Sam Calagione on "Beer Geeks"

[Shooter]

The OP notes in his original post that he is "probably late to the party" and here this thread is, revived, a mere one year later. You can't make this #$^% up!!!! Good stuff!

 

[bferullo]

Most overrated brewery? - Beer Talk & Questions - BeerAdvocate

I am probably late to the party but, anyone over here read this?

I personally don't see the need for a man in his position to put down so many passionate beer drinkers the way he did here.

If he just had to say something (he shouldn't have IMO) after seeing all the negative comments, he should have just thanked all the posters for the info, and vowed to do all he could to change the way people seemed to think of his brewery as overrated.

Thoughts ?

I would like to read it, but your link only goes to the main BA page.

 

[Krovitz]

I would like to read it, but your link only goes to the main BA page.

Someone pasted the text on the last page (24 on the app).

 

[shmEk]

BA's site took a massive dump last year. To the point they had to buy new servers, setup new software, etc. They were not able to save any of their earlier threads. Anything on that site now, is a little under a year old. There is no conspiracy, just "Damn you technology".

Or serious stupidity in planning and backing up info.

 

[shmEk]

Here is the rant...

"It’s pretty depressing to frequently visit this site and see the most negative threads among the most popular. This didn’t happen much ten years ago when craft beer had something like a 3 percent market share. Flash forward to today, and true indie craft beer now has a still-tiny but growing marketshare of just over 5 percent. Yet so many folks that post here still spend their time knocking down breweries that dare to grow. It’s like that old joke: “Nobody eats at that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded.” Except the “restaurants” that people **** on here aren’t exactly juggernauts. In fact, aside from Boston Beer, none of them have anything even close to half of one percent marketshare. The more that retailers, distributors, and large industrial brewers consolidate the more fragile the current growth momentum of the craft segment becomes. The more often the Beer Advocate community becomes a soap box for outing breweries for daring to grow beyond its insider ranks the more it will be marginalized in the movement to support, promote, and protect independent ,American craft breweries.

It’s interesting how many posts that refer to Dogfish being over-rated include a caveat like “except for Palo…except for Immort…etc.” We all have different palettes which is why it’s a great thing that there are so many different beers. At Dogfish we’ve been focused on making “weird” beers since we opened and have taken our lumps for being stylistically indifferent since day one. I bet a lot of folks agree that beers like Punkin Ale (since 1995) , Immort Ale (wood aged smoked beer) since 1995, Chicory Stout (coffee stout) since 1995 , Raison D’être (Belgian brown) since 1996, , Indian Brown Ale (dark IPA) since 1997, and 90 Minute (DIPA) since 2000 don’t seem very weird anymore. That’s in large part because so many people who have been part of this community over the years championed them and helped us put them on the map.These beers, and all of our more recent releases like Palo Santo, Burton Baton, Bitches Brew continue to grow every year. We could have taken the easy way out and just sold the bejeezus out of 60 Minute to grow but we like to experiment and create and follow our own muse. Obviously there is an audience that appreciates this as we continue to grow. We put no more “hype” or “expert marketing” behind our best selling beers than we do our occasionals. We only advertise in a few beer magazines and my wife Mariah oversees all of our twitter/Facebook/dogfish.com stuff. We have mostly grown by just sharing our beer with people who are into it (at our pub, great beer bars, beer dinners, and fests) and let them decide for themselves if they like it. If they do we hope they tell their friends about. We hope a bunch of you that are going to EBF will stop by our booth and try some of the very unique new beers we are proudly bringing to market like Tweason’ale (a champagne-esque, gluten-free beer fermented with buckwheat honey and strawberries) and Noble Rot (a sort of saison brewed with Botrytis-infected Viognier Grape must). One of these beers is on the sweeter side and one is more sour. Knowing each of your palettes is unique you will probably prefer one over the other. That doesn’t mean the one you didn’t prefer sucked. And the breweries you don’t prefer but are growing don’t suck either. Respect Beer. The below was my favorite post thus far.

This thread is hilarious. Seriously, Bells, Founders, FFF, Surly, RR, DFH, Bruery, Avery, Cigar City, Mikkeller are all overrated? Since I’m from Ohio, I’ll pile on and add Great Lakes, Hoppin Frog, and Brew Kettle to the list. Your welcome.

Hopefully soon we will have every craft brewery in the US on the list."

Much thanks for preserving the post!

 

[shmEk]

BA is a popular site, especially for craft drinkers. More importantly, its a site where many new craft drinkers end up when looking for info. If new craft drinkers to to BA, see that thread, and are told how terrible these overrated breweries are, they may choose not to drink them (whether or not they might personally like them.). A popular site badmouthing a company to its core customer base can be pretty harmful.

Sorry so many comments in a row, but that is how things go.

Now, I'll start it.... Beer Advocate .... is overrated. Anyone can start commenting away. It is truly, and you know it is.

 

[KeyWestBrewing]

I take it for what it is. A lot of the reviews I agree with, a lot I don't. I don't use them as my say all deciding factor for what i choose to drink, but the majority of the highly rated beers there are good.

 

[rexbanner]

I met Sam Calagione randomly at a bar in NYC a few months ago. He is the man. I told him I was opening a nano and he was really supportive. Answered the questions I had and told me to email him if I had any more. He actually asked me more questions than I asked him, he seemed genuinely interested.

He is kinda one of my heroes. He started DFH when he was 24. I'm 25. The DFH model has been a major inspiration for me. Vinnie Cilurzo is also the man.

I think user-created reviews of beers aren't very useful. I only use websites to check the style of a beer if I am at the store and I can't figure it out from the label. Other than that, I follow Draft magazine on Facebook and get some good info on cool new releases from that.

 

[PtreeCreekBrew]

I like what DFH did for craft beer, but I do think it's gotten overrated. That's not saying that they make a bad beer, or that they suck, but they definitely get more hype than their product warrants. I like a lot of DFHs beers and they do a lot of interesting things, and that's great, but I get the impression that they're REALLY pretentious about it (that whole show they did a couple years ago? yeah....). This rant only supports my impression. Like an earlier post said, I get the impression that Calagione has become ego-maniacal. Whether he started out that way or the DFH hype and fame made him that way is irrelevant.

My opinion of DFH has definitely gone down since I got into craft beer (I used to like them a LOT); stuff like this makes me not want to support them.

But whatever--make the beer you want to make and if it sells, be happy, and if not, enjoy it yourself.

 

[hoppyhoppyhippo]

Honestly I'd love to considered the most overrated such and such. Because if you're overrated that means that a lot of people are talking about you, and I'd rather be talked about than not. The old adage, Haters gone hate, is so true.

Keep turning out the awesome brews Dogfish, the fact that they've been in business for like 20 years and still are experimenting is awesome. They could sit on their laurels and just keep up with the IBA, 60/90/120, and their seasonals and they'd sell a ton but they don't want to do that and that takes some serious guts.

 

[Calichusetts]

Didn't want to link to the BA thread so here is a link to an article with what he wrote:

http://beerstreetjournal.com/sam-calagione-gives-beer-geeks-an-earful-and-its-awesome/

What does everyone think?

 

[Yuri_Rage]

This is why I like Sam and DFH. He intentionally pushes boundaries with both words and recipes to strike a chord. This response to a bit of discord is spot on. Much respect.

 

[SteveLikesBeer]

He makes an excellent point. I'm glad he spoke up on the thread!

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Another moderator pointed out that Sam's post had been discussed at length a year ago, so I merged the threads.

 

[corkybstewart]

I have never met Sam, I appreciate his innovative ways, but I still have not found a DFH beer I would pay money for. I figured it was because they're not fresh enough when they get here, but I've tried them fresh on the East Coast, didn't like them. There's a sweetness to them I don't like. So regardless of how popular DFH is, no matter how many of you guys love the beer, I just don't and that's the way it is.

 

[weirdboy]

The one DFH beer I had which I really enjoyed was in their taproom in DC. It was a black & tan made with their Chicory Stout and 90 Minute IPA. That was delicious. I don't normally like the 90 minute IPA on its own, as it tastes way too sweet for me, but with the chicory stout to balance that sweetness it was a fantastic combination.

 

[progmac]

the beeradvocate rating of newcastle long ago told me all i needed to know about that site...

 

[ktblunden]

90 Min started me down the path of hoppy beers. I now find it to be overly sweet and lacking in hop aroma and flavor (I give them some leeway in that I've never found bottles fresher than 2 months old and have had it on tap at Yardhouse, which doesn't handle their beer as well as they should). I don't like many of DFH's beers, but I respect Sam and his team for constantly pushing the envelope and trying different things. He was spot on in his assessment.