Too many homebrewers going 'pro'?

[mattsearle]

I don't know what other people will make of this, but I'm wondering if others feel the same.

I should start by saying that I'm all for the growth in people drinking and brewing real ale and craft beer around the world, & love the added choice that beer drinkers have these days.

My issue is that it seems like sometimes I'll grab a beer from a brewery I've not seen before, but sometimes I feel as though I've been cheated into literally just buying someone's homebrew. Pale Ales and IPAs seem to be the worst culprit, with harsh bitterness and grassy hop flavour too common for my liking. Even oxidised beer and beer that has 'that homebrew twang' are issues I've experienced with 'craft' beer that I've bought in shops. It's like people make a few brews and think "I'm starting a brewery" without really nailing down a recipe or carrying out the necessary analysis of their own beer before taking it to market.

A friend of mine owns several top tattoo shops/ studios, and we were chatting recently about this and he had a good comparison. He said that when the recession hit everyone who fancied themselves as a bit of an artist and didn't have much work on seemed to be all of a sudden a tattoo "artist", without the real knowledge or experience to make that claim.

I'm all for more and more people to be brewing professionally and more people to be drinking good beer, but growth for the sake of growth surely dilutes the market which, I'm glad to say, consists of some absolutely incredible beer at the moment, the best I've ever tasted!

I'm particularly interested in whether this is something that beer fans in the US have experienced (as I'm in the UK).

I hope this doesn't come across as a rant as it's not supposed to, it's just something I've though about a few times an had another such beer last night which got me thinking about it again.

 

[madscientist451]

One of the things home brewing has done for me is make me more selective of what I like and don't like. My screw ups over the years provided me with examples of flavors I don't like.
I use beer rating websites like Beer Advocate to help determine if I'm going to lay down the cash and buy a beer I haven't tried before.
But this summer, I did buy some local brew from a new startup, (without looking it up) and the first thing I though was: "Tastes like mediocre homebrew".
Basically too much crystal malts or under attenuated.
I've had similar issues with the growth of cider. People don't know what they are doing or just think the public will drink whatever they churn out. Some of it is really bad.
I have also had some beer from large, well established breweries that I thought was terrible. Maybe I'm just too picky with my taste or just don't like what some people think is OK.
I make a lot of clones and (SOME) of my home brew is just as good or better than commercial examples. So I prefer to drink at home these days with only an occasional pint out and bring home a variety 12 pack now and then.

 

[bigplunkett]

I two have had some bad mucro brews. And most the time it makes me think i shiuld work somewhere comertail thats good where i can learn the rest i want to because life is to short for bad beer and shame on the **** micro brews that put iut bcm **** or bland beer. Not tgat bcm dose a bad job its just flavorless. Ive had sours that were all funk no lacto.... that was horible hell i had a beer from THE BREWERY that was so dyasite it was like rancid popcorn and tgey know what there doing. Sorry to rant but bad ir even ok beer should be free not nucro beer cost. Qc is the problem no qc ir ppl that dont know beer.

 

[jbunton]

I do agree I have had a few bad brews lately. However some of them were contract brews so could be a recipe problem. Also went to brew pub and all but their brown ale was bland and boring. What I've learned as I develop my business plan and recipes is that too many people say to worry about the beer last when starting a brewery. I find that laughable. I'm worrying about the beer first and I'm sure it will show when I finally do go pro. I also think allot of homebrewers do not gain the necessary expierience on bigger equiptment before going pro. Luckily I have allot of expierience in a very similar manufacturing industry. The product and procedures are different but all the equiptment is relatively the same just on a larger and more industrial scale.

 

[Mer-man]

I see it a lot here in Denmark because it is really easy to start a brewery in comparison to the USA.
And as we know, it is easy to make beer -- harder to make great beer. So we have lots of small breweries and maybe 1 in 10 makes good beer. Maybe.

 

[rubyroo]

With the rapid growth of production and interest in craft beer, it is bound to happen. There are surely some examples where I live. I often find myself thinking that I can brew a better beer than some of the local offerings. I believe that the strong and innovative will survive and the sub par will eventually disappear, due to a lack of demand.

 

[brewbama]

The beautiful thing about free market economics is natural selection. The consumer will find the best product value. The supplier won't be able to sell the inferior product on a scale that covers the cost of production plus margin. As that happens, supply of inferior product will outpace demand for it and it will no longer be on the market. If a supplier has a valuable product it will become his/her flagship and others will fall away.

 

[jekeane]

Im not sure we've hit that point in Jacksonville yet. However there are a handful of new nano's opening soon and could see it happening. I have however certainly paid for some average home-brew at more than a few establishments.

I rarely spend money on beer anymore unless it is a know product. Any new brewery I visit I will have a flight and if there is something worthwhile I may have a pint.

 

[Pangaia]

Im not sure we've hit that point in Jacksonville yet. However there are a handful of new nano's opening soon and could see it happening. I have however certainly paid for some average home-brew at more than a few establishments.

I rarely spend money on beer anymore unless it is a know product. Any new brewery I visit I will have a flight and if there is something worthwhile I may have a pint.

I was thinking the opposite, Jville is a perfect example of this. Went to Wicked Barley's for the first time and it ranged from mediocre to average homebrew, very disappointed. The dopplebock was gross, sours all had THP. I could call out a few other breweries but will refrain. I will say Aardwolf and Intuition put out great brew, but those are the only two really worth visiting twice imo, which is disappointing in a town with so many breweries.

 

[mattsearle]

One of the things home brewing has done for me is make me more selective of what I like and don't like. My screw ups over the years provided me with examples of flavors I don't like.
I use beer rating websites like Beer Advocate to help determine if I'm going to lay down the cash and buy a beer I haven't tried before.
But this summer, I did buy some local brew from a new startup, (without looking it up) and the first thing I though was: "Tastes like mediocre homebrew".
Basically too much crystal malts or under attenuated.
I've had similar issues with the growth of cider. People don't know what they are doing or just think the public will drink whatever they churn out. Some of it is really bad.
I have also had some beer from large, well established breweries that I thought was terrible. Maybe I'm just too picky with my taste or just don't like what some people think is OK.
I make a lot of clones and (SOME) of my home brew is just as good or better than commercial examples. So I prefer to drink at home these days with only an occasional pint out and bring home a variety 12 pack now and then.

The overuse of crystal is definitely something that I notice a lot of. I tend to avoid it if at all possible in my recipes after a few brews I did that called for quite a bit had a terrible sweetness, and this is something that I find here in the UK in a quite a few local so called 'bitters', where all I get is a cloying sweetness and not a lot else.

 

[mattsearle]

The beautiful thing about free market economics is natural selection. The consumer will find the best product value. The supplier won't be able to sell the inferior product on a scale that covers the cost of production plus margin. As that happens, supply of inferior product will outpace demand for it and it will no longer be on the market. If a supplier has a valuable product it will become his/her flagship and others will fall away.

Yes I guess this is true the people putting out mediocre beer will either improve or fade away, but if it were me opening a brewery I wouldn't want my early brews as I'm still working on my craft to be out there with my name on it. Only when I consider my beer to be at least equal to great beers that I want to buy and drink would I send them out in the world.

 

[mattsearle]

I find it interesting that others have noticed the same. As people have said above perhaps part of it is that I drink more and more good beer these days as there is so much more good beer around, and also my brewing is getting better and better, so I therefore notice a bad beer more than I used to (as obviously there have always been bad beers available, but perhaps I didn't know they were bad).

 

[WaltStarr]

The beautiful thing about free market economics is natural selection. The consumer will find the best product value. The supplier won't be able to sell the inferior product on a scale that covers the cost of production plus margin. As that happens, supply of inferior product will outpace demand for it and it will no longer be on the market. If a supplier has a valuable product it will become his/her flagship and others will fall away.

You see this play out precisely as you describe in areas with a LOT of microbreweries, such as North-Eastern Colorado. The bad micro-breweries don't even really get in the door to sell their products much because the competition is so tight only good brews can make it.

The problem described in the original post are probably more prevelent in areas with less choice.

 

[foam_top]

I can relate to your homebrew/tattoo metaphor in my career path - software/game development. Anyone and everyone is doing it now. I'm also trying not to rant but the market's influx has made it hard for those of us with a real passion.

But yeah, I've had more craft beers recently that weren't any better than my first few batches of homebrew. Good thing I have a library of breweries that I can fall back on when I'm not feeling experimental.

 

[bucketnative]

I was confronted with this just Friday night. We visited a local nanobrewery that had opened within the last year. We got a flight with seven 5-oz pours, one of each of their beers on tap. Out of the seven, I would not have served four of them, and a fifth might have been served with an apology for it being an experiment with cranberries gone awry. The two beers that I would have served were well-done (and oddly enough, they were probably the most-difficult-to-brew beers there). The four with issues were either suffering from severe oxidation, extreme sanitizer contamination, or some other form of contamination/degradation. One tasted of spoiled grains.

From their Yelp and Untappd reviews, maybe we hit an off night (or off weekend with the holiday), but as @bigplunkett mentioned, any brewery needs to do QC at all stages of the process. People joke about brewers getting free samples, but those samples are a necessary part of QC.

 

[John Paul Stoddard]

Gotta remember...The Vast Majority of Beer/Craft Beer drinkers have never brewed...so They judge beer by what is commercially produced.

 

[Pangaia]

Gotta remember...The Vast Majority of Beer/Craft Beer drinkers have never brewed...so They judge beer by what is commercially produced.

Exactly why the whole free market thing doesn't work for local breweries. Sadly enough unless the beer is terrible the public will drink it and like it. It's more about atmosphere, advertisement, brewing popular styles, etc. The public doesn't know the difference between an average IPA and a great IPA. Sad truth, but the quality of beer won't decide if a brewery will stay open or not.

 

[WaltStarr]

Exactly why the whole free market thing doesn't work for local breweries. Sadly enough unless the beer is terrible the public will drink it and like it. It's more about atmosphere, advertisement, brewing popular styles, etc. The public doesn't know the difference between an average IPA and a great IPA. Sad truth, but the quality of beer won't decide if a brewery will stay open or not.

I would say this is more dependent upon how saturated the local market is. The more saturated, the better the beer overall. If there's only a single brew pub within fifty miles and local stores just don't stock much craft beer, the likelihood of bad beer in that brew pub can go up.

 

[John Paul Stoddard]

Yes I guess this is true the people putting out mediocre beer will either improve or fade away, but if it were me opening a brewery I wouldn't want my early brews as I'm still working on my craft to be out there with my name on it. Only when I consider my beer to be at least equal to great beers that I want to buy and drink would I send them out in the world.

But You still have to Hope everyone else has your taste Buds...
I don't Like Hoppy Beers so even the World's Greatest Breweries are not selling Me IPAs or any style of Overly Hopped Beers.

If your gonna Apply your taste buds to what You would market you would fail for sure...Craft Beers are trendy...What is in this week will be out Next week....Look how Many Breweries don't have a Flagship Beer that everyone has to have.

 

[Murphys_Law]

I live in the Denver-Boulder area and we have something like 50,000 of micro/nano breweries (at least it feels like it) and I often find myself thinking, "why am I sitting here paying this guy when I can go home and drink just as good, if not better, beer at home?"

I had a Thanksgiving guest who works at a small brewery and she ask if I ever considered going pro and I told her no, it's my hobby and I have no desire to make it a living. That and I'd be the owner of a nano that would show up on threads like this!

 

[myelo]

I've noticed this as well. Lots of new microbreweries around, and while many of them are making great beers there are some on the other end of the bell-shaped curve. It's kind of like the dot-com boom when everyone was starting an internet company. The bad ones will eventually fail and some of the good ones will be bought out.

In the end I think we will still have much more choice than 20 years ago. And if not ...

I still have my basement.

 

[John Paul Stoddard]

For me it is about the Brewery itself not their Beers...A Place to go and have fun...

By the way Around here we have to travel more than 150 Miles to visit an Actual Brewery

 

[mattsearle]

But You still have to Hope everyone else has your taste Buds...
I don't Like Hoppy Beers so even the World's Greatest Breweries are not selling Me IPAs or any style of Overly Hopped Beers.

If your gonna Apply your taste buds to what You would market you would fail for sure...Craft Beers are trendy...What is in this week will be out Next week....Look how Many Breweries don't have a Flagship Beer that everyone has to have.

Yes I agree I don't necessarily mean my beer would be as good as others just in my opinion, but I would seek as much constructive criticism as possible from those I know both in the industry and just beer fans. I would certainly train in sensory analysis to some extent and learn to identify faults as there is certainly no excuse for putting out badly oxidised beer etc!

 

[Horseflesh]

Living near Seattle I am surrounded by a ton of craft breweries... and one pro, Redhook. The red dots are just some of the breweries closest to me. Some are too new to make it onto Google Maps yet. I can walk to 6 craft breweries in under 30 minutes, and I live in what most Seattle residents would consider the wildlands.

In my experience, it is rare for me to get a glaring flaw, but it is also not typical to get something that makes me want to order another pint. Of the 3 places I can walk to, I would say that 3 make genuinely good beer almost all of the time. The others may have one good tap in a sea of mediocrity.

I have been to one place that served me a flight of all 100% undrinkable beers... They all tasted like a licking a goat after it slept under a horse blanket. After a couple of years, they got rid of all the brewers and equipment and started over. I tried them again, and it had gone from undrinkable to mediocre.

 

[mattsearle]

I live in the Denver-Boulder area and we have something like 50,000 of micro/nano breweries (at least it feels like it) and I often find myself thinking, "why am I sitting here paying this guy when I can go home and drink just as good, if not better, beer at home?"

I had a Thanksgiving guest who works at a small brewery and she ask if I ever considered going pro and I told her no, it's my hobby and I have no desire to make it a living. That and I'd be the owner of a nano that would show up on threads like this!

Haha I don't want to seem as though I'm ragging on what people have devoted their lives to and I'm sure are very passionate about, as I respect anyone who's doing that. I think it's more about beers being sold that have clear faults rather than beers that I just don't care for. As with any industry there is a minimum standard of quality and a few times recently I've been left wondering why I've paid good money for a bad beer.

 

[IKR]

Exposure to numerous examples of quality beer, slowly but surely improving home-brewing skills have resulted in me being very stingy and selective regarding the beers I spend my money on. I feel, as others have already stated, that too many people have rushed into brewing professionally because they had a few successful homebrews. Good luck to them but I don't waste my money and time on mediocre beers. I got too much more homebrew equipment to buy and too much more to learn regarding brewing.
Cheers

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Exactly why the whole free market thing doesn't work for local breweries. Sadly enough unless the beer is terrible the public will drink it and like it. It's more about atmosphere, advertisement, brewing popular styles, etc. The public doesn't know the difference between an average IPA and a great IPA. Sad truth, but the quality of beer won't decide if a brewery will stay open or not.

This ^^^^ which I think is accurate. Case in point, I had a brew at a local brewery and because of the beautiful setting and the wonderful lady I was with, the beer was awesome. But then a year later after I started home brewing, I picked up a sixer nostalgically and yucko. I also watched a guy drink bottle after bottle of skunked Berkley beer.

The other problem with the free market model is that the value equals a dumbed down version of what's good. Not too aromatic, not too dank, not too malty i.e. Bud Light. My personal tastes are not the same as everyones and so my perfect beer is only a subset of anyone elses perfect beer. The free market brought us to the 80's with next to zero beer choices. G'ment intervention is what brought us to craft city. It is a double edged sword though, we trade mediocre very consistent beer for exquisite beer sometimes and bad beer sometimes with a lot of in between. Your best bet is to enjoy your life more so that all the beer you drink tastes better.