Random Beer Thoughts

[JulianB1]

Would be hella ironic if all this random mainstream media attention gets that Lucky Charms IPA C&D'ed before it can be released, whereas otherwise they might have snuck under the ripoff radar.

 

[furley]

Re: that Lucky Charms beer, it apparently was featured in some news piece in Chicagoland as well because I had a family member reach out to me asking if it would be distributed in this area on Saturday.

This person doesn't even drink beer and they wanted a 4pack.

wait, hot Cheetos tequila?

pour it right in to my god damned face until i drown

 

[WhalezB4Rarez]

Needs more trub

 

[BeersMorgan]

Just popped into Trillium on lunch break for BA Tiramisu. They are $26 and nobody in line and STILL somehow there are people taking pictures in the taproom posting ISO $200 on FB.

 

[2plums4one]

Just popped into Trillium on lunch break for BA Tiramisu. They are $26 and nobody in line and STILL somehow there are people taking pictures in the taproom posting ISO $200 on FB.

my thoughts when I see people paying big money for this beer right now:

 

[WhalezB4Rarez]

my thoughts when I see people paying big money for this beer right now:

What's going on, was this supposed to be a gif?

 

[2plums4one]

What's going on, was this supposed to be a gif?

no, it was more for the folks who've seen that episode. The quote is "you dumb bitch"

 

[WhalezB4Rarez]

no, it was more for the folks who've seen that episode. The quote is "you dumb bitch"

 

[wuntrikpony]

ftfy

 

[rrryanc]

Yeah I was wondering the same thing. At first I assumed it was an actual collaboration with whoever makes Lucky Charms cereal (General Mills?), but then reading the description it appears to just be yet another dumb IPA with marshmallows in it and stolen intellectual property on the label art.

dontdrinkbeer and I discussed this a while ago, but it's amazing how much of a correlation there is between the "hazy IPA/kettle sour/sweet stout with a bunch of **** added to it" segment and the "stolen IP/trademark infringement" segment, especially in California.

Thanks Cellarmaker... (and others, but they started it)

 

[user 305778]

Yeah for whatever reason that Lucky Charms beer got national attention. They mentioned it randomly on some stupid news show the other day here in Philly.

 

[furley]

https://theburntoutbeerguy.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/is-craft-beer-burning-out/

article hidden behind spoiler tags for ease of avoidance/scrolling

Spoiler

IPAs so cloudy they look like radioactive pond water, double mocha-wocha choco-vanilla fudgy wudgy pastry stouts, DDH fruit smoothies (that’s Double Dry Hopped for the uninitiated) and salty goses that taste like gym instructor sweat. Is craft beer trying so hard these days it’s in danger of burning itself out?

When Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, the owner of Evil Twin and one of the world’s most prolific craft beer creators got a little misty-eyed on Facebook recently when he wrote: “Man I miss the good old days where we didn’t have to put out 5 new beers every week to make the customers happy”, maybe it’s a sign we should all get off the hamster wheel for a moment and think about where craft beer is heading.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when a group of US brewers got together and vowed to reclaim beer from big business by making them with integrity and passion once again.

Thanks in large part to those early pioneers we are now able to sit around in craft beer bars App-drinking a seemingly endless deluge of quirky brews from around the world.

And that’s the problem. Because of their relentless drive to recreate beer craft brewers have inadvertently spawned a consumer culture where beer doesn’t necessarily need to be great anymore.

It just needs to be new.

As a craft brewery owner myself I’ve lost count of the number of bars I’ve rung up to ask how sales are going, to be told our beer had already sold out. Great, I say, and ask if they want to order more:

“Oh we won’t buy the same beer again. Our customers get bored easily these days. Have you got anything new?”

This insatiable need for new is robbing craft breweries of the time it takes to perfect their beers. Because the truth is that most of the world’s greatest beers didn’t taste that way after the first batch. Brewers would have spent months, and in some cases even years, tinkering and tweaking, raising a degree of temperature here, moving a hop addition another few minutes later in the boil there, in order to fine-tune and perfect their recipes. It’s what the craft in craft beer is really all about.

But now that craft is being compromised by the hashtag generation and some craft breweries are beginning to crack under the strain. For example, for many the practise of test brewing small batches of a new beer before upscaling to commercial brews has long been abandoned. There simply isn’t time anymore to wait 4 weeks to see if a beer recipe actually works. Just roll the dice and hope for the best.

Whereas once it was ok to have a lager, an APA, IPA and stout as your core range, with the occasional seasonal release to add a little drama, these days it’s not unusual for a brewery to have multiple versions of every style – many of which taste pretty much the same because they really are the same. Just add another kilo or two of dry hops and you get two beers from one. There’s simply no time left over these days to refine. It’s corner-cutting, sloppy but inevitable as brewers come under increasing pressure to conjure up something different every week.

So is anyone to blame? Is it the craft breweries themselves, who now wield social media with all the skill of a Kardashian to fan the hype flames of new releases (often in limited numbers to deliberately increase the buzz)? Is it the drinking App platforms who encourage the ‘more is better’ consumer culture by rewarding users with shiny badges for drinking around, or the bars that happily feed their habit?

Or is it us, you and me, the craft beer drinkers, for no longer feeling any sense of pride in drinking local, or having the patience to stick with a beer we like for a while just because we like it and not because drinking it gives us more likes and followers?

Maybe the problem is craft beer itself. Remember, craft beer started out as a journey of discovery, so perhaps it’s unreasonable to criticise craft beer drinkers now when they simply want to take in all the sights along the way.

Whoever’s to blame craft breweries are increasingly feeling the strain of keeping up with their customers. When week in and week out they are being forced to choose between brewing the best beer they can make or brewing the easiest beer they can sell something’s eventually got to give.

Unless maybe, somehow, we can all slow down a bit, smell the hops and enjoy being in the ‘beer and now’ once in a while….

 

[Saind]

https://theburntoutbeerguy.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/is-craft-beer-burning-out/

article hidden behind spoiler tags for ease of avoidance/scrolling

Spoiler

IPAs so cloudy they look like radioactive pond water, double mocha-wocha choco-vanilla fudgy wudgy pastry stouts, DDH fruit smoothies (that’s Double Dry Hopped for the uninitiated) and salty goses that taste like gym instructor sweat. Is craft beer trying so hard these days it’s in danger of burning itself out?

When Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, the owner of Evil Twin and one of the world’s most prolific craft beer creators got a little misty-eyed on Facebook recently when he wrote: “Man I miss the good old days where we didn’t have to put out 5 new beers every week to make the customers happy”, maybe it’s a sign we should all get off the hamster wheel for a moment and think about where craft beer is heading.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when a group of US brewers got together and vowed to reclaim beer from big business by making them with integrity and passion once again.

Thanks in large part to those early pioneers we are now able to sit around in craft beer bars App-drinking a seemingly endless deluge of quirky brews from around the world.

And that’s the problem. Because of their relentless drive to recreate beer craft brewers have inadvertently spawned a consumer culture where beer doesn’t necessarily need to be great anymore.

It just needs to be new.

As a craft brewery owner myself I’ve lost count of the number of bars I’ve rung up to ask how sales are going, to be told our beer had already sold out. Great, I say, and ask if they want to order more:

“Oh we won’t buy the same beer again. Our customers get bored easily these days. Have you got anything new?”

This insatiable need for new is robbing craft breweries of the time it takes to perfect their beers. Because the truth is that most of the world’s greatest beers didn’t taste that way after the first batch. Brewers would have spent months, and in some cases even years, tinkering and tweaking, raising a degree of temperature here, moving a hop addition another few minutes later in the boil there, in order to fine-tune and perfect their recipes. It’s what the craft in craft beer is really all about.

But now that craft is being compromised by the hashtag generation and some craft breweries are beginning to crack under the strain. For example, for many the practise of test brewing small batches of a new beer before upscaling to commercial brews has long been abandoned. There simply isn’t time anymore to wait 4 weeks to see if a beer recipe actually works. Just roll the dice and hope for the best.

Whereas once it was ok to have a lager, an APA, IPA and stout as your core range, with the occasional seasonal release to add a little drama, these days it’s not unusual for a brewery to have multiple versions of every style – many of which taste pretty much the same because they really are the same. Just add another kilo or two of dry hops and you get two beers from one. There’s simply no time left over these days to refine. It’s corner-cutting, sloppy but inevitable as brewers come under increasing pressure to conjure up something different every week.

So is anyone to blame? Is it the craft breweries themselves, who now wield social media with all the skill of a Kardashian to fan the hype flames of new releases (often in limited numbers to deliberately increase the buzz)? Is it the drinking App platforms who encourage the ‘more is better’ consumer culture by rewarding users with shiny badges for drinking around, or the bars that happily feed their habit?

Or is it us, you and me, the craft beer drinkers, for no longer feeling any sense of pride in drinking local, or having the patience to stick with a beer we like for a while just because we like it and not because drinking it gives us more likes and followers?

Maybe the problem is craft beer itself. Remember, craft beer started out as a journey of discovery, so perhaps it’s unreasonable to criticise craft beer drinkers now when they simply want to take in all the sights along the way.

Whoever’s to blame craft breweries are increasingly feeling the strain of keeping up with their customers. When week in and week out they are being forced to choose between brewing the best beer they can make or brewing the easiest beer they can sell something’s eventually got to give.

Unless maybe, somehow, we can all slow down a bit, smell the hops and enjoy being in the ‘beer and now’ once in a while….

I feel like I've read this a bunch of times before

 

[sacrelicio]

Yeah I was wondering the same thing. At first I assumed it was an actual collaboration with whoever makes Lucky Charms cereal (General Mills?), but then reading the description it appears to just be yet another dumb IPA with marshmallows in it and stolen intellectual property on the label art.

dontdrinkbeer and I discussed this a while ago, but it's amazing how much of a correlation there is between the "hazy IPA/kettle sour/sweet stout with a bunch of **** added to it" segment and the "stolen IP/trademark infringement" segment, especially in California.

I think it's the age of the people making the beer. All this trendy stuff is being made by youngish guys who grew up with the internet and are obsessed with some aspect of pop culture or some artifact from their childhood, so Nintendo, Star Wars, cartoons, 80s/90s toys, kids cereals, 80s/90s rap, 80s/90s movies, etc. So of course your fluffy pink sour IPA has to have Kirby on the can*. Traditional styles like Vienna lagers and lambic don't really lend themselves to that.

*This is my ******* idea, don't anybody steal it.

 

[WhalezB4Rarez]

Traditional styles like Vienna lagers and lambic don't really lend themselves to that.

THIS OCTOBER JOIN US FOR WOLFENFEST!

WE MADE A MUNICH-STYLE OCTOBERFEST BEER AND DUBBED IT WOLFEN AND WILL BE SERVING IT IN STEINS.

WE'LL BE SERVING PLENTY OF GERMAN FARE.

WE'LL ALSO HAVE CLASSIC AND UPDATED VERSIONS OF A WELL-REMBERED VIDEO GAME.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST WE'LL ALSO BE RELEASING OUR BARREL AGED DOUBLE BOCK CALLED MECHA-HITLER!

 

[purephase]

https://theburntoutbeerguy.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/is-craft-beer-burning-out/

article hidden behind spoiler tags for ease of avoidance/scrolling

Spoiler

IPAs so cloudy they look like radioactive pond water, double mocha-wocha choco-vanilla fudgy wudgy pastry stouts, DDH fruit smoothies (that’s Double Dry Hopped for the uninitiated) and salty goses that taste like gym instructor sweat. Is craft beer trying so hard these days it’s in danger of burning itself out?

When Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, the owner of Evil Twin and one of the world’s most prolific craft beer creators got a little misty-eyed on Facebook recently when he wrote: “Man I miss the good old days where we didn’t have to put out 5 new beers every week to make the customers happy”, maybe it’s a sign we should all get off the hamster wheel for a moment and think about where craft beer is heading.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when a group of US brewers got together and vowed to reclaim beer from big business by making them with integrity and passion once again.

Thanks in large part to those early pioneers we are now able to sit around in craft beer bars App-drinking a seemingly endless deluge of quirky brews from around the world.

And that’s the problem. Because of their relentless drive to recreate beer craft brewers have inadvertently spawned a consumer culture where beer doesn’t necessarily need to be great anymore.

It just needs to be new.

As a craft brewery owner myself I’ve lost count of the number of bars I’ve rung up to ask how sales are going, to be told our beer had already sold out. Great, I say, and ask if they want to order more:

“Oh we won’t buy the same beer again. Our customers get bored easily these days. Have you got anything new?”

This insatiable need for new is robbing craft breweries of the time it takes to perfect their beers. Because the truth is that most of the world’s greatest beers didn’t taste that way after the first batch. Brewers would have spent months, and in some cases even years, tinkering and tweaking, raising a degree of temperature here, moving a hop addition another few minutes later in the boil there, in order to fine-tune and perfect their recipes. It’s what the craft in craft beer is really all about.

But now that craft is being compromised by the hashtag generation and some craft breweries are beginning to crack under the strain. For example, for many the practise of test brewing small batches of a new beer before upscaling to commercial brews has long been abandoned. There simply isn’t time anymore to wait 4 weeks to see if a beer recipe actually works. Just roll the dice and hope for the best.

Whereas once it was ok to have a lager, an APA, IPA and stout as your core range, with the occasional seasonal release to add a little drama, these days it’s not unusual for a brewery to have multiple versions of every style – many of which taste pretty much the same because they really are the same. Just add another kilo or two of dry hops and you get two beers from one. There’s simply no time left over these days to refine. It’s corner-cutting, sloppy but inevitable as brewers come under increasing pressure to conjure up something different every week.

So is anyone to blame? Is it the craft breweries themselves, who now wield social media with all the skill of a Kardashian to fan the hype flames of new releases (often in limited numbers to deliberately increase the buzz)? Is it the drinking App platforms who encourage the ‘more is better’ consumer culture by rewarding users with shiny badges for drinking around, or the bars that happily feed their habit?

Or is it us, you and me, the craft beer drinkers, for no longer feeling any sense of pride in drinking local, or having the patience to stick with a beer we like for a while just because we like it and not because drinking it gives us more likes and followers?

Maybe the problem is craft beer itself. Remember, craft beer started out as a journey of discovery, so perhaps it’s unreasonable to criticise craft beer drinkers now when they simply want to take in all the sights along the way.

Whoever’s to blame craft breweries are increasingly feeling the strain of keeping up with their customers. When week in and week out they are being forced to choose between brewing the best beer they can make or brewing the easiest beer they can sell something’s eventually got to give.

Unless maybe, somehow, we can all slow down a bit, smell the hops and enjoy being in the ‘beer and now’ once in a while….

No, a hypocrite like Jeppe who's basically always churned out new SKUs and dumb variants of all of his beers suddenly waxing poetic about good ol' days that never existed (at least for his brewrery) is not in fact a sign that we should start worrying about the direction of craft beer. Or as Jnorton00 eloquently put it the last time an article with a similar sentiment was posted, "I also think Jeppe is also fails to account for the fact that his 3242342342 beers pretty much just sit on the shelf because they are either garbage and or generally extremely overpriced."

A lot of these articles also seem to be informed about craft beer exclusively by social media power uses, which creates a ridiculously slanted view of the state of the industry as a whole. The idea that the majority of breweries are just pumping out IPA and pastry stout variants because that's the only way to keep people coming in the door glosses over the huge number of unhyped breweries that basically act as substitutes for bars in a given area and as a result frequently maintain those consistent and balanced lineups the author complains are on the wane.

 

[JulianB1]

THIS OCTOBER JOIN US FOR WOLFENFEST!

WE MADE A MUNICH-STYLE OCTOBERFEST BEER AND DUBBED IT WOLFEN AND WILL BE SERVING IT IN STEINS.

WE'LL BE SERVING PLENTY OF GERMAN FARE.

WE'LL ALSO HAVE CLASSIC AND UPDATED VERSIONS OF A WELL-REMBERED VIDEO GAME.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST WE'LL ALSO BE RELEASING OUR BARREL AGED DOUBLE BOCK CALLED MECHA-HITLER!

I'd go to this.

 

[sacrelicio]

Needs more trub

I have this in the fridge right now. It's solid, more of a west coast IPA, but I admittedly drink a lot of trubby glop so my palate isn't the best judge.

 

[coach1]

THIS OCTOBER JOIN US FOR WOLFENFEST!

WE MADE A MUNICH-STYLE OCTOBERFEST BEER AND DUBBED IT WOLFEN AND WILL BE SERVING IT IN STEINS.

WE'LL BE SERVING PLENTY OF GERMAN FARE.

WE'LL ALSO HAVE CLASSIC AND UPDATED VERSIONS OF A WELL-REMBERED VIDEO GAME.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST WE'LL ALSO BE RELEASING OUR BARREL AGED DOUBLE BOCK CALLED MECHA-HITLER!

Don't forget the limited edition stemless Teku steins silk screened with SS guards & German shepherds.

 

[sacrelicio]

Don't forget the limited edition stemless Teku steins silk screened with SS guards & German shepherds.

The Mecha Hitler oversized wine glass is a future glasswale. Stock up.

 

[WhalezB4Rarez]

The Mecha Hitler oversized wine glass is a future glasswale. Stock up.

Sounds like a good idea for Talk Beer Glass 007.

 

[stakem1]

The next homebrewtalk beer glass is going to be a silver tankard with spiked hinged lid for the drinker to accidentally poke their eye out. It also comes with a contributor member only upgrade option that allows it to double as a self heating mini fermenter with heads up display showcasing the TB exclusive homebrewing software that simply shows a bad gateway message every time you fire it up.

 

[wuntrikpony]

The next homebrewtalk beer glass is going to be a silver tankard with spiked hinged lid for the drinker to accidentally poke their eye out. It also comes with a contributor member only upgrade option that allows it to double as a self heating mini fermenter with heads up display showcasing the TB exclusive homebrewing software that simply shows a bad gateway message every time you fire it up.

As long as it's microwave safe, I'm in.

 

[FTowne1]

The next homebrewtalk beer glass is going to be a silver tankard with spiked hinged lid for the drinker to accidentally poke their eye out. It also comes with a contributor member only upgrade option that allows it to double as a self heating mini fermenter with heads up display showcasing the TB exclusive homebrewing software that simply shows a bad gateway message every time you fire it up.

 

[JulianB1]

A lot of these articles also seem to be informed about craft beer exclusively by social media power uses, which creates a ridiculously slanted view of the state of the industry as a whole. The idea that the majority of breweries are just pumping out IPA and pastry stout variants because that's the only way to keep people coming in the door glosses over the huge number of unhyped breweries that basically act as substitutes for bars in a given area and as a result frequently maintain those consistent and balanced lineups the author complains are on the wane.

This is very well-stated and pretty much right on point. And as you said, the "craft beer Instagram equals craft beer industry" viewpoint on things glosses over major components of the industry that have little or nothing to do with that. Like, when I check out the craft beer selection at the grocery store it's still mostly American IPAs, blond/golden ales, and lagers. Maybe with some goses and a few other citrusy kettle sours thrown in (but certainly not the fruit smoothie/pastry level stuff).

 

[WhalezB4Rarez]

Anchor Brewing, Workers at Odds Ahead of Union Vote

Spoiler

The new owners of San Francisco’s historic Anchor Brewing Co. probably didn’t foresee the current state of things when they got rid of a free beer perk for employees.

Workers at the iconic brewery, which produced the first domestic India pale ale, are on the verge of a vote that could establish one of the first unions at a craft brewery in the U.S. They’ve said this past week that the end of the privilege to drink a free beer at lunch or between shifts was one among a number of other, more serious cuts to their benefits that motivated the organizing drive.

The workers joined with employees at a company-owned bar across the street to petition the National Labor Relations Board to hold a unionization vote after the company declined to voluntarily recognize the International Longshore and Warehouse Union as their representative. “We’re working together to make sure that the people who make Anchor can survive and raise our families in the Bay Area,” Jon Ezell, an organizing committee member and bottling worker at Anchor, told Bloomberg Law in a Feb. 27 e-mail.

Members of the committee are now accusing the company of union-busting, saying Anchor broke a promise to “remain neutral” by requiring workers to attend so-called captive audience meetings where management advocated against unionization.

“We’re disappointed that Anchor management has decided to listen to anti-union lawyers [rather] than stay neutral,” Ezell said.

Meetings pushing for a “union-free” workplace are a common response from employers facing organizing drives. But the move could nonetheless strain relations between the company and its workforce.

Anchor generally denied the allegations in a Feb. 26 e-mail to Bloomberg Law, saying it’s been “working collaboratively” with the union “from the beginning of this process.”

“Furthermore, we have said from the very beginning of this process that we hope a decision on unionization will be based on neutral and objective facts,” a spokesperson said. “We held information sessions for those employees who were already at work” and all the information presented “has been supported by documentary evidence for the employees’ own review and inspection.”

Ezell told Bloomberg Law that the organizing committee “did not receive any documentary evidence to back up management’s claims.”

The NLRB scheduled the brewery workers’ vote for March 6. An election for Anchor Public Taps workers was scheduled for March 8 but has been moved to March 15 at the company’s request, according to attorney Nicole Teixeira of Leonard Carder LLP. Teixeira represents the employees.

Union-Busting?
Anchor Brewing was founded in 1896, and its “steam” beers have become an iconic brand in California’s Bay Area and around the country. The company was bought out in 2017 by Japanese-owned brewery Sapporo Breweries Ltd.

Wages and benefits have decreased since then, including significant cuts to sick leave, according to some of the workers. They announced the drive on Feb. 7.

There’s some union presence in the facilities of large breweries like Anheuser-Busch, but unions are largely absent in microbreweries—a much faster-growing sector of the market.

Teixera and Agustin Ramirez, lead organizer for the ILWU in Northern California, took a tone suggesting there’s less congeniality in the unionization process than Anchor’s statement did.

“We went in and gave the company a letter asking them to recognize a union and they did not give us a response, which is in essence a ‘no,’” Ramirez said.

According to Ezell, workers in the brew-pub were also “told by their managers to remove pro-union pins” that were previously allowed. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to review an appeals court case where a company was found to have violated labor laws by banning pro-union pins.

Ramirez said the group remains optimistic that they have the numbers to win the elections.

“We feel that the workers know what’s best for them—that’s why the vast majority of workers from both groups signed authorization cards—and we feel they will vote to have an opportunity to be at the table to determine their future.”

The company’s statement noted that the NLRB agreed to postpone the second election for the brew-pub workers until March 15.

“Anchor Brewing Company will respect the results of the upcoming vote by our employees,” the spokesperson said. [/quote]

 

[bramsdell]

This is very well-stated and pretty much right on point. And as you said, the "craft beer Instagram equals craft beer industry" viewpoint on things glosses over major components of the industry that have little or nothing to do with that. Like, when I check out the craft beer selection at the grocery store it's still mostly American IPAs, blond/golden ales, and lagers. Maybe with some goses and a few other citrusy kettle sours thrown in (but certainly not the fruit smoothie/pastry level stuff).

Isn't part of the reason that these styles are coveted because they are also in limited supply? So it's a cycle as I see it: you don't get the hype-y IPAs/pastry stouts in stores because they are limited in quantity and often brewery-only; they are hype-y because they are the ones in limited quantity and thus would not make it to grocery store shelves.

 

[NClambicguy]

Isn't part of the reason that these styles are coveted because they are also in limited supply? So it's a cycle as I see it: you don't get the hype-y IPAs/pastry stouts in stores because they are limited in quantity and often brewery-only; they are hype-y because they are the ones in limited quantity and thus would not make it to grocery store shelves.

If a beer doesn't taste like it required a 3 hour wait in the Tampa/Miami heat you can guarantee I'll be drain pouring that ****.

 

[pen15clubmember]

So we still haven't figured out why that particular Lucky Charms beer got blown up in the press, right? A coworker sent me Marketwatch story about it yesterday. There's some speculation of them hiring a PR firm, but that is really rare for smaller breweries, right? I'd certainly never heard of the place before.

 

[furley]

no new posts since 3 PM yesterday?

something's fucky