tempest in a pint glass
oh oh!
controversy in the craft beer world!
a beer advocate thread on over-rated breweries gets some knickers in a twist
"hawksbeerfan" out of new york started it all with this post:
What brewery out there gets too much hype for what they bring to the table? My money goes to Dogfish Head. Their IPAs are solid but most of their "big" beers really aren't anything special and some are downright bad.
sam calagione responds:
It's pretty depressing to frequently visit this site and see the most negative threads among the most popular. This didn't happen much ten years ago when craft beer had something like a 3 percent market share. Flash forward to today, and true indie craft beer now has a still-tiny but growing marketshare of just over 5 percent. Yet so many folks that post here still spend their time knocking down breweries that dare to grow. It's like that old joke: "Nobody eats at that restaurant anymore, it's too crowded.” Except the "restaurants" that people shit on here aren't exactly juggernauts. In fact, aside from Boston Beer, none of them have anything even close to half of one percent marketshare. The more that retailers, distributors, and large industrial brewers consolidate the more fragile the current growth momentum of the craft segment becomes. The more often the Beer Advocate community becomes a soap box for outing breweries for daring to grow beyond its insider ranks the more it will be marginalized in the movement to support, promote, and protect independent ,American, craft breweries.
It's interesting how many posts that refer to Dogfish being over-rated include a caveat like "except for Palo...except for Immort...etc." We all have different palettes which is why it's a great thing that there are so many different beers. At Dogfish we've been focused on making "weird" beers since we opened and have taken our lumps for being stylistically indifferent since day one. I bet a lot of folks agree that beers like Punkin Ale (since 1995) , Immort Ale (wood aged smoked beer) since 1995, Chicory Stout (coffee stout) since 1995 , Raison D'être (Belgian brown) since 1996, , Indian Brown Ale (dark IPA) since 1997, and 90 Minute (DIPA) since 2000 don't seem very weird anymore. That’s in large part because so many people who have been part of this community over the years championed them and helped us put them on the map.These beers, and all of our more recent releases like Palo Santo, Burton Baton, Bitches Brew continue to grow every year. We could have taken the easy way out and just sold the bejeezus out of 60 Minute to grow but we like to experiment and create and follow our own muse. Obviously there is an audience that appreciates this as we continue to grow. We put no more "hype" or "expert marketing" behind our best selling beers than we do our occasionals. We only advertise in a few beer magazines and my wife Mariah oversees all of our twitter/Facebook/dogfish.com stuff. We have mostly grown by just sharing our beer with people who are into it (at our pub, great beer bars, beer dinners, and fests) and let them decide for themselves if they like it. If they do we hope they tell their friends about. We hope a bunch of you that are going to EBF will stop by our booth and try some of the very unique new beers we are proudly bringing to market like Tweason'ale (a champagne-esque, gluten-free beer fermented with buckwheat honey and strawberries) and Noble Rot (a sort of saison brewed with Botrytis-infected Viognier Grape must). One of these beers is on the sweeter side and one is more sour. Knowing each of your palettes is unique you will probably prefer one over the other. That doesn't mean the one you didn't prefer sucked. And the breweries you don't prefer but are growing don't suck either. Respect Beer. The below was my favorite post thus far.
This thread is hilarious. Seriously, Bells, Founders, FFF, Surly, RR, DFH, Bruery, Avery, Cigar City, Mikkeller are all overrated?
Since I'm from Ohio, I'll pile on and add Great Lakes, Hoppin Frog, and Brew Kettle to the list. Your welcome.
Hopefully soon we will have every craft brewery in the US on the list.
and shaun from 21st amendment responds:
There is a dust storm in the brewing interweb community today over at BeerAdvocate where a thread bagging on craft breweries that are getting too big and popular and calling them out because of that and also maybe how their beers are over-rated.
It reminds me of when Jack White of the White Stripes was asked in an interview years ago about how the early fans of his band back in Detroit would bag... on their success and popularity. He said, that their cool little indie underground band from Michigan was getting bigger, but the Stripes were doing the same thing they've always been doing just more people were listening.
In some peoples eyes you're only cool if your not too popular. I call bullish#t.
Craft beer is becoming more popular and isn't that the point? We've got a great thing going and we want the world to know about it. If you don't like some breweries beer don't wear their shoes, but don't bag on their shoes because more people are wearing them, because someone likes those shoes. OK, I'll turn off the analogy machine and get back to trying to figure out how to add arugula to a beer that I hope everyone on this planet will drink.
-Shaun
me, i say the most overrated brewer is anheuser-busch. period.
stop knocking craft beer while there is so much crappy beer dominating the market
brew the beer you want to see in the world!
controversy in the craft beer world!
a beer advocate thread on over-rated breweries gets some knickers in a twist
"hawksbeerfan" out of new york started it all with this post:
What brewery out there gets too much hype for what they bring to the table? My money goes to Dogfish Head. Their IPAs are solid but most of their "big" beers really aren't anything special and some are downright bad.
sam calagione responds:
It's pretty depressing to frequently visit this site and see the most negative threads among the most popular. This didn't happen much ten years ago when craft beer had something like a 3 percent market share. Flash forward to today, and true indie craft beer now has a still-tiny but growing marketshare of just over 5 percent. Yet so many folks that post here still spend their time knocking down breweries that dare to grow. It's like that old joke: "Nobody eats at that restaurant anymore, it's too crowded.” Except the "restaurants" that people shit on here aren't exactly juggernauts. In fact, aside from Boston Beer, none of them have anything even close to half of one percent marketshare. The more that retailers, distributors, and large industrial brewers consolidate the more fragile the current growth momentum of the craft segment becomes. The more often the Beer Advocate community becomes a soap box for outing breweries for daring to grow beyond its insider ranks the more it will be marginalized in the movement to support, promote, and protect independent ,American, craft breweries.
It's interesting how many posts that refer to Dogfish being over-rated include a caveat like "except for Palo...except for Immort...etc." We all have different palettes which is why it's a great thing that there are so many different beers. At Dogfish we've been focused on making "weird" beers since we opened and have taken our lumps for being stylistically indifferent since day one. I bet a lot of folks agree that beers like Punkin Ale (since 1995) , Immort Ale (wood aged smoked beer) since 1995, Chicory Stout (coffee stout) since 1995 , Raison D'être (Belgian brown) since 1996, , Indian Brown Ale (dark IPA) since 1997, and 90 Minute (DIPA) since 2000 don't seem very weird anymore. That’s in large part because so many people who have been part of this community over the years championed them and helped us put them on the map.These beers, and all of our more recent releases like Palo Santo, Burton Baton, Bitches Brew continue to grow every year. We could have taken the easy way out and just sold the bejeezus out of 60 Minute to grow but we like to experiment and create and follow our own muse. Obviously there is an audience that appreciates this as we continue to grow. We put no more "hype" or "expert marketing" behind our best selling beers than we do our occasionals. We only advertise in a few beer magazines and my wife Mariah oversees all of our twitter/Facebook/dogfish.com stuff. We have mostly grown by just sharing our beer with people who are into it (at our pub, great beer bars, beer dinners, and fests) and let them decide for themselves if they like it. If they do we hope they tell their friends about. We hope a bunch of you that are going to EBF will stop by our booth and try some of the very unique new beers we are proudly bringing to market like Tweason'ale (a champagne-esque, gluten-free beer fermented with buckwheat honey and strawberries) and Noble Rot (a sort of saison brewed with Botrytis-infected Viognier Grape must). One of these beers is on the sweeter side and one is more sour. Knowing each of your palettes is unique you will probably prefer one over the other. That doesn't mean the one you didn't prefer sucked. And the breweries you don't prefer but are growing don't suck either. Respect Beer. The below was my favorite post thus far.
This thread is hilarious. Seriously, Bells, Founders, FFF, Surly, RR, DFH, Bruery, Avery, Cigar City, Mikkeller are all overrated?
Since I'm from Ohio, I'll pile on and add Great Lakes, Hoppin Frog, and Brew Kettle to the list. Your welcome.
Hopefully soon we will have every craft brewery in the US on the list.
and shaun from 21st amendment responds:
There is a dust storm in the brewing interweb community today over at BeerAdvocate where a thread bagging on craft breweries that are getting too big and popular and calling them out because of that and also maybe how their beers are over-rated.
It reminds me of when Jack White of the White Stripes was asked in an interview years ago about how the early fans of his band back in Detroit would bag... on their success and popularity. He said, that their cool little indie underground band from Michigan was getting bigger, but the Stripes were doing the same thing they've always been doing just more people were listening.
In some peoples eyes you're only cool if your not too popular. I call bullish#t.
Craft beer is becoming more popular and isn't that the point? We've got a great thing going and we want the world to know about it. If you don't like some breweries beer don't wear their shoes, but don't bag on their shoes because more people are wearing them, because someone likes those shoes. OK, I'll turn off the analogy machine and get back to trying to figure out how to add arugula to a beer that I hope everyone on this planet will drink.
-Shaun
me, i say the most overrated brewer is anheuser-busch. period.
stop knocking craft beer while there is so much crappy beer dominating the market
brew the beer you want to see in the world!
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