Now here's the kicker...I was in a place with said bad beer...choking down the remains of my tasters (i hate to waste)...and a group of young 20 somethings come in. They get a flight, taste a couple of these sour beers (not purposely "sour" mind you...like infection sour)...exclaim something about craft beer and how great it was.
I am left wondering...does it even matter that the beer is any good???
As long as you have all the trappings of "craft-beer-ness" and it doesn't taste like Bud Light...are there enough people out there willing to drink crappy beer?
Ok, sorry...not trying to sound like a rant.
I am not a beer snob by any means, but i have to wonder...in this time of massive saturation of the beer market, are the poor to mediocre beers going to prosper simply due to image or marketing?
Has anyone else experienced this?
I hate to break the news to you, but your post indicates that you are a beer snob.
You know more about how good the beer tastes than the brewer or the other patrons at the pub and then express that sentiment.
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But most drinkers aren't homebrewers. They don't really know all that much about beer except what they like and don't like. Bud light is still the #1 beer in the US with almost 30% of the market with regular Bud #2 at 12% and Coors light third at less than 10%.
So its obvious that mediocre beers DO prosper due to image and marketing. But now that's ME sounding like a beer snob, because I just called the top selling beers mediocre. Oh well, time to pull a pint of homebrew.
I agree with greenacarina here and disagree with you, madscientist.
There's a difference between "beer I don't like" and "beer that has objective flaws." Sounds like greenacarina is describing beer that has objective flaws.
I don't prefer Bud Light. I consider it to be a mediocre flavor profile (what little flavor exists, anyway). But I know that Budweiser is a world-class brewing operation and there is nothing that I would call a "flaw" in the way Bud Light is brewed. It is an objectively well-brewed beer.
There are a TON of small breweries / brewpubs whose beer is NOT well-brewed. Beer that I would be ashamed to call my homebrew. Beer that turns me off to the point that I don't go to those establishments a second time.
Now, there are a lot of beer styles I'm not a fan of. Many of them are your characteristic "whales". I honestly don't like imperial stouts or barleywine [too sweet for my palate, generally]. But like many homebrewers, I've been doing this long enough that I can tell whether an imperial stout or barleywine is well-made or not, even though I don't prefer the style.
We can call out poorly-brewed beer as objectively bad beer. That's not a matter of taste. The fact that poorly-brewed beer survives in the marketplace is a sign that the hype of "craft" has drawn people who don't yet understand the difference between a well-made and a poorly-made beer, but I trust that will change over time.
I have a Rye beer that doesn't fit any style. It's an ale, and I'm not the only one who thinks it's a good beer. But he can't find a style to put it in, so he's confused.
I think he's totally and utterly missing the point. I want to know, is my beer good? Would you have another? He'll come back with comments like "undercarbonated for the style" when in fact, I think he overcarbonates his beer. I'm not trying to win a competition, I'm trying to make beer I relish, and others relish as well. His approach may be style appropriate but it's NOT better.
I'm about done with judging. I have enough positive feedback from others--positive feedback where they want another, and another, and not just because it's sometimes free--that I believe my beers are doing very well. No off flavors. Clean. Tasty. I'll put them in a competition (local) and the winner has off flavors! Extract twang, sour aftertaste--makes me wonder whether the judges have come to expect those flavors and then reward them.
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All that ranting aside, people like what they like. But man, sometimes I cannot understand the focus on hitting a style exactly. I know, I know, it's about the only way to have a competition with possibly objective standards, but even then, judges are all over the place.
I also never got this... Why tf should I try to match expectations which were set up by somebody I do not even know? I brew to match my friends and my own taste, I do not give a single something if this matches a style or not.
A style might be a good starting point to explore possibilities, brew one beer according to style, find out what the ingredients and the process does to the taste of it and then alternate to your own liking. But that's really it!
I am going to brew a mild with 20% flaked barley and Belgian yeast next week. You know why? Because I can and because I think I might like it very much and I hope my friends do to.
I agree with you both in the sense that brewing "to style" is only necessary if you're brewing for competition. Again, like my point above, there's a difference between evaluating a beer for objective merits as to whether it's well-brewed and evaluating a beer to style.
I recently entered a competition and put my pilsner into both the "Czech Pale Premium Lager" category as well as the "German Pilsner" category. The same beer placed 1st of 5 entries in Czech Lager (BJCP cat 3) and didn't place at all in 4 entries in the Pale Bitter European Beer (BJCP cat 5). I *know* the beer is good, and there might be some judging inconsistency of course, but even before entering I thought the beer better matched Czech pils vs German pils. It seems the judging bore that out.
That said, people who get hamstrung into "style" when it's not a competition scenario are IMHO arbitrarily limiting their experience. We use beer styles to help people anchor an expectation of a beer, but sometimes if we want to brew something that tastes good but doesn't "fit the style", that's fine. In fact, that's something I do often because it's easy to find beer that's made exactly to style at the store. I've made a really nice Vienna Rye Lager, which doesn't fit any style, but it's delicious and I can't get one of those at the local liquor store.
Arguing against style guidelines with people who are attached to them is tilting at windmills. Brew what you like, and if it's delicious, it doesn't matter whether it's "to style" or not.
