling right now.

[u/thingpaint → u/h22lude]

Each brewery may have 1 lager on tap and that lager will be slightly hazy with a strong hop presence.

I really don't like trend of throwing fist fulls of hops in everything and not labeling it. I bought a brown ale the other day that was so hoppy I couldn't drink it. If you're going to do that at least put a warning on the can.

[u/h22lude → u/thingpaint]

My preference would be to call it a hoppy XYZ or pilsner hopped with XYZ hops. I've had too many "German pilsners" overly hopped with non-noble hops. I'm all for experimenting and not sticking within the style but at least state that on the can or on the tap board.

I'll start this next statement by saying this is all speculation. If I had to guess, at least for my local breweries that overly hop lagers, they can't make a proper lager. It is hard to hide off flavors in a pilsner...unless you throw in a bunch of hops.

[u/thingpaint → u/h22lude]

I don't know if it's hops hide all flaws, or most "craft beer" people won't buy a beer that's not supper hoppy. But it's gotten to the point where I don't want to buy random cans any more because the beer in the can is probably not the style that's written on the can.

It drives me nuts because I don't like hop forward beers.

[u/h22lude → u/thingpaint]

IMO, I don't think craft beer drinkers want all their beers to be hoppy. NEIPAs and hoppy pale ales are big but I don't think that means people want all styles overly hopped

[u/thingpaint → u/h22lude]

There's got to be a reason people keep buying them.

[u/WDoE → u/thingpaint]

New sells better than old. And there's waaaay more new hop varieties than new malt or yeast.

There's also the romanticism of hops.

There's also the issue that pretty much everything with high hop character gets thrown in the IPA bucket. There's more variance in IPAs than any other category. While not completely relevant to why we see hopped classic styles, I think seeing half the menu be IPAs then seeing a hopped lager really changes appearances. But when you think about it, half a menu of hop forward beer and the other half malt forward is really balanced.

I can tell you that besides maybe a small touch of diacetyl, hopping isn't going to cover faults in a lager very well. DMS still shows up. Sulfur still shows up. Autolysis shows up.

[u/h22lude → u/thingpaint]

I don't think people hate those beers. They are still going to buy them. But I don't think that means they wouldn't prefer them to be closer to style.

[u/[deleted] → u/h22lude]

I get what you're saying, but 20 years ago or so, there likely weren't 15 breweries within a 20 minute drive of you (or at least for most people). So, while each of these new breweries may have 50% of their taps as IPA, you're likely still getting a huge more variety on tap, directly from the brewery, than people did a short while ago. I don't think that's a bad thing.

[u/h22lude → u/[deleted]]

I guess it depends on what variable we are looking at when talking about variety. Each variable has its own variety level.

If there were 10 taps in my area 20 years ago and now there are 100 taps, I have more variety to pick from in terms of individual beers. However, if those 10 taps 20 years ago each had completely different styles but the 100 taps today only had 3 styles, there was more style variety 20 years ago. The style variety is what I'm talking about.

Don't get me wrong, I like having tap variety. I just wish there were more style variety.

[u/anthropoll → u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much for saying this. It often feels like a large part of the beer community wants us to go back to the days of purity laws. No one's allowed to be creative apparently, and God forbid you have fun with anything.

Thankfully they're only the vocal minority.

[u/thingpaint → u/[deleted]]

The good news is that there’s tons of beer for everyone. We’re spoiled for choice, I don’t get why we need to see this rant 20 times a day on beer reddit/Instagram/etc.

Honestly there really isn't around here. I've gone to "craft beer" bars and ended up ordering whiskey because all they had on tap was IPAs. I get that people like IPAs, but some of us don't, and it's disheartening going to a brewery and realizing you like 0 of the beers on tap because the head brewer thinks the only appropriate flavor is hops.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

My man

[u/Bovronius → u/[deleted]]

I mean, I whine about IPAs, but that's because an abundance of hops do not fit my pallet at all, and my favorite brewery that was mostly dark beers had a bunch of amazing ones, but, unfortunately my liver couldn't keep them in business alone and they slowly transitioned to 75% IPAs, and maybe 2 dark beers during the winter, 1 for the rest of the year.