HBG Commentary/Conversation: What Makes a Brewery Attractive to You?

Perhaps this is a somewhat loaded question. And it's definitely an open-ended question--

In this state, we're facing a huge array of craft beer choices, and the number of choices just keeps growing. So what makes a brewery attractive to you?

I suppose the easy and standard answer for many craft beer fans is novelty: What interesting things is Brewery A doing that Brewery B isn't? If a brewery is brewing a style that other breweries aren't brewing and is doing a good job with that style, that certainly is attractive to me. I'm thinking of breweries like Chicago's Off Color and South Carolina's Westbrook, which are brewing a Gose or a Gose-like beer. An even if it's a style I don't care for (like rauchbiers), I will probably give that beer a try if I know the brewer produces good-quality beers.

Matt: For me it is about quality and value. I don't fault a place for trying to run a business, but I won't be part of or support that business if I don't feel the quality is there.

As the craft beer market continues to evolve, I find myself not seeking out new places and sticking with companies that I like that produce a product I enjoy for a price I want to pay.

I would say a big factor for new companies is getting your house beers in order. If a place can't brew their house pale ale without unmistakable flavors of diacetyl, why would I ever spend $20+ on a big beer that they brewed?

I do think there is plenty of space in the market for a brewery that is able to connect with their community, brew great beer, and charge a reasonable price for it. But I think it will be hard for many new breweries in terms of tap space, shelf space in liquor stores, and getting people to your establishment. I don't get why people want to compete in the pale ale space or IPA space. Should you brew them? Yes. Should they be your flagship? I would say no in this market.

Megan: For me it's consistency and quality. I like to know if I order X beer, it's gonna taste great on a consistent basis. I also think availability is key. If it isn't on tap or available in cans/bottles at some of the more well-known beer bars in town, I probably won't get the chance to drink it very often.

Kristin: Like Matt, I love a brewery that offers quality, consistent beer at a reasonable price. This gal is not made of money, and as the options out there become greater, the price point will always help me make my decision.

What's more, I have my basic go-to styles throughout the year. Right now it's IPAs, pales, and saisons, so if a brewery is all about porters and stouts, chances are I won't be looking their way right now. I'm also trying to cutdown on my beer consumption, not increase it. So when I'm out to dinner, and I'm having that one beer, I want to make sure it's something solid. Consistency is the key here.

Finally, how about a round of applause for diversity in brewing? I love a brewery that can offer a variety of styles that beg me to step out of my current beer comfort zone and try something different for a change. Surprise me!

Megan: I don't care about price. If it costs $100 I will buy it if I want to drink it. I think I'm in the minority here. I don't even LOOK at price (much to the dismay of my significant other). And if I'm out at a bar, I'll pick something that I don't normally get to drink from a place that consistently wows me. 3 Floyds...whatever they've got on the board, I'm drinking it. I'm a creature of habit.

Jason: When I started drinking craft beer 14 years ago, I was most interested in browns and porters. It would be years before I strayed too far from those categories, so I am imagining if I, my former beer drinking self, were transported 14 years into the future to modern Indianapolis and modern craft beer America, what would I want? Jason2000 would have cared a lot about house lineups and what is in that house lineup. He would have wanted a brewery that brewed a good brown or porter all the time because Jason2000 was not adventurous with his beers yet.

I am not that same person today. Once I have tried a brewery's house beer, I rarely return to it. I do not have a regular beer that I keep in my fridge and I do not order the same beer at every visit. I get where being consistent with a house beer and meeting a price point is important. But even if somebody made the best IPA at rock bottom prices, I would not return to that beer regularly. I think that's boring. I like variety. Rotate the beers frequently. Do seasonals, because I do like drinking by the seasons. Do special brews, because I like trying funky one offs. If your beer is a winner more often than a loser, I will probably come back. If the price point is higher than I would like, I probably won't order a second pint or tulip. But to be honest, I generally don't drink the same beer twice in one visit. I like variety so a brewery with a brew system that is slightly smaller than they need would be ideal. More frequent brew sessions means more frequent opportunities to brew something different. Keep changing, keep rotating, keep it funky, keep it fresh. That would make an attractive brewery for Modern Jason.

Megan: Modern Jason is a dick.

Jason: Jason2000 is a dick.

Jim: I think we can all agree that Jason's dickishness is timeless. Okay, back on topic--

Rodney: When I lived in Indiana, I was convinced I was at the point where I wanted to go back to "regular" beers. Unfortunately, something new and interesting will always grab my attention. I'm going to try any new brewery or any wacky one-off type beer. The only thing keeping me sane is my inability to try every single one-off beer. But over the last 10 years, I've learned that one-off beers usually aren't that good. I mean they're not bad, but they're not something you'd want to drink a lot of. Many of the barrel or sour experiments actually are bad. All that said, there are definitely beers that I come back to. A well made, quality, consistent IPA, porter, brown, pale, ESB or Pilsner will keep me coming back. My first beer at Broad Ripple Brewpub will always be an ESB.

Now that I'm down in Georgia, everything is new again. I'm trying so many breweries I haven't heard of, or hadn't had the opportunity to drink regularly in Indiana. I'm also finally putting in to practice what I originally thought - I'm drinking more regular beers. When I visit The Porter Bar in Atlanta, there's plenty of wacky stuff on tap, but I usually seek out a brewery I haven't had and a style that I know my preference on. Once a brewery has proven itself to my with basic styles, then I'll try their wacky one-off beers. But if I see a brewery I've never heard of and the only beer they have on tap is a wine barrel aged saison, I'm going to be skeptical and probably pass it over.

Jim: Yeah, I'm with you, Rod. I start off with a brewery's house beers. If the quality is there, then I'll trust the seasonal/one-off beers. But as a rule, I'm not into the whale hunting anymore. More often than not now, I find myself going for a six-pack of a well-made APA or IPA over a bomber/750ml of a mega-imperial-barrel-aged monster.

Gina: This issue intrigues me. I will still probably pick something new first, but my second may be something more familiar. I'm not price sensitive yet (on pints anyway), but I'm not seeking any whales either. There is a place and time for all kinds of beers and that determines my choice usually. Anymore, no matter what the beer is, I'm happy to be drinking with others.

Jason: You all are boring the crap out of me...

"I want a well-made ho hum beer..."

Sounds to me like I should introduce you all to a little known beer called Budweiser. They are consistent. They meet the quality standards for their beer category. And Sun King or Upland or any other brewery in Indiana can't touch their price point!

Hoosier Bud Geek, hell yeah!

Matt: I want to go to flavor country, Jason. My days of spending $13.99-$17.99 on a seasonal four pack or six pack are pretty much over. I don't buy bombers anymore. I still love beer, but I'm tired of being burned by low-quality beers at a high price point.

Rod: I'm also tired of breweries not being able to produce a basic beer before throwing their beer into barrels and making everything imperial. If I like your standard beers, I'm probably going to like your wacky beers. It seems like too many breweries are racing to the $20 bomber before they can make the $10 six-pack.

Jim: True. I mean, look at The Alchemist. I suppose you could tout them as proof that if you're really good at doing one relatively non-radical style--a double IPA--you can be successful without brewing the crazy stuff. But I think they're the exception rather than the rule there.

Jason: If bombers are your concern, Matt, the question should be about packaging then. I don't buy bombers anymore. I go to places with mix a six-packs. Or I go to the bar or restaurant. I don't drink at home much. I drink maybe once or twice a week. So when I do drink, I don't want the same-old, same-old. I want to mix it up, be adventurous, let a barrel-aged wild-fermented cucumber-infused double imperial India Pale Ale destroy my tastebuds and send me home.

You all sound like you want Paul Anka beer. Where are the people that want DESTRUCTION/MAYHEM/DIEDIEDIE beers? Just look at us. Old stand-by's are beating out new and different. HBG has become so... conservative.

Jake: I keep going back to the number 40. We have now heard of 40 different breweries that are opening in Indiana this year. My approach to deciding where I will start comes down to the founding team. Who is the brewer? What is his/her background? Do they have professional experience? Based on the answers to those questions, I have an idea of where their initial quality is going to be and can set my own expectations for when I first try their beer. I am attempting a thing where I try beer from a new, local brewery within the first three months they are open and then wait another six months to see if they have worked out the quality issues. The short answer for me is the background for a new team and quality.

I do have some beers that are consistently in my fridge: Firestone Walker Union Jack, Stiegl Grapefruit Radler, Bell's Oarsman, Schlafly TIPA, Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale. I have beers like these in the fridge because when I am drinking at home or having friends over, I want to know that I am grabbing something consistent that I can enjoy.

If I'm heading out to a beer bar for dinner with my significant other, I am ordering a full pour of something I know and sample pours of things I don't recognize but interest me. If I'm going with some buddies, I am getting a couple half-pours of stuff I haven't had before and then ending the night with something I know so that I am sure I go home with a good taste in my mouth.

Jason: I think in summary for myself, I drink less volume than before but spend the same amount as when I drank more. I'm willing to spend more per ounce for something different as I put a very high value on variety. I give preference to smaller pours or packaging so that I may spread my beer dollars across as many breweries and styles as possible. I never order a flagship beer because I've been there/done that.

I should note that I don't go whale hunting. If it's there when I'm looking for a beer, great. If not, oh well. I love Dark Lord Day as an experience. The purchase of beer is just the icing.

HBG Commentary/Conversation | Let's Talk About German-Style Beers: Where's the Lager Love in Indiana?

Jim: I'm not sure how much there is to say on this topic, but it came to mind because of a recent Twitter discussion that Matt, Rod, Jake, and I were knocking around:

Given Indiana's rich German heritage, why isn't there an Indiana brewery that focuses on German-style beers? Are we ever going to see an Indiana brewery that is, for lack of a better term, lager-centric?

Matt: Breweries in other states are doing the German thing. For example, Metropolitan and Jack's Abby are doing amazing things. As for strictly German lagers -- All I can think of is Olde Mecklenberg. They are doing it the hard way with decotion method and all. I think their beer is pretty amazing.

Jake: Yeah, the only brewery I can think of that has focused on German styles successfully is Metropolitan in Chicago.

Jason: I think it could work, but most of the German-Americans that come from that heritage expect a German-American lager that comes cheaper than most craft beers.

My question is, could a brewery create a regional adjunct lager as their main beer (think Yuengling) for the normal lager drinker and then other better beers to attract better beer drinkers?

Jim: I'm not sure that's possible at the moment in Indiana, though I could be wrong. But I do think that some great lagers are already being made in the state. One of these beers could serve as the type of regional lager you're talking about. For instance, the lagers that Sun King has done are quite good, especially the Oktoberfest. And we also have breweries like Fountain Square and Upland doing well-made Pilsners.

So what do you think is the reason behind this aversion to craft breweries doing lagers? Does it have to do with consumer preferences (I'm thinking craft beer consumers here--the typical hopheads and big beer aficionados)? Are production costs different? Lack of creativity?

I think overall, there seems to be a bias against lagers among some craft beer fans, which is a bias that I don't understand. I realize that everyone's tastes are different, but if I had a dollar for every time some craft beer person said, "Ew, lagers," . . .

Mike: I'd imagine it's pretty hard to improve upon the category when you're competing against breweries that make lagers which are pretty widely available and who have been at it for hundreds of years.

That's not to say that I think it's a bad idea…

Jim: But I think that argument also could now be applied to the quintessential craft beer styles that are so readily available. I mean, how much more innovative can you be with the standard wheat/pale/IPA/amber/stout/porter line-ups you see so much of out there? Yes, there's room for more innovation, but how much more? And everybody seems to be making those styles now. I think that's why you see breweries like Local Option and Off Color doing stuff like the Gose style and breweries like Prairie and Jester King focusing on Saisons and farmhouse ales.

Rod: Although they've certainly deviated on the production side, Abita's brewpub focuses on German styles. The water down there is perfect for it. Chuckanut focuses on German styles and won Small Brewpub of the Year or something like that at GABF a few years back. They're probably the closest to Germany I've tasted in the US.

The craft beer movement pretty much set the understanding that "ales have flavor" and "lagers are Budweiser." Hard to undo decades of conformance to that notion.

Mike: I can't seem to find the numbers, but given that IPA is the top selling style of craft beer (followed by what I'm guessing are pale and porter and whatever else everyone always brews) and that the entire category is still exploding, is it really a surprise that we don't have more craft-brewed lagers? People generally brew what they want to drink, don't they?

Rod: I think there's a lot of room for some creativity with a German brewery in today's Bigger Flavors are Better market. Radlers are gaining in popularity. Schneider and Brooklyn have had success brewing a collaborative hoppy hefeweizen. Gose and Berliner Weisse offer sour options. Rauchbier offers up a variety of smoked malt variations to lend flavor. Vienna Lager is one of the world's most popular styles (albeit typically called Amber, Brown, Pale, Dos XX or whatever).

The primary issue is that none of the German styles are currently popular. Everything is an IPA or an imperial something to get people's attention. The craft beer crowd is interested in other things right now. Could you create a craft beer clone of the Hofbrauhaus and be very successful? Of course. But Hofbrau is also brewing their beer locally in Cincinnati but none of us named them as a local brewery producing only German styles.

IPA is the top selling style by a long shot. Given the introduction of fresh hops, hybrid hops, local hops and newly popular foreign strains, I don't see that changing for awhile.

Jason: I think lagers are more regional based on current drinking habits. Southern Indiana is a lager region, but again, they go more towards the Bud-Miller-Coors. If a local brewery could brew a lager that is maybe $1 more per six pack than a BMC lager, the drinkers might go for it. I think a craft lager has to go after the BMC crowd, not the craft ale crowd. Just my two cents.

Matt: All of these new breweries though are opening up with the same four beer styles. This just makes me think how this is a boom or bust time in beer. There is so much competition in those beer styles that the chances a place makes a name for itself with those beers are slim. Then they will come out with an $11.99 sixer or four pack. If you can't make a beer better or for a lower cost point while brewing the same beer everyone is then you are nearly doomed before you open your doors.

Rod: The microbrewery bubble burst in the '90s for the same reason. It will burst again, but hopefully not as dramatically. The question is when, but we're certainly seeing the same traits.

Jake: Whenever I wonder why all of the new breweries are making an IPA, I remember Matt's comment after Winterfest last year (2013). When people came to the cask tent, they asked for "IPA". Didn't matter who made it or what the other options were, they wanted "IPA". It follows my argument about a bell curve in how people progress through craft. At first, they are still brand loyal. If they were drinking Coors Light before and they found that cream ale got them into craft, they stick with it. Then, they go to the bell where they want to try an IPA that is priced at $9.99/six pack. Doesn't matter who makes it. Bonus points for it being local to their neighborhood. If they progress beyond that, the brand loyalty comes back to a focus. I know the breweries that I trust to get my money with a consistent product, and that is where I spend it.

While we get excited for the stuff Off Color, Westbrook, and Crooked Stave are doing, there is a much larger crowd that want to drink Sun King because they're at Lucas Oil and are the local brand. The niche within the niche is going to be a tough play. Especially for people that don't have brewing experience beyond their garage.

Addendum:

After we had this conversation, we learned that New Oberpfalz, a brewery planned for Griffith, will focus on Bavarian-style beers. So it looks like Jim's prayers will be answered.

Is Hoosier Beer Geek Unintentionally Killing Craft Beer Culture?

Jason writes...

Is Hoosier Beer Geek unintentionally killing craft beer culture?  If you find Jake’s statements regarding Untappd to be true, you could easily assert that Hoosier Beer Geek is guilty of the same.

Point 1: The time it takes to write down notes and the impact that it has on conversation.

Most people probably have not been to a gathering of the Knights of the Beer Roundtable.  In general, it involves sitting around with a beer or two or ten (more on that later).  We sniff the beer.  We swish the beer.  We say some snarky things.  And we write about the beer.  We write in our books or our iphones or on a scrap piece of paper.  Whatever venue, we take notes because if don’t, we will forget.  We are drinking, after all.  But in order to write something about the beer later, we have to write now.  And that takes time away from the conversation.

So does the TV in the bar showing the football game that you are interested.

Or the band playing in the corner.

Or the girl or guy across the room that you are thinking about buying a drink.

The reality is that every social situation is full of conversations.  It is what fills the lulls in conversation.  Odds are if somebody is spending a lot of time on their smartphone that you are honestly not that interesting.

Point 2: Roundtables often involve multiple beers and sharing of bottles.

Take a look at the collection of KOTBR reviews.  There are reviews that include one or two beers.  There are reviews that include 6 or 8 reviews.  And no, we do not drink 72 ounces of beer to review 6 beers.  We frequently buy a 22 ounce bottle and share it between 6 or 8 of us.  It is our own mini-beer festivals.  And then we rate them.  How fair is that?  Thankfully, our reviews are rarely serious so we are rarely taken serious.

Point 3: The made-up-word attitude that HBG encourages via its blog.

Roger Baylor often ribs us (in jest or otherwise) when Hoosier Beer Geek reviews beers that are not Hoosier beers.  But we often do.  We review beers from other states and countries that we can get in Indiana.  We review beers from other states and countries that we can’t get in Indiana.  Again, look at the collection of KOTBR reviews and see how many beers are available at your favorite local beer bar. 

Not only that, but there are beer traders amongst us.  There are those that travel to beer festivals with hard to get tickets or hard to get beers.  Dark Lord Day.  Darkness Day.  Great Taste of the Midwest.  The Great American Beer Festival.  But we’re humble.  We never write about our adventures to these far flung corners of the craft beer world.

Oh wait, that’s a search function on our blog, isn’t it? 

The reality is that Untappd, like Blogger, like WordPress, like Twitter, like Facebook, like Instagram, like Pinterest… they are all ways to connect with people you know and people you don’t know. 

Reality check: how many of you, including myself and my fellow Knights of the Beer Roundtable, would know 90% of the craft beer people you know without social media? 

I met Jim through his blog.  I met Mike through his blog.  I met Chris through his blog.  I met Rod through his blog.  I met Jake through Twitter.  I met Meg through Twitter.  I met Kristen through Twitter.  The only reason we knew to meet each other in person was by blogging or tweeting and saying “hey, I’m going to drink some awesome beer here.  Who wants to join me?”

It’s not disrespectful to beer.  It’s a part of the discussion.  It’s a way to reach out to others.

(Though I agree with Matt regarding badges and what those badges may promote)

In short, Jake and Matt, we are a part of the social media culture that surrounds beer.  Checking in to Untappd is no more douchey than taking notes to write about later or taking pictures to post later.  Untappd, if anything, is a more efficient way to track what you have had to drink and what you thought of it.  It allows you to get back to drinking with friends faster than any of our roundtables ever have.

That is what I think.  How about you? 

Is Untappd Unintentionally Killing Craft Beer Culture?

Jake Wrote:

The original title of this blog was "Why Untappd is Killing Craft Beer", but I would rather offer my view and have you offer yours, if you desire. I think Untappd is unintentionally killing craft beer culture with a three pronged approach:

1) The time it takes to check-in and the impact that has on conversation
2) The usage of the app to check-in beers during festivals and provide a quick rating
3) The braggadocious attitude that the app encourages via social media

Point 1: The time it takes to check-in and the impact that time has on conversation
When Untappd launched, I was excited. Partially because four weeks before they launched, I mentioned to a few friends that I was considering an app that was "The Foursquare for Craft beer". Problem solved. The issue that I quickly realized was when I was dining with a friend and went to check-in the beer I was drinking. As we are constantly reminded in PSAs regarding texting and driving, humans can only process visual and audio using one channel in the brain. Therefore, to check-in, I had to stop the conversation we were having, search for the beer I was drinking, and check-in. I made a few more attempts when I was out with beer drinking friends, but the result was always the same. I was picking an app check-in and interrupting the flow of conversation with my friends. Which, to me, is what beer should be; a conversation.

I know that there have been improvements in the database response time by using the native phone apps, but I have recently challenged a few drinking friends to check-in while we discussed a beer they were excited to try. They eventually gave up trying to check-in when the conversation stopped and silence festered.

Point 2: The usage of the app to check-in beers during festivals and provide a quick rating
Point 1 carries into Point 2. In my opinion, beer festivals are time to spend with friends trying new beers, talking about the beer (and life outside of beer), and asking questions to the brewery reps (until you fail to form logical sentences). Therefore, interrupting that conversation with a higher frequency than getting half-pint pours at your local bar, bothers me.

Point 2 is specific because 2-4oz pours are proven to be a terrible volume to rate a beer. Additionally, the average drinking palate is good for maybe the first ten samples and then it is fried (Gross generalization, but you get the point). Therefore, the remaining 20-30 samples that you are attempting to take quick notes on, and assign a star value to, are not going to be memorable nor correct. It is not fair to you and it is even less fair to the brewery. I have never seen someone add, "This was beer 15, so my palate may have been off, but..." to a review. There was a reason that the original version of Untappd had a time cap on how quickly people could check-in beers. Sure, part of it was technical, but my hope is that they wanted to prevent this use.

Point 3: The braggadocious attitude that the app encourages via social media
Point 2 transitions into Point 3 when all 40 festival check-ins are also shared on Twitter. Typically, this happens in rapid succession once you are able to get data service after you leave the fest or the crowd thins. Bonus points are when the festival is on Saturday and the stream of check-ins happens on Sunday morning. Not only does that action say, "I got so drunk yesterday that I couldn't operate one of the most simple apps that exists." it also says, "I feel the need to brag about all the beer I drank yesterday." To me, if you live in Indiana and are drinking Pliny the Elder (or Blind Pig) at Russian River in Santa Rosa (Or Toronado in San Francisco), that's awesome. Check it in. You made it to one of the beer meccas. But, if you had a sip of Dark Lord from your buddy's 2oz pour, don't check that in. That is annoying.

The main part of Point 3 that bothers me is the following scenario: You're taking it easy on a Friday night and scanning twitter when the same rare beer gets checked-in by a number of accounts. It is bad enough that I can visualize everyone on their phone racing to check-in, but the back-to-back check-in from a person using multiple accounts is just atrocious. Second, you're combining Point 1 and Point 2 in this post because you are taking time to tell people that are not present about the beer that you just drank 2-4 ounces of and you probably will never have again instead of enjoying the beer and discussing it.

In no way do I hold the guys from Untappd responsible for the use of their app. For two guys to get an app to 1 Million+ check-ins and 500,000+ users averaging 70,000 tweets per month in three years is incredible. I just think that the app is a vehicle for the degradation of craft beer which, to me, should be about sharing some beers with your friends and talking about what you like and dislike.


I agree on all of your points Jake.

I actually think that Untappd is a pretty cool idea to track the beers you've drank quickly and easily.  From what I've read from the two founders, I don't think they thought it would morph into what it is, but nothing ever does.  I just want to expand on one idea and add another of my own.

Untappd's slogan is drink socially.  I would contend the App is making people extremely unsocial in social situations. This is in complete agreement with Jake's points above.   I can't tell you how many times I've seen people with phone-in-hand as the barman hands them a pint of something or the number of people that are taking the time to create news beers at Beer Festivals on their phones.  It is a beer festival people!  Put down the fucking phone and talk to the people around you.  There is a reason that beer is the greatest social lubricant every invented.  It helps to encourage conversation, but all I tend to see is the warm glow of a lit up phone and the people behind it are staring into like a 14 year old boy about the time they first discovered internet porn.

The braggadocious attitude that Untappd drives in consumers is beyond me.  When you have people with multiple twitter handles that take the time to post Untappd check-ins under multiple screen names, and then tell Untappd to post it to Twitter and Facebook, that isn't about beer culture anymore. That is about trying to make yourself look cool while drinking beer, but honestly if you are doing all of that you have already lost. People have turned Untappd in a virtual pissing contest, but to be fair that isn't Untappd's fault, but the beer community that has sadly been shaping up over the last few years. All it takes to understand that people are using the platform to showoff is look at the beers that show up on Twitter and Facebook.  I think 75% of the time they will be beers that are not easy to get or one off beers.  You don't see many check-ins on other social media platforms that are house beers of brewpubs and breweries.  If you want to post it to social media that is great, but Untappd posts what you are drinking and is normally void of any opinion or any actual beneficial information to anyone. If you want to post to social media I personally think you should just compose your own tweet and add value to the conversation and include your thoughts or personal opinion about the beer.  That will drive at least a little bit of conversation I think.  Some people I follow on twitter are at least good to provide an opinion with each Untappd check-in, but the vast majority do not. As my favorite Beer Curmudgeon put it on twitter: "But how will I get self-validation via beer elitism and exclusion if I don't post across multiple social media platforms?" The Beer Curmudgeon always speaks the truth.

My biggest issue with Untappd is that I believe is encourages binge drinking and overall disrespecting what Craft beer is all about.  The founders of Untappd have repeatedly said they are not about binge drinking, but they load these badges into the system that for some reason people feel the need to obtain. Think about that for a second. People are drinking when they don't want to simply to get an electronic badge on the internet and then share it with their social media network.  I don't fully believe they are not promoting binge drinking though. They put badges into the system that you get for 5+ check-ins for beers with ABVs above 10%, a badge that encourages people to check into 5 beers in a single day, a badge that toasts you with "drinking your paycheck badge," one that encourages drinking 10 beers from the same brewer in 30 days, one that encourages three check-ins after 8PM, and an entire assortment of badges that can only be obtained on a single day by drinking a beer. Untappd has helped turn craft beer into a drinking contest, and that isn't what I think craft beer is all about.

I've had people say "Well, what about multiple check-ins at tastings?"  Let's not kid ourselves here: Tastings is another word for day binge drinking with like minded people that won't judge you for it.

TL:DR: Don't be a douche-bag with Untappd. It isn't a competition or pissing contest. If you post to social media add some value to the conversation, and please leave the check-ins far away from social situations.


Those are our thoughts. What are yours? Of course, not all of us at Hoosier Beer Geek are of the same mind. For a HBG counterpoint, read Jason's response to this post.

Why Do Brands "Skip" Indiana?

Jake Wrote:

Recent news that Deschutes will distribute to Ohio and Kentucky in 2014 conjured familiar emotions from a few people that I follow on twitter: "Do they not own a map?" "Why the hell does Kentucky get them and we (Indiana) don't!?" Green Flash, Crooked Stave, and Oskar Blues launching in Indiana during the past year, plus news that Dogfish Head will be back in the market in the near future, has given local drinkers a stronger sense of entitlement. There are a number of potential reasons for breweries to choose the states that they do (and don't). This post will explore four of the points that I keep in mind when asked why a brand might not come to Indy.

The first point that I often repeat when asked for my thoughts, is to remember that the market share for craft beer in Indiana is smaller than the national average. The last number I heard was ~3%. As a national business, if you tell me that the average is 6.5%, but the market is less than half that, it is a tough justification. Yes, we have seen some crazy growth in the past couple of years, but remember the larger picture.

The second piece is the time it takes to get into a new market. Take the Deschutes announcement as an example. They are announcing a 2014 distribution start three months in advance. I am sure they have been working with distributors for at least the twelve months before that press release. Let's assume it takes 12-14 months for a brewery to get into a new market, and then look at this Advertising Age article from June 2012 from a brewery owner's viewpoint. The Great Lakes region has the largest jump in Craft beer $ sales from 2011 to 2012 (21.1%), but we are still sixth of the eight regions in market share (8.0) and four other regions grew their share faster. If I, as the owner, only have one or two states, due to my production volume, that I can target, why would I pick the Great lakes region for 2013?

The third point is the available volume and expansion efforts of breweries. I will always go back to the first time that I watched Beer Wars, specifically the moment when Sam and Maraiah Calgione talk about all of the personal guarantees they have had to put on loans to expand production. Also, consider that New Glarus has put $38 Million  into the hilltop facility since mid-2008 and Surly just broke ground on a $20 Million facility. I'm not an accountant, but I am willing to bet a bottle of Raspberry Tart or Darkness that those two breweries don't have that amount of money in cash. All three of those breweries, plus Lagunitas, Oskar Blues, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium, have made choices to try and keep pace with demand for their beer. It has to be a frustrating chase as they have the desire to get into new markets, but can't. Expansion costs money which lead to loans which lead to owing more money. At some point, it stops making sense to take on more debt.

I want to give an example of the amount of time it takes to add a new tank verses the volume impact adding that tank has in the market. It takes 4-6 months to get a new tank manufactured, delivered, and ready for production. A 60BBL Fermenter costs ~$30k. The brewery pays $15k (50%) up front to have the tank made, then waits 4-5 months, and then pays $15k when it is delivered. Once it is delivered, they have to run glycol to the tank, test it, and run acid washes through it to get it ready for production. Then the first batch has to actually ferment. So, now they are 6-ish months invested to get 100 1/2BBL kegs OR 12,000 16oz cans (3,000 four packs, 500 cases) into the market. If the brewery has four distributors and allocates those new cases equally, that is 125 cases to each distributor. Big Red Liquor alone has 49 stores in Indiana, which would mean an increase of 2-3 cases per store just for Big Red. But, there are also Crown Liquors and 21st Amendment stores that need beer. So, an increase of 1-2 cases at some key stores. So, even if a brewery sees an increase in demand and wants to meet that, they are 6-7 months from being able to make an impact of 1-2 cases at your store per month which means 6-12 people get a 4-pack they didn't get before.

For a brewery to enter a new market, they must either get ahead of demand or be willing to pull some of the beer currently allocated to other markets and allocate it to the new market. If you listened to the Indy Beer News Episode from the Oskar Blues launch, you heard one of the Oskar Blues reps talking about how crazy their growth has been and how hard it was to find the beer to send to Indiana. I have a feeling that the brands people are currently coveting for Indiana (Deschutes, Avery, Ballast Point) are in a very similar situation. Meaning, they are struggling to meet demand in current markets or have already allocated the beer for the next set of markets.

The fourth point I keep in mind is the working relationship with the brewery and distributor(s). I know a few of the local breweries that have signed with distributors spend a large amount of time riding with the distributor's sales reps to help them sell the product into the market. I also know that our Indianapolis area distributors are working as hard as they can to service the market. But, a brewery and a distributor are "business married", so vetting that new boyfriend/girlfriend is key and doesn't always result in a match.

Did you know that most craft breweries are responsible for shipping costs to their distributors? Could be another factor.

As a community, we should be very proud of the market that currently exists in Indianapolis. We support craft beer locally and nationally with passion and hard-earned dollars. My hope is that this post helps build an understanding on why it generally takes longer for Indy to get a number of brands than our neighbors.

Commentary/Conversation | What Will the Next Generation of Indiana Breweries Look Like?

Jake: With all of the growth in beer around the state, what is the next generation of local breweries going to look like? Are we going to see more niche breweries like Union Brewing in Carmel or more production focused like Tin Man in Evansville?

Jim: I think we'll probably see both, though I'm inclined to think that the state has only so much room for production breweries. I may be wrong about that, but we'll see. As for niche breweries, I'm surprised that no one has yet opened a brewery that focuses on German-style beers given Indiana's German heritage, though brewing lagers might be a bit more expensive than brewing ales because of the process involved. Because of that, there might be more incentive to focus on the standard pale/IPA/brown-amber/stout-porter/blonde ale menus that you primarily see.

To take a different tack, I noticed three things yesterday after reading Rita Kohn's recent rundown of new breweries. First, a lot of new breweries are opening in places where there's either no craft brewery footprint or a small craft brewery footprint. I think that's a good thing because it'll allow locals to have a brewery or breweries to call their own. Second, a number of these new breweries are focusing on small batch brewing. I'm not sure what to make of this other than thinking that they're trying to gauge demand before they potentially expand or maybe stay at the same brewing capacity if initial production is sufficient to meet demand. Third, a few of the new breweries are also wineries. I'm guessing that these winemakers are recognizing there's a booming market for craft beer and are seeking to capitalize on that.

It's an exciting time to be a craft beer lover in this state, that's for sure, though I have to say that trying to keep track of all the new breweries is a difficult task these days. There are so many of them.

Jason: I agree with Jim that we will see both production and niche breweries. The battle of production breweries could become bloody as they battle over taps and shelf space. I think that is where we will see breweries come and go. Though, as Jim said, if somebody invested in a brewery that focused on German-style lagers, there is an untapped consumer base in southern Indiana that looks back longingly at the lagers of yore that would probably drink up whatever they produce.

I honestly believe that we will see the greatest amount of success in the small niche breweries. And they don't even have to be breweries with niches or gimmicks. Neighborhoods across Indianapolis and Indiana are looking for a neighborhood brewery to call their own. And the consumer base would more likely forgive mistakes. The learning curve is greater because the consumer feels more connected. They are the front line for the craft beer movement.

Rod: I think we'll be seeing all of the above. It seems like for whatever business strategy you have when opening a craft brewery, you can point to an Indiana brewery that is doing it successfully. For however many people are looking at Tin Man and their unique system of packaging beer, the same number were looking at Sun King and their 16 oz. aluminum cans and plastic kegs in 2009. Union is opening up doing cask only beer, but Broad Ripple Brewpub has featured cask beer as a mainstay of their menu since 1990. If you want to start small with a small system and a tap room, Bier Brewery has been quite successful at blowing through their capacity on a weekly basis. If you want to invest heavily in your brewery with dreams of world domination, that's working out pretty well for Flat12 and Triton so far.

In my opinion, the next generation of craft breweries will be confident. They have to be. If you opened up a craft brewery in 2000 in Indiana, it was risky. The audience wasn't entirely there and you had to do a lot of leg work to convince people that it was worth supporting the local beer business. That's not the case today. Indiana breweries are firing on all cylinders. If you open a craft brewery in 2013, you should know what you're doing. If you're dedicated to the craft and making your concept work, there's no reason it shouldn't. I don't think the next generation of craft breweries will be of any particular variety, but they should be prepared to make a good product, help grow the community and collaborate with their fellow brewers. They're joining a movement. Hoosiers want good beer; they're screaming for it through sold out festivals and increased craft beer sales. As long as we're part of the same movement and not fighting amongst ourselves, there's no reason a good brewery concept should fail.

Jake: I think we are going to see more neighborhood nanobreweries and stylistically-focused production breweries than production breweries seeking domination as we go forward in Indiana. I definitely agree with Jason's assessment that the neighborhood places will likely see more success in the market than an overarching production brewery with a house pale/porter/stout, especially in packaging, because there is a finite amount of shelf space that is already hotly contested. When John Laffler left Goose Island to start his own brewery, he told the Chicago Tribune, "If you go into Binny's, there are 50 well-made beers of the same style. Why the hell would you throw your hat in that ring?"

Well said about confidence, Rodney. With confidence comes responsibility though. The hard work of the existing breweries has gone a long way to lay the groundwork and that needs to be respected. Also, the bar has also been raised from a quality standpoint. The beer drinker is somewhat forgiving early on as the system gets dialed-in for the first few batches, but patience is a fickle beast too. I think the guys from Daredevil are a great example of a successful launch with their Lift Off IPA. The quality has been there right from the start.

Chris: Thinking I have any insight for predicting the future of Indiana Breweries seems like folly.  It's hard to imagine, but 5 years ago, Indianapolis had more chain than local brew pubs and not a single production brewery.  Even Sun King was just a budding idea in a couple entrepreneur's heads.  Who would have imagined the brewery explosion we've seen?  Double so: who would have imagined the brewery explosion we've seen in the midst of the greatest economic calamity anyone reading this blog has ever seen?

With a general economic recovery seemingly taking hold (or maybe not) and craft beer still measuring single digit market share in this state, it seems to me that the sky is still the limit.  I suspect that anyone producing at least a 'B' product and a decent marketing sense is going to do just fine for the foreseeable future in Indiana.

Commentary/Conversation | Revisiting Indiana's Barrel Limit Law

Jim:

It might be time to revisit a topic we've discussed before: Indiana's barrel limit law. As things stand right now, Indiana breweries are limited to making no more than 30,000 barrels per year for in-state sales if they want to do things like distribute their beers directly to bars and other retailers, have a restaurant on-site, and sell beer on-site (see Indiana Code section 7.1-3-2-2). The barrel limit used to be 20,000 until a lobbying effort spearheaded by Three Floyds and Sun King was successful in getting the barrel limit raised to the current limit of 30,000.

An August article in the Times of Northwest Indiana noted that Three Floyds is on pace to produce 25,000 barrels this year and will surpass 30,000 barrels in the near future. I'm not sure what Sun King's current barrel production is for 2012, but it can't be far behind Three Floyds'. Given that these two breweries will probably be bumping up against the limit again soon, I suppose the question is this: Why do we still have the barrel limit? What practical purpose does it serve? What parties have a stake in seeing it remain? I suppose one fortunate thing is that the barrel limit doesn't apply to out-of-state sales. But given that most Indiana breweries have Indiana consumers as their target market, why should Indiana breweries have their hands tied in this fashion? (I know that these may seem like facile questions to some, but they're worth asking for readers who might be unaware of the barrel limit.)

Jake:

Why do we still have the barrel limit?
I honestly can't think of a good reason to limit production. With greater production comes greater tax revenue for the state, more jobs to run expanded production, and the potential for re-use of industrial/commercial property that may otherwise be vacant.

What practical purpose does it serve?
I suppose the limit could make it a more equal playing field for new breweries and established breweries within the state. But again, I do not see the upside.

What parties have a stake in seeing it remain?
I see where the limit could benefit distributors that have sister companies in other states and could help a brewery by getting their beer out of state to stay under the 30k limit. That said, for new breweries that want to self-distribute and grow unfettered, I can see where they may consider moving over the border to a surrounding state.

I suppose one fortunate thing is that the barrel limit doesn't apply to out-of-state sales. But given that most Indiana breweries have Indiana consumers as their target market, why should Indiana breweries have their hands tied in this fashion?
One of the things that I enjoy most about Three Floyds is being able to go to the Brewpub. The limit threatens to close that part because they will continue to pump more and more beer through the pub. I also enjoy seeing the Sun King trucks around the streets of Indy on their morning delivery routes. I know that Dave, Clay, and their team have a focus on continued growth within Indiana and I see no reason to handcuff them. The only negative to larger growth that could be argued would be the environmental impact from using more caustic to clean more tanks. However, I see this as a minor detraction from the tax revenue, jobs, and other benefits the brewing industry brings.


Jason:

From what I have heard, a lot of out-of-state breweries are envious of Indiana breweries because they can sell on site, operate restaurants, and self distribute. I think it makes Indiana fertile grounds for new breweries. But as we have seen, breweries are pushing the limits and their success is now a hindrance. For the successful, it raises the question: What do I do now? Three Floyds could move some or all of its operations to Illinois with relative ease. Or Michigan. Or Wisconsin. Sun King could, instead of continuing expansion in Indiana, open a second brewery elsewhere. That is lost jobs and lost taxes, and most importantly, lost pride. Indiana has great momentum in the craft beer industry. Let's not hinder the momentum for puritanical reasons.

Rod:

If I had to guess, the law was originally put in place to separate the business of a brewpub and a production brewery. In some ways, it would even protect the idea of a neighborhood brewery. But that's entirely speculation, as there is obviously a very real history to the law that would require a lot of investigation to uncover. The law itself doesn't translate properly to our modern society. Breweries are bigger, there are more people, and the three-tier system provides a mechanism to bring the world's beers to Indiana. Whatever original purpose the law held, it only serves to hinder progress today. Much as the barrel limits were increased recently, they will likely need to be increased again.

It hurts the business, the state, and the consumer for the limits to prohibit self-distribution or restaurant operation, and there is no logical reason I can figure out for them to remain in place. I am very curious to hear what the counter-argument is to raising the limit. I hope it is not the sensationalist nonsense about underage drinking and drunk driving that I frequently see spewed in public forums.

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Commentary/Conversation | Is Goose Island As We Know It Dead?

Jake: Not sure if all of you have seen the press release in the Chicago Tribune, but John Laffler [one of Goose Island's barrel-aging brewers] is leaving Goose Island to start his own deal with the former cellarman [Dave Bleitner] from Two Brothers.

Simple question up for debate: Even with [brewer] Tom Korder left at Goose Island, does the news of John Laffler leaving finalize the death nell for Goose Island?

In my mind, it does. As we all know, each person has a different palate and in my mind, only experience can help get a palate where it needs to be to determine when a beer is ready from barrels. I am sure Laffler passed on some of the secrets to those he trusted, but the wealth of knowledge he takes with him, plus the change in [Goose Island founder] John Hall's role, is the final nail in the coffin for what we once knew as Goose Island. I am sure the next few releases will be on par, but I doubt the quality exists in two years.

Rod: To be perfectly honest, I'm curious how much longer Tom Korder stays. Any time key staff leaves a brewery, you have to ask yourself this question. I don't think it definitively means that Goose Island, brewer of one of the finest imperial stouts in the world, is dead. But it does certainly stack the cards against them. When it comes down to it, brewing is both an art and a science. A lot of the "art" side of Goose Island is leaving. I just hope that their successors are equally as creative. Speaking of, does anyone know who is filling Laffler's role and what that person's credentials are?

Also, haven't the Halls been out of Goose Island pretty much since they were purchased (but perhaps unofficially)?

In brighter news, I am very excited for Laffler's new venture.

Jason: I don't like to count someone out until the quality suffers, so I won't carve a gravestone for them. They wouldn't be the first brewery to lose a brewer yet survive.

Of course, I can think of breweries that did not survive or have struggled in the wake of a brewer departure. So what the fuck do I know?

Jake: Rod - Sounds like Laffler just officially announced it last week, so I do not know what the succession plan is. Greg Hall [former Goose Island brewmaster] has been gone since right around the purchase to focus on Virtue Cider (also awesome), but I think John stayed more hands on. I doubt any of us will ever know what level of influence he had though.

Jason - You make a valid point as always. I just know personally some of the luster is lost with the "art" side leaving as Rod said.

Matt: The issue for me is always going to be about quality. Bourbon Country Stout is one of the finest beers that is available in the beer world. If that quality goes away, then rip BCS. I really want to believe though that the very special beers from Goose Island will be continue to be impressive. Some of my beer highlights this year were King Henry, Bramble, BCS, and the individual staves of BCS at the Great Taste of the Midwest. The Goose Island truffle beer I had at The Great American Beer fest remains one of the best things I've ever consumed. It comes down to quality for me, and this supersedes the local movement. I'm sure that pisses some people off, but no one else locally is making a barrel aged stout that is semi-easily-available at a reasonable price or on par with that type of quality. We have great beer here, don't get me wrong, and I think Indiana breweries really excel at brewing wonderfully approachable beer. In due time perhaps someone here will also make a beer on par with BCS and then we can have our cake and eat it too.

I remember being at the Rathskeller shortly after InBev bought Goose Island. A guy sitting at the table next to us was saying how he could never support Goose Island again since they were now owned by InBev. He then bought a pint of Franziskaner Hefeweiss, an InBev product. I find it hypocritical to cherry pick where people are taking their "beer" stand without really knowing the full scope of ultimate parent companies. The Goose Island situation is just easy to hate. I don't enjoy that fact that InBev bought Goose Island, but I know people that work for Goose Island and they are employed in Chicago. I still feel pretty good about supporting them. Simply because my funds are not going to one individual local owner doesn't make me a bad person, and I'm not going to feel bad for buying Goose Island products as long the quality is still world class. If BCS is terrible, I won't be buying anymore.

People are freaking about what this means for the world of better beer, but I don't think big beer buying up smaller breweries is the issue. I truly think we will see big beer growing vertically and not horizontally any longer. InBev is entering the world of the three-tier system, and that is how they will snuff out selection of better beer, not by buying better beer brewers.

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Commentary/Conversation | How Many Taps Are Too Many?

Jake:  With more local bars now having 30-plus taps of all craft beer, how many is too many?

I really think this all comes down to the variety being offered and the familiarity of the consumer and bar staff. If you have 30 taps and 10 of them are from a similar style (Blondes/Wheats and Pale Ales especially), how are you expecting to turn those taps at with any rate that maintains product quality? I think the real result is frustration of the consumer and added stress on the wait staff by them having to explain and get multiple samples for multiple people.

I compare this to a place like Local Option in Chicago. They have a huge chalkboard of at least 30 taps that they change regularly. I enjoy going there because I can tell the bartender what style I am thinking and there are two to three options, but no more. I do not think we are at the point in Indy where people trust themselves and their bartender/waiter to have that conversation.

With five local pale ales on draft, which one are you picking? The one with the more ornate tap handle? The funny Name/picture?

I also think this has given beer drinkers even worse ADD than most of us already have. "With 30-plus taps, I can't order the same beer again, I have to try something else" is the feeling I often get and hear others mention.

Jim: Jake raises a couple of issues that I've thought about too. The first is consumer sophistication. I certainly don't want to paint Indianapolis beer drinkers as necessarily unsophisticated; there are plenty of Indy people who know enough about craft beer to know what they want and why they want it. And obviously, bars around town think there's enough consumer sophistication to warrant an expansion of their tap lines. But a lot of people are still meandering their way into and through the craft beer world. I think that a lot of these folks, once they get more into craft beer, are going to be satisfied with a few brands and a few styles. I think that some people may just want simplicity, which makes me worry that some of these bars aren't going to be able to turn their gazillion tap lines as frequently as they might think.

This quest for simplicity leads to my second point, which is something that I've written about before: the perils of having too many choices, or as Jake calls it, "beer ADD." We're at a point now in the craft beer world where the choices are overwhelming--well, at least they are to me. Yes, it's cool to have lots of beers to choose from, but I now find it exhausting seeking out the next best thing. As I've noted before, I find myself now frequently reaching for the "ol' reliable," no-frills beers like Flat12 Pogue's Run Porter, Sun King Osiris Pale Ale, and Fountain Square Workingman's Pilsner. I wonder how many other "me's" there are out there. If there are, then maybe only a few bars in town should have 20 or more taps. Or if they do have that many, perhaps they should be unique in their tap choices. I'm thinking of the Rathskeller with its focus on German beers.

In the end, I prefer a bar with a smaller but well-curated tap list, like La Margarita or Brugge Brasserie. But that's just my personal preference.

Rod: This is an interesting one, because it depends heavily on where your priorities are. I first started drinking craft beer in college, and the Chumley's in Lafayette was my go-to bar. As a novice craft beer drinker, the variety of 50 tap lines was unparalleled. I never thought to ask how fresh a beer was; my only concern was whether or not I had tried it. To be entirely fair, I also didn't care how good the beer was. If I received a pint of beer that was less than enjoyable, I could at least say that I had tried it. I learned a lot about the types of beer I enjoyed this way, and it certainly was an essential part of where I am in beer today.

Unfortunately, that college spirit has only slightly diminished. I wrestle constantly with the choice between a beer that I know is going to be great, and a beer I have never seen before. For this reason, the 30+ tap bars are still frequent haunts. That's not to say that I haven't learned a thing or two. Typically, a bar that boasts a huge tap line up is not going to have fresh beer. In fact, they may have downright old beer in those tap lines, and maybe they haven't been cleaned in a year. But it's not as if those problems aren't characteristic of bars with huge beer selections. A bar with three taps can have the exact same old beer, dirty tap line issues that a bar with 30 can have. Simply demonizing a bar because it has a lot of taps is the wrong thing to do.

What we're all after is good beer, and in the topic of this conversation, variety. If a bar has 30 taps and they rotate regularly and keep on an interesting selection of options, there is no reason that the number of tap handles they have should be viewed negatively. However, a bar with six taps that rotates them regularly and has an interesting selection of options is typically just as good. The real problem is the bar that installs a wealth of taps and offers a poor variety with poor draft selections. Buffalo Wild Wings is the prime example of this. A quick visit to the Greenwood location will reveal maybe 5 taps of craft and 25+ of every version of American and Import Light Lager. Surely this is the extreme, but offering 30 taps of locally brewed IPAs is almost as boring.

Perhaps it is a chicken / egg problem. How do you install 100 taps and ensure that you will be able to sell through them all in a reasonable amount of time, such that you're not stuck with old beer? The obvious answer seems to be to start out with fewer taps and build a customer base that can support 100, but then you can't open up as a 100 tap bar. At the end of the day, a bar that focuses on a large number of taps should be judged the same as a bar that focuses on three taps, and that will ultimately define its success.

Jason: Too many bars with too many taps? Only if they don't know their audience or their business.

Let's take my favorite multi-tap bar: Black Acre Brewery. It is in my neighborhood, so I can walk there and stumble back. With the multiple taps, I know that I will find multiple beers to enjoy in a variety of styles. That is important to me. And they are brewers, so they know how to care for their own lines. Neither their beers nor their guest taps last for very long, so aging isn't an issue. They are successful, but they aimed to serve a neighborhood that desired multiple taps. The audience was already there; it just needed to be tapped.

I think that same set up can be duplicated. Twenty Tap is an example of another neighborhood-oriented bar/restaurant. They certainly bring in their fair share of out-of-area drinkers, but it is no surprise that they are in the middle of a neighborhood that values handcrafted, quality goods. Being within walking distance of their audience is helps a lot.

In these cases, the locations are neighborhood-oriented. I suspect that locations in suburban strip malls or national chains are not seeing the same kind of response. They may start off with 20+ local and craft taps, but soon succumb to the 24 varieties of Budweiser. Does this mean that there are too many 20+ tap bars? No. I think there are too few in the neighborhoods that want them and too many in suburban/chain markets where the audience doesn't care.

Chris: This question makes me think back to the state of Indianapolis craft beer around 2007. When you walked into a "better beer bar" back then (what few there were), what did you see on tap? Maybe something from Three Floyds or Upland and then a lot of out-of-state beers. Unless you were drinking at a brewpub, there were no truly local beers on tap.

Certainly Sun King bursting onto the scene in 2009 is among the seminal moments in the history of Indianapolis beer, but their ascendance pushed a lot of out-of-town craft beer off taps around town. If Sun King was put on tap at a bar, their beer wasn't replacing Budweiser; it was replacing beers from Bell's, Stone, Founders, and numerous other beers from outside Indiana. Sun King was also the wedge that broke open the local craft beer scene, further reducing the number of taps available to out-of-town breweries.

Anecdotally, it appears to me that the increase in tap lines at local beer bars has reintroduced a number of these non-Indiana beers. Finally there is some breathing room on the tap stands for local, national and international beers to share space. Count me among those that think this tap expansion is a good step in the maturation of Indianapolis craft beer.

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Commentary/Conversation: Who's to Blame When Your Beer is Bad?

We were recently in a bar that was serving a popular rye beer from a well-known brewery, and there was obviously something very very wrong with it. A rye beer should not smell like feet. Gina brought the issue to the staff's attention, and they replaced her beer. But the proprietor also said something along the lines of "I don't think that's right, but I don't (drink/like, I forget which) that beer".

After taking a walk to the back to look at the keg(?) they continued to serve the beer.

On one hand I can understand that a bar can't just pull a beer because someone has a problem with it, but on the other hand I wonder if a bar has a responsibility to know what a beer is actually supposed to taste like. Where's the line?

And why were we the only folks to notice? All four folks in our party noticed immediately.

in my experience in talking with bars and liquor stores, they say that many distributors will not accept returns of their beer upon delivery. Even if it is bad, they won't take it back. So another curious question is "who pays for bad beer?" The brewery doesn't want it back and the distributors don't either. I really applaud Stone for their bad beer reporting feature on their website. That bar is going to serve that beer, and not take a $150 hit on the price tag.

My first thought (and I admit I have no experience to back this us) was "that line must be bad". I can see where the distributors are coming from - sort of. Whose responsibility is the line? I know that at least some of the local guys clean the lines they use..

It's a back and forth. "The keg you sold me was bad." "No, your lines are dirty." Where does it stop?



I guess the thing is that it doesn't do anyone any favors to keep that beer on - Except that people apparently are willing to drink it and either not notice or not complain.


It hurts better beer as a whole, and those brands. If someone new to better beer or new to that brewery had that beer, they are not coming back to it. They don't know what they don't know. They might think that is how it should taste. Most people don't say anything, and I am one of them. I just don't drink it, and the waiter asks and I will say the beer is off. We have a minority beer drinking population and an even smaller minority of people saying anything about it.

I wouldn't necessarily say the brewery doesn't want it back. Many breweries will buy back kegs that are out of date or found to be "bad." A lot of those breweries are fairly large, though, so they can afford to do that. The entire situation is certainly a difficult one.

The proprietor can choose not to sell the bad beer and take the price hit (or try to return or swap it). This is certainly the more admirable option, but also the more expensive one. In this case, it may very well have been a bad line, which is definitely the responsibility of the proprietor, but also more expensive than simply replacing a keg.

Of course if you're the only table that has registered a complaint, and others are still purchasing the beer, that makes the proprietor's job even harder. You might be soured on the transaction, but he/she is still making money off the beer. While every customer is important, you have to weigh the impact of telling all of the customers currently buying the beer that they could no longer purchase it because some other customer didn't like the way it tasted, right or wrong.

So what would I do? I would offer to replace your beer with a different one, and offer samples to people who order future pints to let them know that a customer earlier in the evening said they detected an issue with the beer. At the end of the night / the next day, I would contact the distributor and set up an appointment to clean/inspect the line and verify the beer. If the beer was bad, I would work that out with the distributor and stop serving it. If cleaning the line fixed the issue, I would put the beer back on. But I guess all of that is with the assumption that I could tell what was off about the beer in the first place. If you're clueless as a proprietor then it's going to be hard to fix a problem like this.

Commentary/Conversation: Is It Time to Get Rid of the Word "Craft" in Craft Beer?

Is it time to get rid of the word "craft" in craft beer? I say yes. The word doesn't carry much weight any more and it is being misused that craft=quality. That isn't the case. When does beer win?



We're at a point where "craft" is being used the same way "artisan" is - Domino's Artisan Pizza, for example - hell, there's a whole blog about that trend.

I guess my question is this: who's really misusing the label? Brands or people like us?


I think about the moniker like "support craft beer" or #drinkcraftbeer type items. A new brewery opens up and we say "congratulations you brew craft beer". Is that right or a misuse of advertising and riding coat tails so to speak.



It makes me think of the various buzz words used in food items that don't really mean anything anymore.

"Craft" obviously means different things to different people. When people say "support craft beer", what are they really saying? Buy local? Buy quality? Buy small batches?

The problem is that people automatically connect "craft" to "quality". That's not always true. I know of plenty of "small, independent, traditional" breweries that meet the Brewers Association definition of craft brewery but can't put a decent beer out to save their lives. But it is easy to measure the size, the ingredients, and the ownership. It is not so easy to define what is "good". Sometimes "craft beers" that I wouldn't touch end up being popular to some people. Obviously tastes differ.

What we don't have is a "mark" or "seal" for quality beers. But who would make that determination? And how?

I've noticed Mike using the term "better beer." I like that.




To me, "craft" pretty much means not Budweiser, Miller or Coors. Which is to say, any style of beer that's not American Light Lager. It doesn't mean the beer is good, it just means that it's not a global mega brand.

The whole issue doesn't bother me much. We used to call it microbrew beer. I've always just called it beer and only make the distinction when there is an obvious disconnect with the other person in the conversation. The Brewers Association defines a craft brewery by size, but that's starting to exclude a number of quality breweries. So while I agree that it seems silly that we're still using an extra adjective to describe every brewery that's not a global mega brand, there still needs to be some distinction. And while we're at it, why do we keep referring to things as "imports." BrewDog is as much of a craft brewery as Three Floyds. Referring to beer by style seems like a valid alternative, but that would get confusing really fast for the 90% of people that still think beer turns the Rockies blue. So while I'm not wild about the "craft" label, I think it's still necessary to some degree, even if we change the word "craft" to another word like "artisinal," "independent," or "zydeco."

I certainly don't place any assessment of "quality" on craft beer, just like I don't place it on artisinal or local foods. In fact, the objective quality of a mass produced product is likely much, much higher. They've invested millions of dollars in scientific research to create a repeatable level of quality. I'm pretty sure Half Acre just keeps throwing in the same ingredients with the assumption that it's going to create the same beer. Not that there's something wrong with that, but Budweiser knows when quality has changed before the beer ever hits the bottling line. But if we're talking about "quality" in the way that it just tastes good, I think that's different and entirely subjective. The market still sides with the global mega brands on this one, since their sales numbers are way higher, implying more people prefer those brands. Maybe we should start calling it Adventure Beer, since that's exactly what it is. It's a quest to try more, small scale breweries in hopes that you'll find your new favorite beer and then keeping faith in that brewery to always produce the same beer that you enjoy. When you talk about it that way, "craft" starts to make sense for a lot of the producers. The beer is hand crafted and requires an amount of skill to execute well, and you can be good or bad or even adequate at your craft. Perhaps we should start calling Miller "Science Beer."

I was having a hard time responding to this issue and I think the problem is that you have to define what craft means if you're going to have a problem with its usage. Jason nailed it that craft means different things to different people. From my perspective, it seems that craft is most often used to simply describe anyone brewing beer that isn't BMC. In that way, it's essentially a synonym for microbrew. I think I'm ok with that.

If somebody wants to take back "craft", though, I'm not going to stop them!

Commentary/Conversation: Ruminations of the Potable Curmudgeon

For a very long time, some of the best Hoosier Beer Geek content never made its way to the public. We regularly have very lengthy email conversations about any number of topics going on in the world of beer. Here is one such example.

Did anybody read (New Albanian Publican) Roger Baylor's latest musings?





I just did. We're in that same boat. We all know there's bad beer being served, and we're saying nothing.




This isn't a new problem. This is a problem that has been there as long as I've been drinking craft beer - which, admittedly, is only a fraction of the time Roger has been drinking craft beer. I cannot name a single brewery that I've never tasted a flawed beer from. And I mean a "the recipe is off and/or the end product has an issue" flaw, not "I don't like this beer" which happens sometimes too. I'm serious about this. If I've had a decent sampling of the brewery's catalog, I've had at least one beer that I can tell they shipped because they can't afford to dump it.

Much like Roger, I don't choose to write about it. Honestly it's because I don't think it does anyone any good. I certainly won't encourage you to drink that beer, but I'm also not going to rain on your parade and tell you why it's bad if you actually like it. If you approach me and point out that the beer is bad, sure, I'll offer constructive input and commiserate with you. Where it gets difficult is that I truly believe no one is intentionally brewing bad beer. Everyone is creating a product that they're proud of. Maybe you can't afford a Quality Control team. Maybe you can't afford to flush 10 barrels of beer. Maybe by the time you've attempted to save the beer through additional hops and malt you've just created a beer 3x more expensive that you can't afford to dump even more than you couldn't afford to dump the original product. Brewers know that serving bad product results in consumers having a bad opinion of your product and therefore not buying it in the future.

So why waive the red flag and say "Brewery X is selling you bad beer"? Unless you have some sort of personal vendetta against Brewery X, why would you want them to fail? Wouldn't it be more constructive to talk to a brewer with Brewery X and let them know your findings? And even if you do, remember that you're talking about their baby. Just as you probably wouldn't walk up to someone and tell them that their baby looks messed up, you shouldn't walk up to a brewer and tell them that their beer tastes messed up. It's a delicate matter and it needs to be addressed as such. And posting on the internet that Brewery X's baby looks messed up isn't going to fix Brewery X's baby.

I think I see two axes to Roger's post.

When we started writing this blog, we didn't know any brewers or industry people, and we reviewed from strictly the standpoint of "Do I like this beer?", and some beers got less favorable reviews. If folks have been paying attention, they can probably see that it's been a very long time since we torched a beer, and that it only happens in cases where the beer is undeniably bad.

Instead, like Roger, we're guilty of self-censorship, or maybe even sins of omission. But it depends on your definition of omit. If your definition is as straight forward as to leave out, then we're all guilty. If your definition has more to do with something left out, not done, or neglected - have we neglected to insult someone's baby? Is that really a sin?

But at what point do you look at that baby and finally say to the parent, "You know, you should probably have had that rash looked at months ago"?

On the other hand Roger writes "I find myself dreading those occasions when I must stand up in front of people and preach the gospel of craft beer. Why am I being bothered?"

You might think he got there by not believing in the gospel anymore. But I think "Why am I being bothered?" points somewhere else. It's like when we started the website - we were out there waving a flag as hard as we could. And then one day we looked down and realized that someone built a castle under us.

"A castle! They've built us a castle!"

And then we take a tour of the castle and realize that it's not the way we would have built it. Maybe we'll skip a few rooms when we're giving the tour. And the castle has multiple flagpoles already, so why bother climbing a turret to wave ours? And come to think of it, how much of this castle is really ours anyway?

Maybe it's better to just go home and plant your flag there?

Does it do anyone any good to call someone out for making bad beer? What are the repercussions of a place making bad beer? A place can hide behind the moniker of "support local" for only so long, but ultimately it is about the beer in the long run.

I certainly don't want to put words in Roger's mouth, but his musings to me represent something I've been thinking about for quite some time. Craft beer really isn't all that much fun for me anymore. I really want it to come back around, but it just hasn't. The more I put myself on the fringe and then come back into the fold the more that things piss me off. I've only been in the craft beer scene for about 10 years, and so many people have been drinking and making beer for decades longer than me, but I feel we (an entire craft beer collective) are ruining the chance to truly create an amazing beer culture right now. I was one of the worst offenders. I let a brewery get bigger than beer, and I let it stay that way for a very long time, but I've come to the point where I resent much of the beer culture we are building. Places tried to run with the Us vs. Them mentality for so long, but now that we have nearly 2000 breweries online it has become an Us vs. Us issue. I'm a firm believer in a rising tide lifts as ships, and protectionism is a proven way to kill your brand, your market share, and your product. I'm bothered by things like tap takeovers, breweries twitter feeds, RateBeer, BeerAdvocate, Ebay and the constant flow of marketing B.S. that flows from places. So many breweries and craft beer fans rip on BMC's marketing practices, but I don't see much difference than what they are doing than many craft breweries are doing. I don't fault anyone for making a buck and trying to grow their business, but ultimately it must come down to making great beer. That means not pushing shitty beer to the market in the first place. I understand the economics behind that doesn't make sense, but if a new consumer to your brand is behind that sip the economic damage over the life of that consumer is much more painful than dumping a batch of beer. It means not adding ingredients to a terrible batch of beer and then try and pull the wool over your consumers heads by claiming you brewed a new beer. Consumers are more intelligent than that.

I look at a place like Three Floyds. They don't have a marketing budget, and they knock it out of the park on just about every single beer they make. They have built a reputation with me that would take something quite awful to sway. But if they did stop making great beer I wouldn't support them anymore (That had better not happen, but I'm just using that as an example). I've had way too much bad beer in this town from places pushing beer to market. Does that hurt craft brewing or help it? When the numbers come out people all like to point out that craft beer is growing, but they neglect to point out that overall beer consumption is down. What does that mean? BMC people are coming over to craft, but are new drinkers coming into the fold? The numbers for the faux alcho-pops would say no. Is craft still rising, but just setting the stage for its collapse? I don't know, but I do know what we are building as a culture is not the reason I got into great beer. I do indeed lament the days of people just bonding over some great beer. It isn't enough now to just be drinking a beer, but now it matters who you are drinking.

Perhaps I've just got sand in my cheeks lately, but I do know I resent the culture I was part of building. I just want to get back to drinking good beer with my friends. I plan to do just that.