"It's a proprietary hop blend"

I wanted to get some other opinions on this experience.

I recently stopped at a new brewpub that opened up somewhat nearby me. The place is very nice inside. They have twelve of their beers on tap, including three nitrous taps. I had their IPA, a lager, and a saison. In addition, I sampled a stout and a jalapeno ale.

Their IPA was terrible... Just a very strange hop flavor that didn't sit the style well at all. The lager wasn't very good. The saison was excellent, and their stout was the best I've ever tasted.

I tried discussing the beers with the bartender, but he was completely clueless about the beers he was serving... Which was disappointing.

When the owner/brewmaster came into the bar area, I asked him what hops he used for the IPA. He said he couldn't tell me because it was a proprietary blend of hops that aren't usually used in IPAs. He seemed completely uninterested in discussing his beers (I was the only customer there at that time), and disappeared quickly without discussing his beers much.

I was actually quite off put by the experience... And oddly enough, the refusal to tell a customer (and I told him I was a homebrewer) the hops used in an IPA is what bothers me the most. I've never been to a microbrewery tasting room that refused to tell me the hops used.

I dunno, maybe I'm getting my panties in a bunch for no good reason... What do you think?

Sounds pretty *****ey to me... It's not like they're even being creative about it, like when years ago Dogfish Head used to advertise that 60 Minute had "Mystery Hop X" as part of the hop blend.

I think you should take your business elsewhere - where they are more customer focused. They might not be around long anyway, if the knowledgeable customers spread the word about them.

The rush to pay bills by pushing out inferior beer is likely to turn out to be a strategic blunder. Anyone who tries to open a brewery without having a network of knowledgeable tasters (cicerones, BJCP trained folks, or equivalent backgrounds) to guide them is an idiot.

Brew on

My sisters went to Wisconsin brewery in Verona for some flights and just to hang out. They started talking to the bartender who also brews there. When they mentioned they were home brewers, he started chatting with them about their brewing process, ingredients, and gave my sisters some tips about an Irish ale they were going to make. Sounds like this guy you talked to is kind of a ******. I wouldn't go back there, especially if most of the beers were mediocre.

I'd give them some time to settle in, you liked at least two of their beers.

The part of me that wants to give people the benefit of the doubt says...
He might just not be a people person.
He might not want to show how little he actually knows about brewing.
Hell, he might know the IPA was crap, but you never know what people might like and he's not throwing out 3 barrels of beer.
Starting a new business is a stressful thing, he's probably got a lot riding on this.
On top of all that, he's got a disinterested bartender and no customers.

Go back in a month or three.

He's just a misunderstood genius that wants to protect his masterpiece.

IF you put your life savings into a brewery, took huge risk and exposed yourself to the ATF and abandoned your retirement to enter a very competitive market and serve your carefully crafted home made recipes to the public, and some random dude walks up and asks what the main ingredient is...I can't really hold it against someone for not wanting to share that. Are you a competitor? An IP lawyer? Someone looking to share his recipe online?

Rhumbline said:

I'd give them some time to settle in, you liked at least two of their beers.

The part of me that wants to give people the benefit of the doubt says...
He might just not be a people person.
He might not want to show how little he actually knows about brewing.
Hell, he might know the IPA was crap, but you never know what people might like and he's not throwing out 3 barrels of beer.
Starting a new business is a stressful thing, he's probably got a lot riding on this.
On top of all that, he's got a disinterested bartender and no customers.

Go back in a month or three.

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I think it's that he knows it's not good, and doesn't want to discuss it at all with people.

I've had some terrible beers at some breweries/brewpubs, and the last thing they want to do is talk about it.

It wouldn't bother me at all if they ignored me. Most places seem to do that anyway.

I've been to a few places where the brewers are eager to talk, but in others they don't want anything to do with customers and other brewers.

If I walked into a spanking new brewery and they had twelve beers on tap I'd already be concerned. That's a lot of beer to put out there if when you started your new brewery you wanted to present your customers with the very best you had to offer.

But to say "proprietary blend of hops" well, that's just straight BS.

Another poster said to go back in a few months. I wonder if you'll have the chance or if they'll be out of business by then.

Funny how everyone is always so quick to say, "Take your business elsewhere" when this experience didn't appear to include rudeness or nasty comments. OP, the choice is up to you. Do you like some of their beers? Are their prices good? Is there location convenient?

If some of their beers are good and some bad, don't drink the bad one's and enjoy the good ones. If the guy doesn't want to tell you the hops in the IPA, well that's his business, think in your head "******" and let it go. Not everyone is fine with sharing recipes. Not everyone will be receptive to a homebrewer's desire to discuss brewing. Some are receptive and those are the types that we can really enjoy talking to.


Rev.

I was at a brew-pub on Friday night and found out my brew-bro gave one of the servers/brewers there a couple of my beers for them to try - an RIS and an Irish Red - and I ended up talking to her about them, although she hadn't tried them yet.

Now I have to go back and try more of their beer, as well as talk about mine. I am really interested in what she has to say.

BTW - this place is pretty new, and only has three of their beers on tap (IPA, IIPA, and a stout) but I was being told about the black IPA/Cascadian dark ale that is currently in their fermentor. The rest of their taps were interesting things, like Saranac's bourbon-barrel-aged Scotch Ale, Founders Curmudgeon, Weyerbacher's Tart Nouveaus sour, and about a dozen others. Their IPA (Son Of WHYBO - "We'll Hop Your Brains Out") was really good, very juicy. The WHYBO IIPA actually just kicked before I got there.

Widmer Brewing has the Alchmey hop blend which is there secret blend so having a proprietary blend is not unheard of. I would not worry about it, enjoy there good beer and don't buy the bad beer.

I can understand if a brewery wants to protect its proprietary recipes. That's their prerogative, and not all brewers are "open source" with their ingredients and processes. Maybe the brewer had already received an earful from several people and is a little touchy about it. That said, he could have been a little more friendly, and just said "we're still tweaking our recipes." Maybe the brewer is just not comfortable with customers.





But I wouldn't give up on them. Wait a few months and go back. Maybe they'll have it together by then.

MaxStout said:

Maybe the brewer had already received an earful from several people and is a little touchy about it.

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That's what I was thinking too. In the current market I'd imagine it would be pretty upsetting to miss on what is usually one of the best selling styles, and put that on top of all the other stress of opening a new business. If some of the beers were good, or even great, I'd give them another try as long as the service is otherwise good.

I don't get why homebrewers feel that whenever they go into a commercial operation, they feel butt hurt if the head Brewer doesn't want to talk shop with them, share recipes, taste their Homebrew or whatever.

Hobbies and business are e timely different things.

rawlus said:

I don't get why homebrewers feel that whenever they go into a commercial operation, they feel butt hurt if the head Brewer doesn't want to talk shop with them, share recipes, taste their Homebrew or whatever.

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It's probably true we get spoiled by the many craft brewers who do like to talk shop with homebrewers, maybe because many of them started that way too. I wonder if most professional chefs have the same issue, with amateur chefs always trying to grill them about ingredients or imposing suggestions on them.

Most of the brewers ive met are pretty friendly and open. That sucks this guy wasn't but maybe he's just an awkward dude who's a beer nerd and has no social skills? I've met a lot the "artist without a brush" type folks too in other hobbies that act the same way. Or, who knows, maybe he was just having a bad day...
I'd email them and explain why you might not come back. Maybe they'll apologize and invite you in for a tour or something.

Cut the guy some slack. Let's face it, some home brewers can be over the top annoying (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=545926). I'm not even a pro and I don't want to talk to any home brewers, either.

I think this place deserves at least another shot. I'm sure the business aspect and its stress can overshadow or even negate the joy of beer and brewing, especially in a brand new place.

Beerthoven said:

Cut the guy some slack. Let's face it, some home brewers can be over the top annoying (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=545926). I'm not even a pro and I don't want to talk to any home brewers, either.

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I'll admit, I rarely ask any advice on the forum any more. I've grown weary of the types who insist you must have temp control to within 1/10th of a degree, and you have to personally count every yeast cell before pitching and wort must be at 60 degrees within 20 minutes or all is lost.

I still enjoy reading the experiences of others, but I'm sorry to say that I'm just not interested in hearing the questionable scientific justification for why a stir plate must rotate counterclockwise.

Rhumbline said:

I still enjoy reading the experiences of others, but I'm sorry to say that I'm just not interested in hearing the questionable scientific justification for why a stir plate must rotate counterclockwise.

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I have super scientific evidence to refute this clockwise theory. I do everything counterclockwise, from swirling my starter to stirring the worst, and I make better beer than anybody in the world! :rockin:

As far as the brewer, he is well within his rights to protect his recipes if he deems it necessary. But it could have been handled a better way from the sounds of it. Like others have said, he could have just said "Oh we're experimenting with it right now and don't want to give out too much info" and stayed for a minute to talk about his product. Of course he's not obligated to as he may have been busy or whatever, but a customer is not obligated to return to an establishment to give it a second chance either.

Pardon me sir! You're bartender is not master cicerone certified and I will have you know that not only am I a homebrewer of some renown, I also have an Untappd account with over 600 distinct beers.

I tend to go pretty easy on the locals, then again, I have 1 brewery within 50 miles of me and only have 14 in my entire state. Only 5 of those sell in retail stores. Several are over 3 hours away.

Honestly, there are some small breweries whose beer I don't love - but they are trying to do something that is a dream of mine. And most I know are not making any money doing it. So, I tend to cut the owner / brewer a little slack if he's too busy to talk beer nerd stuff with me.

Their stout is the best you've ever had - take a couple beer friends to the bar and buy them a couple.

Rhumbline said:

I still enjoy reading the experiences of others, but I'm sorry to say that I'm just not interested in hearing the questionable scientific justification for why a stir plate must rotate counterclockwise.

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They only rotate CCW in Australia. Their toilets flush that way, too.

/Crikey!

paperairplane said:

Pardon me sir! You're bartender is not master cicerone certified and I will have you know that not only am I a homebrewer of some renown, I also have an Untappd account with over 600 distinct beers.

I tend to go pretty easy on the locals, then again, I have 1 brewery within 50 miles of me and only have 14 in my entire state. Only 5 of those sell in retail stores. Several are over 3 hours away.

Honestly, there are some small breweries whose beer I don't love - but they are trying to do something that is a dream of mine. And most I know are not making any money doing it. So, I tend to cut the owner / brewer a little slack if he's too busy to talk beer nerd stuff with me.

Their stout is the best you've ever had - take a couple beer friends to the bar and buy them a couple.

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Yeah you only really need one excellent beer at a reasonable price to justify going back to some place. The last two brewpubs I was at both had a pretty mediocre line up but then both had truly excellent malty/lowish IBU/big burst of American hop flavor pale ales which is a tasty kind of beer that my wife and I both love so I'll be going back to both and ordering nothing but the pale ale.

I won't spend my money twice in a place where I was made to feel uncomfortable or second-rate or in any way dissed. But then, I live in a tourist mecca, so the next place (including brewpubs) is just down the road.

Had I been treated that way, I would not darken their door again. That's just me though and your experience may vary (greatly) from mine!

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

I plan to go back again. My experience wasn't so horrible that I wouldn't go back again. I was just a bit off put by the complete disinterest in talking about his beers. Who knows, maybe he's got other things on his mind, maybe he was really busy doing something else, etc.

While I get excited when a brewer shares the goods, I certainly do not fault them for guarding their process/product. His place, his rules. Vote with your wallet.

There are a million great recipes out there. It's the brewing technique that makes the beer. If he is relying on a recipe to make the difference in his beers, I'm not surprised some are subpar. A truly talented Brewer should have no fear in providing info about a few of his ingredients.

My guess is he would rather talk to you about the "greatest stout you've ever tasted" than the IPA you thought was off. Once he gets to know you he might be more open with the IPA that everyone makes that sour face at and maybe talk suggestions about how to save it. Putting it all out there has to be a huge weight on him and he's probably thinking about the million other things he has to do to not lose his financial butt.

+1 on give him a break and buy and chat up the stuff you think is good. (just saw your last post, looks like I'm late to the party.)

Maybe the brewer did not want to talk about the beer because he had to go take a S#*T.......

Or possibly, the last homebrewer he talked to told him everything he was doing wrong!!!!!

I had a similar experience at a local brewery near me. Really put me off. Its weird how professional brewers that should know more about brewing than the run-of-the-mill homebrewer think that their recipe is like KFCs 7 secret spices. Its only a small portion of what makes the final beer. Also, pompous that they think everyone is out to steal their amazing recipes

I can't help but thinking that on some other forum for craft brewers that there's a post by a brewer who just opened a brew pub saying, "Man, some clown came into my place last night and was a jack off! He wanted my recipes and acted like he was entitled since he was a crappy home brewer!"

Aren't there real situations where you can't discuss the hop? Seems like I once asked about a hop and was told that they legally couldn't tell me because it was experimental and not out yet.

I'm not sure why we require our brewers to be salesmen. Sure it helps but maybe the guy isn't good with people and that shouldn't be a requirement. If he had 2 good beers he must have some talent as a brewer.

rawlus said:

I don't get why homebrewers feel that whenever they go into a commercial operation, they feel butt hurt if the head Brewer doesn't want to talk shop with them, share recipes, taste their Homebrew or whatever.

Hobbies and business are e timely different things.

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Not all of us do; however, our excitement over the process does tend to leak out even if we're trying to keep it contained. I know I try not to ask questions that would be only relevant to a home brewer. I do ask questions about hops or gain in beers not because I home brew, but because I am usually trying to nail down a taste I did or didn't like. I learned about not loving beers with black patent malt in them by doing just that. There are also hops I do not care for or favor and tasting a beer that had such presence, I would be inclined to ask. I am not asking anyone to talk shop with me. I'd do the same thing at a restaurant.

pretzelb said:

Aren't there real situations where you can't discuss the hop? Seems like I once asked about a hop and was told that they legally couldn't tell me because it was experimental and not out yet.

I'm not sure why we require our brewers to be salesmen. Sure it helps but maybe the guy isn't good with people and that shouldn't be a requirement. If he had 2 good beers he must have some talent as a brewer.

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There may be a case where that is true; however, this guy said it was proprietary hop blend. Either way, if he doesn't want to tell anyone, that is his right. My guess though is that he may not have known or really didn't care to share it because he knew it wasn't awesome. I'd want to know because I would avoid mixing those hops.

slym2none said:

I was at a brew-pub on Friday night and found out my brew-bro gave one of the servers/brewers there a couple of my beers for them to try - an RIS and an Irish Red - and I ended up talking to her about them, although she hadn't tried them yet.

Now I have to go back and try more of their beer, as well as talk about mine. I am really interested in what she has to say.

BTW - this place is pretty new, and only has three of their beers on tap (IPA, IIPA, and a stout) but I was being told about the black IPA/Cascadian dark ale that is currently in their fermentor. The rest of their taps were interesting things, like Saranac's bourbon-barrel-aged Scotch Ale, Founders Curmudgeon, Weyerbacher's Tart Nouveaus sour, and about a dozen others. Their IPA (Son Of WHYBO - "We'll Hop Your Brains Out") was really good, very juicy. The WHYBO IIPA actually just kicked before I got there.

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This brew pub started off on the wrong foot. I paid $20 to go to their grand opening which was a parking lot fenced off with a band in the middle of June. There were about 7 people inside those gates. After spending $20 to listen to a band that I could have listened to from my truck in the shade, I also paid $15 for 3 tickets to buy beer. Turns out they had never even fired up their brewery. I was paying for crap I could get at the restaurant I went to eat at 30 minutes later. I went back with about 10 friends and drank there, got a tour because I was with another brewery, and learned that asking questions about their BCS brewery seemed to be more of an annoyance to the owner than anything. Still, I bought a cap because the hottie who got me into the brew house was well, hot. I am glad to see they're at least brewing something. I'd give them another shot but their grand opening was a bit of a flop in my eyes.

Point being, every new brewery deserves a second visit unless there was something so incredibly horrible about the first visit that I cannot stomach another visit.

I'll usually chock things like that up to a bad day- give it some time, maybe let them tweak the recipes and get some good feedback, then hit them up in 1-3 months. If you have a bad experience again, there's plenty of fish in the sea as it were. No sense spending money and hanging out somewhere you have a bad experience.

kh54s10 said:

Maybe the brewer did not want to talk about the beer because he had to go take a S#*T.......

Or possibly, the last homebrewer he talked to told him everything he was doing wrong!!!!!

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Ugh... those uppity home-brewers...

I've gone to bars where the brewer's aren't present and the bartender's don't know any specific details about the beers on tap. But... the beers offered are good and the prices are good, and often the food offered is decent too. It's called a "bar" and just about every one of us has frequented them at some point. Why frequent them but abandon a craft brew pub because we couldn't get our beer chat on with the owner or head brewer?


Rev.

Rev2010 said:

I've gone to bars where the brewer's aren't present and the bartender's don't know any specific details about the beers on tap. But... the beers offered are good and the prices are good, and often the food offered is decent too. It's called a "bar" and just about every one of us has frequented them at some point. Why frequent them but abandon a craft brew pub because we couldn't get our beer chat on with the owner or head brewer?


Rev.

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Owners should be pleasant when they interact with customers. If they don't want to, or aren't capable of it, they should stay away from the customers. Part of any successful business is good PR (but not in the propaganda sense.)

Brew on

max384 said:

I dunno, maybe I'm getting my panties in a bunch for no good reason... What do you think?

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That could explain a lot. Just is.

Conyngham or Breaker? I have had a similar experience at a local brewpub.