I have only been brewing for about 3.5 years and the styles I thought I would brew a lot of when I started I have actually brewed few of and I have started finding myself leaning more towards keeping things simplistic for the most part. I started wanted to make Belgians, and I have made a couple dubbels that I thought were very good, a couple saisons that I liked more than what I can usually find on shelves, but in the last 6 months to a year I started realizing that to me simplicity is a good thing and that trying to make outrageously hopped, barrel aged, fruit infused, or beer spiced with hard to find spices just isn't worth it. While some of those beers that I have tried on the shelves are good, some very good, many aren't worth the price tag and it's not worth the cost to brew them yourself.
I love Westbrooks Mexican Cake, is it worth $18/750ml I don't know. To me it was worth it to try it once, would I pay that again, I doubt it. I might try to make a 2.5gal batch of something similar as I like a good big chocolatey stout with a little cinnamon and slight heat in the finish once in a while, but it's not something i'm going to drink everyday.
A local brewery has started expanding what they make but to me in a very smart way. They have started a SMASH series, they're up to #3, in the fall they release a couple of wet hopped brews, same malts just different hops in each, and soon they'll be releasing a barrel aged stout and a Winter DIPA, my guess is that both the barrel aged stout and the Winter IPA are based off of the base brews they are already making. Essentially SMASH's are relatively cheap since it's just base grains and one kind of hop, matching the hops to the right grain can be tricky, but once done it's relatively cheap to make as long as you avoid the most expensive new hop on the block, the others they're using a malt base that is tried and true for them and just swapping out hops or aging in a barrel. It's SIMPLE and it's working very well for them. Many craft beer drinkers are not beer aficionados, they can't pick up on every little spice in a beer, most of them don't understand Chinook vs. Cascade vs. Mosaic vs. Citra, vs. Amarillo, etc they go to a local brewery and purchase a flight, find something they like and might buy cans, bottles or growlers, but ask them what hops are in it and many can't tell you.
Go to the store and you see 10 session IPA's, but what makes each different? Many times I have to search each on Beeradvocate or the breweries site to see what hops they're using, many consumers don't know how much of a difference there could be so like others have said they turn away and buy something familiar. To many it's like buying Pepsi or Coke, yes there's a difference but for most the difference isn't that much they just buy the brand they prefer. Just looking at how the marketing, store shelves, and published sales of larger craft breweries have changed over the last 5-7 years I feel that many markets aren't saturated, but instead of focusing on making great beer, many are being gimmicky which will eventually cause them to fail when the market does get close to saturating.
Breweries just need 4-5 solid year round beers and,3 or 4 seasonals, and then offer a couple limited releases and change them up to give people something to seek out. If they can do that and still make very solid GREAT beer then expand more, if not follow the KISS rule.
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