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Last edited by BostonBestEats; April 27, 2024, 05:57 AM. -
There’s quite a few out here in PNW, Oregon/Washington, that we’ve gone to visit and enjoy. Some with restaurants, others not. I am not a huge fan of beer but my husband loves IPAs. We both love to go to breweries and get flights to taste. I have found this to be a great way to learn what I actually like. Many of the places would make their own root beers too that our son loved to taste.
We have noticed it seems some are closing or relocating, etc. a couple of my husband’s favorites, Hop Valley and Sunriver, both have great restaurants tied to their breweries that definitely help. We just went into John’s Marketplace, a local store that has all types of beers, ciders, etc that you can purchase by single can/bottle to find what you like. Many times they have some things we’ve never heard of. It’s fun to get a bunch of different ones and have a beer tasting party.Comment
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In the 1990s there was a huge “micro brew” boom and countless breweries opened up based on a fad. The problem: it was money chasing money, and most of them made a garbage product just trying to ride the coat tales of the movement. Eventually people caught on that the product was inferior and most went out of business.
The last dozen years or so has seen a new craft beer boom. The difference this time is that it wasn’t driven by people with deep pockets trying to catch a fad, it was driven by people passionate about great beer. They weren’t in it for the money…they were in it because they wanted more people to experience great beer.
The last decade has seen tremendous growth of truly good beer. These days breweries that don’t make a quality product aren’t around for long. Options for a quality beer are nearly endless today.
Yes, the market has declined, but I think that has more to do with a struggling economy than people “getting over” the craft beer fad.
Something that’s turned into a double-edged sword is the huge number of craft breweries that have been bought by huge conglomerates. Some great breweries have been closed, others have been tampered with and cheapened…yet others have thrived and had their reach expand greatly over what they did on their own.
The quality and selection of beer available at the gas station down the street from my house rivals the best bottle shops of the early 2000s.
Today is a great time to be alive for beer drinkers!Comment
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As I get older, I drink less beer. The beer I do consume is high quality and very old school, mostly beers like Weihenstephan and Samuel Smith.
The entire "let's see how many hops we can cram in a bottle" phase of craft brewing ends up with everything tasting like Pine-sol.
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I keep thinking the bubble is burst, here locally at least, and then I'll see a new brewery under construction or just opened.
Huntsville, for the size of the town, has an inordinate number of mid sized breweries (Straight to Ale, Yellowhammer, and now Back Forty), small breweries (maybe a half dozen), brew pubs (several I know of that brew on premise) and tap rooms (every brewery basically). It's all developed over the last 12 years or so. I've seen several local breweries go under over the last 5 years, but others seem to keep popping up.
Even national scale breweries have failed in the past year - I'm thinking of Anchor here, one of the pioneers of craft beer.
I think those that develop a good following or more importantly good relationship with distributors to sell their beer will survive. I fault bad distribution and mismanagement with the failure of Anchor. Their product certainly wasn't lacking in quality. I used to be able to buy Anchor in my local Kroger in the 1990's. Anchor Steam and Porter were two of my go-to beers back then. I didn't see anything from Anchor in a grocery store the past 10 years, and if I wanted it, had to go to one of two large liquor stores in town that specialized in craft beer.
The same thing applies to the small guys I think. I have one friend who owns a microbrewery and he is licensed only for on-premise sales. He brews on a 3 barrel system, DAILY, to keep up with demand for those walking in off the street, but he is fortunate to be right downtown off the corner of the square - great location in a historic district. He sells growler fills - only way to take it home with you, and a minimal amount of food.
I am a home brewer, and our local home brew club over the past 15 years has really dwindled in membership. We've gone from maybe 80-100 active members in the 90's and 2000's (I joined around 2010), to maybe 2 dozen, in that time. We are starting to see some younger guys like my son-in-law join in, but they are being brought in by existing members. I think interest in brewing as a hobby has dwindled.Comment
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I agree with Mosca that hazy IPAs likely started as “marketing a mistake.” It took a while, but I eventually came to enjoy the style…but I do think it’s led to lazy brewing with no concern with clarity. That, in turn, leads to other flaws, which is why I believe the style is much more hit and miss than others.
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I think the explosion and first contraction has already happened, but the “good beer” movement is here to stay.
The challenge for anyone starting a new craft/microbrewery or brewpub is balancing scale and profitability. Uncle Bob and I had a lively discussion about businesses during the Meetup, lasting several days. One of the things we talked about was how people get misled by confusing what they are making with what they are doing; they are making beer, but running a business. A brewer can craft the finest beer on the planet, but if that brewer can’t run a business then they might as well make it in the basement for friends, and keep their day job.
I think that explains a lot. Some great beers come and go because they try to go big before they should; some stay small and vanish because of poor management; some start small and sell to larger producers because that makes good business sense; some grow huge and sell to larger producers because they can’t keep profitability at scale any other way; some grow huge and are profitable and sell out because it makes good business sense (retiring, dollar signs, cash infusion+retaining control, whatever)…. In all cases, the market speaks, and both the consumers and the producers benefit, and mutually prosper.
That’s a little idealized, but in a non-essential market like craft beer it works pretty well; no one benefits from monopolization and no one benefits from complete fragmentation. What we are seeing right now is the market searching for equilibrium as both consumers and business evolve.Comment
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This hits the nail on the head. In Huntsville, I know of at least a half dozen local breweries started by different guys who were originally home brewers in my local brew club - Rocket City Brewers. I would say at this point in time 75% of those breweries have failed because those guys didn't know how to run a business well enough to turn their hobby into a profitable business. One of those failures was even big enough to have regional distribution before it failed.
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PBR is my go-to for the backyard. !0 Barrel Micro brew produces a Lagar called Pub Beer.
I think microbrews are here to stay.
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tamidw
I don't know if this is correct, but my image of the home of micro brews is the Pacific NW.
First time I really got into microbrews was at a huge Microbrew festival in Portland in about 1994. I was visiting my brother, who was working there at that time . . . and it was a blast.
We paid maybe $12 to get in, and you could sample as many micros as you wanted. When it is free choice, it is relatively easy to find the ones you like. Much of the later part of the event became a blur, but I remembered enough that I was sold microbrews from that point forward..
Side note -- Wife and I visited Portland area a couple years ago. The decision to go to Portland was based partially on my memories from my one trip there in the '90s. It was just fun, lots to do, beautiful ,etc.
Sad to report that our memories from the recent trip are more of homelessness, open drug use, garbage everywhere, empty storefronts, etc. Because of that, we spent less time in Portland -- and more in the national park and mountains -- than planned. Still a good trip, but . . .
I don't mean to bash Portland, because similar problems are found in many cities around the country . . . including Minneapolis, which I also loved in the '90's and '00's, but far different now. Hopefully things improve in the coming years.Comment
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I can take you on a time travel to where the microbrew/brewpub phenomenon began in my little, rural hometown of Hopland, CA. I lived for a time just a couple of blocks form the place in the 80's. It was a short walk to, and long stagger back.
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Colorado has the most breweries per capita, California has the most craft breweries overall, and I believe Portland has the most in a single city, but it's not Portland Oregon it's the one in Maine. It's funny because I was discussing this topic at one of our brewpubs last weekend. And it led to a few surprises.
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Interesting discussion that could lead off into many food related businesses in this country. On thing about Americans is we love to pile on when we find the next big thing. Not to get off topic but we saw this first hand up in Austin during our recent Texas Meatup. One of the popular food truck venues called Valentina's finally graduated to a full blown restaurant. Unfortunately the place seems to be failing, probably because they were not able to make the jump from a two or three day, sell until its all gone truck operation to a full blown restaurant and all that entails. As others have said, running a business is more than what you are producing; it's about employees, the light bill, the accounting and all the day-to-day mundane things that have nothing to do with what you got into it for in the first place. I won't even mention putting up with customers.
I see a lot a parallels between barbecue restaurants here and Texas and the microbrewery craze. It's probably going to have its fair share of drop outs, its inevitable.
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The 2 most popular ones in my area both feature music, (live and/or other music type events) and food trucks on a regular basis, as well as very accessible pizza (one shares a building with one of the best pizza places around, the other features easy delivery from 3 different places.)
Both are also pretty family friendly.
Seems like a successful business model that should have them around for some time to come...Comment
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