Beer in the new era

Constellation Brands just bought Ballast Point for $1 billion (I can't imagine anyone would turn down that many zeroes). So just this last year or so, Firestone Walker, Elysian, Lagunitas, Dogfish Head, and Ballast Point all took the cash, plus a few more. But factor in Goose Island a couple of years ago, or Stone's CEO stepping down, let alone AB InBev bidding for SabMiller, and the times they are a-changin'. More beer more places for everyone, I guess.

seconding the topcutter recommendation, they should distribute that more

these grimm 2xipas are AMAZING btw, if you can get your hands on them you should. afterimage was the best possible version of the juicy/fruity/citrus hop-candy flavor profile i've ever tasted, light in color and nearly perfect (if you like that type of thing). pulse wave was an excellent counterpoint too, probably the most cannabis flavor from a 2xipa that i can remember. excited for cans of tesseract to drop this week, the hype for these has been massive but they're all pretty special

Constellation Brands just bought Ballast Point for $1 billion

whaaaaat

i love the grapefruit sculpin as much as the next poster on this thread but how could that brand possibly be worth that much

my thoughts exactly

(except I think the grapefruit is over-flavored, prefer regular Sculpin)

As much as I hate to link a gbh article, this was an interesting read. http://goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2015/11/17/sightlines-feature

Anyone going to FOBAB?

costs too much

been enjoying mikkeller's peter pale and mary lately - become a go-to at my local bottle shop/bar.

What Dan said.

I thought FOBAB was really well run, and literally not a single of the people pouring checked my passport/tickets. I'm a total lightweight and not even sure I could have gotten a full 20 2-3 oz. pours, which were pretty generous, but even if I could have I probably could have gotten twice that, easy. Apparently a few of the more coveted things kicked early (18th St.?), but there was so much, and so much good stuff. I'd basically shuttle around trying things, dumping the rest, then moving on. Every once in a while I'd get some BA cider or BA fruit beer or BA sour to cleanse the pallette. Best of all, the dreaded Goose Island line moved fast (no more than 5 minutes, max) and didn't seem to be running out of anything. Had Rare, couple of Props, Vanilla Rye, Regal Rye, etc, all ample pours. Interesting to have them all at once, to compare years/recipes.

I have a sweet tooth, so other faves included a Haymarket Imperial Stout Aged on Cherries and a Moody Tongue Chocolate Barleywine but also Bell's BA Expedition Stout, which was sort of light but weirdly refreshing compared to all the viscous stuff. Also, nice to try all the weird things aged in gin barrels, cognac barrels, etc. Not always successful, but always distinctive/different. Only bummer was the food, which seems like a missed opportunity. Just the usual Connie's pizza, hot dogs and pretzel convention BS. If I ran the zoo there would be a room with tables and some local spots selling burgers and tacos, just to have a place to chill and eat.

Oh hey, we get Sixpoint in MN now. Digging what I've had so far quite a lot.

Weirdly my favorite at this point is Sweet Action, which is way outside my normal beer zone, flavor wise.

https://www.barrelbackers.com/

so....they will ship you a 12-pack of founders porter for 50 bucks?

I had Sixpoint Sensi Harvest 2015 recently which was pretty good but definitely on that heavy-handed, fresh hop, "we dumped a pile of moldy wet leaves into this beer" tip, which is not my favorite style of beer.

I also just picked up a Stone variety pack at Costco, which was a pretty nice deal. It has the Cali-Belgique IPA, Ruination Double IPA, the Coffee Milk Stout, and the Pale Ale. I like the Cali-Belgique and the Ruination a lot. Stone beers are always nicely to the drier side. Unfortunately coffee stouts kind of give me nightmares and/or insomnia.

Cad, seems like it. Kind of dumb.

so this thread is kind of the conversant internet peoples' untapp'd, should I post here on the creeping draft choice conservatism observed in establishments which only a year ago prided themselves on having many, many tap handles representing many diverse types of beer? Or should that be another thread?

I don't drink enough in such establishments to notice, but I have to imagine it's economics, i.e. over saturation plus novelty wearing off = no one is ordering the Montanan lambic-saison hybrid and everyone is getting the famous microbre name ipa, and it doesn't make sense to stock kegs of 20 beers 15 of which no one orders.

but they're still stocking 20 kegs - it's just that 5 of them are session IPAs, 3 are pilsners or "vienna lagers," 2 are ambers, 2 are unremarkable wheats or witbiers, 2 are belgian (chimay and something else), 1 stout, 1 porter, and the remainder are local seasonals, 3 of which are not actually seasonal.

I'm sure it's economics - they're just avoiding carrying stuff that either doesn't have the right price / margin (I've noticed Boulevard's beers have all either gone up in price quite a bit or just plain disappeared from the tap) and the nerdy stuff that takes forever to kick (imperials, sours, nitros, hard-to-describe saisons). So you end up with a very limited range which is highly annoying when you look at the entire list and there's nary a double IPA in sight.

going into places where I used to be able to order a Small Craft Warning or a Wookey Jack on tap and discovering basically the same range of options that you can now get on many airplane rides is just a tad disappointing. It also points to the tremendous improvement in airplane beer options since AB InBev bought Goose Island and Sam Adams starting canning, but that's not the point!!

Distributors might have a hand in the problem.

I do suspect there is now a division between the brewery-specific guys (like the boulevard dude, for example) who are tailoring their approach to "taphouse" places that focus on the beer variety over the food, and are willing to suffer possibly ugly margins, against the wholesale distributor guys, who will just bring you a lot of New Belgium and Dogfish Head and Goose Island and probably negotiate price based on quantity, and if you're a middling bar manager who puts most of your professional reputation on moving simple cocktails with funny names, not craft beer, you'll just run with what the distributor suggests. And then run out of the only actual IPA on tap within four days because who cares, we're not a beer place.

My impression is that two years ago bar managers were encouraged by their superiors to put neat stuff on tap and try to distinguish their bar based on the draft list, not just on cocktails. Economics have clearly intervened and bar managers are now being encouraged to get kegs of stuff that kicks quickly and can be bought in quantity on the cheap - so IPA drinkers who don't mind going for the "session" edition (i.e. we literally took our cheapest IPA recipe, added water, and then more carbonation) are good to go. I feel like there's a good metaphor dealing with music genres just waiting to go here.

I'm amazed that New Belgium and Sam Adams (right?) remain independently owned, the former 100% employee owned, I think. Given their ubiquity.

It seems weird to me that bars wouldn't have some IPAs on tap, doesn't everyone still love IPAs? Or has everyone moved on to session IPAs? I can't keep up.

Felt like session IPAs were being pushed hard for a while, but no one really wants session IPAs. At least not when the weather gets cool. And then for a while trends seemed to be shifting a tad toward sours, but no one really wants them, either. So yeah, IPAs, ales, lagers, pilsners ... drinkin' beers.

I wonder if all day is still founders best selling beer.

considering the stack of All Day 15-packs that's taller than I am at my local liquor store, I'd say probably.

I'm amazed that New Belgium and Sam Adams (right?) remain independently owned, the former 100% employee owned, I think. Given their ubiquity.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 24, 2015 5:09 AM (10 hours ago)

Nope: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/sam/ownership-summary

session IPAs are useless to me tbh, even if I've had plenty that are pretty good. If I want an IPA I want a real one, and if I want a 4% beer I'd pick something else in a style that is like traditionally a low abv beer

http://www.boston.com/business/2015/11/24/somerville-brewery-pretty-things-beer-ale-project-shutting-down/7SPBj2TmQCCnPimZq2w7uJ/story.html

this is really bumming me out, their business model was quirky but a craft scene that can't support pretty things is confirmed in my mind as being completely useless.

ahhh that sucks, I buy pretty things all the time and I've always felt they've been a voice for good too

session IPAs are useless to me tbh, even if I've had plenty that are pretty good. If I want an IPA I want a real one, and if I want a 4% beer I'd pick something else in a style that is like traditionally a low abv beer

― marcos, Wednesday, November 25, 2015 12:48 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

exactly.. I dont want the bud select version of what I actually want to drink

I've got such a rant about American microbrew all ready to go, I'll spare the board, though

do it

It's probably a total challop but I perceive this kind of mad scientist mentality w/r/t ingredients and recipes etc which is admirable of course.. but I feel like "basic-ness" for lack of a better term is scarce. It's like we're in the Oasis - Be Here Now era of beers. Everything is all turbo hopped up and flowery and has millions of notes. Just seems a little outa control, a runaway train. I'm a native Californian.

I'm a Hefeweizen worshipping philistine too, fwiw, so I'm probably not even qualified to opine on beer

Don't even ask me about west coast wheat beers

preach it, I'm a hophead but I can dig yr criticism, it'll be interesting to see how many of these 30-tap bottleshop/growler places are still around in 5-10 years. sometimes it's just all too much.

o and also, at least in the Pac NW, I am seeing more single hop styles which is kinda nice

This year's batch of BCBS is pretty nice off the bat, seems like previous years had a bit more heat when fresh.

Also, the 15 Prop sounds not as tasty as 13-14 imho.

Heard too sweet. I'll happily judge for myself.

It's pretty darn sweet, but I like sweet.

exactly.. I dont want the bud select version of what I actually want to drink

I like F-W's Easy Jack, and (in my dotage) find lower alcohol IPAs that are still beers I want to drink a very good thing.

i left out the part about the "hops race" etc shit being emblematic of American insecurity w/r/t its own culture... connect it to the "you're supposed to eat/drink it with/like this" American affectation I swung my cane around about last week

yeah, i think it's a certain generation of american brewers feeling beholden to certain styles/classic examples and not having a strong background in european styles.

Everything about this year's Bourbon County release seems like a paradox push to make bottles more available, less practical and even less of a deal. First there's the decision to get rid of the 4-pack (the ideal way to sell/drink that beer, imo) and package it as weirdly shaped single bottles. Then the prices per bottle have really gone bad. From Binny's:

Brand Stout - $10
Barleywine - $13
Coffee - $13
Rye - $24
Prop - $24
Rare - $65

Someone did the math, and per case, it's something like a 30% drop in volume, for those slightly inflated prices. I dunno, man. I like the beer, but the whole thing is annoying. On the plus side, it all seems to show up on tap pretty often.

Not even gonna sweat getting any, it's not worth my time.