Are the horizons for home brewing narrowing?

[OpenSights]

I’ll be honest and say I’ve read about 75% of the posts. When I read the title of the post I thought it was going to be about advancements in equipment and practices’ horizons.

Started brewing about 2 years ago, and have great respect for you home brewers who started with nothing and evolved this hobby to where it is now with so many different grains, hops, yeasts...

I love to brew traditional, I also love to make my own recipe. Sometimes I like to take a style and tweak it a bit and see what happens.

I’ve also learned to appreciate different styles and find myself not enjoying the same beer day after day.

 

[augiedoggy]

What "everything else"?

In the mid-60s the market was dominated by american pilsners and pale lagers. Fizzy yellow pisswater.
My dad was the only person I knew that preferred ales (huge Ballentine, Narragansett and Knickerbocker fan). My uncles all thought he was weird

This is like The Golden Age of beer wrt availability of styles that I doubt anyone in the USA was even aware of 50-something years ago...

Cheers!

well before the market steered drinkers to the fizzy yellow pisswater (Or consumers steered the market that way?) which is kinda what seems to be happening with ipas now.
There were other beerstyles available in the US. I have a collection of old local beer bottles that contained everything from bocks and porters to cream ales.there were many Yes much of this dissappeared after the temprist movement /prohibition when the bohemian pilsners and other light beers were becoming the rave.

Ive noticed that instead of just the yellow fizzy stuff and the large brands like guiness and yingling, even the gas stations and local drugstores now carry an ipa selection thats beginning to rival the adjunct lager selection. IPAs are becoming the new mainstream beer it seems. and unfortunately a large portion of these beers you find in these convenience stores are inbev or the like in disguise since they now own more "craft breweries" than anyone else ..
It really seems to me that 7 or even 5 years ago you could go to a grocery store and find many different sampler packs with many different beer styles. Those are becoming less common and are being replaced with IPA variety packs and shandy/fruit beer packs.
The great lakes variety pack has become my go to 12 pack these days as there just seems to be less options for anything besides the forementioned styles which are slowly dominating the craft beer isle when it comes to american craft selections. I really dont have an issue which the trending beer styles only the fact that they seem to be pushing everything else out of the brewery taps and off the shelves slowly.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

An online search indicated that the nearest store which offers my old favorite Fullers ESB is a 118 mile drive (each way) for me. Needless to say, it's been a good while since I've had a Fullers ESB.

 

[mongoose33]

well before the market steered drinkers to the fizzy yellow pisswater (Or consumers steered the market that way?) which is kinda what seems to be happening with ipas now.
There were other beerstyles available in the US. I have a collection of old local beer bottles that contained everything from bocks and porters to cream ales.there were many Yes much of this dissappeared after the temprist movement /prohibition when the bohemian pilsners and other light beers were becoming the rave.

Ive noticed that instead of just the yellow fizzy stuff and the large brands like guiness and yingling, even the gas stations and local drugstores now carry an ipa selection thats beginning to rival the adjunct lager selection. IPAs are becoming the new mainstream beer it seems. and unfortunately a large portion of these beers you find in these convenience stores are inbev or the like in disguise since they now own more "craft breweries" than anyone else ..
It really seems to me that 7 or even 5 years ago you could go to a grocery store and find many different sampler packs with many different beer styles. Those are becoming less common and are being replaced with IPA variety packs and shandy/fruit beer packs.
The great lakes variety pack has become my go to 12 pack these days as there just seems to be less options for anything besides the forementioned styles which are slowly dominating the craft beer isle when it comes to american craft selections. I really dont have an issue which the trending beer styles only the fact that they seem to be pushing everything else out of the brewery taps and off the shelves slowly.

@augiedoggy, if you'd amplify this I'd appreciate it:

I know you have had to address this issue in your own brewing operation. I have a local bar owner that wants to sell my beer on tap in her new bar. That's unlikely to go anywhere due to A) I'm not licensed and it's hard to do that, and B) I don't think she's thought through either the fiscal aspects of it, nor what her model is.

Anyway, it caused me to think about what beers to offer on tap, and more importantly, why. To my way of thinking, there are three types of beer drinkers besides the BMC crowd: those who want something different every time, those who want what's trendy, and those who simply want a reliable but good beer when they sit down at the bar.

If you accept that characterization of types of craft beer drinkers, how do you satisfy them all? Or can you? How many taps will it take, and what's the mix? Do you need to constantly have new and experimental brews on tap to attract the "I want NEW" crowd? Probably. Do you need to brew the trendy stuff even if it's not your favorite? Probably. And do you need to have a two or three old-reliables on tap for the I-just-want-a-known-quantity drinkers? Yeah.

Or do you need to have a stable of beers as standards: IPA, DIPA, Belgian, Porter, Stout, Wheat, Lager, Amber, etc.??

*****

The local bar owner has had a number of my beers, had others try them, they like 'em. But I only brew certain styles--dark lager, rye ale, amber, hazy IPA, other lagers, a really nice SMASH--and no doubt there would be pressure to expand that stable of beers. I don't doubt I could do it, but...what? How often? In what quantity?

And--get this--she wanted to have only 3 taps of my beer to start. She's doing a sort of whiskey lounge kind of thing, which I think will probably go well in my town, given the demographics. So I think she wants a kind of boutique type of beer; in fact, she wanted me to be her exclusive brewer.

So--given three taps, what would you put on tap? I know my flagship, Darth Lager, would be one, but what about the other two? It's almost as if those drinking from those taps would have come there with their whiskey-drinking buddies and the beer was an afterthought.

I doubt it's going anywhere for a variety of reasons, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, trying to decide in which direction I'd make the compromises.

So--what's driven your thinking on this, in your context?

 

[augiedoggy]

@augiedoggy, if you'd amplify this I'd appreciate it:

I know you have had to address this issue in your own brewing operation. I have a local bar owner that wants to sell my beer on tap in her new bar. That's unlikely to go anywhere due to A) I'm not licensed and it's hard to do that, and B) I don't think she's thought through either the fiscal aspects of it, nor what her model is.

Anyway, it caused me to think about what beers to offer on tap, and more importantly, why. To my way of thinking, there are three types of beer drinkers besides the BMC crowd: those who want something different every time, those who want what's trendy, and those who simply want a reliable but good beer when they sit down at the bar.

If you accept that characterization of types of craft beer drinkers, how do you satisfy them all? Or can you? How many taps will it take, and what's the mix? Do you need to constantly have new and experimental brews on tap to attract the "I want NEW" crowd? Probably. Do you need to brew the trendy stuff even if it's not your favorite? Probably. And do you need to have a two or three old-reliables on tap for the I-just-want-a-known-quantity drinkers? Yeah.

Or do you need to have a stable of beers as standards: IPA, DIPA, Belgian, Porter, Stout, Wheat, Lager, Amber, etc.??

*****

The local bar owner has had a number of my beers, had others try them, they like 'em. But I only brew certain styles--dark lager, rye ale, amber, hazy IPA, other lagers, a really nice SMASH--and no doubt there would be pressure to expand that stable of beers. I don't doubt I could do it, but...what? How often? In what quantity?

And--get this--she wanted to have only 3 taps of my beer to start. She's doing a sort of whiskey lounge kind of thing, which I think will probably go well in my town, given the demographics. So I think she wants a kind of boutique type of beer; in fact, she wanted me to be her exclusive brewer.

So--given three taps, what would you put on tap? I know my flagship, Darth Lager, would be one, but what about the other two? It's almost as if those drinking from those taps would have come there with their whiskey-drinking buddies and the beer was an afterthought.

I doubt it's going anywhere for a variety of reasons, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, trying to decide in which direction I'd make the compromises.

So--what's driven your thinking on this, in your context?

Not to go too far off topic here but your right, (OP if you want me to refrain from posting on this let me know)

We do have different "stereotypes" of folks. We get the people that just ask for the hoppiest beer we have, The ones that ask for the lightest or strongest, and those that only drink ipas and dont like "dark beers" as they often call them. We also get a LOT of people that only come to rate and review our beers as untapped has made many people beer judges. Some people only show up to rate a new beer and leave.. I dont know what they get out of it?
All that said are biggest sellers are our lightest blond and pilsner beers followed by or west coast and neipa styles.. others like our munich dunkel and porter get great feedback and reviews but are just not something as many people ask for but I find many that try them in a flight end up ordering pints and discovering they really do like them Some beer style however like the ESB are misleading by name and therefore people often order then or not ordering them because of this and I find I have to be proactive in explaining what type of beer its actually similar to to set correct expectations.

We get a lot of folks who are open to try the craft beers but normally drink BMC beers. I think because we are setup more as a brewpub than nanobrewery since we have food, local wine and cider. so we get more of a mix than many nanobreweries do.
(Thanks to a recent NY law stating if you serve from a walkin cooler you cant be licensed as microbrewery which is apparently interpreted differently by different folks at the sla).

That said we do get a lot of folks that do like the variety of beers we try to provide on our 11 beer taps and I do hear often that people are very pleased with the selection we are offering. I have found there are a lot of folks who really do like the styles that are becoming fewer and far between at a lot of the breweries because they have taken a back seat to the hot trending best sellers. I also hear a lot of complaints about these limited choices at other places but at the same time I get a lot of requests for fruit and flavored beers we dont currently have on tap yet so I realize variety and being open to everything is the best way to try to please as many patrons as possible even if it means we sell less to those wanting more of just the trending styles. At the same time I understand many breweries offerings more now than ever.

To be honest I am growing an appreciation for a good american ipa although im still more of a malty or balanced beer guy myself. My business partner enjoys them more than me so but also likes many of the same beers I do so we make a good pair in that regard.

mongoose, I think if your beer is going to be sold in an actual bar and you want more sales you will want to sell at least one "transition" type pilsner or light ale. its not the same crowd as you would get at a dedicated nano or microbrewery tasting room. a bourbon barrel aged beer also comes to mind given what you describe.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Jesus! This is worrying. As a fan of british beers and especially porters I want to visit England (or any British country) and do a pub round, taste local delicacies while they are still fresh and on tap.

I went to these London pubs in March (the first 5 were part of a walking pub tour) and I believe the only one that had porter on tap was The Harp. We had a lot of great beer on our trip but if you are looking for porter you should probably do some advance research by calling.

London
The Cockpit
The Black Friar
Punch Tavern
Ye Old Cheshire Cheese
The George
The Horse and Groom
Bag 'O Nails
Southwark Tavern
The Harp
Punch 'N Judy

You would have walked past a bunch of places that have porter - but they would have generally been modern craft places rather than traditional pubs. You have to remember that most traditional pubs - particularly cute ones in central London that appear on walking tours - are almost all owned by big breweries or (more rarely) by the big pubcos that resulted from the breakup of big breweries like Bass. And in the main they just don't do porter, in fact I'm struggling to think of any of the traditional British regionals that has a porter in their core range, certainly the Fuller's one seems to be pretty sporadic on cask, maybe the newish Tim Taylor one?

You have to remember that porter died out completely in the 1960s and 70s - as it happens Ron Pattinson has an article today on the revival of porter in the 1970s and early 80s. But it is reasonably common for modern breweries to have one in their lineup - but then you come down to the old problem of distribution. In general, don't look for it in cute old pubs...

However, Fuller's porter in the Harp is great when it's on, you did well to catch it. The Harp is a bit of an aberration though, it made its name as a free house and when Fuller's bought it a few years ago, they were sensible enough not to mess with it too much.

 

[day_trippr]

well before the market steered drinkers to the fizzy yellow pisswater (Or consumers steered the market that way?) which is kinda what seems to be happening with ipas now.[...]

I'll go out on a limb and state I believe from post-prohibition to, say, the 90s, producers did the steering - strongly towards adjunct-based lagers to save money on production costs.

Which is pretty much the opposite of the "juicy" ipa craze: they cost waaay more to produce, but now the consumer is driving the market.

The macro purveyors of adjunct beers have been losing share at a rate that's frankly surprising - I had really believed the market was still dominated by fizzyyellowpisswater consumers. But what happened with neipas is encouraging wrt how consumers can now have impact...

Cheers!

 

[Stand]

Trying to deal with all the crazy demands sucks, but the big brewers aren't nimble enough to react to it.

May craftsmen forever fill the gap.

Cheers!

 

[snarf7]

Sigh...another one of those "You kids get off my lawn" threads where nostalgia about the "good ole days" of homebrewing reigns supreme and everything the young whippersnappers want to brew or drink today is garbage.

Like anything, if you don't have innovation and change then it becomes stagnant, predictable and boring. Yes, the juicy NEIPA trend is a little annoying when you goto a brewpub and the menu is dominated by them but before that what did we have? The West Coast bitter bombs were all the rage, that was annoying too. Reality is though that trends are always changing so instead of whining about it, why not look to each new style and take what you can from it and apply it to how YOU like to make beer? For example, what I've taken away from the NEIPA craze is the importance of late additions and the related techniques so I've been exploring all the permutations to see what I like and how I can use it in my own projects (hops in the last 5-10 mins, hops at flameout, hops whirpooled at 180, 170, 160, 150, dry hopping, whatever). You can brew the EXACT same beer and just change one of these parameters and the result is very different, that's very exciting to me. And that's not even factoring in the hop choices! Floral, grassy, citrus, pine...what about adding a little of your bittering hops to the whirlpool or dry hop schedule along with the flavoring additions? What does that add? The beautiful thing about hombrewing is that THERE ARE NO RULES, you can do whatever you want, however you want, you can tailor your brews to the tastes of yourself and your friends and family!

Now that all said, I DO get some of the beefs expressed here but in my experience it's just as often the old timers as the youngsters who are infuriating to deal with on this front. Case in point, I've gone to a couple local homebrew club meetings and they always have someone pouring something they made. It's never anything I want to drink...it's always some ******** like a mocha java, vanilla cherry, apricot stout or something like that. It's like they go wayyyyy out of their way to brew the most bizarre combinations possible because they're 'bored' with the traditional styles and think this make them creative. It's bad and they should feel bad. The traditional styles have lasted for centuries because they are good, there's been so many before you who have tweaked and perfected the styles so I also get a real charge out of brewing the perfect traditional Helles or Marzen or Saison or whatever, sometimes you just need to get out of your own way and let the ingredients sing, that's why I always have at least a couple traditional brews on tap along with the more experimental stuff. You gotta respect what makes these styles so great

 

[CascadesBrewer]

why not look to each new style and take what you can from it and apply it to how YOU like to make beer? For example, what I've taken away from the NEIPA craze is the importance of late additions and the related techniques so I've been exploring all the permutations to see what I like and how I can use it in my own projects (hops in the last 5-10 mins, hops at flameout, hops whirpooled at 180, 170, 160, 150, dry hopping, whatever).

I agree. While I do enjoy NEIPA, I find too many of them are just way over the top for me on up front hops and they can be more of a drain on my palate than drinking big stouts. That said, I am finding that my Pale Ales and IPA are more likely now to have less 60 min hops, more flame out and dry hops, and my grist is swapping out crystal for lighter grains and white wheat. I want to play around more with English yeasts as well.

I also find that I enjoy the flavor of 20/15 minute hops additions and I find beers with all late hops are not my favorite. I am able to brew beers that I like...a light grain bill with medium levels of hop bitterness, flavor and aroma. I am sure I will brew another NEIPA with 1lb of Citra/Galaxy/Mosaic, but I keep finding other beers I want to brew instead. I am thinking of brewing a Belgian-ish Pale Ale this weekend with a whopping total of 1.5 oz of Amarillo hops.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I was at the So Cal Homebrew Fest a couple of weeks ago, and there were a lot of IPA's, but there was also a lot of other great beers. Of course I prefer malt to hops so I lean towards the Scotish/Irish beers with a smattering of German stuff thrown in for good measure. One of the guys in our club says a cold beer is a good beer. Sometimes I agree. Also, I'm on the cheep side of the ledger and putting $50.00 + hops into 5 gals doesn't make any sense to me. LOL.

I was going to make this same point about the SCHF. My club, for example, had 18 taps going. I think there were only maybe 2-3 IPAs or other heavily hopped beers. I personally brought a blonde and an amber. We had a couple ciders, a baltic porter, a milk stout, several lagers, etc etc...

Obviously from going to other booths there were a few that were 50%+ IPA. But most were similar to ours... Maybe 20-30% IPA/hoppy beers, but a BUNCH of other styles.

And I'd say rather than "narrowing", that homebrewers are increasingly able and willing to brew lagers in general. 10 years ago, most homebrewers had never thought of fermentation temp control and so they didn't have the capability to brew lagers. Today that has mostly changed IMHO.

I'm a member of a homebrew group; when I first joined, I had hopes I'd be able to learn about homebrewing and accelerate my learning curve. Nope. Oh, there are a couple of people there who I'd consider advanced, but mostly not. Most are content with where they are in homebrewing, mostly doing extract kits, mostly doing what the LHBS has put together for them to use.

Respectfully, that homebrew club might just not be the right club for a guy like you [based on your other posts about continuous improvement/etc].

At the festival mentioned above, a couple of us were talking about our club. We're not exactly "novice-friendly". Not by design or anything, but the club in general is full of guys who have been doing this for many years. A lot of our members sorta "grew out" of previous clubs and found us. In fact, one of the places we often gain new members is when they've gotten involved in a club based around a LHBS (which tends towards novices) and they realize that they need more.

Now that all said, I DO get some of the beefs expressed here but in my experience it's just as often the old timers as the youngsters who are infuriating to deal with on this front. Case in point, I've gone to a couple local homebrew club meetings and they always have someone pouring something they made. It's never anything I want to drink...it's always some bullpoopy like a mocha java, vanilla cherry, apricot stout or something like that. It's like they go wayyyyy out of their way to brew the most bizarre combinations possible because they're 'bored' with the traditional styles and think this make them creative. It's bad and they should feel bad. The traditional styles have lasted for centuries because they are good, there's been so many before you who have tweaked and perfected the styles so I also get a real charge out of brewing the perfect traditional Helles or Marzen or Saison or whatever, sometimes you just need to get out of your own way and let the ingredients sing, that's why I always have at least a couple traditional brews on tap along with the more experimental stuff. You gotta respect what makes these styles so great

Again, possibly it's just the wrong club for you.

In our club, we had a guy like that. He would come up with all sorts of crazy concoction ideas and we'd tell him why it wouldn't work. So he actually left and formed a different homebrew club where that sort of craziness was their raison d'etre. I ran into them at the yearly SCHF and one of their members was pouring a beer that was brewed with chocolate malt as its base malt. I had to try it just to see how terrible it was [and it did not disappoint lol]...

A lot of clubs are largely drinking clubs and they just happen to brew the beer they drink. A lot of clubs are very novice-oriented and typically newer brewers [in my experience] are more drawn to crazy experimentation.

But there are clubs like ours, where it's just a bunch of folks who really want to make the best possible beer we can. Those clubs aren't often easy to spot, because there's not a huge amount of self-promotion... We're more along the lines of the right brewers will find us rather than seeking out anyone who happens to have a bucket and a bottle capper lol...

 

[mongoose33]

Respectfully, that homebrew club might just not be the right club for a guy like you [based on your other posts about continuous improvement/etc].

Different people want different things. It was apparent after 2 or 3 meetings that almost nobody was pushing the envelope, which is part of what I was looking for. That's ok, everybody gets to decide what they like and what makes them happy.

I've made friends there, and do enjoy the meetings, but it's not a place I'm going to learn much.

I don't mind newbies--I was one once myself. And I try to return to them the help I received from others when I started. And if they're willing to learn, I'll give it all away free. Why not?

I'd like people to push my understanding of brewing to the limit, to offer up ideas, to ask about weird stuff. That's just me. I like to learn. Nobody else is required to do that.

At the festival mentioned above, a couple of us were talking about our club. We're not exactly "novice-friendly". Not by design or anything, but the club in general is full of guys who have been doing this for many years. A lot of our members sorta "grew out" of previous clubs and found us. In fact, one of the places we often gain new members is when they've gotten involved in a club based around a LHBS (which tends towards novices) and they realize that they need more.

I wish there was something here like that. We're a small town, and oddly enough, there's a homebrew group here but...wait for it...it's closed. You can only get in when someone else leaves, and someone has to sponsor you. The main guy in the group I've referred to in the past as "local guru." He's been brewing 25 years, and yet, despite his reputation, there's a ton of stuff he doesn't know about. I don't think he understands water, other than our very alkaline water is only good for stouts; cut it 1/4 with RO and porters; cut it 1/2 and maybe something else.

Early on I approached him, and he tested me on beers in a bar, asking my opinion of them, what was wrong, and so on. A test! To see, apparently, if I was worthy. Unreal.

I passed it, such as it was, but talk about being turned off. I was looking for a place to start, resources to turn to, like that, and his comment was that if I was hoping he'd mentor me, well, he wouldn't.

[ever run across someone like that, whose attitude seems to be "I had to learn the hard way, I'm not going to make it any easier for you."? Geez, I hate those people.]

I've given him a few of my beers to try, he's commented that I moved pretty far pretty fast (and I have). But he's one of those guys who has to fit a beer into a style before he can comment on it. I don't care much about how closely I have matched a style; more important to me is, would you have another?

I no longer look to him for feedback; I don't find his very useful. I've had friends try to buy my beer; a local bar owner wants to sell it (no can do, no license, very hard). I don't need any more validation. My beer is good. I've had beer from others here on HBT, and I'm not the only one here whose beer can make that claim.

We had a homecoming thing here where the alumni people wanted local homebrewers to bring their homebrew and they'd do a tailgate with homebrews. Somehow I was invited (probably a mistake ), and I brought my new keezer and four beers. They were excellent. One of the closed club guys brought a beer that was infected. It was awful. We spent some time trying to determine the source, never did. I couldn't imagine bringing a beer that wasn't excellent to a public event, but it happened.

After seeing what they had, and what i had, I'm no longer particularly interested in working with them. Looking at forming another group--this one open--and see where it goes.

Rant over.