Wildlife

qhrumphf:

Jim Koch of Sam Adams talking beer (Utopias among other stuff).

I don’t see where he’s coming from saying the beer bubble is going to burst. I can see (and agree) that the market is super-saturated with the super-hoppy, but there are brewers breaking into relatively new markets for US beer- barrel programs, session beers, ancient/historic styles, and just about every style under the sun. If anything I think the Biere De Champagne example he gives is a poor one, since that’s such a rare process to begin with (I’m not aware of more than a very small handful of commercial examples from anywhere in the world).

There’s no room for every brewer on every store shelf across the country. That’s easy to see. But many areas of the country are seeing a wealth of local beer pop up on their local shelves. People like buying local, and frankly, there’s nowhere near the representation of local beers on the the shelves that there should be. At least not around here. While the craft sections are growing, they still pale in comparison to the macro share, and one would think as craft’s share of the market grows, they’d edge out and gain space from BMC.

I don’t see it slowing down any time soon. Just my 2c.

The craft beer bubble has burst! Now there are corporate machines that are trying to squeeze their way into the , once, exclusive community. There are many breweries that are sub-par , at best, that crank out the same generic pale, hef, and ipa as Joe Schmoe brewery down the street. If you make less than 6 millions barrels a year, you’re still considered “craft beer”. But does that make you a true craft brewer, or just someone that is jumping onto a fast moving bandwagon. Anyone that is truly an advocate of craft beer knows that you don’t go into the business for money. There is almost no money to be made in the first few years of brewery start-ups. The breweries that make it to the end and still have the support of the craft beer community are those who stay true to themselves and the beer. This is not to say that craft beer is dead. Hopefully this will just drive breweries to make more complex and unique beers that will set them even further apart from all the other “craft breweries”.