JacktardBrewmeister
The Mad Zymurgist
I know I don't post regularly and when I share recipes they are always mad science like creations that should be abominations, but they turn out amazing and I win awards for making them and I am a level 3 Cicerone so I have a pretty good idea about what I am tasting. With that said, I need to get this off my hairy back.
Where I live (in Hermosa Beach California), I am surrounded by pretentious sociopaths who drink the devils piss. This commentary is not about bashing sour beers as a whole, but the complete loss of the point of such a beer. In a neighboring set of cities (Torrance/Gardena) there are 16 breweries and three more moving in within the year. They are pissing out sours like it's no ones business and they have been doing it for about 5 years or so now and their sours are the worst. Most of them are disgusting abominations of life and I have no problem throwing some of these dumps under the bus (I'm lookin' at you Phantom Carriage... your sours have never been good).
Not just them, but almost every brewery excluding maybe one or two are doing sours wrong (one of them being the Braury in Placentia which is 30 miles from me and Monkish which is close by and their sours are good to tolerable) and the hipsters just suck them up dry, or they USE TO. Things are slowly starting to change and even at the Los Angeles Beer Festival featuring 75 breweries, after talking to the owners and brewers at all of them, I have possibly learned a deep, dank, dark secret.
Breweries are making sour beers that are terrible because they don't really care about them and they are trying to keep par with the demand. After 5 years of observation it has dawned on them that they don't have to work hard to produce them anymore and if they turn out bad they can still sell them all the same. The MAIN consumers for these beers, the hipsters, (for the sake of the discussion I'll refer to these troglodytes as 'Hipsters' from here on out) are drinking and praising any sour you put in front of them with few exceptions.
Now for the secret. The sours are no longer selling. People are not sucking them down in the droves that they did 5 years ago and places famed for their sours (like Monkish for example) have far more IPA's, DIPA's, and TRIPA's on the menu and the sours have been reduced down to 2 to 3 sours out of 20 taps where some breweries have removed them altogether. Some breweries have even sold off their brewery to other breweries for going down the sours rabbit hole and hyper spending to keep up with the fad that WAS sours.
The owners and brewers at LA Beer Fest pointed out that the fad was dying down much like the over-hyped barrel aged stouts and belgians that were aged in oak FAAAAAAAR to long and were, on average, terrible. Many of them even joked about how they could make a cheap terrible stout and put it on oak and turn around and sell it for top dollar and the hipsters of that time, 10 years ago, sucked those down en mass too. I have said from the get go that hyper-oaked stouts and sours, in general, are garbage and I believe I feel vindicated in this as time has gone on.
Now, to be specific. I am not bashing sours in general, it is more of an observation of the industry in a place where it is booming. The breweries that didn't play the "sour" game are still in business making damn good beer (and some not so good). While the ones who had a huge focus in sours are doing them a LOT less and bringing in more IPAs to replace them to stay relevant while others flat out went out of business and sold to other breweries. Most of the places specializing in sours, ironically, can't even make good IPAs and standard beers to begin with.
Has anyone else noticed the decline of sours in the marketplace? I have also noticed the hipsters in Los Angeles are moving on to DIPA's and TRIPA's and that is starting to grow awkwardly more common. Perhaps most of these strange beer fads are really just a bunch of almost broke college students running around drinking whatever they are told is trendy regardless of actual quality and taste. Let's talk about this!
Where I live (in Hermosa Beach California), I am surrounded by pretentious sociopaths who drink the devils piss. This commentary is not about bashing sour beers as a whole, but the complete loss of the point of such a beer. In a neighboring set of cities (Torrance/Gardena) there are 16 breweries and three more moving in within the year. They are pissing out sours like it's no ones business and they have been doing it for about 5 years or so now and their sours are the worst. Most of them are disgusting abominations of life and I have no problem throwing some of these dumps under the bus (I'm lookin' at you Phantom Carriage... your sours have never been good).
Not just them, but almost every brewery excluding maybe one or two are doing sours wrong (one of them being the Braury in Placentia which is 30 miles from me and Monkish which is close by and their sours are good to tolerable) and the hipsters just suck them up dry, or they USE TO. Things are slowly starting to change and even at the Los Angeles Beer Festival featuring 75 breweries, after talking to the owners and brewers at all of them, I have possibly learned a deep, dank, dark secret.
Breweries are making sour beers that are terrible because they don't really care about them and they are trying to keep par with the demand. After 5 years of observation it has dawned on them that they don't have to work hard to produce them anymore and if they turn out bad they can still sell them all the same. The MAIN consumers for these beers, the hipsters, (for the sake of the discussion I'll refer to these troglodytes as 'Hipsters' from here on out) are drinking and praising any sour you put in front of them with few exceptions.
Now for the secret. The sours are no longer selling. People are not sucking them down in the droves that they did 5 years ago and places famed for their sours (like Monkish for example) have far more IPA's, DIPA's, and TRIPA's on the menu and the sours have been reduced down to 2 to 3 sours out of 20 taps where some breweries have removed them altogether. Some breweries have even sold off their brewery to other breweries for going down the sours rabbit hole and hyper spending to keep up with the fad that WAS sours.
The owners and brewers at LA Beer Fest pointed out that the fad was dying down much like the over-hyped barrel aged stouts and belgians that were aged in oak FAAAAAAAR to long and were, on average, terrible. Many of them even joked about how they could make a cheap terrible stout and put it on oak and turn around and sell it for top dollar and the hipsters of that time, 10 years ago, sucked those down en mass too. I have said from the get go that hyper-oaked stouts and sours, in general, are garbage and I believe I feel vindicated in this as time has gone on.
Now, to be specific. I am not bashing sours in general, it is more of an observation of the industry in a place where it is booming. The breweries that didn't play the "sour" game are still in business making damn good beer (and some not so good). While the ones who had a huge focus in sours are doing them a LOT less and bringing in more IPAs to replace them to stay relevant while others flat out went out of business and sold to other breweries. Most of the places specializing in sours, ironically, can't even make good IPAs and standard beers to begin with.
Has anyone else noticed the decline of sours in the marketplace? I have also noticed the hipsters in Los Angeles are moving on to DIPA's and TRIPA's and that is starting to grow awkwardly more common. Perhaps most of these strange beer fads are really just a bunch of almost broke college students running around drinking whatever they are told is trendy regardless of actual quality and taste. Let's talk about this!
