GINA -

Hey Bill,  

I for one am glad this year in beer is over.  Declining sales, brewery closings, and the rise of NA beer are enough to dive a person to drink .  Hmmm, maybe I should thank them for that. Seriously, for the last decade, the beer world was defined by extremes. The hoppiest IPAs, the sweetest stouts, the sourest sours, and the most novel adjuncts drove the market. The "more is more" philosophy was king. But as we look to 2026, I see the pendulum swinging back.

I predict the dominant theme for the 2026 beer year will be a i "Great Re-Balancing." Consumers are no longer just chasing novelty; they are seeking quality, drinkability, and, most importantly, value. This shift is driven by a maturing craft beer drinker, persistent economic pressures, and a renewed desire for social, sessionable experiences. And I'm not just guessing—we're seeing these changes reflected in the real-world inventory and ordering data from thousands of bars. 

 Now for just a few specifics I see coming . in 2026.

This year we finally saw the long predicted rise of craft lagers happen. That trend is now fully mature. In 2026, the focus will be on the premium-ization and diversification of the entire lager category.  For example, bar menus will be  moving beyond stocking a single craft pilsner.  Successful beer programs will feature a curated selection of specific, classic, and premium styles: authentic German Pilsners, crisp Helles, complex Czech Dark Lagers, and, of course, the still-dominant Premium Mexican-style Lagers.

It's clear from the research I've done that consumers want clean, crisp, and refreshing "beer-flavored beer"  They are flocking to these accessible styles and are now willing to pay a premium price for a well executed version of a classic. This trend is further bolstered by the massive on-premise success of premium macro-lagers, which act as a gateway for consumers to explore other premium lager options.

Palate fatigue< I believe,is the main reason for this.. Drinkers who entered the craft beer world via the soft, sweet Hazy are now graduating to the more complex bitterness of a classic West Coast IPA.  This signals a market that craves drinkability over the attitude that a pint or two of an intense, high ABV beer is enough.

Finally, I believe consumers are rejecting the mediocre $9 pint of craft beer that doesn't deliver. Instead, I see them splitting into two distinct groups,  One that will confidently order a trusted, high-quality macro brand (e.g., Modelo Especial, Mich Ultra, Coors Light) because it delivers consistent, refreshing value.  The other group will happily paying $9-$11 for a beer they perceive as "worth it"—which is typically a high-quality, locally-made, beer or an authentic, premium import. 

So there you have it.  It's time for a beer or two but first let me wish all our readers (and of course you too Bill) a wonderful, beer filled, joyous and healthy new year!

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BIll

Hello Gina -

Let me add my best wishes for a happy new year to everyone!  May we all keep drinking great craft bee.  

Well, Gina, you make some interesting predictions Gina but now I'l give everyone the correct ones. Oh just kidding. The fact that I'm crushing you in our NFL fantasy league has nothing to do with our beer predictions. Or does it? 

First thing I see in the new year is that the non-alcoholic beer, wine,and spirit upsurge is no longer a "wellness" trend or a "Dry January" niche. The non-alcoholic beer trend is now a permanent, mandatory category for any serious bar or restaurant. I predict that in 2026, having a high-quality N/A option (especially an N/A IPA or craft lager) will be as essential as having a light beer on every bar's and restaurant menu. This will be driven by health-conscious younger consumers (Millennials and Gen Z) who moderate their alcohol intake but still want to participate in the social ritual of having a beer. And, no,I won't be joining them.  You and I may think it's all a bit crazy, but we can't ignore reality.

My next two beliefs may seems like a contradiction, but they are not. The 2026 beer story is a curated one, and it has two main parts. First, I see a hyper-local emphasis in beer drinking. The brewery down the street will become the backbone and soul of craft beer. Supporting local is now recognized as something vital for a community, the only way to get fresh beer, and an oasis for those seeking beer excellence. It's a model that will case more openings' than anyone expects. The most recent data shows that while the regional craft market has struggled, small breweries with a hyperlocal model are growing.  Yes, you read that right.  Amid all the negative sales results of regional craft beers, many local breweries will continue to flourish.

Second, I see a hyper-global emphasis as drinkers fully embrace classic, authentic imports. Consumers will be pairing their love of local with a desire for authenticity. They'll have a local hazy, then for their next round, they'll want a true German Helles or a Belgian-style witbier from the source. The newest data backs me u.  It clearly shows imported draught sales are climbing.

I think 2026 will find consumers demanding  "the best in class," whether that's from down the street or from across the ocean. Breweries who persist in making mediocre beer will change for the good or simply fade away.

Here's looking a you, kid.

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GINA -

Hey Bill,  

When I think of the classic beer styles that have filled our glasses for  a good number of years, I think of the greats like saisons, stouts, lagers, and pilsners, just to name a few. But each of these famous styles were once revolutionary in their own time. They all disrupted the status quo, forever changed the landscape of beer, and have continued to evolve and shift as time

goes on. But who would have guessed a thick, sweet, and fruity beer would emerge from the beautiful and bitter India Pale Ale? Nevertheless, here we are in 2020 and drinking a lot of   milkshake IPAs.  At least I am Bill.

To say a milkshake IPA is similar to a classic IPA would be like saying a cotillion is similar to Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street—sure, they’re both formal gatherings, but that’s about where the similarities end. There is a massive gap between the realities of these two liquids.

Even though the definition can be ambiguous, most people agree on the basics of a milkshake IPA. It’s a New England-style IPA (NEIPA) with: Irresponsible amounts of unfermentable sugars (i.e. Lactose) vanilla, fruits and purees, spices, and a slew of ingredients that you could find at an ice cream shop

Bill, I'm guessing I like this style and you'd be right.  To me it's a beautiful beast of a beer.  It is freedom in a glass. It’s an open invitation for any brewer to just have fun, and a chance to explore beer in a way that doesn’t require adherence to heritage. The near-total lack of expectations and standards is liberating in a way for the drinker and I'm betting for the brewer too..   

Yes Bill, I realize that it still isn’t recognized by the Beer Judge Certification Program nor has it's own specific category at the GABF but maybe that's part of the fun of it all. Far be it from me to call you a curmudgeon despite the times you've shaken your head when I order a milkshake IPA but I have a feeling you'll be seeing more and more of them along with, dare I say, smoothie IPAs and slushie IPA.  

Up until it caught on “milkshake” had until then been a somewhat derisive term  for particularly thick, New England /Northeastern-style IPAs or pale ales—most of us now call these beers hazy” or “juicy”—the nomenclature had now been co-opted in the positive.  So maybe if you just call it something else you might enjoy a milkshake IPA too.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BIll

Hello Gina -

II will say one thing to show you my support of your love of milkshake IPAs.  By the standards of “weird beers,” it’s not even that unusual.  I'm not sure that's a compliment however.  Essentially it's a thick, sweet beverage with milk sugar and an okay level of hops flavor so I guess the name makes sense.  I would however prefer it to be called Lactose IPA which is more accurate and

might get people to realize it's quite different than a normal IPA.

The craft-beer scene is constantly evolving, as brewers are always in search of the next big thing that will get customers to belly up to tasting-room bars. The explosion in popularity of hazy New England-style India pale ales in recent years has been a good thing for drinkers and the industry.  And I can see how it gave rise you newest IPA subset..

To create these beers, brewers introduce copious amounts of fruit, vanilla, and other flavors to the hazy brew before topping it off with one key ingredient: lactose. This sugar, which is found in milk, adds a creamy sweetness to the beer that mimics the flavor and mouthfeel of a classic malt- shop treat as you said. Since lactose can’t be fermented by yeast, this addition is done strictly to alter the flavor and texture of the brew without upping the alcohol content.

Look Gina, I realize that 90% of what makes a beer acceptable is simply “Does it taste like what it’s supposed to taste like?”. That’s it.  We can talk about clean draft lines, clean glasses, proper glassware, and serving temp but most of those things will modify the taste, and if they don’t, well, I’ve enjoyed plenty of beer out of marginally clean shaker pint glasses. Sometimes you

have to pick your battles. The beer doesn’t need to taste good, because good is subjective, but as long as it’s a fermented beverage with malt and hops served to a pretty close approximation to what the brewer intended, it’s acceptable to me. It's not up to me to tell you what's good or bad.  If you like it then it's good, if not, then it's bad.

A cloudy beer is not offensive to me. I know it's caused by flaked grain, or hop haze, probably not flour, being unfiltered, and/or specific yeast strains. Remember though, Gina, that overly yeasty beer is generally not going to taste good, but unless you filter your beer there is yeast in it. All beer, even if it appears clear, contains yeast. Some breweries, and most homebrewers, bottle condition their beer meaning they use the yeast to create the carbonation..

Obviously you know I'm not a fan of Milkshake IPAs.  They're simply too sweet for me. That however doesn't mean I'm against the style. In almost every one of them I've tasted I'm fairly sure it was brewed the way the brewers intended them. Often with exquisite care. You’re welcome to not like them and to drink something else, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad, or unacceptable, or not beer.  It just means they're not for me.

Here's looking a you, kid.

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GINA -

Well Bill how was your Halloween?  Ha – I know you hate it because that time of year can mean only one thing – the exorable march of (dare I say it) pumpkin beer. Let me remind you, my dear friend, that pumpkin beer so happens to be the original beer of the 13 American Colonies.  So why all the against over  something that has a long history of being one of the oldest food sources of the American continent. It out ages beans and even corn!

Hope you’re sitting down for this - around 1771 George Washington was trying to make some beer with fruits and vegetables and he decided to use- guess what - pumpkin! He usd it because not only was it easy to get locally but also it contained a large amount of fermented sugars for brewing. The end result was that everyone enjoyed it and history was made – or at least my version of it. And if it was good enough for the Father of our country, it's good enough for me.

As for the modern concept of the beer I refer you to a guy named Bill Owens, who owned a brewpub called Buffalo Bills in Hayward, California. At the time Buffalo Bills only brewed three beers and wanted to make another one.  While doing some reading Owens  found out that George Washington used pumpkins in brewing so he set out to make a modern version as a tribute to our great President.  Like George’s, Bill’s beer was a hit with drinkers.

I know there are legions of folks who simply hate pumpkin beer but it blows my mind that modern craft beer drinkers, the same ones (not mentioning any names)  who drink a triple hazy barrel aged lactose breakfast cereal double dry hopped pizza bacon double cheeseburger NE shrimp rusty screwdriver imperial IPA are apparently grossed out by a pumpkin ale. I mean come on folks.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BIll

The truth of the matter is that pumpkins basically have no flavor, so brewers use pumpkin pie spice mix as an additive making it the essence of what today is the modern pumpkin beer.  Sorry Gina, but George Washington never did that.

Yes, most if not all modern pumpkin beers do not even have any real pumpkin added. I mean I’ll give credit to breweries that do add it but most of them are just a mix of nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, clove, ginger and maybe cardamom.

As I see it, Pumpkin beer is for the blissfully ignorant semi-craft drinker.  But, hey, they deserve to be happy too. So I say to our many readers, don't yell at them on social media and don't scoff at their selections at a bar, even though those are the same folks who will probably drink a candy cane flavored beer in December. Oops, sorry Gina, nothing personal.

Many pumpkin beers are, as you  mentioned, are  more about pumpkin spice—like cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice—than actual pumpkin, The spices overwhelm the beer's natural qualities, making it taste syrupy or too sweet, while lacking hop flavor or a balancing malt profile.  The use of all those flavoring and sugar often  lead to an artificial or sickly sweet taste that is more reminiscent of soda than beer. 

If you’re honest, you have to admit that there are quite a few poorly made pumpkin beer offerings in the marketplace which helps to explains why so many craft beer drinkers dismiss the entire category. It’s basically a gimmick rather than a serious or sophisticated beer style.  Frankly flavored beers of this type (remember the downright awful ”pretzel beer” from Victory Brewing  we had the other day - are not "real" beer and lack the complexity found in so many other styles. 

If a sweet and spicy, syrupy, liquid pumpkin pie brew that tastes like fall leaves is pleasing to you for more than a sips then go ahead and enjoy.  As for me, I’d rather just have a Michelob Ultra.  It might not have any flavor but that beats terrible flavor every time.

Here's looking a you, kid.

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GINA -

It is tempting to think of beer as pure art, an intuitive brewer, the atmosphere of a beloved pub, an old recipe passed down through generations. Yet from what I’ve seen Bill, behind the scenes, data is quietly transforming how we enjoy our favorite pints. Breweries now use everything from sales figures to real-time brewing data to shape what ends up in your glass. If you’ve ever scanned a QR code on a tap handle or explored beers trending online, you’ve already been part of this shift.

It's a fact that data-driven thinking extends beyond sports or gaming, showing the same principles at play when people compare options, spot trends, and refine their tastes. I have found that keeping track of these patterns eliminates the guesswork in discovery. Suddenly, you’re not just wishing for something good – you’re acting on real signals from people as interested in flavor as you are.

Most beer lovers begin by sampling what might be available, trusting their intuition to determine favorite options. That sounds good – until you hit a wall and start blurring things together. The game can be changed by borrowing a few tricks from data nerds. Making observations and recording the details of your alcohol consumption, and comparing the data over time, turns casual drinking into an educational process.

I’ve found that not only does tracking help me remember what good brews were, but it also shows me patterns that I wasn’t aware of-such as which hops I actually like, or what styles I find myself returning to again and again. This solution doesn’t take anything away from the fun. This means that you’re more likely to discover new beers that you’ll love, and you’re less likely to repeat a disappointment. It can also tell me which breweries I simply do not like and those whose beers I almost always enjoy. 

I know what you’re going to say Bill, so for full disclosure let me tell our readers you’ve been doing all of that for quite a while.  So the news here is, I’m now on your bandwagon!

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Glad to hear that Gina.  I do remember you chuckling at me for  taking notes on aroma, flavor, color, and mouthfeel.  I even recall someone (you know who) calling me a bit geeky.  You might have had a point then on the surface – but looking back it was one of the best ways to exercise my palate.

As I see it, a person only needs a simple notebook, or special journal to help them record things such as appearance, smell, first impressions, and finish. Those scribbles add up over time into actual knowledge about theirpersonal preferences.

When I started taking notes at local breweries, it quickly became clear which styles always made my top-tier list and which ones weren’t for me. Certain descriptors like citrusy or smoky showed up often in my favorites, and this made it easier to see patterns in my taste. A glance at past entries still guide me toward something new that actually matches my preferences instead of leaving it up to chance.

I‘m sure that for many of our readers pen and paper seem a bit old fashioned.  Not to worry,, there are plenty of digital options designed for beer fans who want a smarter way to keep track of what they like. Useful apps allow you to read labels, record ratings and tasting notes with a tap, and see what else people are drinking around you. You can filter by style, ABV, location, and more – even view trending beers or get recommendations based on your own history.

A Beer Consumer AI Study published in 2024 explored how these platforms, especially those using artificial intelligence,  are changing the way people discover new beers. The research showed that drinkers using tech tools were more likely to identify their true preferences and felt more satisfied with their choices overall. And that’s a good thing!

Here's looking a you, kid.

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GINA -

Stopping by a brewery that was new to me, you know he one Bob, I noticed a terse warning scrawled on a chalkboard by the front door: “No kids, No dogs.” the  message didn’t come across as particularly mean, but it colored the vibe of the brewery for me from the start, giving the impression this place wasn’t as welcoming as others I’d visited.

Traveling to dozens of taprooms across the country over the years, I’ve rarely encountered such a hard line on allowing in children. And recently the subject of rambunctious taproom kids has been all over the news after a handful of breweries addressed their policies on children.

Cue the witty variations on “a taproom isn’t a Chuck E. Cheese.”

I favor more nuanced policies toward their presence in taprooms, especially when adults can just as easily behave like kids after a few too many. Rather than outright barring the little ones, I favor breweries that remind parents about unattended children or adjust hours so that after a certain time the taproom becomes limited to people 21 or over. Here's my take on the situation.  

Brewers — or at least most in this climate — can’t afford to exclude potential customers, as more young parents, not wanting to sacrifice every shred of their once carefree existence, have taken to bringing their kids with them. For some the logistics of getting childcare for a single night out may not make sense, so a brewery like Freak Folk would effectively lose those patrons. Maybe they don’t mind that; others might not have this luxury.

Breweries more open to the idea of kids joining their parents usually stock toys and games, provide open spaces for frolicking, or host events geared specifically for children. They do this with the understanding that parents will, well, parent, not permitting their kids to run amuck.

It’s not a perfect world, though, so inevitably you’ll leave the bar at some point and almost spill your beer narrowly avoiding a couple kids darting past you. When these instances pile up, and customers begin to complain, a brewery has to thoughtfully respond.

Do you remember the last time we went to a  brewer we saw parents hosting their young children’s birthday parties ?  I didn’t know toddlers had starting throwing celebratory keggers for themselves.  Doesn’t anyone check IDs anymore?  

Some of our readers likely have never considered the idea of underage people in these settings, and may be wondering how that’s even possible. The answer is this: every state sets its own laws about when and where minors can be in a bar; as far as I can tell, no state regulates this for breweries. As neighborhood taprooms increase their presence in our daily lives, this type of establishment, which used to serve drink somewhat exclusively to grown-ups, is morphing into more of a daycare center for children whose parents want to relax over some beers with friends … you know, sort of like what us non-parents hope to do.

I used to love the family-friendly nature of breweries. I enjoyed seeing kiddies spend Saturday afternoon pairing apple juice with goldfish crackers while their parents socialized over some local brews.  Not as much now since the kids are staring to take over.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

One or two kids is fine with me. One family is fine too, but when children start spreading like Gremlins and overrun a place that’s designed for me, an adult, I start to feel resentful. I mean, how would a five-year-old feel about me bringing a group of friends to party at the bounce house during peak traffic hour?

I appreciate the fact that family gatherings can be great for business. Parents get to hang out and drink with their friends in a safe environment, and proprietors can welcome crowds during what may be off hours. What’s more, their own kids, who might have to spend after-school or spring break bored at the brewery, may find new buds to occupy them. This makes parents and owners happy,  However,  Gina, we’re in the left-out third group and I’m not sure I find this fair. Mommy and Daddy can bring flasks to booze it up at the playground but bars and breweries are my playground. Where am I supposed to go to get away? An old-folks’ home?  And don’t you dare say yes.

Bars and breweries are for grown-ups. When they reach a tipping point where the target customer feels crowded out, there’s a problem. I’ve heard friends complain that they’ll no longer visit tasting rooms they know attract children. Maybe the number of parents who come to family-friendly breweries offsets the loss of adults and maybe it doesn’t.

Unless a bar or brewery wants to ban kids altogether – a restriction that the national mom mob makes practically impossible when restaurateurs do it -- I think maybe family and adult hours are the answer for owners who prefer not to run their businesses like a nursery school.

Owners, of course  are within their rights to welcome anyone of any age. I can choose to stay away or go at night or during the week. Maybe we should just start reading websites ahead of time for clues as to whether it appears the tasting room will be full of toys, games, specially brewed soda or even free juice boxes And parents can take some responsibility by calling ahead to inquire about family-friendliness.

Oh, and for the record, I love having dogs in the brewery.  We’ll save that discussion for another time.

Here's looking a you, kid.

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GINA -

Let’s cut to the chase – the craft beer business is in trouble.  We all know the statistics that show a significant steady drop in sales.  I don’t want to rehash them but instead will list what I see as the basic causes of this disturbing decline on the production side. 

Put your seat belt on Bill, here we go.

 People are shifting from drinking craft beer in shocking numbers. The past year has been brutal on craft sales despite Pollyanna predictions that haven’t happened.  The bottom line is that less consumer spending combined with inflation has been a double whammy that’s taking a toll.  And if that weren’t enough, greedy breweries and those trying to make their investment back in record time and have raised prices to exceedingly high levels.  One newly opened brewery near me is selling a 12-ounce pour of mediocre DIPA for $9 and a four pack of 12 oz. cans for $16.  I which them luck, but I’m not buying.  

There is one thing that separates a good business from a bad. Flexibility. I’ve always had one belief about breweries, that they should grow their business. Growing their business doesn’t always mean greater revenue, sometimes it is eliminating overhead and reducing that bottom line.

Many breweries are seemingly resistant to change and innovation.  If others are making NEIPAs that doesn’t mean you have to have 9 of your 10 lines pouring it. Make something different, change a recipe, bring back a classic, create.

Some small breweries (and larger ones too) seem to lack process controls, standardized procedures, validation for cleaning procedures, etc.  It’s as if product quality is an afterthought   

What surprises me most is the lack of understanding that craft beer is more than a craft, there’s science to it as well. The lack of quality control in many breweries is amazing. One batch of beer may be good while the second and third of the same one is not. These breweries need to pay attention to details. There are so many factors that can affect the quality of their product it’s easy for something to go off the tracks and go unnoticed or ignored.

I’m getting myself upset.  Time to have a beer and relax.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Since I can’t disagree with your premise I might as well join in.  Here are just a few of the many things hurting craft beer (other than us not drinking enough).

I’m frankly surprised how many breweries remain afloat despite little-to-no marketing efforts.  The days of opening the door of a brewery, sitting back and counting the huge profits are gone.

Dry January, has become the touchstone of the younger generation.. The ripple effect is that not as many younger people are going out to taprooms and good beer bars along with other retail food establishments. That obviously as caused businesses to suffer.  

Have you noticed that 10 or so  years ago, world class breweries often  took out big expansion loans to innovate and grow but are now following trends as opposed to creating them? I get it, they owe a lot of money, and they can’t risk something not selling, but they’ve become a shell of their former self.

I couldn’t agree more with your point about quality control. It boggles my mind that breweries refuse to accept that a batch is bad and put it on tap. It only takes one time for a curious consumer to venture into trying a local craft beer and then think craft beer drinkers are just a bunch of stuck up snobs because the beer they tried tasted tterrible and they’ll never try another one after that experience. That’s not how you grow a consumer base.

I’ve notice that far too many breweries have with capacity well above their need. This along with folks jumping in to open a spot with no business acumen, and brewing experience is a call for failure.  Every good home brewer is not necessarily a good professional brewer.

Brewery closures now outnumber openings. I think the primary reason is that too many people think  they can open a 10+BBL operation without realizing they’ll have no option but to rely on distribution where both shelf and tap space are already at max capacity. This model has hit its limit. The good news is that the area of unlimited potential may still exist in the small, Main Street location model with systems sized to produce what they can pour onsite.

This might be a bit trivial, but it surprises me that breweries are still putting out products with terrible embarrassing names and awful labels. Back in the craft heyday we had serious goals of elevating the image of beer to that of wine and spirits, getting serious consideration from restaurants. I think the category should be striving for a more mature approach to stay relevant in a market dominated by wine and whiskey.

Now I’m giving myself a headache.  Which pub did you say your were going to?  I’ll meet you there.

GINA -

Want a brew  without the buzz? I know you don't Bill, but many people do.  It seems NA (no alcohol) beer is the fastest growing segment in all of beer, and even more, sales expected to surpass ale as the world’s second-largest beer category . So let me give a cautionary word to all those folks buying this stuff: make sure you read the fine print!

New research suggests that many low and no-alcohol beers aren’t as healthy as they seem — even if you’re cutting back on drinking.  In the study, scientists split 44 healthy young men (why no women?)  into two groups: one drank two bottles of non-alcoholic beer a day, while the other stuck with water over a four-week period. The researchers conducted regular blood tests to monitor changes in blood sugar, cholesterol, liver function, body fat and even gut bacteria. The results weren’t exactly refreshing.

Men who drank the alcohol-free beers saw significant spikes in their blood sugar and insulin, along with increases in harmful cholesterol and triglycerides — blood fats linked to heart disease. Zero-proof wheat beers and fruity blends, like those mixed with orange or lemon soda, were the worst offenders. Pilsner-style non-alcoholic brews fared slightly better.

Researchers said that was “probably due to the caloric and sugar content” of the drinks. This, they warned, can drive drive weight gain and help fuel chronic conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Those health risks mirror what nutrition labels already show. Non-alcoholic and regular beers are similar in calories, protein and fat.  

Despite the lack of booze, the products often contain a similar number of calories. That’s because non-alcoholic beers typically pack more than twice the carbs of regular ones, mostly in the form of sugar, which is commonly added to improve flavor after the alcohol is removed. For example, Coors Light has 5.8 grams of carbs and just 0.3 grams of sugar per 12-ounce serving. Coors Edge, its non-alcoholic counterpart, has 8 grams of carbs and 4 grams of sugar.  But not all booze-free brews are created equal.

Sorry I went on a bit longer than usual but I'm just about fed up with people preaching about NA beer.  Let the truth will 0ut!

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

You convinced me about NA beers, but then again I was already in your camp for a reason you didn't mention. The unavoidable truth is that most American non-alcoholic beer is pretty terrible and not worth drinking. Producing NA beer is a pretty complicated, expensive, and oddly secretive process and few craft breweries have sufficient resources and dedication to do it properly. The result is that nearly every version tastes like one of two things: unfermented wort or some weird off flavor ridden version of the underlying style.  

With this country’s sad history with NA beer, you can’t blame craft brewers for making such underwhelming non-alcoholic beer. The American NA market was long dominated by the country’s biggest brewers, and they had little incentive to make flavorful NA beers. Often thin, watery, and tasting like the worst beer you’ve ever had, generations of drinkers assumed that NA beer could never taste good. Consumers of non-alcoholic beer were considered a throwaway market, derided as lesser-thans–pregnant women, people in recovery, the infirm–who should be thankful that they could even find a dusty old bottle of O’Douls or Sharp’s. If the country’s largest breweries couldn’t be bothered to produce a decent NA beer, could we really expect smaller, less well financed brewers to do better?  

Beyond the off-flavors and generally unsatisfying experience of drinking American NA beers, there’s also the safety angle to consider. Unlike beer with alcohol in it, which inhibits the growth of nasty microorganisms like E. coli, listeria, and botulism, beer without alcohol is open to infection unless tunnel pasteurized, an expensive process often beyond the resources of smaller brewers, is employed. While some smaller brewers dispute the type of pasteurization required to keep their NA beers safe, their reluctance at discussing their internal processes (and whether their beer is pasteurized at all) is hardly confidence inspiring. 

If you really, really must have an NA beer, I checked a few statistics and  found that top-selling brands from Suntory, and Guinness rank as the most health-conscious picks, with the lowest calories, carbs and no added sugars. Just another service to the readers of this column (notice who did this public service - sorry Gina.  Ha)

Here's looking a you, kid.

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GINA -

When we first started going to breweries Biil, do you recall what we’d see in their taprooms? Maybe a few rows of picnic tables, some errant barrels or kegs. If it’s fancy, there might be twinkle lights overhead. This industrial look made sense to me back then. After all, most taprooms are extensions of breweries, literal sites of production. Back then taprooms were places for craft beer drinkers to fill a growler and maybe hang out.

 They weren’t necessarily designed to be sites of discovery; they were transactional destinations for those already in-the-know. But over the past few years taproom and brewery design has been shifting away from the cavernous and industrial and toward something more considered and inviting. In a lot of cases they almost looks like a nicely appointed pub. They’ve proven that design can make just about any taproom a rare specimen in the hospitality world.

Some taprooms today are actually more inviting than a bar, less formal than a restaurant; while being kid/dog friendly. With this new wave of design-forward spaces, a category once defined by converted warehouses has broadened to include smaller, warmer places that feel more like neighborhood spots. And with those spaces, beer producers are both responding to and building a wider audience for craft. 

Most breweries are vying for the local craft beer scene’s attention and if making the environment more appealing is one way to do it then everyone wins. The modern craft beer world has created a whole new meaning of what a place that primarily serves alcohol can be.

Breweries use their taprooms as a way to bring the local community together. You’ll often see special community events take place at brewery taprooms. From exercise programs, running groups, concerts, community meetings, etc; there is a limitless list of ways a taproom can be used to bring people together.  That’s a good thing, Bill. And even more it’s a good thing for craft beer.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

It’s clear that today many brewery taprooms are designed with features typical of a bar, which can sometimes make them seem indistinguishable. This can be a strategic choice for some breweries, as it can create a welcoming and familiar atmosphere. However, Gina, it can also lead to a focus on other aspects besides the beer itself, such as games or other amenities, which, quite frankly, detracts from the beer experience. 

Knowing what you’re drinking, who made what your drinking, where it came from, and why it all exists is a big part of the fun of going o a brewery taproom//tasing room.  When you walk into a building that calls itself a brewery, you expect to see tanks, you expect fresh beer, you hope to enjoy an atmosphere you won’t find anywhere else, and you can talk to people who can talk to you about it all.

Of course, people go to taprooms because of the experience. Every brewery has the ability to create a unique atmosphere that will attract customers. Breweries are businesses and without customers they fail. I understand, accept, and endorse anything that helps a good brewery stay in business. However, when board games, trivia contests, toddler play areas and the like become he driving force of a brewery something is amiss. 

Breweries are about beer.  It’s that simple.  That industrial look and the limited amenities we loved about breweries made for a true, authentic drinking experience. The quality of the beer was the reason we were there and that’s the way it should be.

I’ve always felt that after quality beer, a brewery’s taproom is their number one salesperson. It lets them show off our beer in the environment in which it was brewed with the people who brewed it. So let’s agree that the place can be whatever the brewer wants it to be If the beer is good

 I can put up with a lot of cushioned chairs, blaring TVs, and little kids running. Well, the beer better be really, really, really good to put up with the kids.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

What’s the purpose of art? Bet you didn’t expect that question Bill.I know it’s a bit of a lofty question for a beer article but I do have a point in asking it. I hope.  Anyway, let me answer it myself.  

Art does at least one of two things. First, it makes you feel something. Art captures something about the artist, about the world, that resonates with the viewer. The best art has you nodding – with joy, or nostalgia, or sadness – and gives you a moment of connection with another human.  Second, it gives you enjoyment. Forget the ramblings of critics and snobs and philosophers; it honestly can be this simple. If you look at Monet’s Water Lilies and just smile and say: “They’re really pretty.” you’re appreciating art.

For these two things, art is precious to humanity. And when I say that, I don’t just mean the kind of art on a canvas; I absolutely include art that’s printed on a can of beer. Not that every beer label is art. Many are purely about brand recognition. But if someone creates a label with the hope that it’ll make you smile, that’s more than branding. It may also have the goal of selling beer, but hey – art can multitask.

The craft beer world has long embraced artistic beer labels, from the minimalist and subversive approach  to the comic-strip-like approach! There are breweries with an artist at the heart of the brand; and there are breweries that are always on the hunt for new artists to showcase on their beer labels. Beer is an art form. So it felt really natural to attach art to a product… it gives us a platform to be able to celebrate the art that we already know and love.  And that’s why I’m proposing that the artist’s name be included on every beer can label when appropriate.  It might even make the beer taste beer (that’s a joke Bill.)

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

I’ll say this Gina, you picked a unique topic for this month.  For a second I thought you were going to tell us about Andy Warhol’s famous painting of Budweiser Beer Cans which sold for a total of $15 million in 1996 to the Museum of Modern Art (oops, it was Cambell’s soup cans-ha). 

I agree with you that beer can be just one more medium for artists to get their work out to the world. Beer is an art form so it seem really natural to attach art to a product.

I’ve asked several brewers where they find artists will and capable of creating outstanding can art, often for little money or just free beer.  They said the process for finding the right artist – and the right artwork – is fairly fluid. They draw from their existing networks, they discover new artists through their partnerships, and they put out calls on social media. Sometimes they stumble on a piece of art and reach out to the artist. Sometimes they connect with an artist and choose from their portfolio. And sometimes they commission a new work from someone whose style they love.

Anyone who’s thought about branding may wonder if the usual beer can mix of aesthetics is a mess waiting to happen.  Many breweries manage to avoid the issue with labels using a spectrum of colors, which in part explains why often with limited releases the label will have little if any visual tie in with the beer’s regular labels.

Of course, the goal of beer can art is  to sell beer. Brewers around the world are in a constant battle for people’s attention, whether their products end up on shelves, in coolers, or anywhere else that potential buyers may see their products. However, that extra something in a design may be an issue when it comes to label approval. Whether a label is trying to push some boundaries or simply be clever, the  design is ultimately judged by government. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has certain standards for what’s permissible on beer labels. As you may expect, there are a lot of practices that are prohibited for beer label design (but that’s an issue for another month.) 

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

It has always saddened me a bit that beer and its fans have seemed to have had an inferiority complex of sorts when it comes to wine and cocktails.

There’s been some understandable reasons for this, and I’m relieved to see that it seems to have dissipated a lot over the past decade or so. But some remnants still remain. Let me explain: While wine has largely been associated with fine dining, romance and a certain type of elegance, beer has usually been seen as a working-class drink of the hoi polloi. Spirits, of course, run the gamut from bathtub gin to the $19,000 “Diamonds are Forever” martini at Tokyo’s Ritz-Carlton, but in general, the word “cocktail” exudes a certain refinement.

One thing that always struck me as odd was how beer gets compared with wine. Like it or not wine people, , top of the line craft beer usually has the array of variables that wine can have going into its creation. However one differencing fact is you can make very similar beers anywhere. Wine, however, is dependent on terroir – i.e., the environmental factors in which grapes grow, such as climate, soil, and topography. These factors can mean that a wine from the same region may vary widely from year to year, depending on the region’s weather, (which is why people often refer to wines by the year).

Bill, our friend Michael Quinlan, a wine expert who has traveled the world learning about vino, said that all these factors affect the grapes before they’re harvested but terroir is further modified by how the vintners decide to age the wine. And he’s right. Beer can’t say the same but so what? 

All I’m saying is wine is wine and beer is beer.  It’s time the fans of each just calm down and respect each other.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

You make an interesting point about terroir. Once the grapes are harvested and people get involved, that’s when terroir starts to change somewhat. One person may say, ‘I’m going to use all new oak barrels; another guy might say, ‘I’m going to use 10% new oak, 40% old oak and 50% stainless steel.’ And so now the expression of that terroir is coming through different lenses.

Beer, of course, has its own nuances of expression.  Beer can utilize various types of barrels and add different flavors, even crazy ones. While it’s fair to say that beers and aren’t really comparable to the overall concept of terroir, it’s equally fair to say the complexity, variety, and flavor profiles the the best of craft beer can compare to the complexity of wine..

Think about the stunning number of certain types of hops that grow better in certain areas than others, and different grains yield different flavors.  The only thing on the wine side is that grains aren’t really dependent on as many factors as grapes, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Consistency is after all, something both wine manufacturers and breweries strive for.

One major component of beer that relates to how terroir affects wine is water. After all, Bass Ale long boasted about the water used to make it – from its home in Burton-upon-Trent in England.

Interestingly, as someone who has made both beer and wine, I find that beer making is somewhat less forgiving than winemaking because you can always blend out the faults in wine; if you mess up beer, it's gone.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

We’re kidding ourselves if we think every beer created by a craft brewer is good – there are some awful beers out there from mainly two groups. There are the passionate beer advocates who simply aren’t very good brewers and then there's bad beer from people who might be walking the craft walk but are in reality just as cynical as the big brewers iin that they don't care about quality, they simply wan to get rich quick from the latest craze. Countering these are some big brewers who have bought smaller brands and haven’t (yet) screwed them up. And there are the occasional beers – such as the best ones I tasted at Guinness, and Carlsberg – that are simply  are very solid beers made by brewers employed by a global corporation,  I see you shaking your head Bill, but I bet that in a blind tasting you would actually consider them good craft beers. 

Now, I admit if you were to plot every beer brand in the world on a chart, the vast majority of global brewers’ brands would still be in the bottom left (Not Good) quadrant, and the majority of craft beers would probably sit top right (good quadrant). But there would be notable exceptions, so I think the reality of the beer world today probably have beers from every part of the industry in various quality quadrants.

Needless to say, given a free choice, we’d all prefer to drink in the top right quadrant of my imaginary chart  where craft dominates. Who wouldn't prefer to drink good quality beer brewed by a small, passionate company? But  Bill, what if these beers weren’t available to you, would you rather have a very good beer brewed by a big, nasty corporation, or an inferior beer brewed by a really great guy under a railway arch just down the street?

It's about time we craft drinkers realize good and bad beer can come from a multitude of sources, excluding your homebrew, Bill, which is always...ah, interesting. Oh, just kidding, it's always excellent.  Anyway, my bottom line on all of this is simple, is if it's good I no longer care who makes it. And if it's bad, it can come from anywhere, meaning not just big beer.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

If only the quality of the beer is the most important thing, I’ll happily drink a great beer from Carlsberg or Guinness. But it's important to also think about the wasteland before the craft beer movement and your beliefs about the history, politics and morality of the beer business. All I'm saying is that considerations like those are in the mix of choosing a beer, not just your taste buds.

I’m not knocking either approach. What I am saying is that if we confuse arguments about beer quality and flavor with arguments about an unfair balance of power, the importance of supporting small local businesses and the excitement of feeling like part of a something special, we end up sounding illogical.. Anyone who genuinely believes big brewers are incapable of making and releasing good beers simply doesn’t know that much  about brewing. It's just they don't often do it. And anyone who thinks any small-scale craft beer is automatically good because of where it comes from has their head in the sand. Yes, Gina, I'm actually agreeing with you.

Beer gets under our skin precisely because it is many things – that’s why we started writing about it in the first place. In most cases, it’s not just writing about the quality of the beer – it’s about expressing who we are, making choices that say something about us. It is fashion and identity as well as flavor. In reality, it’s these aspects that are driving most of the current debates about the future of craft beer we’re seeing as sales continue he decline of he past few years..

It’s everyone's right to drink whatever they want and there can be many reasons for their choice. And that's the way it should be.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Hope you’re sitting down Bill; I had no choice last night.  I sent a beer back. Let me explain.  I know you’re thinking I was just being high maintenance, but  I within my rights.

Look, I think It is hard to find a beer so bad that it is undrinkable. People have been drinking Bud Light for decades after all and they seem to be fine with that. That being said, there are definitely certain instances where sending back a beer is acceptable as it was in this case. Simply put the beer was infected. Some- thing like that demands you send the beer back instantly.

For any readers worried about that, let me say that unlike an infection or bacteria in food, infected beer is unlikely to physically harm you. However, it can be very unpleasant to drink. Some common off flavors that are easy to detect are vegetal flavors, staleness, cardboard flavors, buttery popcorn, or sourness in a beer that is not supposed to be sour.

Some of these off flavors can be very unpleasant and any sort of quality control should weed these beers out before they are served to the public, but, unfortunately, it is far too common today that these things slip through the cracks.

While sending back a beer because it is infected is a no-brainer, I’d probably be unlikely to get into too much detail about what I thought was wrong in talking to the bartender or server. There is a clear and present risk of sounding like a beer nut case if you get into geeky details like throwing words like acetaldehyde or chlorophenol at a busy server. Just describe to your server what you’re tasting and tell them it’s off. They’ll probably just replace your beer.

A big question is should you send your beer back  is if it is simply “bad,” as in you just don’t like it, which is  of course, very  subjective. I have seen people send back Heady Topper or Bells Two Hearted—two quite good beers in my opinion—and I’ve seen people take a sip of a beautifully and painstakingly crafted wild ale and sours from highly regarded Belgian breweries. I draw the line at this point. You should have asked to taste it first.  In fact it's a good think to ask for a taste whenever you are in doubt about what to order.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

You struck a cord for me wih your last paragraph. I’ve seen that happen far too and each time it does my heart breaks a little because these are breweries using great skill and quality ingredients to create beautiful, individual products. Most times I thing the problem is the beer had a new kind of taste tp the person who ordered it or was just not what he expected.

I subscribe to the theory there is no such thing as a bad beer, there are just some that are better than others.  However, I can see someone saying a beer is bad (we're not talking about infections)  if it is clearly unbalanced. That might include an IPA that is so bitter and resiny that it coats the tongue and leaves an aggressive aftertaste (that’s a great beer to me) , an amber style beer that finishes cloyingly sweet or a stout that contains so much dark malt that it becomes burnt and acrid tasting.

Personally, I would probably send back a beer because I didn’t like it, but I’m also unlikely to order an entire pint of something I think might not be to my taste. If it’s a style that is new to you, a brewery with a questionable track record, or something you’re just not familiar with, I recommend you ask the bartender /server to describe it, or, as you said, request a sample before ordering.

One thing you didn’t mention Gina is that  the first and simplest reason to send back beer is if it is improperly served. This can be anything from very warm beer, beer served in a dirty glass, or under-carbonated beer. All of these things mean the establishment is doing something wrong  I’d worry about those places since all of these things are relatively simple fixes that establishments should be made aware of and should take ownership for.

One last thing.  If you are sending a beer back, do it politely. Just explain why, saying for example, “my beer was flat” then ask for something else.  You may get a crinkled nose look or a disapproving frown that says the server thinks you are wrong but so what? More likely, at least at a decent beer bar, you’ll also get an apology and a quick replacement with a different beer.  

When the replacement beer comes you should take a quick a sip and nod approvingly.  A thank you is also required.  In the unlikely event this beer is off too, well, I recommend switching to a martini.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

As we star htis new year of 2025 the news in the ongoing “alcohol health wars” is picking up steam around the country. I characterize it that way because this debate is a proxy war over the place of alcohol in society. One team, the alcohol producers, sellers, and drinkers, want the status quo. The other team, a shaggier collective of interest groups with separate goals, wants to vastly diminish alcohol’s role in American life. Hey, don't make a face a me Bill, I'm just reporting it.

The two sides are fighting over the health effects of alcohol, which is a powerful tool in the war. We are all aware of the avalanche of data on alcohol abuse and addiction. Drinking too much is bad for individuals and society has become a media mantra.  The remedy to this problem they say is addressing problem drinking head on. But what if any alcohol is bad for you? That would suggest trying to stamp out alcohol like a disease—or treating it like cigarettes. So what the science actually says has become a very big deal.

Two recent developments advanced the narrative. Last week, a legislatively-mandated task force in Oregon announced its findings. Members were tasked with evaluating how dangerous alcohol was, whether more treatment was needed, and whether the alcohol industry should fund more treatment with higher taxes. It was created and headed by a legislator who proposed recent ultra high taxes. Surprisingly, tthe findings concluded there was no compelling case for a new tax, for a variety of complex reasons.

Nationally, there’s an effort to follow the lead of some European nations and declare that there are no safe levels of alcohol.  Sometime in the early months of this year (2025) the feds will release new guidelines on health and nutrition and may follow suit. Except: this week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a review of scientific studies on the effects of alcohol—and affirmed moderate drinking is fine.  For the alcohol industry, these findings have been created with a big “whew!” More dominoes to fall, but this is a good start for those of us who think a pint (or two) a day keeps the doctor away.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

I know you won’ fall for all the BS of the alleged science behind some of these reports and I hope none of our readers will either. As I see I, many of these anti-alcohol research studies have been funded by neo-prohibitionist groups.  I’m sure we’ll see the notoriously anti-alcohol World Health Organization support anti-alcohol “research” around the globe. At he very least expect them to  spread the story it's totally unhealthy and should be banned. Groups like that will eventually make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The “no alcohol is safe” argument ignores the fact that just about everything—even activities with obvious and abundant benefits—carries a risk or cost. Shall we forbid individuals from jogging because they sometimes have heart attacks or injure their knees or feet? Shall we warn people that eating can produce death by choking? (A few thousand die from gagging each year in America—step away from the dark green leafy vegetables!)

And then there’s the fact that reams of studies do show health benefits from moderate alcohol consumption. Indeed, the U.S. government’s earlier health guidelines affirmed alcohol as a healthful part of the diet for various reasons. And the benefits aren’t just matters of health. Responsible drinkers are not drags on society. On the contrary, drinkers tend to earn more than teetotalers and are twice as likely to exercise. Those facts are supported by years and years of research and can't be disputed.

Most annoyingly, the neo-prohibitionists take the troubles caused by binge drinkers and alcoholics—a small minority of drinkers—and use them as an excuse to punish everyone else. This, even though the binge drinkers and alcoholics would be the last people to be dissuaded or discouraged from drinking. 

Current truly independent studies on this are a lot harder to find than you might think, Gina.  To placate everyone lets just say that the scientific jury is out so until some definitive ones are done I’ll believe the studies I want to and the neo-prohibitionists can believe theirs.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

As you know Bill, I am not a fan of hard seltzer.  When it first became a fad I predicted it would be gone in six months.  Looks like I was wrong, at least a little.  Think back a bit and remember that hard seltzer found success by adhering to a strict numerical template coated in a better-for-you veneer. A 12-ounce slim can of leading brands like White Claw typically contains 100 calories and 5 percent ABV, with a couple grams of carbohydrates and sugar. Get gluten-free wasted, with no worries about your waistline! Hey, considering that Bill  you might want to switch from beer to seltzer.  Ha – just kidding.

Caloric restriction comes with a cost, though, and that’s often flavor. Many hard seltzers taste like lightly boozy LaCroix water. Let’s be honest, it’s just sugar water that you ferment to make alcoholic water, and then you add whatever flavors you want.

Bil, we seem to live in a world in which no innovation in the drinks category can go un-imitated, in which every major booze maker has to have its own line of watery, often lightly flavored alcohol delivery systems in convenient can format, belched forth from the underbelly of the marketing department.

Which is all to say we’re in the midst of a continuing trend which isn’t a new trend at all. I’m old enough (and you are too) to remember the distinctive pale blue and white stripes of West Coast Coolers being everywhere in the 1980s. Bubbly, lightly flavored beverage. In the 1990s it was Lemon Ruskis and Sub Zeros; I’d wager that the 2000s was the era of the Bacardi Breezer and the omnipresent Smirnoff Double Black. It was the Double Blacks that really confirmed what these drinks were all about: the quick and easy delivery of alcohol to one’s system. Then there was an outrage over these alcopops, more tax applied, and people started drinking gin. At least that’s how it felt.

I find hard seltzers to be nothing more than inoffensive, carbonated beverages. They’re more marketing copy than delicious, with flavors designed to appeal to everyone — which is to say their recipe is mediocrity. Be assured, I’m not here to deny anyone their buzz. But I do like the idea that you have to work for it. Alcohol is a thing for grown-ups, not a berry-flavored formula for baby drinkers.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Think back Gina.  A half a decade removed from hard seltzer’s breakout summer of 2019, we’ve got some clarity about what this seltzer phenomenon actually is. On one hand, it’s a bona fide, multi-billion dollar segment, a repudiation to the naysayers inside and outside the American beer business who refused to countenance its ascent, then downplayed it as a fad in hopes it would fizzle quickly. On the other hand, if you draw your lines around malt- and cane-based flavored alcoholic beverages, hard seltzer has fizzled. Those frothy pandemic gains, the knock-on effects of genuine novelty, national pantry-stocking mania, and a historic channel shift to off-premise, packaged beer, have receded.

The reality is what’s left, and it’s this: Hard seltzer is White Claw, then everyone else. Truly? In trouble. Vizzy? Vanquished. Bud Light Seltzer? Ha, Gina, you’d better sit down for this one. The brands that had the operational strength and circumstances to compete with Whie Claw have simply failed to do so, for various reasons. The upshot, though, is a remarkable re-consolidation of the market. The fact is that White Claw now controls over 60 percent of all dollar sales for the segment while most other leading brands seem to be continuing their bleed,

I know you just want hard seltzer to go away and all its fans come over to beer but that’s not happening despite what you might have heard.  Yes, there is a decline but let me put it in context.  That is key to understanding where it stands now, and where it is going. As I see it, in helping to usher in the ready-to-drink (RTD) movement at large, hard seltzer became an agent of its own undoing. 

Spirit-based RTD cocktails such as vodka or tequila sodas, is to me, a move toward “premiumization” for hard seltzer drinkers, may taste similar to malt-based hard seltzers, but they are classified by brands and market analysts as a distinct category, given that the production process between them is markedly different. This effectively moves some of those drinkers away from the hard seltzer segment, numbers-wise, but nonetheless into adjacent—competitive—options, sometimes crafted by hard seltzer brands themselves.  Fuller-flavored and higher-ABV RTD cocktails, as well as hard teas, have also claimed a piece of hard seltzer’s pie.

Having said all of that, hard seltzer nonetheless accounts for 35 percent of the RTD mix for consumers. At that currentt point just about every expert believes that hard seltzer will continue to be a mainstay, having reached category maturity,  So you don’t have to worry Gina, hard seltzer will never replace beer (at least with us- ha.)

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Just a few years ago people were willing to wait hours on end to score limited craft beer releases. And wasn’t it only yesterday that the most persistent debate in beer was between hazy fanatics and brewers who wanted to make anything else, or between pastry stout lovers and purists who saw candy in beer as an abomination? Surely, it hasn’t been that long since craft beer was the hot new thing, and its followers were deemed too-cool-for-school hipsters for liking it, right?

Now we’re seeing hat craft beer is far from immune from the cyclical nature of what’s in and what’s out. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen the industry struggle to meaningfully connect with the newest generation of legal drinkers and even hold onto all of its OG devotees. We’ve also seen that younger generation hold a comedy-tinted mirror up to the craft beer lifestyle in many areas of social media.  Frankly, it's not funny in any way.

I don’t get appreciate their distain for what we love. It’s obviously not cringe worthy to take your job seriously if you make beer or work with it; it’s not cringe worthy to enjoy craft beer, learn about it and help foster the community aspect of it, whether as a professional or an enthusiast. Breweries who make a balance of what brewers and consumers want to drink sans judgment, and who are more invested in creating an engaging place for drinkers. From job creation to family atmosphere to a flavorful beverage, breweries should be complimented and emulated not scorned.

Perhaps most simply, though, the newest generation of alcohol consumers tend to scoff at the concept of our “obsessing” so much over the liquid that’s to them just supposed to accompany fun. We shouldn’t let all this anti-craft baloney to stand uncorrected.  After all, by trying to educate the younger drinkers we help ourselves by preserving the great craft beer culture. 

So Bill, next time you see a younger drinkers at a pub try to recruit them  to the good side. I’ll do the same. Hopefully our readers will do it too.. We raft drinker, together  can change attitudes and hearts of those currently making fun of our movement for great beer.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

It has almost become the thing to do by young drinkers on social media - mock craft beer and those who enjoy. And I totally agree with you that their postings aren't funny or clever. I don't get  their aggressive vitriol toward we craft lovers. .Look Gina, it’s no surprise craft beer has at least temporarily been knocked off the pedestal it enjoyed in recent years, the one that allowed the industry to explode into nearly 10,000 breweries in the United States. 

There’s the generational seesaw of what’s hot in any space. Look at how Millennials embraced amaro, the drink of their grandparents’ generation. Gen Zers are driven by flavor rather than concerning themselves with style-definition technicalities. They’re unlikely to keep detailed notes on beers they try, or develop strong feelings on saisons versus stouts. If it tastes good, it’s fair game, right alongside RTD cocktails, hard tea, or, say, tequila. 

It’s good to put the current slowdown in craft sales and its lack of respect or  appreciation in perspective. Craft beer faced resistance as it developed throughout the 1980s, enticing fans but simultaneously earning an unwarranted  pretentious reputation among macro beer drinkers. It enjoyed a heyday of brewpubs amid an embrace of locally crafted products in the 1990s, but, sad to say, by the time Pabst Blue Ribbon was earning its place in the hipster starter pack of the early aughts, craft beer was already getting its first go at being associated with dads. By the end of that decade, restaurants deeming Belgian-inspired beers as fit as wine to live on their menus as well as, on a larger scale, then the IPA boom threw craft beer back into the zeitgeist. Even then, though, “craft beer drinker” was an easy shorthand for mocking hipsters.

Gina, trust in American brewers to right the ship.  We’re still seeing creativity and originality applied to. traditional and non-traditional styles. For every brewery that painstakingly brews a Czech-style lager to the letter, there’s another brewery thinking about how they can put their own spin on it. This is what fueled the craft revolution and what will sustain its growth. The product itself will make inroads on the young naysayers.

And don’t forget that downstream hop products continue to advance. What yeast can be genetically engineered to do continues to advance. Sustainable sources of grain continue to advance, and ways to add complexity to flavor in malt do, too. 

Just because invention feels slow in real time doesn’t mean it’s happening. This is the kind of thing you may not realize until you look back 10 years from now—“Oh, wow, we didn’t even have X style of beer in 2023!” Granted, it might be happening at an even slower rate because of the nature of the industry right now, but it’s happening.

I believe craft beer is getting the word out to new drinkers. When you’ve got all different kinds of voices entering the craft beer chat in the form of creative, DIY channels like zines, newsletters, and podcasts, it’s clear this scene is doing something right now. There are still enough truly unique, smart, talented people (like you Gina) who give enough of a damn to pour time and energy into lovingly crafted articles and stories and reporting and essays and interviews. They have something to say, almost always outside of the run-of-the-mill narratives that get churned out in mainstream media.  So take heart – craft beer isn’t going anywhere except perhaps back up to new heights!

 -

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

I don’t think members of the Beer Judges certification Program would embrace my thought that the average Untapped user has more influence on the beer drinking public than they do.  To put it another way, Untappd has turned members of the public into beer judges. 

Founded in 2010, Untappd is a beer-rating app that encourages users to “check in” the beers they’re drinking, tagged to a physical location like a bar or restaurant or at home. Unlike its predecessors BeerAdvocate and RateBeer, Untappd was founded as a mobile app rather than a website, and it eschewed forums and discussion boards in favor of rating and tracking beers consumed. Further opening up beer ratings to the masses, rather than reserving the privilege for a select group of judges, writers, or insiders, would seem to be a democratic victory. Why let some tweedy snob with an editor’s title decide what the best beers are? Wait - are they talking about you Bill?  Just teasing.

Untappd ratings influence bar owners’, e-retailers’, festival organizers’, and even beer distributors’ business decisions to a degree that other publications, apps, or ratings websites like RateBeer or BeerAdvocate don’t. (BeerAdvocate is also owned by Untappd parent company.) They’ve taken on an economic significance that is unrivaled in the industry. 

Granted they are a large and influential group but are the Untappd users rarified influencers, or are they representative of the average craft beer drinker?  Given the pressure Untappd ratings exert on how beer is made and sold, it’s clear that whatever the answer is, those users still have great influence—earned or not.

Let me end with this tidbit Bill.  Certain styles, like Pilsners, generally don’t receive as high Untappd ratings as IPAs and Stouts do. Currently, the highest-rated Blonde Ale on Untappd has a score of 4.1; the highest-rated Kölsch has a 4.1; the highest-rated Table Beer has a 4.3. Meanwhile, the highest-rated Double IPA has a score of 4.7, and the highest-rated Russian Imperial Stout has a 4.6. The top three most-checked-in styles on Untappd are American IPA, New England IPA, and Double IPA.  

Is Untappd perpetuating style bias?

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

All I can say if there was an Untappd site for beer writers I would rate you a 5 out of 5!  Woo-hoo! 

As to the beer Untappd I see its power everywhere.  The best beer store near (30 minute drive) me now lists each beer’s Untappd rating next to the price and one of the manager of the top beer pub in my area said he bases most of his buying decisions on Untappd ratings.

Beer rating tools are nothing new, Gina. BeerAdvocate was founded in 1996; RateBeer came online in 2000. And a segment of craft beer drinkers have always used such scores to make purchasing decisions. Aggregate ratings are free to anyone with a smartphone, but the ease of the Untappd interface makes it much more appealing than spreadsheets full of sales data. A scale of one-to-five promises to quantify the most potent magic in craft beer - hype.

In a world where ratings are prevalent and data constantly discussed, what really matters? Do you rate an Uber driver within the first 2 minutes of your drive? Do you complete an Airbnb review before the stay is over? Does this data impact your future decisions and purchases? Will you choose not to visit a brewery because their Untappd rating is 0.1 below your unwritten cutoff? Ah, forget that one.  I’ve done that several times. In fact I think that was your decision. Ha.

I saw a fairly recent online poll via Facebook consisting of 1600 respondents found that 75 percent of craft beer drinkers do not check a brewery’s Untappd rating prior to visiting. Even if they did check, would that rating give any insight into the potential quality of their visit? Maybe is as far as I’ll go.   

Interestingly, the difference in Untappd ratings between breweries in fairly negligible. Thus, the difference between an average beer and world class beer is merely a few tenths of a decimal. So does this Untappd data difference, no matter how small, correlate significantly to a brewery’s ultimate success? Once again, the answer is maybe, maybe not.

Maybe we should all just stop worrying about Untappd ratings and focus on what really matters – the quality of the beer.  By the way Gina, when is the last time you checked an Untappd rating before buying a beer? I didn’t think so.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Last weekend I sat at the bar at one of our favorite breweries relishing the opportunity to unpack the eclectic tap list—an English-style mild ale, a grisette, an Italian pilsner—and a couple more. While I weighed my options, a group of 20-something guys tumbled in to the packed place, one leaned into the bar (almost pushing me off my stool), and shouted out to the bartender “What’s the haziest, juiciest IPA you’ve got?” before even glancing at the menu.  Save us from nouveau crafties like these guys.

IPA is craft beer’s biggest sales driver and, as you know Bill, one of my super favorite styles. Even as craft beer sales decelerate, data shows the IPA holds onto 41 percent of sales shares among craft breweries. I know it still  excites many craft connoisseurs while simultaneously appealing to casual drinkers who don’t care about craft. That’s an amazing feat but how did it go from a style that is an opportunity for creativity, and a valuable entry point for craft beer newcomers, to a juice bomb punchline? 

When California’s Stone Brewing unveiled Ruination, a West Coast double IPA, in 2002, the company threw down the gauntlet: Who could make, and drink, the most outlandishly bitter IPA? I was in heaven.  Of course, a pendulum swing was inevitable. With The Alchemist’s Heady Topper, the first, as far as I know, New England IPA, I was in heaven again.  It was still more bitter than today’s NEIPAs, but with more body to support a massive hop character, and a bit of haze, which had been considered a fault in IPAs. Heady not only captivated me, but drinkers everywhere, It created immediate interest in IPAs that showcased hop aroma rather than hop bitterness. Brewers subsequently went racing back down the IBU scale toward zero. And for me that’s where things took a downturn. Now juice bombs dominate the offerings of every bar and brewery.  The sad thing is most of them are not very good. 

Rushing to produce a tsunami of juicy IPA after juicy IPA just might lead to the downfall of craft beer itself.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Now, now, don’t get carried away.  I see the increase in New England IPAs as a positive thing for beer. Hazies have a lower bar to entry to casual drinkers, both due to the softer, creamier mouthfeel and the less bitter profile that mirrors citrus.  That can only help craft beer grow. As for innovation, that profile took some twists that gave way to substyles like the “milkshake IPA.” Another unique, broad appeal beer.

I share your affection for Heady Topper.  Think back, when it came out it was (and still is)  sold in such limited amounts, in so few places, that fans began combing internet posts to arrange trades or traveling to breweries to line up for hours. That led to the creation of master haze-makers like two of your favorites, Tree House Brewing Co. in Massachusetts and Other Half Brewing Co. in Brooklyn.

It didn’t hurt that the hazy IPA was itself "Instagrammable" (how’s that for a word, Gina?) It photographs very well because it’s semi-opaque in the glass. Instagram  proved to be quite powerful as a marketing tool. And it became the best way to create content around these beers, essentially a visual prop in a glass.  Of course it helped that the beer itself proved tasty.

Another social media app was also defining the NEIPA. The beer-rating app Untappd helped introduce an aspect of gamification to beer culture. How many different beers have you tried? How many hops did they have? How many times were they dry-hopped? The most checked-in styles on Untappd are American IPA, New England IPA and double IPA; milkshake and hazy IPA ratings reach 4.5 of 5, while kölsch, a style of German lager, peaks at 4. The clear favoring of IPAs pressured breweries to give the raters what they wanted: more IPAs. And there’s nothing wrong with that. 

Look Gina, breweries should make what people want, and currently that’s hazy IPAs.  Breweries are a business and to stay in business they have to make what people want to buy. But don’t’ fret Gina.  Some statistics show that now craft beer drinkers are looking to get back to basics with German and Czech lagers. They want variety and lighter options on tap. Even the IPA is welcoming a broader spectrum back into its zeitgeist with a swing back to bitterness with the cold IPA and a renewed interest in the West Coast IPA, plus a growing segment of low- and no-alcohol options. 

Now youve got me thirsty  I’ll meet you at the bar down the street in 20 minutes.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

The emerging beverage category of non-alcoholic beer grew steadily in the past few years and it’s now worth upwards of $500 million a year in the U.S., according to an industry trade group. Since these beverages contain virtually no alcohol, they can largely be sold to anyone, anywhere; they’re stocked on grocery and convenience store shelves around the country, and purchasable online. But I recommend it not be soldl to anybody under 18 years old.

Bill, when there’s no minimum age, can a nine-year old come into a store and buy a non-alcoholic Corona. For me, I don’t want that perception around beer. The fact is that in the majority pf  states every store owner can set his own age limit, and he’s free to set it however he wants because there are no state age restrictions on who can buy adult non-alcoholic beverages. Now, some health researchers are calling for clear, consistent age limits for non-alcoholic beers, wines and liquors, likening them to candy cigarettes.  Frankly I think there is a risk that these could be an entry product for alcohol use before young, underaged people are able to handle it.

There are so many cues in non-alcoholic beverages that mirror that alcoholic counterpart, like how they taste and smell, and provide the cultural experience of sipping from a koozied beer can or a fancy glass. Additionally, a lot of full-strength alcohol producers are now making non-alcoholic products, so their brands are on these [non-alcoholic] beverages. That might lead to familiarity that then increases the likelihood of purchasing alcoholic products from that producer in the future. 

I did some research Bill, and 39 states had no statewide policies, and the states that did were inconsistent.  So, by and large, there are no restrictions on this. It seems like a gap we want to fill sooner rather than later to get ahead of a potential public health issue. With non-alcoholic wine and liquor, there should be laws in place to get ahead of that. If we leave the door open to there being a marketing push for non-alcoholic beverages among kids, could that then lead to increased alcohol use among this under age generation? We don't want to wait to find out if that's going to happen

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

You make a good case butt the simple fact is that there’s no evidence so far that the boom in zero-proof beverages has led kids in the U.S. to drink alcohol.  Repeat: no evidence!

Gina, of course I agree that kids should not be drinking alcohol, but the last thing you want is to get governments involved with zero (repeat zero) alcohol products. .Did I mention they essentialy have no alcohol? Most people do not want any regulation that’s going to have an impact on accessibility and cause additional resources to be spent for brands producing these NA beers or drinks.  Besides, the widening availability of zero-proof adult drinks helps people who are trying to cut back on alcohol for their health. 

This emerging NA beverage industry focuses its marketing toward adults through advertising and store placement. When you go into a retail shop or Whole Foods or Kroger and you see a set of these products, they're usually near the alcoholic beverages and offered as alternatives. It’s very clear who they're marketed to and who they're for - adults over 21.

Here’s another fact you might not be aware of - some sellers, like the chain store Target, already card for the purchase of non-alcoholic beer and drinks. . So you see, some of your concerns  have already been addressed. 

As I see it, the NA  industry, is currently doing a good job of self-policing. I think it’s to everyone’s benefit for them to continue to emphasize self-regulation because if they don’t that's when government will step in to regulate things which at this point we don’t need

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

It’s beginning to happen – I’m getting tired of New England IPAs.  Not only are there so many of them out there, a good number are also not that well made.  And I don’t think I’m alone in thinking hat.  I just saw an article that stated many brewers say they are being forced to produce beers of a style they don’t particularly like, namely NEIPAs.  Some, off the record of course, even admitted to not being partial to their own versions.

I hate to say this Bill, but one by-product of all this is that the sheer energy and joy that once characterized craft beer is no longer the spirit that defines it. It is still there, in tap rooms and at festivals, but it’s slightly jaded. The naïve sense of adventure seems to have gone. You could say the industry has matured. You could say it needed to. But it’s also in danger of losing what made it exciting in the first place.

It used to be new, it used to be fun, in your face, and a challenge. Now craft beer is no longer hip and interesting as it was.  The lure of sitting on uncomfortable stools, in a faux industrial space with a row of taps serving hazy IPAs that are mediocre, lit by string lights with too loud music playing is wearing thin.

It seems to all boil down to this - the category of craft beer, once useful in educating consumers who thought beer could only be fizzy and yellow, doesn’t exist anymore (if it ever did). The current thought in beer seems premised in varying degrees on expectations related to craft beer, but not beer beer and for to many people craft categorially means yet another version of a juice bomb under the umbrella name of NEIPA. 

Craft” has been around so long it seems solid and real, but the original meaning is slowly dissolving into vapor. Needless to say, companies make and sell beer, respond to market realities, and have to balance introducing innovative products while responding to consumer trends. All that is possible while keeping the true spirit of craft alive. 

The way I see it, craft beer was once not totally driven by the concerns of commerce and if brewers only made what they wanted to make and that customers would drink. Now the marketing department makes them brew hazy IPA after hazy IPA and hazy IPA.  And I don’t think we or the craft business is better for it.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

There you go again Gina.  You see a few statistics about NEIPAs and you begin to think it will lead to the end of craft beer and we’ll all be forced into drinking Budweiser again.  Look, I agree that the craft industry in aggregate has concerns aplenty. Direct-to-consumer shipping, franchise law reforms, and potentially sales hurting nutritional labeling requirements might accelerate a decline.  And there’s  growing threats from neo-Prohibitionist groups. I also hear there’s trouble in the hop market, trouble in the equipment market, and trouble in the capital markets, right now.  Oh my, now I’m scaring myself.

In today’s climate I think that the lifestyle breweries built during the segment’s boom last decade have to toughen up for the non-growth years they are now grinding through. Craft beer got too easy (brew a bad beer and it wil still sell), but now it's a different ball game.  Let’s face it Gina, craft breweries are not essential to life.  Basically, the whole category can be replaced. Now, of course that will not happen but every single day and every single moment, craft breweries have to continue to earn their place in the industry and most importantly, earn their place in the minds of their customers.  For example, breweries who boldly print “Drink Fresh” on their label and then don’t date the can, those charging nearly $30 for a four pack, and those who dumb down recipes in a vain effort to reach people who don’t want their beer, seem to have forgotten the customers who created the boom in the first place.

The simple recipe that helped craft beer grow before also led it into its current malaise, and while it’s a nice idea to imagine an enormous host of drinkers suddenly finding themselves thirsty for craft beer (thus growing the pie for everyone), a more likely short-term scenario is that many brewers, will grow at the expense of their colleagues — or vice versa. The rising tide that once lifted all boats has ebbed, and everyone can’t stay afloat on a trickle of beer sales.

I agree with your basic formula to restart craft's growth.  Breweries need to refocus on the customer and on improving their product. It's that simple and that hard.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Think back for a minute, Bill. It wasn’t that long  ago that “20% by 2020” — as in, market share of overall beer sold in the United States — was the battle cry electrifying the craft beer industry. For years, the ubiquitous question on brewers’ lips was “How much are you up?” That was then. Small, independent brewers as defined by the BA finished 2023 down around 1 percent in volume and up 3 percent in dollars; the segment is 13.3 percent of an overall U.S. beer market that itself shrank over 5 percent by volume last year. More breweries opened than closed last year, but that margin was small, and it’s a good bet that ratio will finally flip by the end of this year.

There may come a day soon where IPA can no longer be relied upon for “Immediate Profits Ahead,”  I just saw a statistic that IPA was slightly down in 2023. I mean, Yes, IPA.  It’s a brave new world, and if that downward trend accelerates for the most important and lucrative style in the craft beer market here in 2024, brewers will have to get a whole lot braver.

I recently saw a statistic that said over 600 breweries now also hold distilled spirits permits, indicating that brewers are newly willing to conceive of their businesses in a more flexible “total beverage” paradigm. Nonalcoholic drinks infused with hemp-derived tetrahydrocannabinol are posting compelling incremental sales for breweries that have been allowed by their states’ laws to move into the nascent segment. Given all that context, the craft numbers aren’t what I would call good, but they aren’t what I’d call bad, either.  Yet, I’m worried about where craft is going. As I see it,, just reading water is actually a downward trend from all that growth we’ve enjoyed.  Are you a bit worried too, Bill?

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

There you go again Gina.  You see a few statistics and you begin to think it will be the end of craft beer and we’ll all been drinking Budweiser again.  Look, I agree that the craft industry in aggregate has concerns aplenty. Direct-to-consumer shipping, franchise law reforms, and potentially harmful to sales nutritional labeling requirements might accelerate a decline.  And there’s  growing threats from neo-Prohibitionist groups. I also hear there’s trouble in the hop market, trouble in the equipment market, and trouble in the capital markets, right now.  Oh my, now I’m scaring myself.

In today’s climate I think that the lifestyle breweries built during the segment’s boom last decade have to toughen up for the non-growth years they are now grinding through. Craft beer got too easy, and it's not a different ball game.  Let’s face it Gina, craft breweries are not essential.  Basically, the whole category can be replaced. Now, of course that will not happen but every single day and every single moment, craft breweries have to continue to earn their place in the industry and most importantly, earn their place in the minds of their customers.  For example, breweries who boldly print “Drink Fresh” on their label and then don’t date the can, those charging nearly $30 for a four pack, and those who dumb down recipes to reach people who don’t want their beer in the first place, seem to have forgotten the customers who created the boom in the first place.

The simple recipe that helped craft beer grow before also led it into its current malaise, and while it’s a nice idea to imagine an enormous host of drinkers suddenly finding themselves thirsty for craft beer (thus growing the pie for everyone), a more likely short-term scenario is that many brewers, will grow at the expense of their colleagues — or vice versa. The rising tide that once lifted all boats has ebbed, and everyone can’t stay afloat on a trickle of beer sales.

To kick start growth, (hope you're sitting down for this) I agree with you.  Breweries need to refocus on the customer and on improving their product. It's that simple and that hard.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Well Bill, I’m sure you won’t debate the fact that craft beer has a loyal base of customers like us who aren’t going anywhere, but as brewery openings continue to outpace closures, it’s the new consumers who are crucial to the industry’s future success. Breweries face a unique tight rope in communicating via their social media, menu, and can labels wanting to get specific for their long time (dare I say advanced fans?)while keeping it simple enough for their new or casual customers who “just want a beer”. I believe that terminology is key but it has a tendency to change meaning so quickly as thousands of breweries riff on styles in their own unique way. And the style getting the most interpretations  and variants is IPA.

We now have East Coast IPA, Northeast, Modern West Coast, and so many more kinds.  However, it all started with the term West Coast IPA, my favorite style at least when the term meant something specific. Now, to put it simply, the West Coast is getting bastardized. "West Coast IPA" is being attached to beers simply as an indicator that they’re clear, without the full arsenal of attributes that ignited the craft beer explosion. Much to the chagrin of many brewers, purists and people like me, the marketing from the craft industry has taken taking over the term has broadened it’s true and original meaning beyond the point of recognition. Hopefully real West Coast IPAs, crisp, clear, piney, and bitter will become cool again, but now “West Coast-Style” will become as wide ranging as “Hazy”.

Think back, Bill, when the path for West Coast IPA was first paved by Anchor & Sierra Nevada beginning over 40 years ago; names like Pizza Port, Lagunitas, Ballast Point, Stone, Firestone Walker, Russian River, Green Flash, and Port Brewing made it a phenomenon. Each brewery included their own nuances and interpretations of the style while still staying steadfastly in a reasonably tight style boundary.

I like to alway start with the word “aggressive” when describing a classic West Coast IPA, relating to its hop character, as well as the bitterness. The American “C” hops (Cascade, Columbus, Chinook, Centennial, etc.) used by craft brewers during the heyday of West Coast IPAs emphasized flavors including: Piney, Earthy, Floral, & Citrus. Needless to say, today that's not the case.

Just give me the classics and I’ll be happy.  Until then I’ll hold my nose and force down the pretenders to the real thing.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Gina, You know I have a soft spot in my heart for a traditional West Coast IPA so you’re getting me nostalgic, upset, and angry at the same time.  While I do enjoy a good NEIPA more than you do, nonetheless preaching to the choir on this issue.

Most IPAs today feature dry-hopping, fruit-forward hops, and a restrained bitterness, ranging between 25-45 IBUs.  They feature hop varieties like Mosaic, Galaxy, and Nelson that open up new flavors including tropical fruit, stone fruit, and white grape.  All, in my opinion very good, but clearly not in what we both know as a “real” WC IPA.

You might disagree Gina, but during the Haze Craze starting in the back half of the 2010s, the West Coast IPA didn’t go away. Classic leaning IPAs like Lagunitas’, Stone, Sculpin, and Pliny the Elder remained though sometimes they weren’t that easy to find. Adding to the downfall of WC IPAs was that the style wasn’t the focus of innovation, exploration, and one-off rotation. Much of the latest and greatest new and experimental hops got utilized in Hazy IPAs which caused it’s sales to skyrocket, especially with new beer drinkers who were inclined to dislike the taste of anything but fruit juice brews (just kidding…..a little).

Gina, so much had changed since the classic West Coast IPA ceased it’s evolution. New hopping techniques, more knowledge sharing, and new varieties & products like Cryo, Lupopax, Spectrum, and Incognito opened the door to make the so called new “West Coast IPA Style” to taste less Classic, and more like a clear hazy.  Sorry, but the disappointing fact is that we're not to find anything like Green Flash’s Palate Wrecker, Buffalo Bill’s Alimony Ale (“the bitterest beer in America”) and so many others we used to love in new versions of the style.

I was recently at a new brewery here in town and their menu touted a “traditional West Coast IPA.” Super excited, I ordered it and was very sad when our came a moderately hazy, with a medium bitterness, tropical fruit favors everywhere and nary a touch of bitterness beer. Who are they trying to dupe?  In this case the answer is me since I bought one....but one was all.

Gina, styles are styles for specific reasons…. Please brewers, keep it as such.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Might as well start this off with a bang - There is no such thing as the “proper” glassware! Blaspheme you say. Bill?.  There is this sub-genre of beer websites which present themselves as authorities on beer and beer culture. In my opinion these snooty folks really are not but let's move on.  Many have articles like the one I recenty saw, entitled “The Wrong Glass Will Give You a Horrible Beer Experience“. This piece purported to assign the “proper” vessel for drinking each style and kind of beer.

Here is what I know, from a couple of decades of using every single brand, shape, and design of beer glass I could find: What will give you a “horrible” beer experience is…drinking horrible beer. If you are drinking a fresh, well-made, properly bottled and stored beer, that GOOD beer will still be good if you drink it from a $75 a top of the line Riedel, a Dollar Store bargain goblet, a stemless Libbey juice gass, , a coffee cup, a jelly jar, a Mason jar, or a test tube. If your beer is garbage, it will still be garbage  So, is there really ANY difference between a well-made, somewhat pricey beer glass and that $1.25 cheapie? Yes, of course there is, but it is a slight difference and one that you would need a very well-trained palate to detect or appreciate…a difference that is probably not worth your money.

And, to be honest, as with much of what drinking adult beverages is all about, we humans are suggestible creatures. If we think something is going to taste better if it costs more money, chances are it will. I know people who have openly scorned any beer glass but “approved” ones by their favorite website’s beer expert.  I then did a blind tastings with the glasses concealed and the majority of those same folks could not identify a pricey one from the other, cheaper glasses. Wait a scond, weren't you part of that group, Bill?

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Gina, does that mean you’re only going to drink from a can from now on? Just relax, actually you do have a point.  A small point.  Think back a few years and you'll remember there was a series of specially designed “lager glasses” from Sam Adams that was briefly popular.  It had: “a laser etched ring on the bottom to create nucleation bubbles to enhance aromas, an outward turned lip to deliver beer to front of tongue for flavor enhancement, thinner walls to maintain proper temperature longer, and a rounded middle to maintain aromas.”  Whew.  With all those benefits you barely needed the beer.  In fact, it would probably make my last homebrew taste good which would be a downright miracle.

For most craft beer drinkers. Gina, I do agree with your main point that what determines the experience you have with a beer, or whiskey or wine is the quality of the stuff in the bottle. However, if you enjoy using the “proper” glass for your beverage, then by all means, DO IT. It will make the beer drinking experience subjectively better.  Speaking for myself I hate when a quality beer is served in a shaker pint with a Bud or Coors logo all over it.   However if you personally want to drink your beer from an jelly jar, go ahead, you don’t have to apologize to me.  

The undeniable fact is that you will get some incremental value by drinking a specific beer from the appropriate glass designed for it but it's probable not going to made an overwhelming difference.  Still, no matter how small, it is a difference.  Because of that, my blanket advice for anyone drinking a half-decent beer (or just wats to have a better beer experience) is to drink out of a glass designed for the specific craft beer.  Why?  Aromatics: Different beer styles have distinct aromas that greatly contribute to their flavor profiles. Proper glassware, designed to capture and concentrate these aromas, allows you to fully appreciate the beer's bouquet.  Appearance: The right glassware showcases the beer's color and clarity, Carbonation and Head Retention: Craft beer glassware is often designed to maintain the beer's carbonation and encourage a healthy head formation. A proper head can enhance the aroma and mouthfeel.  Mouthfeel: Different glass shapes can affect how the beer flows into your mouth, altering its mouthfeel and texture. 

And here’s one you might not have thought about Gina.  Drinking from proper glassware can elevate the entire beer-drinking experience, making it feel more special and enjoyable - just like when I have a beer with you at our local pub.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

It looks like the beer drinking folks in Tennessee have just dodged a bullet, at least for now.  A bill to ban the sale of cold beer and alcoholic drinks in Tennessee has just stalled in the legislature but could return in the near future.  The bill actually does more than ban the sale of cold beer, part of it would also cap the number of drinks people can have a restaurants and bars.

So for now no one has to rush to a store for their last cold beer or go to a bar one final time with no drink limit. How did this all start?  You can blame (or thank) Rep. Ron Gant. He was a victim in a drunk driving crash two years ago when a drunk driver crossed the median and hit his car head on. He was airlifted and hospitalized for weeks with 14 broken bones.

The first part of the bill would ban the sale of cold alcoholic drinks at convenience stores. It’s currently a law only in Indiana.  I guess that’s supposed to hinder a person who has been drinking from driving to buy cold beer since it would be an inconvenience of sorts. I don’t get that at all, but I do think it might encourage people to buy more beer ahead of time so they will just stay in and drink cold beer. 

Needless to say the sponsors of the bill have no idea that refrigerated beer stays fresher if it stays cold. Because of that more than a few craft beer drinkers never buy from the floor or shelf.   And what’s to stop an inebriated driver from simply putting the warm beer in an ice filled cooler in the back seat?  I doubt if someone who is stupid and reckless enough to over indulge and then drive will really care if his beer is cold anyway.

The second part of the bill would allow customers to only have a certain number of drinks at a bar or restaurant, unless they have a designated driver with them.  Supporters of the bill say that it would make servers feel less responsible for over serving customers.  Just what would that arbitrary number be? Would there be different number limits of beers you can order based on it’s ABV?  Would the bar need a complex logarithm to figure out that plus serving size and body composition of the drinker to make it fair for everyone? 

I’m a grown up person Bill and definitely a responsible one when it come to my beer drinking.  I’ll do my own counting if you please and buy my beer at any temperature I want. And that's that!

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

This is an interesting case, Gina.  As I see it, this bill is grounded in a belief that by restricting the sale of cold beer, consumers would be less inclined to make impromptu purchases for immediate consumption, thereby reducing the likelihood of drunk driving incidents. The logic seems straightforward—make it less convenient to drink and drive, and perhaps fewer people will choose to do so.  But as most things, it’s not that simple. It clearly pitting public safety aspirations against economic concerns and personal freedoms.

For craft brewers and gas station proprietors alike, the potential ban threatens not just a common practice in 49 of 50 states but a significant revenue stream for local breweries (the average brewery across the nation gets up to 55% of their revenue from cold beer sales).  I’m sure the state brewery guilds are most concerned over the significant effect on sales of fresh, locally sourced beer.  

Beyond the economic arguments, there lies a deeper issue of personal freedom.  My guess is that many Tennesseans view the proposed ban as an overreach by the state government.  To them it’s probably a matter of personal responsibility and the fear they are heading down the slippery slope of regulatory overreach.

Instead of focusing on the sale conditions of beer, perhaps the lawmakers should focus  on developing comprehensive strategies to combat drunk driving, a core issue that most people agree needs attention. Conducting detailed studies on impaired driving statistics would be a first step.  Would banning cold beer make any difference?  No one actually seems to know.  Only with real date can effective ways to curb drunk driving incidents be initiated.

You might remember Gina, that years ago I was on a business trip to  the Oklahoma City area. At that time, in Oklahoma, you could only buy beer with an ABV of greater than 3.2% at a liquor store. To pile on, the only beer that could be sold cold was 3.2% or lower, which was sold in grocery stores and convenience stores.  Ouch.

Let’s click two beer bottles together and say, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home” since home isn't where laws like this might be passed.. When it comes to beer, I prefer to live here where it’s 2024 and not go back to 1920.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Twenty years ago, there were 1,485 breweries operating in the United States, according to the Brewers Association. In 2013 there were 3,162. Last year, there were 9,709—but market share for regional beers dropped. If trends continue, giants like Anheuser-Busch InBev and Heineken will likely ride out the bad weather just fine—as they have since their founding in 1852 and 1864, respectively.  The big guys have proven they're adept at responding to trends in the industry. For example, last year, Heineken's 0.0 product even became America’s No. 1 nonalcoholic beer brand. On the other end of the spectrum, there are thousands of tiny breweries that had been making things work without growing much, and who probably weren’t searching for a big market share anyway.

It’s the middle stretch of the industry—the part that’s been growing dramatically for a generation—that has debt to service and disaster to fear. After a couple of decades of growth, the Brewers Association now cites industry data that says regional brewers—companies making between 15,000 and 6 million barrels annually—were down 3 percent in 2023 and this year it might be even a bigger drop.

Comparing regionals with “taproom breweries” illustrates the dynamics of beer’s bear market. The Brewers Association defines taproom breweries as companies that sell more than 25 percent of their beer on-site and don’t offer significant food services. In comparison, these small brewers were up 9 percent by volume in 2023 over 2022. And in fact, taproom brewers are the biggest segment of the beer industry in terms of their number, with 3,838 craft brewery taprooms operating last year, but they keep it small. The problem for midsized brewers is that there’s a whole massive, long tail of tiny breweries that’s even more agile than them in dealing with changing trends in the market.

I think he best place to be in beer currently is a smaller brewery where you can make 70 to 80 percent of your revenue from taproom sales or “on-site carry-away sales. If you can make a decent living doing that for you and your three employees, don’t get any bigger. Ever. 

Bill, my big concern is for regional brewers.  They may be paying off loans because it bought a new brewhouse, a canning line, or more equipment to make more beer. That growth may have made sense last decade, when craft beer was growing by double digits year over year, but now, as growth slows, you’re competing with a bunch of other breweries—local, regional, national—for shelf space, along with hard seltzer and ready-to-drink cocktails. And if they don’t have the scale of the big guys they can't the price point.  It's a bad situation.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

You make a gloomy case for the future of regional breweries.  I agree but I also see another strange aspect going on within the beer the beer industry itself. When experts say beer is facing competition from “beyond beer” drinks like RTDs and hard seltzer, they’re in part saying that beer is competing with itself. Take, for example, the “stronger” or “imperial” seltzers, with higher alcohol-by-volume points, that are on the rise. Even Pabst makes one: Pabst Blue Ribbon Stronger Seltzer. In addition to stronger hard seltzers, nonalcoholic drinks are gaining share too. Both the no-/low-alcohol category and the hard seltzer categories are now billion-dollar market segments. Case in point is Athletic Brewing Company, which manufactures solely nonalcoholic “near beer,” it is the sixth-largest craft brewer in the Northeast, despite being relatively new to the game.  It was founded in 2017.

One result of these changes is that I see new drinkers—young people—are now accustomed to harder beverages more so than the youth of yesteryear. You may not remember your first alcoholic beverage as a 21-year-old, but it’s something that big alcohol companies pay close attention to.

I recently saw a statistic that said twenty years ago, the entry-level alcohol point was a 4.2-percent-ABV domestic lager Five years ago, it was a 5-percent hard seltzer. Now people are drinking higher-alcohol products as an entry point. The growth from craft beer right now is heavily coming from high-alcohol brands.

New Belgium Brewing Company’s high-alcohol brand Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA, is currently the No. 1 chain-selling IPA in the country. It’s the first time a double IPA, in this case a beer that is over 9 percent alcohol by volume, has held that distinction. New Belgium, which started in Colorado, bought a brewery in Virginia last year to keep up with demand for its Voodoo Ranger line of products. 

It's clear he storm the beer industry faces is getting rougher—but beer is the storm. Some breweries will adapt, while some may get swept away. Some, like AB InBev, will let it wash right past them. And some—maybe the small brewery down the street—will stay just small enough to escape its fury.  I surely hope so.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Happy new year to you Bill and to all our readers!  Now’s the time we’re going to see loads of articles on what happened to beer in 2023, but what’s past is past, so let’s look forward.  I can see you rolling your eyes Bill.  Yes, I remember you telling me, “I never make predictions.  I never have and never will.”  Hmmmm…. I guess that means we’ve agreed on this month’s topic.  So here are some observations and thoughts on the upcoming beer year especially in regards to some of our favorite places - bars..

Last years statistics say that beer consumption at bars has still not returned to pre-pandemic levels.  I think one reason for that is bar owners do not realize craft beverage consumers have evolved over the years, shifting from a “consumption creates the experience” mindset to an “experience creates consumption” one. From what I’ve read and from talking to loads of people at a loads of pubs (no snickering Bill, I’m only doing research for this job), consumers want the full on-premises experience.  That means having a variety across a multitude of beer variables - styles, ABV, flavor profiles, and  serving sizes. They want knowledgeable servers, food pairings and the right glassware/temperature for the beverage. Far too often in 2023 that wasn’t the case.

The new year brings a new chance for owners to win back consumers. As long as on-premise professionals embrace the needs of the highly coveted craft-beverage loyalists, draft sales and profitability for the owner, will increase throughout 2024.

I think it’s important that when working on their 2024 draft line-up, brewers should place an emphasis on local ingredients and unique blends.  By providing hyperlocal options consumers will likely have more incentive to try new blends and flavors not available in cans.  Exciting and unique draft option will bring people back to the pubs and it won’t take long.  

Bill, I know we both lamented one of the major shifts in trends in 2023 which was distributors moving away from smaller, local brands. They somehow forgot the favorability toward “fresh,” local” and “locally sourced ingredients” is still a profit driver. To come out on top in 2024, bars and restaurants should maintain relationships with their local breweries and take intentional steps to partner with them.

One issue that many bars and restaurants dealt with last year was lack of staffing.  Add in the fact that many of the staff were less than stellar or to put it another way, they did not embrace the professionalism needed to keep and bring in customers.  Unfortunately many had no knowledge of the beers being poured and didn’t care about getting any.  Poor service drove many a consumer away.  How to find employees who are focused on being the best bartender/server they can be is beyond my pay grade but I do know that performance incentives and increased practical training can’t hurt.

It seems to me that we’re in a crucial time for many bars.  If sales continue to decline we may well see more than a few close, and by extension, many small breweris too.  That’s something no beer drinker wants to see.

 Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

While I love to enjoy beer at home I agree with you that there is something special about the experience at the bar or brewery tasting room.  It’s one I always look forward to; so count me in on anything that helps keep good craft beer available at my local pub.  To that end your recommendations are right on.  But please remember Gina that many a place is struggling now for reasons that go beyond the norm.  High interest rates, big rent increases, variable mortgages, increased credit card fees, and burdensome  business loans are all impacting their bottom line.  Throw in high inflation which has limited people’s discretionary spending, and you get an even more gloomy situation.

Now don’t worry too much Gina, there’s good news out there.  The latest statistics I saw seem to indicate on premise beer sales are increasing.  All I can say is we’re doing are part on that.  Unfortunately, the statistics also seem to indicate that those increased sales at bars have begun to cause a decline in some brewery tasting / taproom sales.  For those breweries with limited distribution that is a major concern.  My answer to that is breweries have to innovate more than ever.in their offerings and in the drinking experience. They have to increase their community engagement, provide more entertainment, serve food, and most importantly increase the quality and variety of their beer.

Now for a few quick thoughts on what I see for 2024-

• IPAs will continue to dominate, That’s been the case for years and nothing will change in 2024.

• People will ask for more stouts and porters and will now actually buy them when available,

• Craft lagers and pilsners will snatch a few more percentage points in the market,

• We will see a lot more English styles at breweries. They however will not become big sellers.

•  We’ll see more breweries consolidate or sadly have to close than we did in 2023.

• The demographic for craft beer reverts to being increasingly older men as younger folks embrace alternative, RTDs, and NA drinks..

• Local tap room success will be more dependent on vibe of the physical space versus quality of beer. Distribution continues to be more of a burden than a value to the profit line so many will stop doing so.

• There will b even less shelf space for beer in the off premise. A lot of bottle shops will either shifting towards natural wine, RTD beverages, or even closing.

• Drinkers continue to gravitate towards lighter options while insisting that they prefer hazy IPAs.

• West Coast IPAs regain popularity (I hope).

That’s enough for me, my head is starting to hurt.  Too much thinking and not enough drinking can do that.  

Gina it’s been a truly fun year writing this column with you.  You're the best - thanks and may we keep doing it for years to come!

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

The U.S. is a country that overwhelmingly consumes beer at home rather than at bars, a trend that’s strengthening despite people mostly shrugging off those old pandemic-related concerns about dining and drinking out. Bill, I remember you predicting in one of our articles that pent-up demand would create a boom in draft beer, yet the last two years have proven the opposite. So far this year  U.S. and imported keg beer volume has been down roughly -20% compared to 2019 levels. If you don’t believe me here’s a quote from Bart Watson, chief economist of the Brewers Association: “Draft beer is not really recovering anymore,” Frankly, I’m starting to worry.

Draft beer’s worse-than-expected slump has ripple effects for breweries and bars, who lose out on the higher margins that draft beer offers compared to packaged beer. But the downturn will also shape the very nature of U.S. beer.  Hope you sitting down Bill, the bottom line is that kegged beer volumes in the U.S. have been declining for almost a decade. 

Off-premise sales from stores have traditionally counted for about 80% of all alcohol volume sold in the U.S. But policy changes during the pandemic (yes, we’re still feeling its effects) reinforced drinking-at-home occasions that have lingered, meaning purchasing for off-premise is higher today than at any time in the past 35 years.  All of this seems to be making craft beer just another commodity.  Essentially, beer sold in convenience and grocery stores is just a consumer packaged good. Shoppers add it to their carts alongside cereal, toilet paper, and ketchup. To me that means beer is losing some of its cache as a sort of cultural experience in the hearts and minds of consumers. 

In packaged form, beer has fewer tools to pitch itself to drinkers. It works with the same set of variables as any other beverage in a can or bottle, whether wine or pre-made cocktails or hop water. That’s a challenge as beer loses share of servings to spirits, in particular.

I’m concerned that draft beer’s declines could become a reinforcing cycle: As keg sales slip, bar and restaurant owners put less emphasis and attention on their draft beer selection and maintenance, which accelerates declines further.  And we don’t want that.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Stop worrying Gina, I sure our local bar will still have draft craft beer when we meet there tomorrow.  At least I hope so.  Oh, just kidding.   I know you like numbers so here’s one for you - draft beer is a $9.2 billion industry, larger than U.S. movie box office revenue ($7.3 billion). That’s too big a number for the beer industry to cut back on the attention they give to the draft from the industry as a whole.

There is no other experience like draft beer.  It’s a multisensory experience encompassing the visual of beer poured into a glass, enhanced aroma compared to beer from a can or bottle, and often an enhanced texture as a poured beer develops a head of foam.

I don’t deny your statistics that clearly show a downturn in draft but I’m very hopeful we're seeing a return to bars and restaurants, though it’s pace has not been has quick as I anticipated.  However it’s also true that draft sales at NFL and MLB games are at record levels and that draft sales at concerts have soared.  I recall reading that Taylor Swift’s concerts produced record draft sales wherever she went.  To me, consumers’ desire to spend big on draft at in-person experiences is a sign of a rebirth in draft and will transfer over to sales at bars and restaurants.

As for the decline of draft beer, perhaps it dovetails with new consumer purchasing attitudes.  Drinkers seem to be increasingly choosing various types of alcohol, with fewer defining themselves as solely wine drinkers or beer consumers. That's at the heart of it all.  We beer drinkers have to worry that the lines between alcohol beverages are blurring not only in terms of what consumers drink, but how those beverages are presented. Beer once had the strongest grip on draft presence and canned portability, but wine in a can is no longer taboo. Draft cocktails dispense as quickly as beer. Drinkers both on- and off-premise can find nearly every type of flavor they want in any type of format they want. And, unfortunately for draft, in the minds of U.S. drinkers, beer is becoming synonymous with a six-pack more so than a pint glass. 

Gina, I do admit that in the very long run, we could see a steady decline in draft beer sales that would change the our access to quality draft beer at the bar.  At the same time we could just as easily see a steady increase in draft consumption that will further elevate the pub experience. Time will tell but right now  I’ll bet you a draft beer on the latter happening.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Go team!  Here we are Bill, the 2023 college football season is already around half over.  What does that have to do with beer? ,Well, a roster of teams across conferences and geographies have been involved with new partnerships with breweries of all sizes, from Indiana University (Hoosier Gameday Lager with Upland Brewing Company) to East Carolina University (Pirates Brew with R&D Brewing) to University of Southern California (Fight On! Pale Ale with Stone Brewing) to Florida State (Legacy Lager with Oyster City Brewing Company). And get this - Des Moines, Iowa's Exile Brewing is on pace to grow by +6,000 barrels this year because of its Swarm Golden Ale, made in partnership with Swarm Collective, a non-profit established to support University of Iowa athletes. Swarm's sales velocity has been so fast that brewery leadership say it could become its No. 1 seller,

Such partnerships are theoretically win-wins for colleges and alcohol companies: Schools see a way to promote athletic departments and earn money from licensing and sales, while beer makers and beyond hope to sell more products by tapping into a new audience of sports fans. But as the alcohol and college sports field becomes more crowded, it’s creating rivalries, tensions, and questions about just how big it all will get. 

Until the last few years, most universities were wary of co-branded alcohol deals, worried that they could run counter to schools’ attempts to curb underage and binge drinking. The argument has typically been that three-quarters of most schools' undergrads are probably under 21 so how can school officials say they’re trying to teach young people responsible drinking but they can go to games and buy school sponsored beer?

Well it seems that this year especially, the hesitation has mostly gone out the window. While some schools still don’t sell beer at their stadiums, many do—and are proud to get local alcohol companies in on the action. It sounds good to me.  In a way it might help college students of legal age learn drinking responsibly is compatible with having fun and supporting their school.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

It seems that universities and athletic departments like to imitate one another. When they see one institution getting involved with breweries they want to piggyback. There’s a bit of a rivalry and school pride aspect to that competition, but the real motivation, as I see it, is revenue.  While large state schools in major athletic conferences might not desperately need the revenue because they can rely on ticket sales, merchandise, and broadcast rights, their sports teams still vigorously compete to build the best stadiums and fund the most well-financed programs to attract top talent. Smaller schools’ athletic departments, on the other hand, are more likely to rely on other ways to cover the basics, so bring on the beer.

Do schools like Ohio States and Texas really need the money? Probably not but if you’re a Youngstown State or a Central Michigan, they’re operating at big deficits.  So while thingsl ike booster donations, concession sales, parking, help they have to  generate more.

Here's how it works, Gina. Schools make money on alcohol partnerships via licensing deals. A brewery pays a fee to license the school’s name, mascot, and other assets, and most are structured so that the school makes money based on the volume of beer sold.  The volume sales are appealing, too. When craft beer sales are down overall breweries must look for new avenues for growth.  Such collegiate-branded beers look potentially transformational for small breweries.

I can understand, while disagreeing with, the position of the advocates for student health and safety, who say that university-branded beers serve to embed alcohol into an institution’s culture, often while the institution does little or nothing to discourage dangerous drinking habits. Frankly, it is possible that when schools start branding alcohol the same way they brand T-shirts they are unintentionally winking an eye toward underage beer consumption.  However there are ways to prevent that from happening.

If institutions want a new alcohol product to be successful, they need to do market research to ensure it will be accepted by stakeholders. For example, putting a portion of the revenue toward something that would benefit the school community, like health programs, could enhance the university’s image and have a positive impact on all students.. They could also make efforts to divorce their branded brews from underage and irresponsible drinking. They could make sure it was not marketed directly to students and give all its products—which could include wine, whiskey and even some nonalcoholic consumables like snacks and coffee—a story that connects it to the university or to the history of the local area, ito make the product about alumni pride rather than about alcohol and drinking.

Hope you're sitting down Gina when I say I agree with your conclusion that essentially there's nothing wrong with university branded beer.  College students surely understand the problems associated with underage and excessive drinking and as such a school licensed beer can't possibly make them suddenly change their outlook.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

It’s almost a cottage industry now to be outraged over the ‘outrageous’ price of a craft but think that most of the price upticks are justified.  I find it amazing every time someone who claims to love beer asserts that beer can never be worth more than what you pay for the average pint. I’ve never heard a wine lover declare that Chateau Lafite, for example, should cost the same as Gallo Burgundy.

There’s always someone who works out the cost of a pint of a special beer and decries how outrageous it is.  And yet, we never see stories about what a rip-off it is that a pub wine list has a house white at 13.5% ABV for $20 a glass and another wine at $30 that’s also a 13.5% ABV. Even those (perhaps especially those) who are ignorant about wine are quite happy to accept that some wines are intrinsically worth more than others. If asked to explain why, they might invent an answer, but they would probably be more likely to come up with an explanation that sounds plausible to their ears rather than crying foul on pricing.

I don’t think that what I’m going to say will make a bit of difference to the contrarians out there but here are four examples, I'm offering to explain why some beers cost more than others. These are not the only four – but they’re the four that came to my mind first.

1.    Some beers have more stuff in them.  Here’s an interesting stat: in North America, craft brewers account for around ten per cent of total beer volume brewed. But craft brewers buy 25 per cent of all the hops grown in America. That means on average, craft brewers put two and a half times as many hops into their beers as mainstream commercial breweries. That means the cost of the hops going into each pint is at least two and a half times higher than inexpensive macro beer. If you don’t like hoppy beer, or barrel aged ones, or whatever, then don’t pay a premium for it, that’s your choice. But surely the financial logic is undeniable. And that’s before you take into account the extra expense of ensuring a quality craft beer loaded with hops should remain chilled from the point of packaging to the point it’s bought by the drinker, to preserve the freshness of the hops.

2.   Some beers take longer to make than others. There are various examples of this, but let’s look at lager. A good quality lager should be lagered, or conditioned, at low temperatures for at least four weeks. This is because the yeast throws out various flavor compounds as it’s fermenting and conditioning. But left long enough, the yeast will then reabsorb these compounds, leaving a fresh, clean beer that’s crisp and refreshing but still has flavor and character. Not only does the lagering process tie up your capital for weeks because you can’t sell the beer you’ve just bought all the ingredients for and paid someone to make, it needs to be stored at cool temperatures. Keeping huge rooms full of tanks at that temperature consistently costs a serous amount of money.  

3.   Some breweries use special ingredients and/or processes.  For example Lambic and geueze beers are quite expensive compared to a mainstream lager, . One reason for that is  lambic brewers rely on the natural yeasts in the air around them. There are certain parts of Belgium where this airborne biome produces great results in beer: other parts, not so much. So beers in this style are tied to particular places. And Lambic producers can only brew during certain months of the year and that’s a big expense.

4.  Finally consider the cost of everything, and you can take that literally, the brewer uses has gone up dramatically,  If they want to stay in business they have no choice but to raise prices.  That's basic common sense.  They like us are victims of inflation.

Bill, I’m not denying that there are opportunistic brewers and retailers who are cashing in to sell beers at artificially inflated prices because there are people who are willing to pay them and that people expect prices on everything will go up. However, remember that brewing is an extraordinarily complex process and the ingredients of beer are each complex in their own way. All that is expensive and breweries are after all, businesses.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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BILL

Oh my Gina, we're a bit long this month aren't we?  Quantity however does not always win the discussion.  Just kidding.  Let me start by saying I agree with most of what you wrote but let’s be honest, some breweries are simply raising prices far more than any increases in their cost of doing business.  Remember please that the average cost to serve at retail for a bottled beer is twenty-five percent and draft beer closer to twenty percent and it’s obviously less when sold at a brewery’s tasting room which is where I go most often.  The margin there is large enough to absorb any increase in costs.

I was recently in Chicago and learned that to get a brew. NASCAR fans paid $63 for a six pack of Busch Light or Michelob Ultra during the race event. As you know I got a chance to go to a Cubs game when I was there.  There were charging $28.99 for a 26 oz plastic “beer bat” memorabilia cup filled to the brim with ice cold macro lager — it was likely a refreshing little pick-me-up that folks might might very well need to get over how much the cup costs.

The average price for domestic non-craft beer is up by 5.6% in the past 12 months, with craft up even more.  I understand that the cost of raw ingredients are drastically going up for many things, including beer production, things like hops and malt. That leads to the dilemma of the degree to which the beer manufacturers want to pass that along to customers.  Many are not only passing it along but adding a bit for even more profit. 

In an era in which most companies are jacking up prices, beer companies are banking on consumer expectations that everything simply costs more. But it doesn’t have to be that way. While it’s true that brewers face higher production costs, there are many ways to remain profitable besides raising the price, from increasing efficiency to exploring new markets or new marketing campaigns.

To put it another way, breweries are making the decision that their best profit opportunity right now is to jack up the price so they’re doing it.  There’s no necessary automaticity whatsoever between rising input prices and some decision to raise prices by such a large amount. Pointing to factors outside their control, such as the war in Ukraine, causing increases in wheat prices or higher costs for malt, energy, transportation and packaging  has been packaged in a flurry, a blizzard, of public relations, to justify big price increases when it’s not always the case.  Simply put, beer companies have managed to continue making more money even while statistics show that beer consumption has tapered somewhat.

Having said all of that I will pay to drink what I want to drink. I will never order something I don’t want to drink based on it being a couple bucks cheaper. I’ll complain a little bit, but I’ll still pay it. But even for die-hard craft fans like me, there’s a limit.  And it’s fast approaching.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Hope you’re sitting down Bill because it’s that time again – Pumpkin beers are back.  I was going to use an exclamation point after that sentence but didn’t want to get you too upset.  As I see it, nothing speaks to American craft beer better than pumpkin ales. Craft beer is a testament to innovation and renowned for utilizing fresh ingredients and capitalizing on seasonal harvests – be it wet hopped beers in the fall or farmhouse saisons in the spring and summer. The fall harvest is ripe with squash, including pumpkins, a vegetable once regarded by early Americans as a food grown during hard times. The pumpkin came to symbolize the hard-working American farmer struggling to make it as a free person on free land, but persevere they did. Over time, like many “peasant foods,” pumpkins represented American freedom so much that it became celebrated, notably as Americans moved to cities and looked to reclaim its identity, even becoming a big part of Thanksgiving holidays.

To wit: to hate pumpkin beer is to hate craft beer. It is to hate American craft beer. I dare say, if anyone is against pumpkin beer, as in a craft-beer lover you are, it’s likely they are fan of Benedict Arnolds and routinely lie about cherry trees they cut down.  Now, now, just kidding Bill.

I know you too have seen Oktoberfest and pumpkin beers on the shelves already.  They came out in August when people are going to the beach and still enjoying summer fun.  But before you complain about that consider that if I want a Schlafly Pumpkin or Dogfish Punkin’ in the summer there’s nothing mentally wrong with me.. I don’t care what time of year it is. Besides, fall arrives at different times in different places. I don’t care that it’s still hot south of the Mason Dixon line or if It snowed in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. I’m not asking brewers to try to solve climate change issues, just make good beer.

My point is we both drink stout in the summer and never debate if it should be brewed when the temperature get above 85 degrees.  Beer is good because beer is good. I concur that winter coats arriving in stores in July, Christmas trees in August, and pumpkin beer in July are all a bit much, but that will not deter me from enjoying the beer. None of those variables affect the beer. When I drink beer, I focus on the beer.

I judge pumpkin beer the way I judge every other style – one by one. Choice is good! Gone are the days of macro lagers and an utter lack of variety. I am glad that an IPA can be red, black, rye, English, American, tea-infused- coffee-infused, single-hopped, dry-hopped, mango infused, sessionable, double, tripled and so-on. And, I’m glad pumpkin beer shows up on shelves in countless variety.  All beer styles enjoy remarkable variability and allow for brewing ingenuity, which personifies craft beer.

Chug-a-lug,  Bill

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Bill -

Something tells me you recently invested in a pumpkin farm and need to unload a lot of unsold gourds. 

Yes, I will admit it. I do not like pumpkin beer or pumpkin beverages of any kind. And I’ll let the readers in a a little secret, Gina not only likes pumpkin beer she often gets pumpkin coffee.  Nothing is more unappealing than the grainy, spicy, artificial flavoring dumped into a perfectly good cup of joe. Why would anyone ruin a delicious, roasty, beverage in such a blatantly disrespectful manner? If you want to taste pumpkin spice, bake a pie! Nothing is more American than pie. That’s where pumpkin spice belongs, with crust and actual pumpkin. Not in my coffee, and certainly not in my beer.

You anticipated my lament that ever year, the pumpkin beer season begins earlier and earlier. Why would anyone set out during the hottest month of the year in search of a beer that epitomizes all things cold weather? Plus, if you plan to buy pumpkin beer in August (or gasp in July), you would be awfully hot in your leggings and boots.

Your comparison of pumpkin beers to stouts is a bit off base.  In general, stouts and other dark beers are generic styles that do not embody a specific season. I would gladly drink a stout or porter in the middle of summer. For example, Westbrook Mexican Cake is a delicious spiced chocolate stout that is released in May, as the weather begins to warm up. However, Mexican Cake’s flavors have no real connection with any given season. Pumpkin beer is clearly seasonal. So there is absolutely no reason for brewers to release this beer in the middle of summer. The only reason brewers began doing this is to beat the competition.  To make things even worse, the early release schedule leads many brewers to use pumpkin flavorings rather than actual pumpkin or pumpkin puree.

The lack of pumpkin in many a pumpkin ale completely defeats the purpose, in my opinion. However, lack of pumpkin isn’t even the real problem here. The real issue is the offensive amount of spices added to pumpkin ales that make them unpalatable. Once upon a time, pumpkin ales focused on balanced, real pumpkin flavor with just a dash of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg to give a hint of that classic fall flavor. But now that everyone and their mother are making pumpkin ales, the amount of “pumpkin spice flavor” has been amped up.

It's no secret that for the past couple of years pumpkin beer sales have declined even adjusting for post pandemic factors. That in turn has caused brewers to find ways to make them more interesting by creating barrel-aged pumpkin beers, chile-pumpkin beers, chocolate-pumpkin beers, and ones with butternut squash and maple syrup. Gina,  I think my stomach is getting queasy.

Let’s agree to disagree.  Meet you at the pub for an IPA. 

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

It’s no secret that you can go to just about any beer shops across the nation and find a variety of craft. It’s a far cry from decades ago when many people simply didn’t have access to smaller scale production beers  So, Bill, let me ask you if that means homebrewing isn’t that relevant anymore?  I was moved to ask this since the local home brew shop, we both go to has closed its doors for good. I’ve also heard that the other one we sometimes  use might be doing the same thing soon.

My take is that homebrewing is still relevant.  The first reason would be craft beer itself.  Many nano breweries, micro breweries, and brew pubs have been  formed from none other than homebrewers.  Without individuals brewing their beer, the craft beer movement might start to see a decline because fewer brewers will be around to fill the positions that are opening.  

Another reason Im convinced homebrewing is relevant and important is research and design.  Experimenting for breweries can be quite expensive.  Throwing out a 5-gallon batch of chocolate coffee mango coconut milk stout isn’t a problem for a homebrewer because it really didn’t cost that much for the ingredients, but for a brewery that could be a huge loss.  Homebrewers are always thinking of new styles, flavors, methods, and processes.  If you didn’t have the homebrewing community, then commercial brewers would have to spend more money on development and that in turn would make craft beer even more costly for consumers.  

Also, think about longevity.  As you know Bill, when I homebrew, I enlist the of friends, family, and just about anyone who wants to lean about the hobby.  And I teach a night school enrichment course on it – when enough people sign up.   All of that turns others on to homebrewing and more importantly to craft beer.  That friend or family member helping you brew enjoys one of your beers.  The die is cast.  You may have just converted someone to a craft beer drinker.  

Hopefully whoever gets even a small home brewing experience will never settle for subpar beer again.  We home brewers are ensuring that current and future generations will reach for a hand crafted beer.

And of course, it’s always great fun for the brewer to not only drink their own version of the greatest beverage in the world but to see others enjoying it too.  

Chug-a-lug

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Bill -

I just read an article about the closing of the homebrew supply shop in town. The owners cited a slowdown in business, the rising costs of materials, and higher rents. The article went on to say that experts in the beer industry say homebrewing is going through a bit of a "transformation" now.

Clearly you aren’t seeing homebrewing grow as much as it did in the past.  Gina, I’m sure you noticed that our homebrewing club hasn’t added many members and meetings have seen a significant attendance drop.  I talked to other members who say they simply are brewing less and less often.

I think you have something when you mentioned the widespread availability of craft beer.  An analysis by the Brewer’s Association found 85% of America are within 10 miles of a brewery. With more than 9,500 breweries spread across the country, most Americans can take a short drive to visit a different brewery tasting rooms every week for a few months without repeating. Many breweries are producing 50 or more beers each year. The variety is staggering, and so many former homebrewers are happy to reduce their risk/effort and sample as many new beers as they desire.

Also, I think the younger millennial crowd has taken a bite out of homebrewing as well. It seems these younger drinkers are seeking lower calorie alcohol seltzers.  Of course, we know making a seltzer at home is easy but they don’t seem to know or care.   They seem to say they just don’t have as much time on their hands as we more adult folks seem to have.  I’d say baloney to that but don’t want to get anyone upset.  At least not too much.

Perhaps things like the current lack of quality beer, high prices, poor quality control, beer that sits too long before being sold, and other things might get consumers interested in brewing it for themselves. And, if we can get more f people to enjoy drinking craft beer then a percentage of those will likely become interested in brewing.

My best guess is that we're reaching stasis. There won't be a return the levels of excitement and engagement we saw ten years ago. However, there will still be plenty of people who drink craft beer, and try their hand at homebrewing, but only enough to replace all of the homebrewers who stop to drink craft beer or join the industry.

Relax, Gina. The bottom line, in my opinion, is that there will always be homebrewers. We brew not to save money, or drink the “best” beer, but love the process. We're passionate about recipe design, microbiology, botany, community. engineering, culinary techniques, and experimentation. No matter how many breweries and beers are in the marketplace just remember that all that wonderful beer is a source of inspiration, but not a replacement for the hobby!

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

Bill, did you ever think that the way you sip your beer is not just a personal preference; that it just might be  an indicator of character, manners, knowledge, and even class? It just might be that whether you’re a glugger, chugger or sipper, a pint nurse or a down-the-hatch champion, your fellow drinkers might be considering every slurp you take.

I got to thinking that beer, and the way we drink it, is loaded with all kinds of signifiers when I saw a viral clip recently involving French President Emmanuel Macron.  Now before you say anything, I know nothing whatsoever about French politics.  When I first saw the French leaders name I thought the article was about a cookie.  Now I know better.

Here are the facts.  A short while ago Macron was seen at a rugby match downing an entire bottle of Corona (I didn’t see any lime in the bottle but the video quality wasn’t good).  He did it in a time measured at a solid 17 seconds. After seeing that maybe we should combine the French national motto with American vernacular: Liberté, Egalité, Frat House.

The international reaction to the event has been divided, to say the least. One side of social media seems to have enjoyed it, creating a wealth of memes and tributes. One account begrudgingly describes it as a “rare win” for Macro". Others have pointed out that 17 seconds isn’t that impressive at all, considering it’s a bottle and not a pint he’s downing.

Yet the incident has also attracted fierce, politicized criticism from some quarters. The Association Addictions France came out saying that “the President has a responsibility as a role model in terms of setting a healthy example for behavior”, while some political opponents went as far as calling it “toxic masculinity in political leadership in one image”.

Come on, guys.  Beer is fun, not political.  To prove my point, the next time I see you Bill we’ll try to break Mr. Macron’s 17 second mark even if it costs us votes the next time we run for office in France.

Chug-a-lug, Bill

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Bill -

If dinking a lot of beer was the main talent needed for public office I think you and I would have been President ….many times.  Let me go check out the clip of this on YouTube. Ha - that was fun.  Frankly the whole thing makes Mr. Macron seem like a regular guy. 

AS has been known for years, politicians, being pictured with a beer is a helpful way of fostering relatability – a slightly more dignified version of kissing a baby on the campaign trail. Beer has a reputation as the everyman drink, with regional variations found all over the globe, and it’s a superb way of showing that you understand the people and respect local customs – whether they’re your own or someone else’s.

When Barack Obama went to Ireland, he drank a Guinness. When John Kerry wanted to appear in touch with rust belt voters in Ohio, he sat down for a beer with them. Angela Merkel has been seen with a German stein, David Cameron took Xi Jinping for a pint in a Buckinghamshire pub and Justin Trudeau was even pictured behind the taps at several bars on the campaign trail.

I guess what the main complaint of those against Macron is that while drinking beer is a likely vote-winner, there seems to be an empirically correct way to do it,  which is sipping politely. That seems to suggest you’re in the same boat as your common pub patron, yet you’re also heeding government/expert advice on the dangers of binge drinking. Those who chug however are nothing more than a brazen political boozer. 

But Gina, what does the way we drink a beer say about tf us? If we glug and chug does that put us in the domain of uncouth barfly types? Is the Macron-style downing simply something for the very young, or for those with something to prove? Is the slow, irregular sipping of a pint perceived as the cool, sophisticated way of drinking?

I admit that chugging a beer seems like the hallmark of a novice (as anyone who lives in a college town will tell you - at least when I was in school more than a few years ago) while hose who nurse their pints usually seem more temperate.  On the other hand, if you step into any popular pub and you will find some of the most heavy drinkers imaginable sipping at glacial pace.

I guess a beer sociologist might say way you drink a beer falls into line with the limitless niches of pub culture: the way you stand at the bar, the drinks you order, whether you pay by card or cash, the noise you make and your choice of salted snacks.  They all say something about who you are, where you come from and how long you’ve been going to this establishment.

Fortunately most of us aren’t’ sociologists or disingenuous politicians drinking beer.  We just enjoy going out and having a beer.  As you said, it’s fun.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

A lot of readers might not know it but both Bill and I are big fans of cask ale.  To me, cask-conditioned ale (or “real ale”) is draught beer at its best. Those who don’t like it say it’s flat and lacks body. Others say it’s served too warm. To that I say that those naysayers probably have only been exposed to cask ale that has either been poorly casked or mishandled in transit. If the beer is well-handled, if it’s fresh and properly dispensed, the subtle differences between cask beer as opposed to kegged can be profound.

Since some of our readers might not be familiar with the term, let me explain. Cask ale is unfiltered beer that is racked (transferred) into casks, krausened (carbonated), sealed and then undergoes a slight final fermentation in the cask. Traditional cask ale is also unpasteurized and is served directly from the cask by means of a beer engine, or hand pump.

The net result is a beer that has a much gentler level of carbonation, a rounder mouthfeel, and since it is unfiltered, usually shows a slightly more complex flavor and aromatic profile. It is often slightly cloudy, and is best served at cellar temperature (around 55°F). It’s considered “live” beer since it has live yeast in the cask (which is how we get the final fermentation and carbonation).

The problem is that for most beer drinkers in the US it’s hard to find and those that do probably aren’t ordering it. The same sort of thing is beginning to happen in the home of “real ale” – England.  To stem that tend there’s now a “Drink Cask Fresh” campaign launched in 27 pilot pubs across the UK. Their task won’t be that easy.  As I see it, here are three reasons why they’re going to have an uphill battle-

• Quality: can be variable, especially if left on the bar too long or not looked after properly.

• Pricing: a beer that is every inch artisanal, quality, is priced cheaper than almost any other beer on the bar (in the US it’s the opposite). Not only does that not exactly scream premium it means less margin for cash-strapped pub owners.

• Image: we tell ourselves that people see cask ale as the drink of old men with flat caps and weird beards (but not the cool, hipster kind of beard and hat I guess.). 

• 
  

It’s within the ability of the brewing and pub industry to sort out the first two problems. All that’s needed is bold leadership and decisive action by people who care.  Unfortunately, especially here in the US there aren’t many who do.

Chug-a-lug, Bill

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Bill -

You’ve hit on a topic this month that’s close to my heart.  When it’s done right (and that’s not too often here in the US) cask ale is something special.  And as you said, Gina, it is not widely available. That means it is something one must seek out, which to me, is part of the charm of it all.

One reason for its scarcity has to be that once tapped, the beer must be consumed fairly quickly (I prefer within 48 hours) before it will start to go completely flat and spoil. That short life makes it unacceptable to many bar owners. Also, unlike keg beer, cask ale is best served at 55°F. This temperature allows all of the flavor nuances to emerge and permits appreciation of the unfiltered texture. That’s likely go make drinkers who enjoy icicles in their beer, served in a frozen glass, throw up.

I’m not quite sure that the negative image of “real ale” and its drinkers, that you mention is much of a factor in the scarcity of it. It seems to me that the only ones perpetuating that stereotype are beer writers and commentators. Every piece of research I’ve seen (mainly from the UK) seems to show that when asked why they don’t drink more cask only a tiny minority raise issues of the negative image.  In a world where an ever increasing number of breweries are providing us with a huge array of high quality, well made, flavorful beers, it’s not hard to understand why some people may see cask ale some sort of superfluous luxury, that one can very easily live without.

I’ve heard some people stay away from cask ale because they think it’s old.  You have to admit that’s a bit ironic since it’s the freshest beer on the bar. (or should be).  After a few days, as I mentioned before it should be removed from the bar.  Because of that it’s more likely to have been brewed locally. So, if the pub is any good, it spends less time in the cellar before it goes on the bar, and less time sitting there.

Some styles just don’t sell in the US. The whole Belgian beer movement is challenging to many. Smoked beers are extremely niche. But at least breweries make narrow styles and try to sell them. Cask is hard for breweries not just because the beer doesn’t sell well but because it’s hard to prepare and serve. You need special equipment, and if you’re committed to the traditional approach of replacing the space inside the cask with cellar air, you’re going to dump a lot of it.

I’ve found that, unfortunately, American pubs, on the whole, have little clue as to what cask ale is or how to serve it properly. Without respect for the beer, or the brewery, or their patrons, they simply toss cask ales on bar tops without conditioning or care or cellar coolant, and serve room-temperature messes, tilting the casks to catch the last dregs not brewery-intended for human consumption.

Think I’ve rambled enough – no nodding your head in agreement, Gina.  Let me end by saying beer served on cask through a beer engine has a life and vibrancy and texture that puts a carbonated beer to shame. When a bar serves a properly conditioned beer on cask through a beer engine, it is impossible to not recognize the art and beauty of a pint.

 Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

Our readers may not know that both of us are big baseball fans.  We not only go to our share of Major League games, but also to a decent amount of minor league games.  Needless to say, that means we also drink a lot of beer at those outings.  That got me to thinking about how the new pitch clock in MLB games will impact beer sales.

One doesn’t have to be a sabermetrician to arrive at the basic assumption that pitch clock games might translate to lower beer sales at ballparks. By increasing the pace of play, the timers have, so far it seems, cut off an average of around 25 minutes per game. My question is whether those shorter games have, will mean fewer trips to concession stands or fewer chances to hail a vendor wandering the aisles selling cans of beer.

On the positive side, it's logical that by creating a faster-moving, more engaging entertainment experience for baseball fans, more of then will want to watch/go to games.  More fans in turn will ensure that concession sales stay steady.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see food and beverage sales actually go up because people are having a more enjoyable experience.. 

I checked the beer sale statistics from the last couple of seasons without a pitch clock and they showed that fewer people were going to games and fewer still were buying beer than five years ago.  That's important since MLB concessionaires sell millions of dollars worth of beer per season, with estimates of gross revenue ranging between $2-$8 million per stadium. The pessimists say that If games are now, on average, 14% shorter this season, that could translate to a loss of nearly $1.1 million for each stadium over the course of a season. I disagree.

Just look at the statistics from minor league games that have used the pitch clock for a few years.  Those numbers indicate that beer sales didn’t suffer at all as the pace of play sped up.  I’m sure the same will be true in the Major Leagues.

Just think Bill, next time we go to a game we'll enjoy it so much more because of the pace, we'll probably have an extra beer or two.  That's a home run in my book.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

I guess we can amend the lyrics of Take Me Out To The Ball game to buy me some peanuts, cracker jacks and beer….. but do it fast.

There's one thing to consider about your minor league statistics.  It seems to me that many people who attend those games already have their departure time preplanned (the majority leave before the end),  That tells me they have an idea of how many beers they’ll consume, which makes your statistics a bit unreliable. Remember that minor league games are family entertainment, and families often plan their visits to the ballpark around how much time they want to spend there, not how long the game lasts.  That planning would indicate that the pitch clock has little or no effect on teams’ food and beverage sales. 

There is, I think, a big difference between those games and MLB ones where most fans root more passionately, stay longer at the game, and as such enjoy multiple beers.  Those fans use slow moments in the game as an opportunity to run to the concession stand or flag down a vendor knowing they can do that without missing key plays. Now with the clock, if players can no longer take long pauses to shake off a foul ball or adjust gloves, fans might feel a similar time cushion and opt not to fumble for their wallets or hustle back-and-forth from seat to concession stand for a beer and a hot dog.

My prediction is that in the short term many stadiums will lose out on a some beer revenue as fans adjust to the new pace of play and shorter games.  However, that could ultimately be worth it if it helps baseball stay relevant to new generations—who will eventually turn 21 and want to enjoy beers at the ballpark. Without those new fans the game will reach the status of beach volleyball.

Gina, we’ve often said that baseball needs to bring in more younger fans.  The pitch clock will help do that.  Then,  more people will go to games, more kids will be introduced to it. and more and more people will be buying tickets which is good for beer sales.   

Gina, remember that beer and baseball, like Mom and apple pie, are what America is all about.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

Last week I brought a friend to yours and my favorite brewery.  She’s enjoys an occasional beer at home or in a bar but this was the first time she was in a real brewery..  As soon as we walked in she was surprised at how many children and dogs were there. A table in the far corner even seemed to be having a birthday party for a youngster.  They didn’t sing “happy birthday” but the balloons and large cake gave it away.  While the kids drank soda from a cans a Mom was handing out, the adults were knocking down their share of beers, clearly putting a little extra fun in the party. 

I told my friend that if you mention dogs, babies and breweries in the same sentence, you are going to get reactions that range from glee to sheer terror. Neither emotion is necessarily wrong. It all depends on perspective — those who have babies and dogs and those who don’t might not always see eye to eye.  However, breweries are an integral part of many communities, and as such most have worked hard to make sure that everyone in that community feels welcome. Perhaps the simplest reason for that is the preference to drink good beer does not die with the birth of a child or the adoption of a four-legged best friend.

Many breweries have dog-friendly patios, board games for children and even non-alcoholic beverages for the underage. This trend isn’t going to go away as breweries become further ingrained in our neighborhoods.  Bill, I know we both usually enjoy the energy that the kids and pups bring to a brewery but maybe there should be a few easy ground rules that can make everyone happy. It’s not that I want to put babies and dogs on equal ground with adult drinkers, it’s just that perhaps a few rules can make both sides more comfortable.

When it comes to your dog — keep them on a leash, preferably one that is six feet or less. Even if the dog is immaculately trained, it’s still important to consider the crowd. Warranted or not, some people are scared of dogs — and whether it’s a 10 pound Chihuahua or a 100-pound Shepherd, the fear is the same. Also, think about the other dogs sharing the space with you. Neighboring dogs may behave on a leash, but some pups don’t handle strangers or other dogs too well. Most importantly, keeping the dog on a leash prevents the worst-case scenario — and injury of some sort. No one wants that to happen.

As for very young children, they should always be near their parents and not allowed to roam around the room.  That’s dangerous for both the child and other patrons.   No one wants to step on or trip over a running around child, especially if you’re carrying a beer. 

Then there’s the big question, what time should kids and dogs leave the brewery? After all, it isn’t like there is a special whistle or clock that signals that it is now adult-only drinking time. It’s important to note that we adults who go to a brewery without dogs or kids really do understand that people with young kids simply would like to hang out as a family over a beer. That’s just one of the things that separate we beer folks from wine snobs and cocktail boozers.  But, a tired child is a cranky child and that’s not fun for anyone so when the clock strikes say 6:30 or 7 p.m., it is probably time for them to start wrapping up.

And don’t worry Bill, I’m not going to mention you try to pet every dog in every brewery we go to.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

When it comes to dogs, especially those big furry ones, I’m a fan as you know Gina.  I enjoy seeing them in breweries.  As for the kids, well, shouldn’t they be doing homework or out playing somewhere?  My pet peeve about kids/toddlers in bars is their crying.  I’m not talking about the tears of a friend who has one too many drinks but the screeching wail of a baby whose diaper needs changing (a good enough reason for sure) or a youngster who’s mad he lost at Old Maid or Chutes & Ladders. Tears and screeching is the signal that it’s time to leave. For them or me.

I accept the fact that babies will cry, and dogs will whimper and bark — it’s inevitable. Sometimes it’s just a quick squawk, but other times they will open their lungs and all hell will break loose.  If that goes on continually then my advice is to do everyone — including the crier — a favor and take them outside for a break or trip home.

From the brewery’s perspective it might be important for them to be kid and dog friendly. It is a business after all, and they need customers to survive.  The simple fact that parents don’t need to get a babysitter and can make the trip for a sort of bonding experience with their child (like playing a board game together) can be a big draw that impacts the brewery’s bottom line.  Look Gina, I frankly agree with and appreciate those who don’t want to feel like their drinking and socializing at Chuck-e-Cheese.  However that doesn’t mean we can’t look at taprooms, like beer, as evolving into what the old colonial taverns used to be – community places for families. 

Taprooms seem to be family-friendly environments by nature. They’re typically open during daylight hours, close earlier than rowdy late-last-call spots, and tend to be sunny, airy spots.  To me, drinking in a taproom, with or without kids, offers a different, more contemplative experience than being in a bar. Flavor and quality over quantity certainly helps with that as does the fact that craft beer has become about tasting, evaluating and thoughtful consumption.  It’s not a place that fits the let’s just go out and party hearty philosophy.

In Europe, the pub remains an institution probably because its relevance in daily life didn’t experience the interruption that it did here due to Prohibition.  European parents never stopped bringing their children along when they visited a pub for a drink.  It seems that there beer is not treated as ‘taboo,’ but rather is a very normal and central part of life. I like that.

Gina, your rules were right on the money.  Responsible kid and dog parenting can include bringing them to a brewery, but  parents must recognize that they are just that: responsible.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

Hello Bill, hope you’re sitting downl.  I just saw another article touting statistics that show people aren’t buying as much beer as they used to (which is not a great indicator for the economy too.) U.S. beer shipment to wholesalers declined 14.1%  from December 2022 to Feb. 2023 compared to the year prior. Compared to 2020, shipping volume is down 19.4%. It’s the lowest volume since 2012 . Don’t panic, Bill.  It’s not as clear as saying that people simply don’t want beer, or that consumers are becoming more budget-conscious. I think there are a few factors afoot here.

Beer became suddenly pricey at the end of last year. I remember we were both shocked when we saw such dramatic price increases. One statistic I found said that beer prices at retail, not including bars or restaurants, popped 7% during the last 2 months of 2022.  Not good.

I think price increases are showing up in how people are buying beers.  I think beer drinkers (and some craft beer fans) are increasingly buying, say, 12-packs ov even 30-packs of macro brews, or even single cans of beer. They’re trading down too , for example, snagging the more economic Keystone over comparatively expensive Coors, or the even higher priced basic craft beer. That explains why the “below premium" segment was the only one to see an increase in demand in the last 12 months, according to the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s Beer Purchasers’ Index. 

Even Constellation Brands, the owner of the Corona and Modelo beer brands and various wine and spirits brands, aren’t immune from what’s going on.  They were among the first companies to report earnings in the new year and it proved to be a bad quarter. Their company shares declined 10% after it reported that sales were less than expected.   

In addition to flagging sales many breweries expect their margins to remain below targeted levels. Don’t feel too bad for them, they're still expecting income growth this year of 4%-5%.  That's good, but that’s a far cry from their usual 8%-9% net revenue growth.  

All the negative data makes it seem to me that consumers have become more sensitive to rising costs. In the past companies typically raises prices in an effort to match rising operating costs.  Understandable, but I think it’s about time breweries backed off any more price increases.  If their sales volume falls significantly in response to higher prices it’s simple logic to reduce prices.

I’ve spoken to a few local breweries about this and they content that consumers are still trading up to higher-end craft brands.  I hope that’s true for their sake but I don’t see it happening.   I personally refuse to pay a penny more than $20 for a 4 pack of high quality craft beer even though many of my favorites are now nearing a $25 price tag.

Considering all of this, I'm thinking I should ask BeerNexus management for a raise or at least an increase in our beer expense accounts.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

Well, Gina, I’d be totally surprised if brewery owners hadn’t realized for months that the price of beer is too darn high and that consumers are sick of it. There really is a point at which the brewery needs to balance these price bumps going forward or they will be out of business.  And in some cases, deservedly so.

I saw an early indicator that declines in craft beer are coming when Ball Corp., a leading beverage packaging producer, said that beer was the most “distressed” beverage category of 2022 and that instead of decreasing prices to ramp up demand they were trying "promotions"  What? I wonder how that's working out for them.

If you want to do your part to fight beer inflation Gina, then I recommend you first figure out how much more money you’re now spending on beer. Of course real life beer prices vary by market, package size, segment, and other factors but when we zoom out to a national level and look at volumes in the industry-standard unit of case equivalents we can get a feel for what Americans have been paying for beer lately. One simple answer is clear: -“more.” 

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ released its most recent edition of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is basically a snapshot of the way price points are changing for various items across the economy. Beer was up 4.5 percent over the past 12 months — a slight improvement over the same metric from last year but still substantially higher than wine (1.8 percent) and spirits (1.4 percent).

Gina, you seem to imply that it’s all the fault of breweries' hunger for more and more profits. While I don't disagree to some extent, consider please that brewing requires commodity inputs that have gotten way more expensive to purchase in the recent past. They’re eating into a brewery’s profits.  For example, the price increase of aluminum for cans over the last three years is just crazy.  Everything has gone up for them. Freight, fuel, hops, grain — you name it. Just remember that the breweries, even the big ones, can’t insulate themselves entirely from these increasing costs. 

 It’s a general rule of thumb in beer that size matters: The bigger the firm, the more efficient it can be, the more money it can make per case, and so on. If the biggest companies in the U.S. beer business aren’t seeing their margin grow during an unprecedented period of inflation, you can be pretty sure that the approximately 9,400 craft breweries across the country are having a tougher go at it.

I’ve seen more than a few newly marked-up IPAs that are too rich for customers’ (and my) blood — and unlike Big Beer, if we drinkers trade down for a similar style from a cheaper brand, it probably isn’t going to be theirs. Not to mention that there’s not even a whole lot of upward price action to take on a $20 four-pack. I think craft beer customers’ demand is elastic meaning if prices soar segment-wide, drinkers will see it as a reason to actually forget beer and buy more of wine or liquor many are already enjoy in its place. Prices of both are falling faster in real dollars than beer.  It's the laws of economics at work.

I’m concerned about the extent to which inflation is disproportionately harming smaller breweries who aren’t able to absorb rising costs and don’t have as much room to move on price.  However I have to admit that I worry more about my own pocketbook.  

We consumers should remember one basic rule - to drive prices down you have to lower demand. It's how we can fight back. Breweries should remember that too when they consider their next price increase.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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GINA -

Hello Bill –

Did you hear the news?  Following years of declining sales for Fat Tire, New Belgium Brewing’s once-flagship Amber Ale, the company has completely revamped the beer—apparently changing its packaging, branding, and the liquid itself.  Remember back in the day when we sought it out?  We thought it was actually a good beer.  From there it seemed to become a gateway beer to more serious craft ale.  Lately it’s just been, well there; invisible in just about every way.

No longer will it be called an Amber Ale, Fat Tire.  How's that for a shock?  According to the company it will now be “lighter and more golden in color”.  I never knew that was a beer style.  And, it couldn’t get much lighter in taste and I don’t know anyone who buys a beer for its color.  Obviously New Belgium hopes the changes will help reverse the beer's steep sales declines. How steep?  It seems that over the past six years, Fat Tire has lost -52% in volume in retail sales nationally.

Interestingly, Fat Tire’s deflating sales haven’t stalled the brewery’s overall momentum. Volumes for all New Belgium beers are +58% over those six years.  It’s easy to figure out why.  I give you three words: Voodoo Ranger IPAs.  Their collection of various types of Rangers is one of the best-selling hop-forward beers in the country. With that cushion, I guess rebranding and reformulating one of America’s most iconic beers, shows that New Belgium it isn’t ready to give up on Fat Tire as a brand quite yet.

The cans are just starting to come out so I haven’t been able to get any yet.   However from pictures I’ve seen the style classification of “Amber Ale” reeally can’t be found anywhere on them; instead, the packaging features references to "alternatively powered," “high quality,” and “low impact.” Who thought those up?  Sorry that’s not going to get me to buy the beer. You can read the same thing on cans of Camo Genuine Ale. 

The side of the can states “carbon neutral,” a callback to a 2020 announcement that the brand had become the first “nationally distributed beer to earn carbon neutral certification in the United States.” Nice, but somehow I don’t think that means it tastes good. They’ve also changed the alcohol content going from 5.2% to 5%.   Does anyone think that really makes a difference?

Here’s a suggestion, Bill.  You get some of the old recipe cans and I’ll get some of the new ones.  Then we can do a blind taste test to see if there’s a difference.  Then we can decide which is more bland.  Something tells me we’re going to have a tie.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

Hi Gina -

I do remember when Flat Tire first went national.  We couldn’t wait to get this highly regarded Colorado beer and were most excited when we finally scored some  I also remember being very disappointed with it.  It clearly was a craft beer and fairly true to style but it simply didn’t live up to its hype.  Now, in a crowded field of great craft beers, it simply can’t compete so I’m not surprised by its precipitous drop in sales.

As far as I was able to find out this new formulation is the first time New Belgium has taken Fat Tire away from its Amber Ale roots. The way you describe the packaging , it seems they are leaning heavily on an environmental message which is core to the company’s ethos. I’ve read in countless promotional press releases that over the years New Belgium has donated $17 million to climate and environmental advocacy and that the brewery’s use of wind, solar, and biogas energy makes it is a national leader.  The last release I saw said the company’s goal was to operate on 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and to make all New Belgium beers certified carbon neutral that same year.  That’s not going to be easy but I wish them luck.

Gina, think back to last year when we tasted the brewery’s Fat Tire Torched Earth beer.  It was made with ingredients that they claimed reflected the ravages of climate change, such as smoke-tainted water.  They even made national headlines in part by saying they were mimicking the flavor experience of “eating a Band-Aid.” A lot of people were impressed.  I know you weren’t, however.  You’ve been saying that about my homebrew for years.

But will this all this solve Fat Tire’s existential sales problem? It’s a gamble. I’m sure they have market research that shows that sustainability is important to consumers.  I however am skeptical that it’s the most important factor driving consumers’ choice to purchase one brand over another. Don’t get me wrong, acknowledging that sustainability or being eco-friendly is important but it's very, very different than having customers actually taking action to support that effort with their wallet.  

My firm belief is that for beer or any type of alcohol, the top factor that drives purchasing will always be flavor.

Every time a brewery talks about sustainability, it’s an opportunity that’s not spent talking about taste, ABV, or other reasons to buy a certain beer. Environmental phrases take up the space on the new can that would normally state the beer’s basic stats, including style. 

Flavor, ABV, and style are the very things that have catapulted New Belgium’s most successful brand, Voodoo Ranger, to the top of beer sales charts. If you need an example, take Voodoo Ranger Juice Force IPA - 9.5% ABV, marketed as “fruit-forward,”.  It came out in 2022 and became the best-selling craft beer launch ever by overall dollar sales. What does that tell you, Gina?

Look, I applaud New Belgium’s serious and legitimate commitment to the environment but maybe they should just try to make a great beer then use the profits as they see fit.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

Hello Bill –

Happy new year to you and all our readers! And an extra shout out to all the brewers out there who make our favorite beverage.  Many consider them to be chemists and scientists but might they be artists too?.   To put it another way, is brewing beer a form of art?  As I see it, while brewing beer requires creativity as well as the ability to push the limits on certain styles, there is a distinct scientific side to brewing.  If you are the most creative brewer in the world but have no understanding of how wort is made or how yeast can be manipulated, you will probably fail miserably most of the time.  

That brings me to a friend who gave me a few of his homebrews (three different styles) as a Christmas present.  He was saying how he was careful to make sure that each one strictly adhered to a set of guidelines in the Beer Judge Certification Program Guidelines (BJCP) .  He went on to say that he was submitting them for judging so that the guidelines couldn’t be ignored.

I know what you're thinking, not all pale ales taste the same and I agree so how can you have guidelines that demand uniformity. Well, if you read the guidelines, they suggest that all pale ales, and other beers for that matter, must have certain flavor profiles, aromas, alcohol percentages, color, and mouthfeel. That lets you judge them in terms of an accepted criteria. In some categories they even go as far as tell the brewer what hop must be used in order to fit in a certain category.  

To me that begs the question how can brewers be so limited in the beers they want to produce and still be proclaimed artists? Well, if you keep reading the guidelines there are a few categories that allow some artistic flow in the brewing world for example: experimental ale, barrel aged beers, and so on.  

This, to me, is where it starts to get tricky in deciding if brewing is an art. I don’t want this sound like a cop out but it seems that brewing is both scientific and artistic. You need to be skilled at both sides of the equation if you want to brew good beer.  History shows when humans first started brewing beer they had no clue what yeast, bacteria, CO2, and mash temps were. It was all simply a big experiment, based on taste over time as the beer matured and became drinkable.

That's where both science and the artistic parts come into play. I believe the early brewers (which were predominantly women – take that Bill!) were truly artists, as they had no science backing up their delicious concoctions.  They went on flavor and ingredients alone and repeated it time and time again.  

When Louis Pasteur first discovered yeast and bacteria he was trying to figure out why older beer tasted worse than fresher beer.  What is a simple answer for us today was a true breakthrough in the realm of science. He quickly discovered the older beer had more bacteria than the fresher beer. And boom,  brewing beer became scientific. practiced by artists.

 Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

First let me say that the homebrews you were drinking were not mine.  My homebrews that I gave you were truly works of art.  And don’t say they were by Art Carney. Actually Gina, you raise an interesting topic.  I see art in recipe development and science behind fermentation and mashing. I see creativity behind combining malt, hops, and yeast, and the learning that comes from every single batch of beer I make.

One could spend a lifetime trying to understand the science behind making beer. Indeed, many do. It’s the science side of brewing that helps us understand the specific actions that allow four ingredients to combine into a flavorful, alcoholic beverage known as beer. First, we have the science of water. Not all water is created equal. What is the make-up of the brewing water? Is it pure, like the soft water of the home of Pilsner in the Czech Republic? Or is it hard, like the sulfate-rich water of Burton-on-Trent, homeland of English pale ales. Knowing the mineral content of the water can help you optimize mashing, fermentation, and flavor.

How about the science of malting? Why does grain need to be malted? It’s the malting process that begins to convert the energy in the grain into what will become fermentable sugar and eventually alcohol. Malting also affect the flavor and color of the grain and creates a whole range options that allow beer to be light or dark, sweet or roasty, and everything in between.

The science of hops reveals what makes beer bitter. It helps us understand IBUs and why an IPA stands apart from a pale ale. Understanding hop oils allows us to grasp how beers can taste and smell like citrus, pine, or grapefruit. Finally, my favorite science as a homebrewer is the science of beer yeast, the mysterious microorganism responsible for converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide explains how the other ingredients can magically transform a sugary porridge into an elixir that relaxes the body and soothes the senses.

Brew masters have a deep understanding of their craft, not only the brewing side of the equation, but also the sensory side. For without understanding the way that flavor can change our mood or remind us of a special memory, brewers would just be shooting in the dark. Good brewers understand the flavors that different ingredients bring to a beer. Science can begin to explain flavor, but to fully understand it. A brewer needs experience. They need the vocabulary to describe the flavor, and only experience can help them understand how much is too much. While some scientific measurements can help to facilitate an understanding of balance, only experience can help brewers develop an inherent knowledge of it. Experience falls on the side of art to me.

What I’m trying to say is that I too am going to cop out and say it’s both a science and an art.  Hold on, did we just agree?  That might be a first. This is going to be one crazy new year.

Gina, thanks to you for a making writing these articles so much fun all year long.  And thanks to all our readers.  Get ready for a great new year in our column! 

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

Think back Bill. Do you remember when we both thought that beer was better in bottles than cans? We of course were eventually proven wrong (I should have never listened to you - just kidding). Science has shown that cans limit exposure to both light and oxygen, they keep the beer inside fresh and flavorful for longer, and they create a better airtight seal preventing additional oxygen from reaching the beer until someone opens it.  And of course, they’re more portable.  Now I’m wondering if a traditional 6 pack is better than a 4 pack of pint cans? Now don’t laugh but I believe that the size of a beer can directly impact the taste. Really.  And no I don't think the earth is flat.

 The cans themselves could have different liners also, the metals and ions in solution can and will react with the aluminum if there are any defects in the liner application.   And what if a brewery fails to properly convert their packing line from 12-oz. to 16-oz. cans? That could lead to a difference in dissolved oxygen and CO2, which would definitely alter the taste of the beer.  No, I didn’t make that up Bill. That’s called science.  Besides, doesn’t it seem logical that a 16-oz. can would be more likely to show oxygen-related stale flavors sooner than a 12-oz. can would since the larger can has a more air in it?

 I realize sometimes the decision to package beer in one type of can versus another is simply because of the canning line a brewery already has. The age and capability of the equipment is key, as most older canning lines don’t offer the luxury of packaging both 12-oz. and 16-oz. sizes.  A further consideration is cost.  Canning lines are expensive,.very much so.

In addition to the fact that a 12-oz. to 16-oz. switchover isn’t financially plausible most small brewery owners I spoke to said  there is a scarcity of canning equipment. so they simply stay with the 16-oz. can lines they have. They also say that the 16 size sells the best,  Of course they don't know that for sure.  Most have only sold  that one size.

Clearly sales play a big role in deciding which size cans a brewery goes with. A grocery and/or liquor store chain placement can mean big bucks for breweries, so they’re inclined to do what the stores want to be stocked on their shelves.  In the past that was 16 oz. cans but now some chains want 12-oz. six-packs since that size  allows them to better compete with macro beer in the store.  

In general I’m in favor of the 12 oz. cans over the 16 oz. ones. First, they're easier to sneak in somewhere, (not that I would ever do such a thing), second, you aren’t shortchanged in volume (4 pack of pints has 64 ounces, and a 6 pack of 12 oz. bottles is 72 ounces). Third when I drink three cans of 12 ounce cans I won't be as woozy as knocking down three 16-ouncers. I’m actually drinking less almost without realizing it.   

If the truth be told, my favorite size actually is a crowler or a 32. ounce growler filled at one of my local breweries. It is the best way I can support craft beer.  Besides, it's  only two pints.  I had that just writing this.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

I’m sure you’ve heard the alleged story of the six pack, Gina.  Supposedly it was created by Pabst in the early 1940s as an easy way for a housewife to bring home beer.  Back then women did most of the beer shopping. It was just light enough for her to carry and avoided the clumsiness of carrying individual bottles.  Ballantine disputes this and says it did a six pack first, in 1938, while Baltimore's National Bohemian says they were the first with a six-pack of beer under the interesting premise that four beers would be too few and eight would be too many. And then there’s Coca-Cola, which claims ownership of the format dating back to 1923 for soda of course, not beer.  So take your pick as to bragging rights.  I salute them all.  Maybe not Coke.  

Gina, I agree with you that consumer habits in retail stores are important in driving the 12-oz. versus 16-oz. debate. I’ve read that the macro breweries tend to lean toward 12-oz. packaging due to the 'shareability' of that product. Their belief seems to be that you’re less likely to give a buddy a can of a four-pack of 16-oz. beers when you’re at a gathering because that isn’t an wise economical decision since the 4 pack has a higher cost per can. 

Lately I’m sure you’ve noticed that some (still a small minority) craft breweries are moving to the 12-oz. side.  I think a big reason for that is financial.  If you dissect the cost of, let’s say it’s a $12.99 four-pack of average craft lager, it’s $0.20/oz, while a $12.99 6-pack is $0.18/oz.  So If the brewery charged the same price per ounce, that six-pack would have to be $14.40. Numbers like that seem to make the 12-oz six-packs a logical choice. 

Look at Sierra Nevada Pale Ale—they sell 12-oz. six-packs, 19.2-oz. cans, and 16-oz. four-packs of it.  All the same product, but it's a way they can further saturate the market and increase sales.  It seems to me that the more formats a brewery uses, the better for them, provided of course they have the scale and consumers to pull it off.

Think back to 2020 as Covid hit us full force.  That's when I first really noticed there were more and more beers coming out in16 oz. cans with eye catching labels featuring outstanding artwork. Many even listed the artist's name. Those striking label designs gave the cans increased brand visibility which was needed because as bars were forced to close people had no choice but buy from the shelf to drink at home. As such, sales of cans that stood out in size and design dramatically increased. And the ones to do that were 16 ounces.

As for me Gina, I do like pouring a whole pint into a glass at home. It saves me from getting up more often than I would with a 12 oz can.  And please don't say I could use the exercise. However, I do find it easier to drink 12-oz. beers. They don’t get warm as fast and they’re easier to pack in my fridge.  And once you open a can of beer, you have to finish it somewhat quickly or the beer goes flat or loses it's chill, anotherplus for the 12 oz. size. Lastly, I really enjoy the ritual that goes with drinking a beer at home. The simple opening of can and pouring it into a glass is a sensory delight. The six pack gives me two more opportunities to experience it. 

My bottom line however is regardless of the size or type of container all I care about is if the beer inside is any good.

 Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA

Bill, did you ever wonder why is hard seltzer still so popular?  It’s record of non-stop, impressive growth has slowed a bit  recently but it’s here to stay and an omnipresent force in the adult beverage market.  So what you ask?  Well, consider for a minute that those spiked seltzers have helped beer get back to the basics of drinking. While the country’s indie breweries were adding notes of pine, stone fruit, and what ever to their products, the brains behind White Claw and their ilk, posed a question that spoke to the college freshman in all of us: what if water got you drunk?

It's an idea so brilliant only an idiot could have thought it up: what if someone else went to the trouble of putting booze in your LaCroix or San Pellegrino? What if instead of a complicated mix of flavors, you had a craving for, say, lime-ish? Hard seltzers gives you this and nothing more. I had planned to include some seltzer tasting notes in this article, but after one sip, I scribbled “bubbles!” and then didn’t write anything else down. Seltzers are not a thing a bartender in a vest and an arm garter will fret over. It is booze that is redolent of Skittles.

It’s both a simple and canny counter to the other major bustle in the beverage world that I can also do without: the low-carb, low ABV ‘athletic’ beer. The one mass-produced domestic brew of that kind that’s managed to be a sales juggernaut is Michelob Ultra.  Ultra is a beer that won’t weigh you down, it's thirst quenching after a long run on a sunny afternoon, and it cannot possibly get you drunk no matter how many you manage to put away.  Bill, you knew it was only a matter of time before someone said: “Let’s lose even that tiny hint of beer flavor.” Well, they did it.

Hard seltzer at least brings some folks back to the basics in the soft-booze segment. By the basics I mean getting a mild buzz on. Let's be honest, there are a lot of people who go to the local brewery and get a beer that dazzles their mouth initially, but wears them out a few sips in. Seltzers are the answer for them.   A whisper a rumor of ruby-red grapefruit flavor into their mouth along with a 5% ABV can get the party going.

I think brands like White Claw and Truly woke even we craft fans up to what was really important when it comes to drinks: they’re supposed to be fun. Maybe that's the reason for its still immense popularity - you don't always need all the boozy bells and whistles. How else can you interpret one of the hard seltzer flavors I've seen called “Pure,” which calls to mind the taste of nothing in particular. It is a hoot, which is what a cold, canned, boozy beverage should sometimes be.

In a nutshell, the alcohol world has a place for drinkers who don’t want to learn about their drink and never want to take tasting notes. For them, water with booze in it is the answer.  If truth be told, seltzer was smartly and efficiently put together.  It’s so simple that it carved out a lasting pace in the drinking landscape.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

Ah, Gina, you’ve brought back a memory. I popped open my first can of hard seltzer—a lime White Claw handed to me one afternoon on the beach during a very sunny, hot day. I was hoping to like it. Well, at least not dislike it.  The first sip was good: cold, slightly fizzy, not too sweet, identifiably lime-flavored.  That make me think that the drink’s popularity made intuitive sense, especially as something to take to the beach in a cooler or drink at a friend’s cookout. To put it middy, the taste wasn’t exactly mind-blowing, but it did what it said on the can and the price was a bonus—it was far cheaper than craft beer. 

As I worked my way through the can, though, I had an experience that I suspect many of our readers will find familiar. After the White Claw had been out of the cooler for a few minutes, the drinking experience deteriorated with extraordinary speed. What had been crisp and fizzy began to flatten out, and the flavors sagged under the weight of their artificiality. It felt like it was coating my tongue, and suddenly there was an aftertaste that reminded me of diet, off-brand lemon-lime soda, except more concentrated. Within a few minutes, the drink tasted more like a product of chemical engineering than a squeeze of lime and a splash of booze in a cold glass of seltzer. The longer it sat around while I chatted with some other beach party goers, the more noticeable the taste became. I instantly knew why some people get so drunk off these, they crush them very, very quickly while they're cold.

Since then, I’ve tried a few different brands and favors of hard seltzers.  To varying degrees, they all have the same problem as that first one: once tepid, they lost whatever meager charms they originally had much faster than, say, a Miller Lite. The problem is, in large part, inherent to the product: The alcohol in hard seltzer comes from brewing, usually with malt or fermented sugar.  It’s not a difficult process.

While other beverages all mask their cheaply begotten ABVs with tons of sugar and other flavors, hard seltzer is marketed mostly as low-sugar and low-carb, which means there’s just less to compensate for the taste of the alcohol itself. In some cases, the ingredients intended to cover up the fermented flavor have their own aftertaste, as is often the case with flavorings in diet drinks. Real sugars would boost the calorie count, after all. When the drinks are kept very, very cold, those flaws aren’t as noticeable, but when the drinks begin to warm even slightly, there’s nothing to hide them.

Gina, I’m sure you’ve read the reports that hard seltzer has lost some of it’s popularity.  I think that’s because it’s no longer novel and because some subset of consumers realized that hard seltzer is mostly off-putting and stopped buying it. Think about the last few parties we’ve been to.   We’re seeing fewer and fewer of those 12-can variety packs of whatever new brand had most recently shown up in the grocery store.  It seems they have been replaced by other things—typically Modelos or Narragansetts, or chilled bottles of trendy natural wine but not craft beer for some reason.  I guess it all means we’ll continue to be the only ones bringing something really good to drink at the next party we go to.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA

Well Bill, as I write this Oktoberfest in Germany is just about over following a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.   It started Sept. 17 and ends Oct. 2. This is its 187th incarnation.  The first Oktoberfest was celebrated in Munich in 1810 in honor of Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.  Try saying that without taking a breath. The festivities began October 12, 1810, and lasted for almost a week, until October 17. Eventually it moved forward into its September start primarily because of the weather.  Better weather meant bigger crowds. Business is business.

Although millions (that's millions) will attend this year it seems that some dark clouds are over the party. I’m referring to Germany’s gas crunch and subsequent pressure to save energy. On top of that, some are predicting a surge of Covid infections following the fun especially since September has traditionally marked an uptick in such cases which compelled the government in 2020 and 2021 to reimpose restrictions to try to flatten the curve of infections.

I recall reading that German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said it was a “bold” idea to plan the Oktoberfest without pandemic precautions, but he conveniently forgot that he has no say in whether the event goes ahead. Munich city chiefs run the show, and they were all for it.  It’s clear they feel that even if public festivals are associated with an increased risk of illness, it’s quite understandable that there’s a desire to get public life back. 

From what I've researched it seems there's clearly a serious potential to spread Covid-19.  During Oktoberfest, attendees spend hours crammed into tents, sitting elbow-to-elbow with friends and strangers, dancing, drinking and eating. Masks are optional, and the event’s official site doesn’t mention vaccine requirements. Visitors are asked to follow the honor system and stay home if they’re feeling sick. I think the scale might be a bit weighted on that one.

I’m not even going to mention that during Oktoberfest, the city gets packed, and there are drunk people everywhere, all the time. The drunken debauchery often leads to fights, aggressive behavior, and" bierleichen" — so-called "beer corpses," which is what locals call the many passed out drunks lying on the hill behind the tents. That might make for a good TV series, The Not Walking Almost Dead.

I’ve never been to Oktoberfest and I know you haven’t either Bill so maybe it’s sour grapes to point out some negative things about the celebration. It would be wonderful to revile in the live oompah music blasting away, join in with everyone singing along at the top of their lungs, enjoying beer benches filled with dozens of people dancing on them, raising their glasses in unison and cheering each other every few minutes with a hearty "eins, zwo, drei, g'suffa!.  And oh that great beer. You know, all that just might be worth it.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

After reading you comments Gina, I guess I should cancel the surprise tickets I got you to next year’s festival for your birthday.  Oh, well. 

You do make some valid points but it’s interesting to realize that resistance to skipping  the “Medow” – as locals simply call it, is as old as reasons for canceling the event. In 1866, there was an unsuccessful petition to let the beer flow despite the Austro-Prussian War.  Oktoberfest was also canceled in 1854 and 1873 due to outbreaks of cholera in Munich that left thousands dead, including King Ludwig I’s wife Therese, whose wedding had been the original occasion to launch the tradition in 1810 on her eponymous meadow.

Money has been a perpetual concern at the Oktoberfest, including when it was canceled in 1923 and 1924 because the Weimar Republic’s hyperinflation had people shopping for bread with wheelbarrows of cash, rendering the idea of a massive beer party completely absurd.  Prices aren’t that bad this year, but inflation has had an impact.  The 1-liter (2-pint) mug of beer will cost between 12.60 and 13.80 euros ($12.84 and $14.07) which is an increase of about 15% compared with 2019.  It’s a mirror of the inflation running across the economy: Sky-high natural gas prices caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine are boosting what businesses and consumers have to pay for energy, while recovering demand from the pandemic is making parts and raw materials hard to come by especially for brewers.

Here's another downside – if you not drinking a beer they will kick you out.  I know neither of us would have to worry about that Gina, but it’s true.  You will not be able to nurse your beer because the “wenches” will hand you more drinks even before you finish with the one in your hand. If the people in your table are drinking very fast, then you are expected to keep up; beer comes in rounds for each person at the table. And obviously, Oktoberfest Munich is all about beer-drinking so there's no diverse menu of cocktails and wines.  

How about another bad one?  Most people book tables far in advance. So far that if you have not previously been to the festival, you may find trouble getting a reservation. This means that you might become part of the insane  stampedes of individual who rush and run to get a table when the tents are open.  By the way, the tents regularly closed when full to avoid betting too far beyond overcrowded. Once you find a seat, you can’t keep it free for your friends. The service stewards and personnel will give available spots to the waiting patrons.

Let me end with one more big negative especially for you.  You can expect to wait in very long lines every time you want to use the bathroom. Remember, everyone is chugging mass amounts of beer. I read one article that says there’s sometimes a 25 -35-minute wait to get into the ladies room.  Men must be more efficient since it’s about 10 minutes for us.  Oh, not that you would ever do this, but those who get tempted to go mostly behind tents will pay a huge fine if caught.

My suggestion is that this year we celebrate Oktoberfest by drinking one from as many local breweries as we can get to.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA

Part of a beer aficionado's fun is striving to identify all the myriad of flavors and aromas in beer. The ability to pick them apart , identifying them, appreciating their origins, admiring the skills of the brewer, and marveling at how many complex layers blend together in a sometimes sublime,  mind bending chorus of love, is a joyous activity. (How’d you like that sentence, Bill?)

That brings me to an interesting thought - Bill, have you noticed that sometimes there is an evolution, a change in flavors of a beer you’ve had many times?  It seems to me that when you drink something consistently, you can start to pick up on the differences and subtle changes in it over a period of time.  I think that sometimes even the best beers can taste differently (dare I say worse) on some days while other times you’d rate it higher than ever. That makes me wonder if the care in making the beer was still there… or not…or was it just a happy (or unhappy) accident by a not too focused brewer. 

I believe that is more common than we might think in many of those small craft breweries we so enjoy.  Of course Budweiser and its brothers always taste the same. Brewing on a huge scale usually allows for a consistency far more automatic than that of your local brewer.  Knowing that their quality will not waver is important to the big boys and very much so to the consumer. Sometimes I wonder if the local brewer understands that.

I appreciate the fact that the local brewer is using a small system, scrambling to get ingredients that might not always be totally identical to what he last bought, and has less quality control capabilities, but it’s still hard to explain why so many individual craft brews vary so often.  Don’t they use the same formula? I’ve often heard a brewer or bartender say something like, “this is a really good batch of ZYZ ale”.  Why aren't they all of the same quality?  Obviously, it’s not like they meant to change things so radically that the beer tastes different or intended to make something so off base that the drinker can go from one batch to another and have two separate experiences.

I think the serious drinker has an obligation to note when breweries change for the worse. Bill, sometimes we, like other craft fans, can get really tuned in to the nuisances of craft beer drinking. We know when a beer has Mosaic, Citra, Cascade, or Fuggles hops. We can tell when a beer didn’t attenuate. We can tell if the wort wasn’t aerated well enough, or if it fermented a little too warm. We can tell if a bar needs to clean its lines or the glasses aren't "beer clean".  We can dissect flavors, analyze brewing techniques, break down flavor profiles, and identify negative things like diacetyl, DMS or acetaldehyde  That’s an important part of understanding and enjoying beer on it’s highest level. Don't small breweries realize craft drinkers have the ability to note changes in their product?

Having said that, I'm sometimes concerned about a possible unintended consequence of all that analysis - could it give us a clouded perception of what we're drinking and cause us to lose some of the fun of enjoying the world's greatest beverage? Oh, don't worry Bill, I'll warn you if I see you starting to move down that path as long as you do the same for me. Cheers!

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

Once again kudos to you Gina for coming up with a topic that is different than you’d find on most beer websites.  Ok, first let me say, it has long been my experience that regardless of what I’m consuming — beer, wine, food dishes — there are sometimes perceived taste variances where there should be none: brews from the same batch, wines from the same vintage and vintner, dishes I’ve repeatedly prepared.  How come? I’m convinced that nine times out of ten, I’m the factor that makes it taste differently. Notice I did not say 10 out of 10.

I’ve seen differences in the same wine because of a cork issue, or perhaps a bad sealing job, but that not often the case.  Mostly it's just due to my perception.  In my cooking when the same dish from the same recipe tastes slightly different it’s usually because  I wasn’t paying attention while cooking or started it after have a few beers.  But most of the time, I think the reason for the difference is a mood change, or mild illness, or something I ate/drank that changes the ability of my taste buds to do their thing, or vague memories of times I had it before affecting the reality of what I’m having now.

What I’m saying is that almost all the time it’s not the fault of the brewer… it’s the person drinking it and when and how and under what circumstances.  We notice it more because as students of beer we invest more thought and effort in drinking our brews. As you know, Gina, I’ve been drinking pilsners and dortmunders recently and notice at times the Munich and biscuit malts are overwhelming, yet at other times, the same brews are perfectly balanced with the full array of classic flavors. When those differences happen, I usually think it’s not the beer, it’s me. 

I’m sure some beers have changed recipes over time, used slightly different ingredients, or the brewer had a bad day, but I think most of the differences you talk about are changes in our own perception. We aren’t comparing two beers. We are comparing one beer against our memories of our prior drinking experience.

As you said, the Bud/Miller/Coors brands out there will not vary and even the big craft guys like Sierra/Sam Adams/etc. are becoming less and less varied. And you’re right in saying that smaller breweries certainly have a lot of variables to contend with.  However I think that most craft brewers do strive for consistency though admittedly, a few don’t seem to. When a brewer strives for improvement in each batch and that causes a difference, then I'm fine with it.  After all, there’s no such thing as the perfect beer that can’t be bettered.  Well, except for my last home brew maybe.

You make an interesting point in your last paragraph. I think it definitely is possible to reach the point of over-analysis but I will also say over the many years we’ve enjoyed craft beer we've always remembered that the most important thing is to enjoy the pint before us.  That’s the fun of beer!

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA

Think about this Bill, you can't even consider consuming a candy bar without being confronted with its caloric content. The same thing goes for just about every piece of packaged food you see in stores, plus every bottled, canned or cartoned beverage: They all have a  Nutrition Facts label with detailed info on the amounts of fat, sugar, sodium and more found inside. But while your favorite breakfast cereals, sodas and sandwich fixings are subject to this type of in-your-face transparency, you may have noticed that beer is typically off the hook, residing behind fact-less labels. So what gives?

I did some research and the answer lies in the powers that be. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the safety of — you guessed it — food, including non-alcoholic beverages, it doesn't govern the alcohol industry. That honor belongs to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), an agency that doesn't require labeling.

While beer, wine and spirits companies aren't legally mandated to print the nutritional info on their products, consumer advocates (like me) have been calling for the TTB to change that. And it has, sort of. Over a decade ago the agency made nutrition labels optional for alcohol. But is that really enough?

The fact of the matter is that the TTB rules around labeling have historically been a bit messy. Substances that people might be sensitive to (like sulfites) have to be labeled, but other ingredients do not. Wines that contain 14 percent alcohol or more have to display alcohol content, while wines from 7 to 14 percent don't have to list alcohol content if they're considered "light" or "table."  Oh, and wines with less than 7 percent alcohol? Those aren't regulated by the TTB at all — those are under the jurisdiction of the FDA and so they're required to display Nutrition Facts labels. Confusing, no? Confusing, yes!

Bill, I’m sure you remember that at one time the government forbid breweries from putting any information about ABV on the label in the fear that we depraved beer drinkers would simply buy the brew with the highest number. So, it seems for wine it was fine since their drinkers were sophisticated and responsible people and we weren’t.  Can you please hand over that bottle of bottle of Night Train Express in the brown bag? It right next to my Ripple jug.

All I’m saying is it’s only fair to let the consumer know the calories, carbs, and ingredients of their beer. How can that hurt anyone and it can surely help many who feel that information is important to their beverage choice.  How can anyone be against that though I'm sure you'll find a way.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

Not to worry, Gina.  There are a few brands, Corona Light, Guinness, Heineken and Coors Light, among others that do put calories and some nutrition info, though not the ingredients, on their bottles or packaging, but it's very small and  hard to find. You might even have to look on the bottom of the six-pack to find it. 

Bud Light began voluntarily including obvious labels listing its beer's calories, fat, carbohydrates and protein per serving, as well as ingredients, in 2019. Since then, Anheuser-Busch has added similar labeling to some of its other Bud Light line beers, including Bud Light Lime, Bud Light Orange and Bud Light Lemon Tea.  And no, I’m not telling you to switch to that swill thought it would make for a great (as in infamous)  picture on the BeerNexus picture page.

Overall, I agree with you that bringing more transparency to beer is a good thing, but don’t expect a lot of craft brewers to wholeheartedly agree. It’s not about secrecy. Testing the nutritional content isn't cheap, and brewers would be losing label space typically used for unique design and art. What's more, most craft beer drinkers may not care how many calories are in their beer.  Personally, I’m afraid to know and enjoy my ignorance.

If brewers were required to add a that information on packaging, it might just be another hit to small businesses. The big guys who are already doing it are, of course, for it. They know it hurts craft beer and helps them in the fight for consumer’s dollars. For small business owners who are competing in a market of giants, every dollar counts. As I mentioned, getting accurate nutritional data is costly.  Remember, many small, local, craft breweries come out with more than 100 different beers, each of which would have to be tested.  That would be a major financial hit.  That’s not to be taken lightly especially for a small business still trying to recover from the pandemic.

I’ve heard some people say that if you put nutritional information on a beer label there is a risk that some consumers would infer a nutritional benefit from alcoholic. In other words, just because one beer may contain fewer calories or sugar than another doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to be a boost to your health.  Nutritional information clearly is important for food but beer isn't a necessary part of anyone's diet.  

Listing ingredients (grapes, barley, rice, etc.) is currently entirely optional for all alcoholic beverages.  However, manufacturers must label beverages that have specific substances to which people might be sensitive (sulfites and yellow no. 5 dye), but labeling of other sorts of allergens (like eggs or nuts) is surprisingly  optional.  Hey, we're dealing with the government; it doesn't have to make sense.

Now just to keep your calorie worries in perspective here's the real deal that anyone who cares can easily simply look up,  A bottle of Budweiser has 145 calories/10.6 grams of carbs, Bud Light has 110 calories/6.6 carbs. Wines vary but an average glass of red has 130 to 190 calories. A shot of Bacardi rum has 96 calories.  New Belgium Trippel Belgian Style has 215 calories/20 carbs, Sierra Nevada Hoptimum has 314 calories/27 carbs, and your typical 16oz New England DIPA  checks in with  350-450 calories.  If that's not enough, a 12% ABV imperial “pastry” stout will add about  600-700 calorie.  Hope I didn’t scare you Gina.

I’ll leave you with one simple suggestion.  Put a QR code on cans of each brewery’s top sellers that will take you to a data base of it's nutritional information. That way, if you want to know you can.  If not, you won’t be burdened by it.  

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA

Over a week ago, at our favorite pub, I got stuck sitting next to a pompous, know it all, self-appointed beer “expert” who must have used the word “complex” at least 50 times in discussing the beers he had in his flight.  Let’s see, he had 5 glasses in the flight so that makes 250 times.  At least. That’s got to be a world record.  Because of that l I’d like to go on record and say that “complex” is the most overused and unnecessary word in the world of craft brewing. That has become the word I love to hate more than any other.

Beer, frankly, is not complex. You know what is complex, Bill? A suspension bridge, brain surgery, a commercial jet air liner, — these things are complex.  Whenever I hear the word complex getting thrown around like it’s going out of style, I totally lose interest in whatever is said after it. It’s like describing an IPA as hoppy or a stout as roasty.  Welcome to cliché city.

I’ve read too many articles and beer reviews where “complex” is used so often that it results in hilarity. It's got to the point where using it once is using it one time too many. Many brewers are guilty of this as well as drinkers. I recently came across a new brewery’s web site where every single one of its beers were described as complex. It comes off pretentious and the word itself says absolutely nothing.

I recall asking a good friend of ours who loves craft beer but does not lurk in the beer forums or follow new releases, if the beer he was drinking was complex. He looked at me puzzled and asked, “What the heck does that mean?”  My point exactly. Although the guy knows and loves good beer, he believes in simplicity, like I do.  Had I tried to persuade him that the beer he was drinking was complex, he would have laughed at me and demanded a refill on my tab.  And I wouldn't blame him.

Sometimes I think there are well meaning people who want to elevate beer to a higher spot on the drinking totem pole, maybe to feel superior to the wine enthusiast, the scotch connoisseur, or the brandy drinker who sips it in a smoking jacket.  By the way, Bill, do you need a new smoking jacket? If they’re not too expensive I might get you one for your birthday. Then again, since you don’t smoke so maybe you aren’t allowed to have one.

I wonder if the “complex” thing is borrowed from stuffy wine fans and it has leached into beer circles because of the inferiority complex that some beer people have to wine drinkers.  Let us give the term back to the oenophiles so they can keep the snooty reputation they’ve worked so hard to gain. 

Beer needs no elevation. Beer is the peoples’ drink.  Beer is the common thread between all social classes. 

 Hooray for beer!

Chug-a-lug, Bill

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BILL

Well, it seems you’ve brought up a very complex subject this month.  Couldn't resist saying that.  I will give you this, Giana, “complex” can be a somewhat meaningless descriptor on its own. In most contexts it smacks of marketing jargon. It is certainly an overused phrase in the craft beer world.

But if you have the goods to back it up, then it’s a great lead-in phrase. It’s difficult to deny that a well-aged, well-made BBA Imperial stout or barleywine has a great complexity of flavor.  A massive hop-laden Double IPA will often have a fantastically layered aroma loaded with many different hop flavors. As I see it, that's a totally valid use for the term “complex”.  

Having said that I agree that a beer description should go beyond the term itself.   More detail is needed.  Saying that a beer has a  “complex hop aroma” in reality tells me little. I’d much prefer you saying something like “ it has a complex aroma loaded with orange-citrus and tangerine notes, that fade into alternating waves of juniper, roses and spice, all backed up by hints of graham cracker and caramel from the malt”.  Hearing that would not only make me want to drink of it but I would also applaud.  So, when a qualified beer reviewer uses the term “complex”, then lets me know why, the term is legitimately used.

What sometimes bothers me is when a brewery uses the phrase “complex” to describe, for example, their Blonde Ale or Light Wheat lager.  My first thought is who are they kidding?  The style screams not complex. It’s just inflated  talk in a pitch to sell it.  So Gina, you get no argument from me there.

Basically, for me, complexity implies many factors are in play, in varying levels of intensity and subtlety. It’s an excellent term for setting a mood when describing flavor interplay. It is not the be all and end all, but it is a legitimate atmospheric term to prepare the reader or listener for what is (or should be) to come.

 For what it’s worth,  my definition of  a complex beer is one that has a number of discernable aroma/flavor/mouthfeel elements that can be considered and evaluated separately. Complexity is not a good thing or bad thing on its own – if the elements harmonize then it is a positive attribute.

Conversely there are beers which are not complex but still excellent. A well made Bitter, for example, that combines the malt, hop, and yeast flavors in a way that no one element overpowers the others. The flavor elements present a unified front, one that does not require the drinker to consider unpacking those elements in order to fully appreciate what the brewer has created.

Now since you brought this topic up let me give you two words I think should just go away - "drinkability” and “quaffable”.  Why?  We can save that discussion for another day.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA

Too bad you couldn’t join me the other day, Bill.  I went to my first self-serve taproom.  To me, this idea like many others in this futuristic world we’re living in, seems to hide a lot of its problems behind the veneer of consumer choice and convenience. While self-serve taprooms promise to “streamline” bar operations while giving patrons the ability to pick and choose their beers, my experience at this pour-your- own place convinces me it is not a concept I am ready to embrace.

I walked in and was given a plastic card along with a glass and led over to a wall of taps.  There looked to be at least 40. Most were beer taps, but at about a dozen of them you could also dispense your own wine and draft cocktails. Each drink lists its per-ounce price, and with a swipe, your card unlocks the tap.  You can pour as little or as much as you want (up to a certain ounce limit) into your glass. At the end of your drinking session, you pay the total bill at the register.  I have to admit it’s a neat idea.  But…bet you knew that was coming, Bill.

My first reaction was forget these self-serve taps—I’ve been self-serving beer at home during the pandemic.  Now that we’re going to bars again, without a mask, I find myself enjoying seeing and interacting with bartenders more than ever. Bars and taprooms are, after all, a place to gather, and not just with the members of your party. Bartenders represent the sum total of expertise, care, and customer service that make “heading to the bar” a worthwhile activity in the first place. To remove them from the process feels unnecessary, and even unappealing.

Though the place had tasting notes for each beer listed on the digital placard above each self-service tap, nothing beats a personalized recommendation from a professional based on what you already like.  When it comes from a bartender who knows his beer it means something.  I think in the past we both have really underestimated how a knowledgeable and convivial experienced bartender or server can be helpful, especially to those not really versed in craft.  Be honest Bill, the input and interaction with a bartender can be half the fun of the journey to that next beer.

I have to admit that the per-ounce prices really took me by surprise in the end of the evening . A taste here and there can end up costing just as much as a couple pints at a classic establishment. And for someone with my particular brand of indecision, the infinite choices of a self-serve tap setup isn’t as helpful as a more curated list of offerings. I almost ended up kicking myself asking, “Out of all the beers along the wall, why on earth did I go for the piña colada hazy IPA?” Even worse, I poured 6 ounces of it instead of the 4 I had intended.

Overall it was fun but I'm in no hurry to return.  I’d go back but only once just to see your reaction to it all.

Chug-a-lug, Bill.

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BILL

I can’t believe you went there without me, Gina.  I know I was busy but if push came to shove I guess I could have missed watching them unload a delivery truck down at the supermarket.  Now, now, just kidding.  Actually let’s plan on going there as soon as we can.  Although I’ve never been to one I still have an opinion on the concept.  Why are you laughing at that Gina?  My bottom line is that I see a lot of reasons why this model might be beneficial to both the business and the customer.

First, I think the pour-your-own concept lets indecisive drinkers get a little taste of everything without having to flag down a bartender to do it. There’s less waiting in line—I won’t say there’s no wait, because the more popular taps might already be occupied, and perhaps someone unaccustomed to dispensing their own beer will be moving slowly or getting assistance. Generally however, you’re free from the whole “placing your order” element of the bar-going experience. That’s no small thing.

I know you’re a big Untappd user so think about what a great way it is for you to get more and more check-ins.   Just imagine the huge cheers and admiration from your fellow users as you rack up enough check-ins for badge after badge and whatever other forms of recognition they give. Even if you only pour yourself an ounce of a beer at time you’d be able to knock out 20 or many more in one trip to a self-serve spot.

The system really does give you a perfect opportunity to try a lot of different beers in one trip  If you consider yourself a brewery completionist, or you want to make sure you’ve tasted every type of porter or pale ale or whatever out there to ensure you’re eventually drinking the one you like best then this system is for you.  And since I understand that self-serve places turn over their beers very quickly you are fairly sure of seeing many new beers each week or so.  I’m actually getting myself excited about this.

For the bars themselves, we can only assume that the pour-your-own model translates to fewer employees per shift. One employee can monitor a lot of self-serve taps simultaneously, and can only pour two, maybe three pints at a time behind the bar (a feat that is glorious to watch). There's the same amount of bussing, cleaning, and the like, but it means fewer service bottlenecks and fewer overall bill transactions. And just think you don’t have to deal with a lazy or disinterested bartender who could care less about providing good service.  And you’ll never get a “bad pour” since you’re the one deciding how much to put in the glass.

Please note too, Gina, that beyond those considerations there are the intangibles: It’s simply fun and novel for customers to be given the chance to pull on the taps and try to get the perfect amount of head on their pint.  It’s like we’re all a bunch of kids playing bartender.

I have only one last question for you Gina, when are we going?

Here's looking at you, kid!

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GINA -

Make no mistake about it Bill, consolidation is coming for craft beer. Think back to  when AB InBev began gobbling up regional favorites like Goose Island, Kona, and Golden Road. It has continued as America’s most respected craft breweries—including Lagunitas, Ballast Point and New Belgium—have “sold out” in million- (even billion-) dollar deals.   If that trend continues (and there’s nothing to suggest that it won’t, thanks in part to post pandemic economic issues, the brewing industry will arrive at a point where independence will not be a badge of honor, but an outright liability to doing business.

We’ve both hailed independence as a self-evident virtue in craft brewing but small breweries are also inefficient—smaller brewing capacity and material orders, and greater cost of overhead per unit means a craft pint doesn’t come cheap. With over 9,000 of them in the U.S. (and more on the way) there’s nothing but stiffer competition and dwindling shelf space on the horizon. That's got me worried. It won’t be long before the market pushes back on the self-inflicted retail absurdity of charging over $20 four-packs for the latest multi dry-hopped IPA. We’ve previously published a couple of columns bemoaning the that craft beer is pricing itself into a bubble—a problem that got worse every time AB InBev bought a brewery and put their “craft” four-packs on the shelves for a significantly lower price than before.

As I see it there’s no reason that independent breweries need to be shut out of the economy of scale. Why don’t a bunch of Davids band together to become a Goliath? Through mergers, co-ops, or less formal collectives, small breweries can take advantage of a scale that’s previously been inaccessible to them.  Large brewing concerns can leverage capital streams to bulk purchase (and get better prices on) malt and packaging. They can contract-buy huge tracts of hop farms instead of spot purchasing from the dregs. Together, they can streamline and spend less per unit on the cost of marketing, accounting, legal fees and all the other costs of doing business.

Collectives do not have to squelch the independent spirit of the breweries they encompass. They could retain their private ownership and individual brands. The ties between them could run as shallow or deep as the market demands. They could (and maybe should) be geographically oriented.

Look at your beer store shelves and you'll see more and more space being taken up by the big players.  That might explain why many of the new breweries do not include wholesale and/or retail distribution in their business plan. They know they can't win.  Instead, they are counting on tasting room revenues and in-house can sales.  That's all well and good but does not bode will for the growth of craft in the future and for the future of these small, local breweries.  Big beer won't even bother gobbling them up, they'll just fade away since they can't compete.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

May I respectfully disagree with you, Gina?  Now, now, don’t get upset, even you can be misguided at times.  Of course, those times are rare, very, very, very, very rare. Oh, just teasing, Gina.  As I see it,  there is still a lot of room for micro- and nano- breweries catering to local and hyper-local markets. According to current industry market research, the local craft market is one of the only growth categories for craft beer so far in 2022. My argument is based on the resiliency of the craft industry, and that we will continue to see growth, coming from these producers, with a few small caveats.

Like the initial rise of the craft industry, where independent breweries popped up in locations across the U.S. that were overlooked by big beer, these small and locally focused brewers have a better ability to cater to their own towns’ tastes and preferences. Most consumer research has shown that brewpub and taproom premises are the preferred places for folks to drink craft beer. That's certainly true for us too.  As for the brewer, this is the part of the distribution channel that yields the highest margins.  That can keep him growing independently. If growth beyond limited taproom sales is a brewery’s main concern, they can still distribute effectively albeit at lower margins.

Look at it this way, Gina, if you take the number of craft breweries per 100,000 drinking age adults as the measure of concentration, according to the Brewers Association’s most recent data, Vermont tops the list at 13.5. Well-known beer state Colorado trails in fourth with 9.2. Compare these to the bottom 25% of states that barely reach 1.9 breweries per capita. Even California, the state with the most craft breweries (841), has only 2.9 breweries per capita. Mississippi, the last state to legalize homebrewing, has only 15 craft breweries with a concentration of .7.  Yes, that's less than one brewery/100,000 21+ adults. So you see, this country truly has beer deserts proving there are still great opportunities for small breweries to startup and prosper.

While it's clear there is a lot of room for growth in craft, but it has to be thoughtfully directed. There is little room for mediocre beer anymore. In the long run those bad breweries will fail.  Even more, Gina, I really think some cities don’t need another 20 breweries, though in this case need and what we beer drinkers want are two different things. I’d personally want 20 new breweries  to open in walking distance for me though the local community doesn't need that.  Yes, I hate to admit it, but 20 is a bit excessive.  I'd settle for 15.  Oh, don't give me that look Gina.  Seriously, the main thing I can’t emphasize enough is that new breweries need to make a high-quality product, be studious in  maintaining quality standards, make what customers want, and have a good long-run business plan.  If they do that, l, I guarantee, they and the industry as a whole, will, to quote a well know home brewer of Romulan Ale, live long and prosper.

Here’s looking at you kid.

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GINA -

 When I think about changes in beer I’ve seen since craft hit the scene I think one of the most important is the rise of women drinkers.  Men once outnumbered women drinkers three-to-one for Americans born around 1900. Today, the National Institutes of Health says those numbers are approaching parity.  That's parity Bill, not party.

In the 88 years since Prohibition ended, women have gradually closed the wide gap that once existed between their consumption of alcohol and that of men. Last year, for the first time in U.S. history, women made up the majority of alcohol consumers under the age of 25. In fact, statistics show that today’s women are nearly as likely as men to consume alcohol. I for one say hooray and count me in!

This defining storyline of what’s changing isn’t just based on the trajectory of craft beer, the proliferation of hard seltzers, or a global pandemic. Instead, the seismic rise of women drinkers has become a major factor in the overall business of alcohol, and reflects women’s growing equality and the lasting impact they’ll leave on the industry.

Unfortunately, brands too often treat we women drinkers as an enigma, or as an afterthought. As new generations in the U.S. reach legal drinking age with greater proportions of women alcohol consumers than ever before, I think that the why and how of addressing women as consumers will be a make-or-break consideration for companies, especially breweries.  By the way, I am available to them as a consultant, for a small fee of course.

As I see it, addressing what women drinkers want now-a-days must begin with a critical reexamination of what the term “women drinkers” even assumes.  It’s clear that many new (and a lot of old) drinkers in the U.S. are increasingly critical of traditional ideas about gender and reject the idea that certain types of alcohol are “ideal” for specific genders.  To put it another way, beer isn't just for men anymore and sorry Mr. Bond, women drink martinis too, both shaken and stirred.

Bill, do you remember the Coors Light’s commercial from a few years ago, promoting it as the “Official Beer of Being Done Wearing a Bra,”?  It actually played a big part in the resurgence of the brand.  For the next two years Coors Light saw an uptick in sales among women consumers, as well as younger legal-age drinkers.  The bra ad has probably become the most iconic of that first set of spots, because beer had never spoken to women in that way. Women were never the central figures of beer commercials; they were  usually just accessories or background stories. 

I remember, not really that long ago, being frustrated with a press release that described a beer subscription box as a "good gift for men", instead of simply a good gift for beer lovers. I was upset because it honestly felt like it was a pretty good gift… for me.  Fortunately those sorts of things are getting fewer and fewer.

All I can say is, let’s go have a beer and salute changing times.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

I totally agree with you that building conversations around what a particular beverage offers and why someone might like it opens up an entirely new way for companies to connect with drinkers—one that has less to do with who they are than what they want.  So since there’s little for me to argue with your comments let me switch the topic ever so slightly by focusing on beer. 

I too see a lot of women these days slowing shifting towards beer but there are still many women who tend to stay away from it. According to a recent poll, 62% of American men say beer is their preferred choice of an alcoholic beverage while only 23% of women did.  The overwhelming majority of women picked wine.  However the survey also showed that over half of the women admitted to enjoying the taste of beer, that 27% are put off by ‘male-oriented’ advertising, and a 17% don’t drink beer as they’re afraid of getting a “beer belly”.  By the way Gina, I worry about that too.  Fortunately that worry hasn't stopped me.

 Your right of course in that beer ads are heavily associated with masculinity, that is, the classic alpha-male. We see men swilling pints in films, on TV shows, and in advertisements. Even the can designs on supermarket shelves are geared to men with bold blue, black or silver colors and in strong. loud print. Furthermore, I can't recall ever seeing an ad that extolled female brewsters, female-owned breweries, or female love of beer in general. And just why are women shown only drinking tasteless, low cal, low carb swill? The media, as Marshall McLuhan said, “is the massage.” Please don't ask me to explain what I mean by that that; I just had a couple of pints of strong ales (not the watery seltzers you women drink.  Oops.)

I found one interesting study that showed the humble shaker pint glass could be part of the reason why some women are put off drinking beer today. It claimed that 52% of women think that a female drinking from a pint glass can be seen as unfeminine while even a higher percentage (63%) said they would consider ordering a beer but only if it was served in a more stylish, modern glass.  Personally, I agree.  I strongly dislike drinking from a shaker pint glass ,especially those with a Bud or Coors Light logo.  Gina, don't get me started on so called craft bars that don'ts serve beer in glasses appropriate for the style.  They either don't know or don't care, or both.

History shows humans have been drinking beer for almost 7,000 years, and the original brewers were women. From the Vikings to the Egyptians, women brewed beer both for religious ceremonies and to make a practical, calorie-rich beverage for the home. Because the beverage was such a common part of the average person’s diet, fermenting was, for many women, one of their normal household tasks. Some enterprising women took this household skill to the marketplace and began selling beer.   Maybe the simplest proof that women have long been involved with beer is that the first written beer recipe was in a hymn to Ninkasi the Sumerians goddess of beer. 

Gina, I clearly remember when we once were at a beer festival, and you were lauded by a group of arrogant millennial male drinkers for knowing the difference between an IPA and a lager.  They were ‘impressed’ you knew that. Fortunately, you held you temper and just smiled while telling them of your credentials in the field.  I think they wanted to go hide.  The good news is that I doubt that would happen today since even the denser males (why are you looking at me?) understand that more and more women know, enjoy, and drink good beer.

Here’s looking at you kid.

GINA -

Bill, have you noticed that most beer reviews are positive?  How is that possible? Doesn’t anyone make a mediocre beer anymore?  I’ve read quite a lot of reviews from bloggers to professional writers to industry experts and just about everyone sings the praises of the beer in question.  I even checked out some reviews from the revered Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson site (yes his website is still there) and almost all of his are positive too. So my question to you Bill is why don't more people write about bad beer?  I understand that back in the beginnings of the  craft beer movement reviewers were attempting to shine a light on small breweries to help the growth of the industry.   That was necessary then but today, that’s not good enough.  Now, fundamentally, the idea that a writer might be on the side of the industry rather than the consumer troubles me.

I understand that some might feel there’s little point in spending energy discussing bad beer or new, small breweries struggling to find their footing.  I’m sure many beer fans would say why call attention to a place that may well have just had an off day or will soon improve when a negative review would surely hurt them in the short term if not damage them irrevocably.  First off those places are few and far between.  Bill, you know we don't often encounter bad beer.  We typically drink at breweries or good-beer pubs. With so many breweries to visit, why would either of us spend any time at the places we know are terrible?  Well, there is a reason.

Here’s why: rather than just writing scathing commentary and reviews reviewers should use it as an opportunity to discuss why they think the beer is bad, because "bad" is in many dimensions an objective evaluation. A good brewer may fail to execute on a vision, which is one kind of bad. A mediocre brewer may compose an uninspiring recipe, a different kind of “bad”. Or the beer may have faults and off-flavors, a kind of bad that is now rarer, at least in these parts. Beer may be bad because of technical, aesthetic, or other reasons--and there's actual value in discussing the nature of the problems.  It will protect the consumer and hopefully provide guidance to the brewer.

Doing that will also give beer drinkers themselves a chance to discuss bad beer without mindlessly trashing it for failing to meet their personal preferences. That is a fault in the other direction, one that is rampant on the ratings sites.   

And Bill, don’t misquote me and say I want us to drink bad beer. 

Chug-a-lug, Bill

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Bill -

Gina, it strikes me that if we write about bad beer, we first have to drink it.  Sorry Gina, that’s not my choice for a beverage or for a future column topic.  I do agree with your last point that writing about what's objectively flawed (or bad) in a beer can act as an antidote to the often-egocentric reviewers’ tendency to regard beer's purpose as satisfying their own tastes—a damaging trend I too see in beer blogs and websites. That excludes BeerNexus of course.

By the way Gina, do “blah”, run of the mill, beers count as being “bad” and therefore deserve to be reviewed too?   Unfortunately I think many new brewers are making far too many beers just like that.  I see them often using “crutches” like making a sour, double/triple dry hopping, or making it with a high (or in some cases very low ) ABV to cover up the beers mediocrity.   I think that is far more common than a brewery making truly, objectionably bad beer, though I know we can both name more than a few that are. 

I have found that there’s a decent amount of new breweries coming out of the gate with beers that are simply middle of the road. Maybe their beers are far from world class. Maybe they have easy to identify flaws or off-flavors. But it's been a while since either of us has had a truly bad beer from a new brewery.  Well, except last week, then there was the one last month and, well, let’s move on.  Anyway, I agree it would be interesting to see some objective writings on bad beers, but I can also see that being a bit of a slippery slope toward a witch hunts that are totally unfair to the brewery.

The big question is the beer we’re talking about really middle of the road, average, or simply bad because the reviewer is in a bad mood, tired, overfull, inattentive, on their fourth beer, etc?  Of course, authentically “blah” beer does exist (let's just say they're not uncommon), and I agree they should be written about but not buried on first try. Gina, I’ve had made many mistakes with my home brews, just like professional brewers, but we’ve seen that with practice and refinement, my beers eventually transformed into special ones (at least to me). Surely professionals can do more than that with theirs.

Part of the issue is trying to gauge how any criticism will be received. We both know brewers that welcome feedback on their beers, good and bad. But there are many that are, out of hand, dismissive of any criticism.  Sadly, the new consumer who has that bad beer as their first example of a craft "style" hurts the whole brewing and beer drinking community.  That seems, in itself, a reason to write about bad beers.

I sometimes believe that the bad/mediocre beer we see out there is because of the positive reviews they surprisingly get, especially in online, public forums  For me that's a case of a consumer group that doesn't understand what craft beer is.  Gina, we both have seen some of the worst beers get decent Untappd ratings which encourages brewers  to continue to make them and not try to improve.

Let me end with this.  To all our readers I would strongly encourage you to avoid bad beer.  How’s that for real insight? 

By the way, I’m really surprised you want to drink bad beer.  

Here's looking at you, kid!

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GINA -

It's nice to see brewery tap rooms opening up again as Covid restrictions are being removed.  I've been to quite a few recently as I know you have too, Bill, though far less than in pre-pandemic days.  That fact is giving me an uncomfortable feeling.  With bar business still down substantially are people like us hurting the survival chances of the pubs we know and love?  

Beer bars everywhere are struggling to recoup their losses caused by the pandemic.  That's not the case for brewery tasting rooms. Drinkers seem to, at least currently, be flocking their in lieu of the bar. With the number of craft breweries in the United States now over 9,000 many people seem to be asking why patronize a bar when they can sip fresh beer directly from the source.

Think back, Bill. Several decades ago, the beer bar, with its dozens of draft options and deep bottle lists, delivered a liquid education in things like bitter IPAs, monk-brewed Belgian ales, barrel aged stouts, and so much more.  They were places where folks could discover the world of craft.  Bars were fundamental to the genre's growth but with the effects of Covid and the growth of the taprooms I'm afraid things have changed.  Now you'd be hard pressed to find craft-bar release parties, special promos, and constantly changing taps.  It's even very hard to find beers from new  breweries on draft at a lot of bars.  One main  reason for that is that most of the ever increasing number of new breweries are not selling to retail outlets.  It is simply not part of their business plan.  They are operating mainly for on site consumption where they can maximize profit and minimize costs.

The number of bars in the United States has declined for decades, dropping to 42,176 in 2021 from 54,296 in 2001, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Craft beer is no longer the domain of select bars; it’s sold in stadiums, supermarkets and corner bodegas, leaving the future of specialized beer bars uncertain.  Even more, the pandemic accelerated the closings of some pre-eminent beer bars you and I both visited often.  The closing of indoor dining during the pandemic cut right to the heart of the bars’ business model of buying beer and serving it to customers seated on stools. By contrast, many breweries and affiliated taprooms fared better because they sold packaged beer for consumption elsewhere.  

All I can hope for is that both breweries and beer bars not only survive but flourish as we enter a post-pandemic world.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

I share some of your concerns Gina andI too am worried when I see the growing number of beer bars closings . These were well-established, locally beloved tentpoles of the craft beer community.  In addition major beer bar chains likewise shed many locations in the last year, even when those locations had decades of history behind them. Still other classic beer bars haven’t specifically closed down, but remain stuck in limbo—a period of stasis that has lasted far longer than anyone would have expected as the pandemic descended upon us back in the spring of 2020. 

This is a story that has played out everywhere, and it’s a threat more existential than any lingering restrictions of COVID-19.  When when you get right down to it, I agree with you that a good amount of patronage has increasingly shifted away from those old-school establishments, to brewery taprooms that surround them. Taprooms have the ability to pour full pints. They can charge the same price that a bar does with far less overhead. They can park a food truck out in front of their business. They allow dogs. They allow kids. 

Despite all of that there is more to the issue than just brewery tasting/taprooms rooms, who, you should remember are themselves trying to break out of the Covid downturns.  Please don't forget that small craft breweries deserve a chance to survive too and their tasting room is vital to them.  To me the real issue for bars is that total beer volume continues to decline. Off-premise beer was dropping before the pandemic started. So it seems that comparing on-premise to off-premise numbers suggests that tasting rooms isn’t the main cause of bars' problems. 

On the bright side, if we look at the on-premise bar consumption more holistically, the picture brightens. Yes, the number of pure drinking places is declining, but statistics show that draught's share in the market is now growing at one of the fastest rates in history.   That is true whether or not you include at-the-brewery sales, or  you exclude them 

As things continue to shake out from pandemic restrictions there are some practical things beer bars can do to help themselves.  They can double down on renovations and reinvention. They can become establishments that are community gathering places where beer is the predominant beverage.  They can celebrate beer with proper glassware, clean draught lines, and knowledgeable servers.  They could embrace something both you and I have  traveled for - beer engines serving unfiltered, naturally carbonated cask ale.  They could forge exclusive collaborations with breweries and deflate any snobbish approach to beer from their bartenders and management. They could train bartenders to ask customers their names and the beer styles they like or dislike, then make suggestions and pour beers in a conversation that steers clear of pretentiousness.  

So Gina, don't look at the beer mug as being half empty, see it as half full and rising.

Here's looking at you, kid!

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GINA -

IPA is the most popular – and most argued over – beer style in craft beer. Everything about it, from its hazy origins to its color, character and increasingly cloudy appearance, is debated passionately in bars, at parties, across social media and print publications. Maybe it's time we do it too,  Bill. The IPA story has been mythologised, misunderstood, and endlessly redefined. Like the broader concept of craft beer itself.  I’m not just fascinated by it, I’m fascinated by the fascination around it, by the varying degrees of passion, agitation and disdain it inspires. 

The fact of the matter, Bill, is that IPA was never ‘invented’ as such – it evolved from strong beers meant for keeping, and it has continued to evolve ever since. According to contemporary reports, in the 1780s it was quite dark, murky, and very bitter.  My kind of brew.  In nineteenth century India, it was bright and sparkling and was usually compared to champagne. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, changes in taxation and drinking habits saw a drop in its alcoholic strength. A few years ago, beer geeks would rage that a beer was not a “proper” IPA because it was only 4% ABV.  And, yes I did just that. However history shows even going back as recently as the mid-twentieth century, low alcohol content was typical of what “IPA” was in many countries, notably the UK.  I now see those beers as a version of today's  “session IPAs.  Because of that, the strength argument can no longer be coherently made to define what beers fit and which do not, the style. For me, IPAs can legitimately range from very low (4) to very high (14%) and still rightfully use the name.

Obviously the American reinvention of IPA  has since sped up the pace of evolution of this style dramatically. What we now think of as ‘West Coast IPA’ is referred to by some as ‘Old School IPA’. If a beer style that can only be traced back in any meaningful sense to the 1980s is now ‘old school’, what does that make IPA’s 200-year-odd history up to that point?

In a very meaningful sense, the dominant style of the moment – New England IPA – is the opposite of what IPA was before it came along. India Pale Ale became the definitive beer style of the nineteenth century, and cast its shadow over the next, because it was designed to be stored and/or to survive a long sea journey in which it was subject to massive fluctuations in temperature, which contributed to its unique character, in which hop bitterness was assertive.

Now, IPAs have next to no bitterness at all, and we’re told that we must keep them cold from packaging to consumption and drink them fresh, because their delicate character disappears after a few weeks.  The British soldiers and clerks drinking IPA in Calcutta in the 1860s would likely have spat out a NEIPA claiming that it was too green, that it hadn’t ‘ripened’. The modern NEIPA fan would (and often does) dismiss traditional IPA as not being IPA at all, because it is not cloudy enough, not juicy enough. 

All I can say is the IPA umbrella is big and that's a good thing.  I like them all, though some a lot more than others. It's a style that's not going anywhere and will continue to evolve.  As we enter the new year brewers will continue to push it to new, and sometime outrageous bounds.  Regardless of where it goes, the roots of IPA are strong enough to support experimentation and new approaches.  And there's nothing wrong with that.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), commonly regarded in the craft beer world as the arbiter of beer styles, goes so far as to state: “The term ‘IPA’ is intentionally not spelled out as ‘India Pale Ale’ since none of these beers historically went to India, and many aren’t pale.”  Who knew beer judges had a sense of humor? So there we have it: IPA isn’t actually India Pale Ale at all, but an acronym without a home, or even a new word in its own right, a word commonly pronounced “eepa” by beer drinkers who’s first language isn’t English.

Gina, let’s face it, every beer is now an IPA.  I've heard people go into a bar and order an "IPA Stout" or an IPA Porter, and just about any other combination.  I remember when  black IPAs came out.  The name didn't make any sense because the 'P' means 'pale,'" The thing is that because people know that a lot of drinkers like IPAs these days so putting the word 'IPA' on something that is not an IPA can automatically confer easier marketing. The name of a style has come to define what beer in general is to millions of people.

Many people new to craft beer, start with IPAs because that's where the buzz is,  Interestingly for the past few years people have been predicting that IPAs are going out and that sour beers or some little seen style is coming in, but that hasn't happened yet. No matter what yearly predictions are for a new trend it's always IPAs that win out.

When someone asks me why so many people like IPAs I tell them it's a lot like coffee, If you don't like coffee, which most people don't the first time they try it, you get used to it. It becomes an acquired taste, and then you start enjoying some of the bitter components and things that you find.  It's the same way with IPA. often time with an even more intense passion.

Look Gina, it's always about the hops in craft beer.  Those unique aromas and flavors that brought us and so many others to craft can only come from hops. The origins of IPA are several centuries old, with English brewers traditionally making IPAs with more pronounced malt character and a certain subtlety to hop aroma and flavor. American craft brewers, on the other hand, have really leaned into hop intensity.  And that's led to, as you noted, a fairly broad interpretation, with substyles pushing the boundaries of alcohol content, using unexpected ingredients, or experimenting with process.  That's the real magic behind IPAs.

Gina, you've got me thinking  back to1981.  That's when I discovered a reimagined winter beer that is still one of my favorites today.  I'm sure you know I'm talking about Sierra Nevada Celebration.  I never had so enjoyed  such a fresh medley of citrus, pine, and floral flavors.  

Now, where was I before you interrupted me, Gina?  Got it - a few words about NEIPAs.

Back when brewers first started to talk about and show pictures of their new hazy NEIPA off springs, I remember  we really wasn't all that interested. Some of the pictures were of beer that we'd consider downright soupy. In fact, some looked like the gunk at the bottom of a fermenter, or the last pour when the keg kicks and some of the sludge ends up in your glass giving the beer a chocolate milk appearance. At the time it seemed like a bit of a gimmick, an excuse the brewer could use to cover up a possibly shoddy brewing process. After all, why would anyone purposely want to make a beer that looked like this, and more so, who would want to drink it?  We now know the answer to that.  I think I can make a case that NEIPAs have sustained the craft beer industry the past few years and without it craft might have shriveled to dire levels during the pandemic but that's a discussion for another day.  

One final word to people who have given up on IPAs"  you’re missing out on hundreds of beers that could be made perfectly for your tastes. IPAs continue to change and brewers you thought you knew have evolved too. Allow your palate to move with it, and don’t become jaded by what you’ve had—instead, get excited by what you haven’t had yet. 

Here's looking at you kid.

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GINA -

I was doing some food - mainly beer - shopping in my local supermarket the other day and noted that two extra cooler shelves had been given over to what the industry calls "single-serve packages" which is another way to say "Tall Boys, "Stovepipes",  or most accurately  — 19.2 oz. cans.  Yes Bill, those big cans have begun to claw back the dollar share they lost during pandemic shutdowns. 

I'm happy to say that if you were to look my hand right now you’d find a 19.2 can of glistening Dale's Pale.  It's clear that the industry is shifting  towards aluminum instead of glass and that means returning to the traditional 12oz, instead of pint, cans and the tallboy format.  Why?  It's simple, consumers are continuing to voice their beer opinions through their wallets.  Oskar Blues back in 2012 put the first craft beer in cans and they are now in the forefront of the rise in the , 19.2oz ones.  Now Bill, before you tell me that the can is a behemoth of beer, it really is only 1.5 times the standard (12 oz.) servings of beer and a mere 3.2 more ounces than a regular pint can.  I know it’s not a format for every beer, but more and more brewers across the nation are finding interesting niches for it.

Offering consumers variety, both in beer and in packaging, has become a winning formula for many of brewers. The 19.2oz can is ideal for the single-serve, grab-and-go type of drinker.  I think it offers breweries in-roads into new retail venues, like music concerts and gas stations. Places like those cater to a unique audience that is only looking for one serving – albeit a large one – as they enjoy a show or take the train home.  Ah, I do remember someone who will remain nameless (Bill) doing that quite a bit on his train commute each day.

Oskar Blues found it’s stovepipe niche distributing the likes of Dale’s Pale Ale to large entertainment venues and local baseball parks. They found that the 19.2oz. can was a great solution for places where folks don’t want to have to stand in line to get additional beers.  In a venue where the room can be sold out, the can is a better vessel while you are shoulder to shoulder with an energetic crowd.  By the time you get back to your seat the can has safely held your beer where a plastic cup could easily have spilled everywhere.  Mark that under "practical", Bill.

It's clear that the stovepipe offers drinkers an extended drinking window so that more time is spent soaking up the entertainment than being forced to stand in line trying to order the next one.  And there is always a next one. Furthermore, the big can fills the large sales gap left behind in the wake of the glass bombers decline as consumers look for larger servings contained in a single unit.  I do miss those bombers but that's grist for a future discussion.

In addition to giving brewers more access to different purchasing locations and drinkers, the large format also offers brewers a leg up when it comes to competing with the big boys of AB InBev who have traditionally dominated the taps and store shelves of ballparks and convenience stores. This package type allows craft to participate in this competitive single-serve business along the side of premium lagers.  As a special bonus, it just might get more people interested in stepping up to craft beer and that's a good thing.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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BILL-

All I can say it's impossible to argue against anything that provides more beer in a serving.  You've done it again to me, Gina.  But wait - there are some things you didn't mention in your commentary, so I can write something after all. 

With any new format, brewers must make the decision on how they need to tweak their canning lines to adjust. That may not be as easy as it sounds. For some, like Oskar Blues or Dogfish Head, the switch to 19.2 was as simple as flipping a switch.  They are well known for their state-of-the-art canning line which was installed with the ability to fill 12, 16 and 19.2oz cans.  For others, a major overhaul would be needed.  It takes a big investment to update a canning line to work with the larger format. So while the consumer is ready, the manufacturing side of things can be a roadblock if you have not prepared in advance to run the  larger cans. Also, on the packaging side of things, the stovepipe cans require a unique 12-pack carton compared to the traditional 6-pack trays and 6-pack holders called paktechs in the industry.

Gina, you should remember that in the scheme of things, the popularity of the stovepipe represents a small amount of total sales though I have to agree it’s trending up. Actually, since the bigger cans were introduced over five years ago, many of the breweries I know have said it has consistently helped sales.  However, they also agreed that its growth may be a slower now than usual because of the the dynamic sales increases of 12oz cans.  Switching from 4 pack pint cans to a six pack of 12. oz. cans is becoming one of the hot industry trends currently.

Putting the onus on breweries to invest in newer packaging formats amid the myriad of other financial responsibilities as they comeback from Covid woes seems like a low priority, but that could change if more and more breweries start offering the format. The more craft breweries that offer this pack size, the need to compete will convince retailers to create space on the shelf specifically for the 19.2oz can.

As you pointed out breweries like Oskar Blues have made their commitment to the stovepipe can clear. Interestingly they’ve also seen success serving a variety of their barrel-aged beers, like Barrel Aged Ten FIDY Imperial Stout, in the larger format.  I recently even saw Brooklyn Brewery's lauded Black Ops in cans. If that trend continues it will be interesting to see if the consumer’s love of the high-octane brews might lead to increased demand for the likes of barrel-aged stouts served in the19.2oz cans.

As I see it, few folks earmark 19.2-ounce cans for a rainy day. They generally buy it for immediate consumption.  However selling a single can opens the door to buying more beer later on.  If someone buys a 19.2-ounce can at a festival or a ball game, it's logical to expect that there will be a  4 or 6-pack of that in their fridge shortly after.  So in a way, the can helps beer sales in all formats.

Clearly brewery taprooms are not the place for the format. People aren’t going to there for convenience. They’re going there on an excursion. These breweries probably shouldn’t even want to sell this format.  Another reason for that is that only a limited number of large-can suppliers produce printed 19.2-ounce cans, and minimum orders start at 25 pallets—more than 125,000 cans. The cans require tons of storage space and liquid, boxes best checked by America’s largest and most widely distributed craft breweries. 

And Gina, since I have two hands I can carry a pint can in each which is more than your single Big Boy so guess who will be waiting in that beer line first?  Just kidding, as usual I'll get up and get you a refill.

Here's looking at you kid.

GINA -

Sometimes even I get shocked, Bill.  Yesterday I found out my local pub raised their price to $9 for a 12 oz. glass of average craft beer.  Even worse some breweries are charging over $30 for a 4 pack.  What's going on?  There seem to be opportunistic brewers and retailers who are cashing in on the pent up demand from the pandemic to sell beers at artificially inflated prices primarily because there are some people who are willing to pay them. 

I understand there sometimes is a legitimate explanation for high cost but it's hard to accept that when the beer is no better than average.  The bottom line is that if a beer is too expensive it doesn’t matter why. I know there are high production costs for some beers so they should have a higher price tag but that doesn't mean it's being sold at a fair price.  The question is at what point does raising the price become a form of price gouging?  

Obviously the answer to all of that is not to buy any beer that is excessively overpriced.  And that's what's happening.  Next time you go shopping for beer I guarantee you'll see the same 4 pack that's priced over $30 still sitting on the shelf in the same spot.

 It is a fact that many small breweries, each with relatively high overheads, need to increase revenue but excessive price rises will eventually mean less overall profit for them as people curtail the demand for their overpriced products.  It's a basic law of economics that breweries should remember.

Beer, including craft, was always a fairly level field, cost wise, affordable to most. Inclusive. But when the lofty costs of beer closes the door on the very people who supported craft in the beginning of the movement something is wrong.  Good beer should always be accessible. 

For breweries who claim they can't survive without super high prices then maybe they should look into more efficient production methods.  It's that simple.  In some cases perhaps they could merge, combine talent under wider umbrellas to keep their costs manageable. It's then likely their beers would be considerably cheaper to bring to market since they are no longer being made in separate small batches by separate small teams in separate small units. Combine, share all the knowledge, the talent and the passion – keep those high costs down and pass the savings on to those who love quality beer but simply can’t or won't join the party. 

Let's face it, Bill,  the craft beer boom has normalized. The days of double digit growth each year is gone. Breweries now contend with consumers that increasingly demand a diverse array of alcoholic beverages at an affordable price.  Not only that , in addition to the traditional competitors like wine or spirits now add spiked seltzers, spiked teas, [ready-to-drink] (RTD) mixed drinks, cider, etc.  Craft cannot now price itself out of the mainstream market.   

Chug-a-lug Bill

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BILL-

I agree with much of what you said but not your conclusion that high prices will ruin craft beer.  As always, the marketplace, in the long run, will adjust the prices to an equilibrium point.  Still in the short run I agree that excessively high pricing will get some to move away from craft beer and that will hurt the industry.  

Now that I've agreed with you let me explain just why some of the prices are so high.  Note I stress "some".  Many of those expensive craft beers simply aren't average.  Gina, when's the last time you've heard a wine lover declare that Chateau Lafite, for example, should cost the same as "Two Buck Chuck".  Never.  Why don't beer people realize that high quality usually means higher prices for their beverage too.

First consider that some beers have more "stuff" in them than others.  Here’s an interesting stat: in North America, craft brewers account for around 10 % of total beer volume brewed. But craft brewers buy 25 % of all the hops grown in America. That means on average, craft brewers put two and a half times as many hops into their beers as mainstream commercial breweries. So, the cost of the hops going into each pint is at least two and a half times higher. If you don’t like hoppy beer, or don’t want to pay a premium for it, that’s your choice. But surely the financial logic is undeniable. And that’s before you take into account the extra expense of ensuring a very hoppy beer remains chilled from the point of packaging to the point it’s bought by the drinker, to preserve the freshness of the hops. 

Next consider that some beers take longer to make than others.  There are various examples of this, but let’s look at lager. It’s generally accepted that a good quality lager should be lagered, or conditioned, at low temperatures for at least four weeks. That's so the yeast can reabsorb unwanted, off compounds, leaving a fresh, clean beer that’s crisp and refreshing but still has flavor and character. Not only does the lagering process tie up your capital for weeks because you can’t sell the beer it needs to be stored at cool temperatures. Keeping huge rooms full of tanks at that temperature consistently costs a serous amount of money. Some mainstream commercial brands go from brewing to packaging in 72 hours.  But taste a properly lagered lager alongside one that’s been made in a few days, and you might be skeptical about this. 

Lastly consider that some beers use rare or special ingredients.  For example, think Lambic beers. Instead of adding laboratory-cultured yeasts to start the fermentation, lambic brewers rely on the natural yeasts in the air around them. There are lots of ugly critters floating around in the air that will spoil the beer and make it undrinkable. This means lambic producers can only brew during certain months of the year. The traditional season runs from October to April.  At Cantillon, the world’s most famous lambic brewery, the limited brewing window is only 140 days after which  it’s gets stored for three years, matured and blended.  Prices have to rise, or the company will go out of business.

As I see it the consumer has a responsibility to figure out which beers deserve a higher price tag and which do not.  There are quite a few on both sides of that equation.

Here's looking at you, kid.

GINA -

Let me start you off with a question that you already know the answer to - how can you tell if a beer is made by a U.S. craft brewer? You’re right – look for the independent craft brewer seal.  Think back to June 2017 when the independent craft brewer seal was launched by the Brewers Association, the membership organization “dedicated to promoting and protecting small and independent craft brewers in the United States.” Craft was in a war with Big Beer and still is today.

Defining “craft beer” can be tricky to we drinkers butt the Brewers Association defines a craft brewery.  as 

small (annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less) and Independent ( less than 25 percent of the craft brewery is owned by an organization  that is not itself a craft brewer).  To help beer drinkers know which beers are truly made by a craft brewery the BA came up with the seal idea The design is an upside down beer bottle  It's a bit silly but we'll save that discussion for another time. My concern is does anyone really look for it when buying beer and if now, should we care about it?

I for one do and think it’s important.  Iit sends a clear signal to consumers that they are not only buying a good beer with natural ingredients, but they are also supporting an independently owned small business that hires local workers and gives back to its community.  As I see it Bill, the seal is necessary because when a multinational corporation, like AB InBev or Heineken, purchases a brewery, either partially or outright, not much changes in the eyes of the average drinker. Actually, they might be excited to see a drop in price and an increase in availability. But their dollars are now being funneled to a corporation who, some have argued, is best served by eroding the brand of “craft beer” in America and making life more difficult for the small, independent breweries trying to thrive here.

With the craziness of the Pandemic the movement for the Seal certainly slowed down.  I saw one article that said more than 5,000 breweries have adopted the seal, though many breweries have not chosen to use it.  For example, out of the top 50 craft breweries only 36 have added it to packaging.  I think it’s important every craft brewery use the seal especially now as craft sales have slowed and things are just beginning to open up.  Even worse, in the most recent survey of beer drinkers only 49% said the Seal would make them more likely to buy the beer, 8% said it would make them less likely and 43% said it wouldn’t affect their decision at all.  I’m hoping that talking about it in this month’s column will in some way increase those numbers of people who is it as a buying guideline.

Bill, the Seal captures the spirit of what small and independent craft brewers have achieved. Brewers have been adding the it to everything tied to their brands, especially packaged beer—bottles, cans, six-pack carriers, case boxes, keg collars, and more.

To me beer is more than just what’s in the glass—it is also about the people who brew it and who owns the brewery behind the brands.  It’s about how independent brewers gave us an alternative to fizzy, tasteless, yellow beers and brought us the glorious beers we love today.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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BILL-

Well said Gina, but then again you’re preaching to the choir with me.  However, there are some uncomfortable things you fail to mention (if I didn’t say that we’d have no column).  As you said the Independent Craft Brewers Association is an industry association that pretty much any brewer can join - as long as you're small, not owned by somebody who's too big to qualify for membership, and you brew beer. Those criteria don't necessarily result in a good product.  To be blunt, there’s a lot of beer out there with the Independent seal that isn’t worthy of it.  Should I have to drink bad beer just because it has an Independent Seal on it?

Of course I support many local breweries as you but there are some I won't go into again because their beer was awful after several chances.  And I know you haven’t gone back to them either.  In those cases, we haven’t let the Seal be a major criteria in our buying decisions.   Take a second to think of all the Oktoberfest beers we’ve sampled recently.  I think it’s fair to say that a good number of them didn’t meet the qualifications for the seal. Despite that, many were excellent.

I can also see the point of those who consider the seal's requirements to be meaningless double-speak. For example, being owned by external masters is still considered "independent" so long as those masters are not in the alcohol business. And, another example, small brewers bought up by owners of multiple small brewers are still considered "independent." In what dictionary are they getting their definition from for the word "independent"?

Gina, I’m sure you remember my friend Chas who manages a beer store.  He once told me that he’s never once had someone ask him "Is this certified independent?" when looking for a beer recommendation. The conversation, he said, was always been founded on the basis of "What do you think of this beer?", "Is this beer good?" or "What would you recommend?" He knew what his customers wanted and it was taste first.  To Chas’ credit he always recommended and independent beer first if it was good and local.

You brought up an interesting point that there are local craft breweries who have chosen not to use the Seal even though it’s free and they qualify to get it.  Does that make them any less “craft” or “independent”? While we certainly have the right to judge the quality of their beer I don’t think it is our place to judge their decision.

Gina, take a second to think about what you did when you last bought beer.  I’m fairly sure that the top three things we both considered was style, ABV, packaging date, and price.  I’m sure that if we found one or two of those things not to our liking we wouldn’t buy the beer.  Having said that I also am also sure that if we had to decide between two beers that met our criteria then we’d probably pick the one that had the Seal.

Now if the BA would also make it a requirement clearly print "bottled/canned on date"  be put in a box next to the Seal then I would look for it every single time.

Here's looking at you,  kid.

GINA-

Bill how many times have you told someone, “Let me buy you a pint,” (not often in your case - just kidding)  or asked a colleague of ours here at BeerNexus, “Want to grab a pint after work?” It’s not necessary to explain what you’re offering a pint of: Beer.  It is one of the only substances on Earth whose common unit of measurement has become a shorthand for the very thing it measures. 

Pints are the essence of the classic idea of barroom informality that involves standing and talking to friends while leaning casually with one elbow on the bar and a pint glass in your hand. And that’s what you see at old-school places that you and I like so much, Bill, and I think a reason for their growing popularity. 

When I was a teenager, I mean 21, there was only one way to drink draft beer, and that was the 16-ounce shaker glass: The sturdy, straight-sided, stackable vessel you see at restaurants and bars, serving brews and sodas alike. I didn't mind that the shaker's flat planes often resulted in a palm-warmed beer. I didn't notice that its lack of a bowl prevented the drink's aromas from proper release. The end result was to have a good time and I did.  I guess I was easy to please back then.

Now that I'm not a dumb as I used to be (wipe that surprised look off your face Bill) I have six kinds of vessels in my home to use for beer: A 9-ounce snifter, a 12-ounce tumbler, a 12-ounce tulip, a 16-ounce German-style mug, a 20-ounce glass for Heifeweisens. and one English nonic pint. which holds 20 ounces. I just don't think the standard US shaker pints were ever meant for craft, just for yellow fizzy macro lagers.  And it's not just me. Now that bars have reopened notice that many are serving craft brews in snifters, tumblers, wineglasses and other smaller-than-a-pint glasses.  

Look, I appreciate the importance of the shaker pint in drinking history. That conical, straight-sided pint glass that some still call a Boston shaker glass, was originally used to shake cocktails, not serve beer. But it has been a fixture in taverns since the early 20th century, thanks to its utility: It’s easy to stack, hard to break and perfect for displaying beer or bar advertisements. Even into the 21st century, as knowledge about craft beer exploded, it remained the go-to glass for most bars. However practical, they nonetheless are not an ideal vessel to enjoy craft beer since they’re not the best glasses for aroma or head retention.

I understand there are other 16-ounce glasses out there avoid those problems: German glassmaker Spiegelau has worked with Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada to create 16-ounce glasses that noticeably enhance aromas and flavors as did Sam Adams years ago.  Also my English-style nonic pint glass' characteristic bulge in the neck does the same thing.  But it's just not for me.

So my message to bar proprietors and drinkers both is to enjoy you beer in the vessel that most enhances the drinking experience.  You'll be amazed what a difference the appropriate glass can make in the beer's tastes.  And almost as good you'll never have to look at a dopey Bud Light logo again.

Chug-a-lug Bill.

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BILL

Now there's a topic I didn't expect - the shaker pint.  Where did it come from?  I mean the glass, not the topic.  Actually I mean both but I only have the answer about the glass.   Prohibition forced the vast majority of small breweries out of business, leaving in its aftermath mostly larger brands like Schlitz, Anheuser-Busch, and Coors in operation. If you wanted a draft beer, this meant you were kind of drinking flavorless stuff—and in large quantities, since it had such low alcohol content. 

As I see it, that dearth of quality beer (though with plenty of mass-market brew to go round) was the shaker glass's opportunity to rise. Why bother with a fancy glass when you're drinking nothing special? Complaining that your glass wasn't good enough for your beer would have been like complaining your paper plate wasn't good enough for Wonder Bread, 

I agree that In terms of sheer utility, the shaker glass is exceptional. A server needed to worry less about splashing or spilling than with a dainty flute, or about smashing that fancier glass on the way back to the bar. For managers, using the shaker for draft beer meant you needed fewer kinds of glasses in your bar, saving money and precious shelf space.  But think back when we first started homebrewing together in the late 1980s when "microbreweries" started. We and small commercial producers were inspired by Belgian brewers, who churned out a saisons and stouts, dubbels and tripels, whites and wheats, ambers and blondes. Each came with their own gorgeous glass: chalices, flutes, goblets, tulips, strange wooden stands, and hexagonal cups all mixing into the American brew scene a diversity of styles long forgotten. 

It's clear that the craft revolution has also created a change in the choice of glass. Although craft appropriate  glassware is more expensive, less sturdy, and takes up more space, it's also increasingly what people look for when they order beer at a bar—and not just the outposts of artisanal treats.

Now before we all start cheering let's face the fact that despite all we've said shaker glasses are still a mainstay in most bars and restaurants. For many folks in the service industry, their utility is a hard argument for their continued use. That frustrates some beer industry boosters, for whom the shaker is much more than a glass. It's a curse. Look at it this way, Gina, when you use the same glass throughout the bar and restaurant trade to serve water, soda, iced tea, and milk, this assures beer of similar low-level commodity status instead of the premium status it deserves.

Let me leave you with this thought.  Think about the way Americans perceive beer to how they perceive its competitor, wine.  The fact is that 90 percent of the wine retailers sell is classified as "bulk".  Beer has the same kind of market distribution: 10 percent craft beer and imports, and 90 percent industrial, macro made yellow fizzy flavorless stuff. But when we think of wine, we think of the top 10 percent. And when we think about beer, we think about the 90.

Changing glassware just might help change perceptions. 

Here's looking at you, kid.

GINA-

Well Bill, I hope you're sitting down when I tell you I was buying beer this weekend.  I can almost see the shocked look on your face.  It however wasn't as shocked as the look on mine when I picked up a six pack of one of the first craft beers I ever had, a true classic, Anchor Liberty Ale.  They changed the logo.  Now don't give me that "who cares" look.  We're talking about beer history here. I realize the new look has been out there but this is the first time I've had it in hand.  

My personal reaction was immediate: as a standalone piece of visual design, I think it looks cheap and generic. From a more dispassionate branding point of view, I think it has broken a fundamental law of good branding by throwing away completely a distinctive and much-loved visual identity.      

I'm not the only one angry about this.  So many people must have complained that Anchor actually issued a statement acknowledging the depth of feeling among its fans and defended its position.  It was what you'd expect but the fact remains that they felt the need to issue the statement.  It underlines the depth of feeling around the change, which is all the more fascinating when you consider how many craft beer fans insist that what’s on the outside of the package doesn’t matter – it’s what’s inside that counts. Anchor even felt it necessary to reassure fans that the beer itself hadn’t changed.  

As I said this is beer history, and if you appreciate the craft beer struggle you should care.  Anchor is widely regarded as the first modern American craft brewery. It actually dates back to 1871, (it was named Anchor in 1896).  It closed during prohibition and then struggled on afterwards until it was bought by Fritz Maytag in 1965. Maytag continued brewing the unique Steam Beer, bottling it for the first time in 1971. Over subsequent years he began using an experimental hop that later became known as Cascade. Got you there Bill.  I know that's one of your favorites. Anchor bravely stood alone as a small, independent brewery creating beers that didn’t taste like mass produced macro lager. That was over forty years ago. Although I was only a tiny baby then (no snickering Bill) somehow I was smiling.  

I understand that the craft beer shelves are now far more crowded than they were. Even if that were not the case, times change. Everyone needs to update their wardrobe every now and again, and brands are no different.  But there’s a generational element in play here. Obviously, innovation and new thinking are vital for any dynamic market to retain its energy. But craft beer succeeds when it is a balance of tradition and innovation playing off each other. 

If you’re the type of craft beer fan for whom anything old is irrelevant and crap simply and only because it is old, then you’re not a craft beer fan at all. You’re simply a trend-chasing little kid who has just moved on from fidget spinners and Pokémon Go, and you’ll be out of here whenever some influencer tells you it’s now cooler to drink Hard Seltzer, or CBD-infused spirits, or some whacky  space rock-infused liquefied donuts or something. For those I say don’t let your-sticker-loving, badge-encrusted, designer label-clad rear end hit the door on the way out.

Look Bill, the bottom line is that Anchor is wrong in the implication that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  They're wrong when they think they’re being put in the shade by faddy, dayglo brands.  They're wrong if they believe they have no option but to become one slick, phony doodad brands themselves. In a word, that's a lot of......baloney (that's called self-censorship, Bill)

Chug-a-lug Bill

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BILL

Once again you surprised me with this month's topic and your passion about it.  Then again, I'm not shocked since we craft beer folks are passionate and truly care about the history and legacy of the movement. Having said that let me remind you that any brand needs to stand out from the competition.  However at the same time remember that most brands obey category cues that make them fit in. For example, you don’t see laundry detergent that you could mistake for beer, and vice versa. The question is do you stand out by doing category cues better than anyone else or do you stand out by looking like no one else does? How a brewery (or any business) answers is vitally important to their survival.

I agree that Anchor has gone for a revolutionary approach despite the fact that there are many examples in beer of brands that maintain their relevance by a process of gentle evolution. Interestingly, please note that Anchor had indeed evolved gently over the years.  Now it seems they no longer feel evolution is enough even if huge brands such as Budweiser proudly make a point of constant evolution.  As you know I even have a poster of Bud's constantly changing cans/bottles on my office wall.  It's that fascinating. For a craft beer example take a look at  Anchor’s peer Sierra Nevada.  They had no problem over the years making design changes in a gentle evolution of its original illustrated style.

The key point for me is that a brand has to be true to itself and not try to be someone else. In its defense, Anchor seems to have done exactly this.  Relax  Gina, don't yell at me yet.  Next time you pick up a pack have have a closer look, and you might get my point.  Let me explain. Firstly, there’s a new strapline, “Forged in San Francisco,” and a reference Anchor’s heritage. It's also the first time, they are showing their original brewery on all packages so every lifelong Steam drinker and new drinker has an understanding of its San Francisco roots and heritage. The illustration even shows the steam that billowed off our rooftops as the wort cooled.  Next consider there’s the big anchor on the front itself. There are many different anchors in San Francisco’s port heritage, and the new logo seams to be a combination of many of them 

Now don't get me wrong, Gina.  Although the label has an Anchor on it, that doesn’t mean the logo has Anchor’s values or it's tone of voice. The strategy of it is fine, the execution flawed. To me the design's simplicity and blocks of primary colors make it resemble a basic retro lager beer label. And more, the label's big, simple anchor reminds me of all those generic clip-art logos you can copy free from the Internet

While established brands have learned from craft that people want authentic, handmade cues, Anchor has moved in the opposite direction. Its packaging may now be telling the brewery’s story better, but a visual identity built up over almost 50 years has been trashed at a stroke. The real problem is not that it looks different from how it did, but that it looks too much like everything else, and is too easily replicable.  

I guess what I' really saying Gina, is that you're right.  What else is new?  

Here's looking at you, kid.

GINA -

Does anyone still care about the meaning of the term “craft beer”?  How about you Bill?  Well, hopefully you won't be shocked but I’m afraid I do – passionately.

Debates – sometimes furious arguments – have been going on for at least fifteen years now over that term. I often hear craft beer dismissed as a “meaningless marketing term”, both by people who think it’s been co-opted by big brewers, and by people who think it never meant anything in the first place, on the grounds that it lacks a tight, technical definition.

Attempts by industry bodies to create such a definition have been fighting an orderly retreat since 2005. Back then they started with multi-faceted lists of all the attributes many of us visualize when we think of craft beer.  It really didn't solve the problem.  After that, thanks to both the growth and diversification of craft brewers and the attempts by Big Beer to co-opt craft, the only meaningful understanding of “craft beer” became that it is produced by an independent brewery. Today Brewer’s Associations around the world are steadily rebranding themselves as associations of "independent brewers", and seem to be quietly retiring the word “craft” from use, just as they did “microbrewery” a decade ago.

If we say" craft" means "independent", like the US Brewers Association currently does, then Yuengling Light – a cheap, adjunct-filled mass-market lager made by a massive corporation – is officially a craft beer. Meanwhile, Goose Island Bourbon County Barrel-aged stout – regarded by many as the best barrel-aged stout in the world – is not a craft beer, on the grounds that Goose Island is now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. In this warped reality, it’s hardly surprising if people think “craft beer” has lost its usefulness.

The thing is, millions of people around the world are really into something they call “craft beer”. To many of them – particularly the early adopters (like us) and the people who are really engaged with the industry, independent ownership is a really important part of what they’re buying into. But to people who are already happy drinking beer owned by large corporations, and just getting into craft, telling them they “should” be drinking independent beer is a bigger, more difficult task.

So maybe it's time to separate craft beer from independence, and express its meaning in a way that works for any beer or brewery. And just maybe that's part of our job since at last count we reach thousands of people around the world each month with our column.  

I'm guessing you might have a hard time with this Bill since we both have lamented (and still do) Big Beer's buying out of small craft brewers.  I think it's a key issue as we enter the post-pandemic beer world.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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BILL-

First let me state, unequivocally, that small, independent breweries not only need protection from rapacious Big Beer for their own sake, but also because they give the whole beer market the energy and dynamism that keep it healthy.  

However I understand that’s no longer quite the same thing as craft, because big breweries and craft breweries change as they affect one another. So if you're asking me to find a new understanding of and relevance for the idea of craft beer, I think we have to look at the much older idea of craft as it applies beyond beer.

Firstly, there’s this nonsensical idea, which many craft beer fans are reluctant to acknowledge, that craft beer has to be from a newish brewer rather an a traditional, long-established firm, and that it has to come with cool, funky packaging and design. There is no other area of craft where these factors are even considered. For example, every time someone argues that traditional British cask ale which we both love is not craft I get angry.  It is produced in small batches by a master craftsperson, marketed locally, made with established techniques and ingredients to create a product that is more flavorful and complex than mainstream beer.  How is that not a craft beer?  Those people expose the fact that for them, craft is more about image than the beer itself.

Gina, look closer at the broader idea of craft and you'll see real ale at its heart. And maybe that’s why these are the beers that directly inspired the US craft beer movement the first place.

I found that independence and ownership are never mentioned in discussions of “craft” outside beer. Crafts people always had wealthy patrons, sponsors or customers. What really matters is that craftspeople have some independence of action – that they are in charge of how they work, and can feel some degree of ownership over the tools they use, and a say in how the work turns out. It is far, far more likely that this will happen in a small, independent organizations than a large corporation, but not exclusively so.

Another important point to note is that we assume crafted products will be higher quality than mainstream, mass-manufactured products, and that the person making them will have a higher than average degree of skill. We expect this in craft beer and take it for granted. But it is absolutely not guaranteed. Craftspeople in other areas serve long apprenticeships before they can adopt that title. While there are apprenticeships and qualifications in craft brewing, no one is under any obligation to take them before buying a brew kit and calling themselves a craft brewer. Problems of quality and consistency in craft brewing are a threat to its integrity.

Again, it’s far, far more likely that small, independent brewers will embody all of these aspects, but it’s not guaranteed that a big brewer never will or a small craft brewer always will. So there’s a crucial difference between small and independent, and craft.  I know you're saying this doesn’t get us to a tight, measurable definition of a craft beer or a craft brewer. But tight, measurable definitions go against what craft is all about.

 Craft is the embodiment of innate knowledge and skill, to the extent that many people who possess this skill cannot begin to put it into words. Craft beer is a concept that is full of meaning, far richer than any attempt to pin it down to a tight definition has ever captured. The lack of such a definition doesn’t really diminish that meaning. For craft beer to survive and flourish, we need to hold any brewery to account on the skills and behaviors that truly make it craft – or not. 

Here's looking at you Gina

Gina

I just returned from my first visit to a bar in a long time.  I admit that even with masks and social distancing I wanted to err on thee side of caution but now thanks to to getting my vaccine shot I returned and let me tell you Bill, I really enjoyed it! .

 There were a few issues however thanks to an understaffed establishment .  My harried and inexperienced bartender poured me the wrong beer.  Even worse it was a mainstream lager in a wrongly branded glass. I know the right glass wouldn't have helped but somehow it would have made me feel better. Hey, stop laughing at me, Bill. All I kept thinking was that at home, I had a cellar full of infinitely better beers – and in many cases, the glassware to match.

But I was back in a pub at last  As is so often the case, the beer itself wasn’t the point.  It's the pub that made my experience special. I always felt that, long before I even knew about “craft beer”, beer styles, the hop profile of a various IPAs or the pros and cons of cask breathers.  Pubs are indeed special to we beer folks.

Maybe it takes a lockdown to really realize this, but we need to be around other people. In fact I want to be in a pub that’s reasonably busy. And here’s the thing: I feel happier if there are other people there even when (usually) I have no intention of directly socializing with them.

I’ve realized that the pub/bar occasion I’ve missed during the pandemic more than any other is stopping in for a quick one on the way home from the work or when I just feel like. Sometimes I want to watch a game on TV, sometimes I want to read a book, sometimes I just want to sit and people watch and not to bump into anyone I know or be bothered by anyone I don’t know. But I’d still much rather the pub was busy than not (so long as I can get still get a stool at the bar or a table to myself.)

As I was sitting there enjoying a second pint it struck me that that trends in pub interior design have moved counter to trends in our homes. In bygone days homes consisted of one room with a fire in the middle. There was no privacy. Pubs, on the other hand, were divided and sub-divided by screens and partitions, the forerunner of the snug, so that couples – who could afford it – were able to converse in privacy. Now, we’ve gone the opposite way. At home, families spend a lot of their time in different rooms looking at different screens, while many pubs have knocked down all their interior walls, so we can all be in one big space, not interacting with each other directly, but comforted in some way by the presence of others.

Pubs are a world unto themselves which makes visiting the so much fun.  Maybe what I love most is the special pub etiquette is that pretty much has evolved specifically to encourage sociability: the buying of rounds, the need to go to the bar to do so, the clinking of glasses – the whole lot. That reminds me Bill, it's your turn to buy since I bought last the day before they closed the bars down.

My big hope is that every pub, bar, brewery, and drinking establishment will have survived the pandemic and will open to big business.  I hope all our readers make an effort to do that as soon as they can.

Chug - a- lug Bill.

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Bill

Well Gina, your call for people to come out and help breweries and bars survive as pandemic restrictions end is well said.  We beer lovers can help ourselves by helping them.  In the past  whenever a pub closed, people invariably say, “Oh that’s a shame. They should have gone there more often to keep it open.” Who “they” are is never clear, given that the person speaking professes to love the pub in question, but last went there about three years ago. These folks want pubs to be around, even if they don’t want to go often themselves. Sorry but that doesn't work.  

As I see it, the places we go to for a pint are important parts of the national  landscape.  They represent normality. Even during the worst of times, bars and restaurants were never  forced to close (excluding Prohibition) or restrict their legal open hours, or limited to take out.  If the pubs were open, that meant we were not defeated by whatever crisis was at hand.

That’s why Covid has been so shocking to me. I had never experienced the shutdown or restrictions that were imposed to fight the virus.  When I first learned of them I admit to thinking  I should to go down to my local brewery and move in until all this blows over.  After all, it is possible to live on just beer for quite a while. With a smile. 

Gina, the virus might as well have been designed to take out everything that makes pubs, bars, and brewery tasting rooms special. Of course we can and did enjoy good beer at home but as you said, it isn't the same. The fact that we couldn't do it at a bar during the height of the pandemic showed that this was not a normal time and was indeed something very serious and scary. 

It is possible that many people, us included, never realized the important role the bar plays in society before this. The coronavirus crisis, then, might be the perfect time to assess our relationship with the places we go to for a good beer and the very real support it offers beyond the obvious alcoholic potations. Fundamentally, they provide an element of belonging, community, and connection. Those are basic human needs.  

For both men and women, the pub is a great place to catch up, tell stories and release any frustrations of the day. It's an enjoyable environment that can relax, calm, and reinvigorate you.  There's even scientific proof of that.  I recently saw an article that said the feel good hormone Oxytocin is produced when we experience physical human contact, which in turn has a highly positive impact on emotional responses that contribute to relaxation, increasing trust and psychological stability. Oxytocin within the brain has also been found to reduce stress responses and anxiety. A lack of oxytocin from sitting at home during the shutdown clearly surely had a detrimental effects on many people's well being, 

For me and countless others going to the bar/pub  plays a key role in facilitating friendships and helps make us be happier, more trusting, and better connected to our community. That connection, might even be more important than the contents of your pint glass.  Well, almost.

Now that most restrictions have lifted and it’s getting safe for people to return to their daily routines, I join you Gina in hoping people get out in record numbers to their local beer place for the familiarity, camaraderie and positive interactions that were missing during lockdown while reveling in a pint or two of fresh, glorious beer.  Let's drink to that!

Here's looking at you Gina. 

GINA -

I was recently at a gathering (don't worry we all wore masks and kept our distance) that featured a winemaker as guest speaker.  He spent a lot of time talking about his wines' unique terroir, or specific location where the vines from which the grapes that go into the wine are grown.  He then implied that beer was a  much less sophisticated beverage because of that.  Well, why can't we say the same with beer in terms of where the barley, hops, yeast and water that goes into the brewing come from? 

He explained when a winemakers talks about terroir, they mean the land, the soils, the specific site from which the vines are planted and the grapes are grown. So terroir is a myriad of factors covering a whole spectrum of different influences. Then there is the climate. How many days of sun does that vineyard get a year? What is the rainfall like? Do the vines need to be irrigated and drip fed with water? Are they affected by wind, by the atmosphere? You also have to take into account if the vineyard is it on a valley floor, or up and down a mountainside. How many feet above sea level is it? I'll spare you the rest of what he said.

Of course you know that during the Q&A I asked if any of the elements he was talking about also have an influence on the type of beer a brewer can make.  Before he could answer I told him hops are cultivated in several countries across the world, most notably Germany, the United States, Czech Republic and the United Kingdom. The precise location where they are grown, and the corresponding climate, geology and soil quality, affects the type of hop that can be successfully cultivated and also the yield, aromas, flavors and amount of bitterness they can impart to the beer.   

I followed that by telling him and the group that similar factors to his wine terroir can also be said to have an impact on barley – the most common grain used in the production of beer. I explained that barley of  provides color, body, mouthfeel, flavor and, through fermentation, alcohol to a beer but, unlike grapes in winemaking, barley is not used straight from the field. Between harvest and brew day it goes through a complex process (malting) which involves controlled germination and kilning. In this way, the maltster’s skill arguably has as much of an impact on the barley as the climate or soil.  Take that Mr. wine guy!  If you were there Bill I hope you would have applauded me.

I was feeling it and probably some of the wine they were serving at the affair.  That was another thing that got my ire up.  The only beer they had was Bud and Coors Light.  To the wine guy's credit he said he agreed with me that some beers have a level of complexity that he appreciates. He then moved on to another person's question.  Lucky for him since all my debates with you in this column prepared me to go ahead and continue to crush him.

The end result of my pontificating was that the group asked me to speak to them on craft beer.  Guess who is going to appear with me?  You.  Thanks in advance.

That's it from me, chug-a-lug, Bill.....see you next time!.

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BILL -

Well said, Gina.  I'll be supporting my local brewer and bar owner.  And I'll even buy you not one but two rounds. And then another two.  

Let's hope only a very few places close. In the past whenever a pub closed, people invariably say, “Oh that’s a shame. They should have gone there more often to keep it open.” Who “they” are is never clear, given that the person speaking professes to love the pub in question, but last went there about three years ago. We want pubs to be there, even if we don’t want to use them ourselves. If people say that now as places struggle to reopen, problems might be insurmountable. 

I agree with your premise that pubs, bars, and breweries are an important part of our social landscape.  They represents normality.  So long as those places are open we can say the pandemic nor anything else for that matter has beaten us.  Establishments that make and sell good beer are as essential as Mom and apple pie to American society.  Well, that may be a bit overboard but you get the idea.

Shutting things down is what made Covid so shocking to people fortunate enough not to be directly involved with the illness. . As far as I can tell, other than Prohibition, drinking venues have never been required to close their doors.  I do admit that when my my state's governor closed everything down my first instinct was to to go down to the local brewery and lock myself in until all this blows over. Sometimes I wish I would have done that but only if the brewer and everything he needed to make beer were there with me. 

The virus might as well have been designed to take out everything that makes pubs special – the informality, the ordering at the bar, the chance encounters, the chinking of glasses. The fact that the pubs had to close showed that this was not normal. That it was actually downright scary. 

So that’s why, today, all the headlines are about beer and drinking establishments  reopening, with indoor as well as outdoor seating  means we are getting back to normal and we're ready for it.  Maybe that means that the symbolic value of pubs is even greater than their practical value.  I'm not sure about that but I am sure we're all happy things are slowly but surely getting to the point where I can walk into my favorite beer places and simply ask, "What's on tap?"  And when the beer comes don't forget to hold it high and say -  Sip Sip Hooray

Here's looking at you, Gina.

GINA-

Hey Bill,  

I know we're both worried how the strength of the economy, the patchwork of lockdown regulations, and even ongoing supply chain irregularities will impact the beer industry but I think anyone who's been following things can reasonably speculate that certain prior and pandemic-era trends, like virtual conferences, e-commerce and direct-to-consumer sales, will last.   

Of course no one really knows how quickly the economy will rebound and when people will feel safe going out to their local breweries and pubs again but I just read what might be the nation’s most exhaustive analysis of the outlook for the beer business in 202. I call it the  “Back to the Future'' predictive model.  It had three main points.  First is that people will go back to 2019 consumption levels and live like they used to live. No complaints from me on that. Second is that off-premises

sales for at-home imbibing will keep growing at least a little bit but not at the levels we saw last year. That's understandable since 2020 saw records levels of drinking at home. Don't worry Bill, the report didn't say people will cut back on drinking just that they will start to return to the local watering holes to do part of it.

Bill we both know that before the pandemic, the majority of wholesalers were responding to a softening craft beer market by putting brakes on craft brands: no more selling endless beer newcomers and pushing niche breweries. That's related to the third point in the report. It predicts that during the remainder of the pandemic and for probably the medium-term future afterwards, retailers will want to play it safe by buying what they’re confident will sell.  At the same time breweries will try to make up for COVID losses by sending beer to outside retailers that they would have previously sold through their taproom accounts.  I've already seen that happening.

It makes sense, Bill.  After all, how do breweries put out five or six new beers, when no one, or just a fraction of the people who usually come, can sit and drink in their tasting room?  They can't and they won't. They have to have the confidence that what they make is going to sell and that's their basic beers.  

Now before you get upset Bill I have an answer. One way breweries might continue to offer a larger variety of new beers and different flavors/styles is to take a page out of big beer’s book. We might see more breweries splitting batches of beer, and then creating two or three different flavored beers from that one batch. We know many places already do just that.  Now you expect more of it.

That's it from me, chug-a-lug, Bill.....see you next time!.   

BILL-  

Hello Gina -

Oh my, you really worry too much.  As the saying goes "qué será será" , what will be will be.  Having said that I think your insights into what we can expect are right on.  However let me give you a few thoughts that the research report you mentioned seemed to have left out.

On thing I'm sure of is that it will not be Back To The Future for hard seltzer. It will have a sparkling new, bright future. Part of the reason is that manufactures and breweries large and small will push it incessantly. Frankly, I see a lot of desperation in that. Seltzers are very cheap and relatively easy to make. You’re using  artificial flavoring ingredients which is an easy way to expand your audience, mainly because cocktail and wine fans will drink them.  

When it comes to NEIPAs I don’t think the craze for haze is going away anytime soon,  The main reason for that, and it's just my minority opinion, is not because people love the style without equivocation.  It's really because there is so much research going on into new hop varietals and ways to brew with them.  New hops means new aromas and flavors that will raise the excitement of craft beer. From what I've seen the unique flavors that brewers are able to extract from hops is

the exact reason why  NEIPAsr style will be sticking around. The hazy IPA is the ‘showcase style’ for hop research. Brewers are not going to stop experimenting. Hop producers are not going to stop creating new hop varietals. You and I, Gina, will therefore not stop enjoying the style.

Just as important as what is made is how breweries will get their product to we drinkers. I'm fairly sure that the post-pandemic period will find more craft breweries searching far harder than they did before for more favorable distribution models. A few states may finally liberalize their Prohibition-era franchise laws to allow breweries increased autonomy in self-distributing and getting out of their usually punishing distribution contracts (Massachusetts most recently).  That

will allow entrepreneurs to come in to offer alternatives with more flexibility and lower barriers to entry. Trust me, I know the history of and all the arguments for the three tiered system but If it was up to me I'd allow every brewery to self-distribute in and out of their home state and ship anywhere they want.    

As to your last point, I too have noticed more mainstream craft breweries' offerings on the shelves and less from new, smaller and more obscure places.  And those mainstream craft breweries are generally pumping out just their flagship brews.  I agree it's not what craft beer is about nor what people like us want.  That will continue until breweries feel financially comfortable enough to go back to their original brewing philosophy.  Don't worry, Gina. In the interim you can just tell me what you like and I'll whip up a home brewed batch for you.  Of course, then you'd have to drink it.

Here's looking at you, Gina 

GINA-

Hey Bill,  

There are more reasons than I care to mention as to why I'm happy to see the end of 2020.  I'm also happy to see the end of January 2020.  Why? It's the month for countless Best Beers of the Year lists.  They're all a bunch of pretentious baloney mainly touting beers most drinkers never heard of and never will have access to.

The annual creation of these lists has been going on for years but they seem to have really proliferated with the advance of the Internet.  Every beer website - and there are thousands of them- seems to have one.  I can only guess that there must be a few people who actually enjoy reading them, If not the writers responsible would be looking for another line of work.  I'm proud to say I've never seen such a list here on BeerNexus.

Bill, you're  probably thinking I'm picking on beer writers since we've seen loads of these types of lists, be it the best albums, films or, best of just about anything else.  Maybe you're right (not really) but we are beer drinkers and we read a lot about beer so those lists bother me the most.  Let's face it - they are totally subjective.  And frankly a lot of the authors subjectivity isn't ground in solid beer knowledge.  I wonder how many of the writers are Cicerones or certified beer judges.  How many just pick a handful of the beers for their list that they never evaluated in a blind tasting?  How many are picking beers even they can't find but have received as "samples"?  What value is it to the reader to learn about some one-off brew made in a state thousands of miles away that even locals there would struggle to find?  

I found this year's VinePair’s “Top 10 beers of 2020 according to UnTappd” particularly annoying. Bill, I can see you thinking here she goes again taking another shot at UnTappd.  And you'd be right. UnTappd is a site where random people with questionable beer judgment  “check in” with whatever beer they’re currently drinking at any given moment. I'm fine with that as an entertaining activity and as a way for the beer drinker to keep accurate records but it doesn't make for reliable  

information when trying to create a serious Best of list.  Need proof?  The new Untappd  list has Guinness as the best beer of the year and in third place they have Corona.  Bill you know I love Guinness but the best of the year?  Come on.  I have no comment on Corona.

By the way Bill, don't confuse my criticism of these list with legitimate beer reviews.  Those have a valuable purpose. They can guide the buyer to beers that potentially he will enjoy rather than to waste his money on ones with flavors he would hate.

That's it from me, chug-a-lug, Bill.....see you next time!.   

BILL-  

Hello Gina -

And a happy February to you Gina.  I'd love to see your list of the Best Months of the Year now that I know you don't like this one.  Oh, just teasing.  You do make some good points.

First, I heartedly agree that most of those lists contain beers that are not readily available to 90% of the readers.  I personally enjoy reading about them in the same way I like to read travel books about countries I know I'll never visit.  It's fun, entertaining, and sometimes informative.  There's nothing wrong with that.

One list I recently saw that irked me was  “The 25 Most Important IPAs Right Now, Ranked.”  I might have been impressed if it was written by Michael Jackson but it wasn't.  The tile of course begs the question how do they define "important'.  And does "right now" mean new or could the beer be an old classic that still influences brewers and brewing techniques?  Should the beer be a big seller or can it be "important' if it's something that came and quickly went?

As to your displeasure with anything to do with UnTappd I'm never going to look up a rating for you again no matter how much you want to know.  I do agree with you in one sense. As I see it Untappd ratings tend to occur on high-volume drinking days. No surprise there of course but drinking many different beers back-to-back can make it very difficult to remain objective while deciding on how many stars a given brew deserves not to mention the reviewer may be far less than an "expert" as to a particular style. Untappd is  basically a popularity forum.  If you wonder what historic validity that has just listen to the most popular music of the day.  Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart will not be on the list so don't be disappointed if you don't see the likes of Sierra Nevada Pale or Anchor Steam on the list.

Having done our share of blind taste testing I think you'll agree that  the order of consumption could have a profound impact on the way people rate beers. If I drank the world-class IPA immediately before a more ordinary “lawnmower IPA,” the second beer may seem lackluster or even poor by comparison. I could go on but basically any user rating really doesn't tell me what is the best in any category, nonetheless for beer.

Gina, have you ever wondered if the "expert" creators of some of these lists have personally tasted every beer they toutt?  A big no there. Did you ever wonder if they rely on unnamed sources, secondhand opinions, brewery reputations or promotional incentives ?  A big yes there.

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t believe "Best Beers of the Year" lists end up mattering very much to casual craft beer consumers. Most people see them as a delightful fantasy, a list of beers they would love to try but likely won't have the opportunity.  As for the super serious craft geek well it might provide some trading goals or vacation destinations and there is nothing wrong with that.

I do submit there is one list we both would trust and believe if we ever saw it  It's the one that ranked our column as the best of all beer blogs.

Here's looking at you, Gina 

GINA-

Hey Bill,  

Since we're entering a new year I guess it's appropriate to reflect a bit on a few beer things.  First off I'm sure you noticed that West Coast IPA once a defining beverage of the craft beer scene is not a style that draws much attention anymore. The same can be said about traditional styles like the English dark mild and other time-tested varieties that we both enjoy.

Sometimes I think that in today’s craft beer scene, excess is king. Sour ales, for example, have burst into the mainstream with a good number being defined less as beer and more like alcoholic fruit puree. Meanwhile, IPAs have turned as murky as swamp water, juicy sweet, and in a constant fight to pack as much hop flavor as possible into each glass.

Don't get me wrong Bill. There is great merit to those opulent styles, but for I still thing there is something lost in translation.  Many of us still cherish traditional formulas, some of them centuries- old mainstays from Europe. The trouble is, they don’t always sell.

I talk to many brewers and know that some find themselves at a crossroads of what they want to brew and what is going to keep the lights on. They tell me that when they make classic styles (pilsner, kolsch, etc.) the beers are not flying off shelves so taking the leap on more time-intensive traditional beers like farmhouse ales for example is often a big risk.

During COVID especially, brewers can’t be spending their time on something that might work, or might sell.  They have to go for the sure shot, The way I see it is that 2020 was the year of the need for cash flow without which you do not survive. It's as simple as that.

There’s myriad reasons traditional beer styles do not get as much attention in the craft beer world as the newer styles, not the least of which is social media. Ultra-fruited sours are vibrant in color, perfect for an Instagram post. Their often fleeting nature, with breweries constantly tweaking fruits and other additions, also make for a bit of exclusivity. You either buy it, or you miss out on the fun. You have to look good, you have to have good labels, you have to make a beer that’s thicker than

another.

Don't even get me started on why we can't find cask ale anymore.

That's it from me, chug-a-lug, Bill.....see you next time!.  

===========================

BILL-  

Hello Gina -

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed cask ale from a real hand pump.  You hit a sore point there Gina.  Let me clear my head and wipe a tear away.  Okay, now I'm ready.

That culture of excess you mention is deeply ingrained in American brewing. In the bygone heyday of West Coast IPAs, breweries found themselves in a bit of an arms race to create the most bitter beer possible. The same is now happening with fruit.In my opinion the difference between then and now is that the bitter IPAs of old turned some casual beer drinkers off, while the addition of excess fruit has attracted non-beer drinkers. In business, more is good, and therefore, those fruited sours are a near requirement for the modern brewery.

I think it’s important that the beer industry continues to progress and push itself forward and try things but I think it’s interesting that what was once ‘trying something new’ has become the standard. Look Gina, I don’t want to see any new style of beers vanish. Rather,I think that there is room for everything on the table, and the traditional styles don’t fall on the wayside to new innovation. I’m not sure if it takes education, or if it takes curiosity, but I think people need to be willing to try things, to explore new flavors, and be open to new experiences.

At a time when breweries are fighting for their lives, it makes no sense for them to turn to Milds or Light Lagers to save them. They’re cranking out modern IPAs, flavored Stouts, and Sours to cast their widest net possible—the things that sold well before the crisis. Rather than retreat to what made beer “beer” decades ago, the Covid health care and financial crisis has—in a way— amplified what was already happening.

All I can say is that it may be wise for small brewers to avoid the narrative of “everyone’s drinking lagers and flagships now” and instead focus on making their existing fan favorites—whatever style—accessible, discoverable, and affordable. Shifting their portfolio to Light Lagers isn’t going to matter if they can’t be found on Drizly, in your local grocery chain, or on social media totuing   easy and safe pick-up and delivery.

As you know Gina, IPA is still #1 with a bullet in sales.  After that come Pale Ale (#2), Wheat (#3), and Seasonal (#4).  Those three categories together barely sold more than IPA alone. IPA also showed the largest percentage growth and raw volume growth of any style compared to the year before Covid hit..This isn’t to say that it’s a wasted effort to explore styles and brands beyond IPA or other hop-forward examples, but it does give extra weight to the idea that at a time when

people are looking for aspects of normalcy in their lives they are buying what they know—even if that’s local—and also easy-to-understand beers, whether that’s an IPA or fruited Sour.  

As I see it, in these times a Dark Mild from a brewery regarded for its Dark Milds makes sense. One from a brewery with a reputation built on Hazy IPAs does not.  Breweries have to understand the marketplace if they want to survive.

Here's looking at you, Gina

GINA -

Hello Bill, hope you’re sitting downl.  I just saw another article touting statistics that show people aren’t buying as much beer as they used to (which is not a great indicator for the economy too.) U.S. beer shipment to wholesalers declined 14.1%  from December 2022 to Feb. 2023 compared to the year prior. Compared to 2020, shipping volume is down 19.4%. It’s the lowest volume since 2012 . Don’t panic, Bill.  It’s not as clear as saying that people simply don’t want beer, or that consumers are becoming more budget-conscious. I think there are a few factors afoot here.

Beer became suddenly pricey at the end of last year. I remember we were both shocked when we saw such dramatic price increases. One statistic I found said that beer prices at retail, not including bars or restaurants, popped 7% during the last 2 months of 2022.  Not good.

I think price increases are showing up in how people are buying beers.  I think beer drinkers (and some craft beer fans) are increasingly buying, say, 12-packs ov even 30-packs of macro brews, or even single cans of beer. They’re trading down too , for example, snagging the more economic Keystone over comparatively expensive Coors, or the even higher priced basic craft beer. That explains why the “below premium" segment was the only one to see an increase in demand in the last 12 months, according to the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s Beer Purchasers’ Index. 

Even Constellation Brands, the owner of the Corona and Modelo beer brands and various wine and spirits brands, aren’t immune from what’s going on.  They were among the first companies to report earnings in the new year and it proved to be a bad quarter. Their company shares declined 10% after it reported that sales were less than expected.   

In addition to flagging sales many breweries expect their margins to remain below targeted levels. Don’t feel too bad for them, they're still expecting income growth this year of 4%-5%.  That's good, but that’s a far cry from their usual 8%-9% net revenue growth.  

All the negative data makes it seem to me that consumers have become more sensitive to rising costs. In the past companies typically raises prices in an effort to match rising operating costs.  Understandable, but I think it’s about time breweries backed off any more price increases.  If their sales volume falls significantly in response to higher prices it’s simple logic to reduce prices.

I’ve spoken to a few local breweries about this and they content that consumers are still trading up to higher-end craft brands.  I hope that’s true for their sake but I don’t see it happening.   I personally refuse to pay a penny more than $20 for a 4 pack of high quality craft beer even though many of my favorites are now nearing a $25 price tag.

Considering all of this, I'm thinking I should ask BeerNexus management for a raise or at least an increase in our beer expense accounts.

Chug-a-lug Bill

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Bill -

Well, Gina, I’d be totally surprised if brewery owners hadn’t realized for months that the price of beer is too darn high and that consumers are sick of it. There really is a point at which the brewery needs to balance these price bumps going forward or they will be out of business.  And in some cases, deservedly so.

I saw an early indicator that declines in craft beer are coming when Ball Corp., a leading beverage packaging producer, said that beer was the most “distressed” beverage category of 2022 and that instead of decreasing prices to ramp up demand they were trying "promotions"  What? I wonder how that's working out for them.

If you want to do your part to fight beer inflation Gina, then I recommend you first figure out how much more money you’re now spending on beer. Of course real life beer prices vary by market, package size, segment, and other factors but when we zoom out to a national level and look at volumes in the industry-standard unit of case equivalents we can get a feel for what Americans have been paying for beer lately. One simple answer is clear: -“more.” 

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ released its most recent edition of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is basically a snapshot of the way price points are changing for various items across the economy. Beer was up 4.5 percent over the past 12 months — a slight improvement over the same metric from last year but still substantially higher than wine (1.8 percent) and spirits (1.4 percent).

Gina, you seem to imply that it’s all the fault of breweries' hunger for more and more profits. While I don't disagree to some extent, consider please that brewing requires commodity inputs that have gotten way more expensive to purchase in the recent past. They’re eating into a brewery’s profits.  For example, the price increase of aluminum for cans over the last three years is just crazy.  Everything has gone up for them. Freight, fuel, hops, grain — you name it. Just remember that the breweries, even the big ones, can’t insulate themselves entirely from these increasing costs. 

 It’s a general rule of thumb in beer that size matters: The bigger the firm, the more efficient it can be, the more money it can make per case, and so on. If the biggest companies in the U.S. beer business aren’t seeing their margin grow during an unprecedented period of inflation, you can be pretty sure that the approximately 9,400 craft breweries across the country are having a tougher go at it.

I’ve seen more than a few newly marked-up IPAs that are too rich for customers’ (and my) blood — and unlike Big Beer, if we drinkers trade down for a similar style from a cheaper brand, it probably isn’t going to be theirs. Not to mention that there’s not even a whole lot of upward price action to take on a $20 four-pack. I think craft beer customers’ demand is elastic meaning if prices soar segment-wide, drinkers will see it as a reason to actually forget beer and buy more of wine or liquor many are already enjoy in its place. Prices of both are falling faster in real dollars than beer.  It's the laws of economics at work.

I’m concerned about the extent to which inflation is disproportionately harming smaller breweries who aren’t able to absorb rising costs and don’t have as much room to move on price.  However I have to admit that I worry more about my own pocketbook.  

We consumers should remember one basic rule - to drive prices down you have to lower demand. It's how we can fight back. Breweries should remember that too when they consider their next price increase.

Here's looking at you, kid.

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