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/ridethedeathcab]

This kinda reads like the anti-beer-snob snob. Like these are the same kinds of things I hear from people who hate craft beer in general and just drink Bud Light. "Isn't there any normal beer". People like what they like, and brewers are often interested in exploring their creativity and pushing boundaries. I'm sure there's still plenty of beer in you preference to choose from it just may not be dominating the market right now.

[u/EazyPeazySleazyWeezy → u/ridethedeathcab]

For me it's about being well crafted and still tasting like "beer." Some of these super fruity, hazy, lactose etc beers taste more like juice. And I find a lot of these examples are catering to a target market and are not well-crafted.

Also, when EVERY beer on the shelf is some kind of "unique" fruit/haze beer, it creates a kind of monotony. For as different and crazy as all these beers are, liquor stores' beer selection is boring cause it's all the same stuff.

But that's just me. To each their own. I'm just gonna be excited when the tastes shift again and classic styles get their resurgence.

[u/ridethedeathcab → u/EazyPeazySleazyWeezy]

I guess it just seems a lot of these complaints are highly exaggerated. Unless the markets we live in are extremely different it is not hard to find standard craft beer. New Belgium (Fat Tire), Goose Island (312, IPA), Sam Adams (Boston Lager), Sierra Nevada (IPA, Torpedo), Bells (Oberon, Two Hearted), and many others all have flagship beers that are pretty traditional and all distribute across nearly the entire country.

[u/EazyPeazySleazyWeezy → u/ridethedeathcab]

For sure. Those beers will always be there and have been there for forever. But also I've drank those to death by this point in my life. Most new beers that are being distributed bend towards the current additional ingredients beers and haze craze stuff. For better or worse. That's just how the beer shelves are right now.

While some people are exaggerating, i'm really trying not be hyperbolic when I saw if I take off all those beers from the shelf that well over 2/3 of the shelf would be empty. And what's left has some gems certainly. But it's far from new. As someone who's been looking at these shelves for quite awhile, it's impossible not to see the shift. Which is fine, I guess. Just not for me. I'd personally rather eat a bowl of Trix than drink a beer that's trying to taste like it.

To me the beer shelf was more diverse and interesting when all the breweries weren't making just hazy, sours, and dessert beers.