Mediocre Beer

[Belgian]

Is this really an Ontario thing though? Quebec has a lot more really good brewers but they still have a ton of mediocre microbrew sitting on shelves. I suspect the same thing is prevalent in the US.

Most people start out drinking macro swill. That's what their parents drank and it's cheaper which is a big consideration for someone who just hit the legal drinking age. Going to anything micro is probably going to seem great in comparison. And once they think it is great, that becomes their beer and they just stick with it. Until they come across something even better and most people don't regularly go out looking to try something new.

This is a great perspective on the 'stuck' craft pale lager drinker. There's a market for that. But I believe that beyond this there's always the demographic beyond those just settling for 'better' that never stops looking for 'really good or the very best.' This creates support for more new product and bars, hence propelling more new people to try all these and more demand, the leapfrog effect.

[atomeyes]

atom, there have been breweries who go after it with their first release. Radical Road started with a barrel-aged wee heavy, Bush Pilot started with a barley wine aged in Calvados that had like 20 ingredients and Spearhead started with a pineapple IPA.

I didn't particularly like any of those beers. To be fair wee heavys and fruity IPAs are very much not my style and I haven't bothered to try the bw yet because I think it needs some age to be alright, but I think it makes a certain amount of sense for a brewery to walk before they run.

Radical Road - contract, gimmick beer
Bush Pilot - contract, gimmick beer
Spearhead - contract, gimmick beer

Blah.

Learn how to actually made a good beer first.

there's a difference between gimmicks and avante guarde beer. these beer listed above are gimmicks. Spearhead's goal was to have a strong sales team, so their focus was also on sales, branding, presence, etc. Not a fan of either of their 2 beer. neither tastes great,IMO.

the other 2 never interested me, so i avoided them, esp after the (non-RA and BA) reviews i read.

[atomeyes]

bringing it back to Ontario and Chris's point: there is nothing innovative about all of these new Ontario breweries putting out a stout or an "ale" as their first 1-3 releases. waiting for someone to be daring and to start off by releasing something cool, like a gose. or, hey! an all-brett beer. playing it safe never got anyone anywhere.

Sorry, but I completely disagree. So many variables to consider when opening a brewery; figuring out how the equipment works and dialing in your processes/recipes is just one small piece of the puzzle.

You gotta start with basic beers to figure out your brewing system, and to frankly have a product that turns over quickly and has wide appeal so you can start bringing in some much needed revenue.

Now if you never do get good at brewing these beers, and/or you never brew anything else, then you've got a point.

are you talking about contract, brewpub or brewery?
and i sort of agree with you. sort of. but it isn't like an all-brett blonde is any different than a regular blonde.

[markaberrant]

are you talking about contract, brewpub or brewery?
and i sort of agree with you. sort of. but it isn't like an all-brett blonde is any different than a regular blonde.

I'm talking about making good beer, don't care what the setting is.

It is all about minimizing variables, can't stress this enough. Even as a homebrewer, I fully believe in the idea of keeping it simple. In a real brewery, gotta settle on a house strain first, learn how it behaves, how many times can you repitch it, how long does it take to drop, how does it behave in your tanks, how accurate are your temp probes, etc.

Right now, I am leaning towards 1272 as my house yeast. Test batches will be the final decider.

[liamt07]

a very good one IMO is Cameron's Obsidian Stout

Comments like these that reinforce my strong opposition to anything you recommend.

[Craig]

atom, there have been breweries who go after it with their first release. Radical Road started with a barrel-aged wee heavy, Bush Pilot started with a barley wine aged in Calvados that had like 20 ingredients and Spearhead started with a pineapple IPA.

I didn't particularly like any of those beers. To be fair wee heavys and fruity IPAs are very much not my style and I haven't bothered to try the bw yet because I think it needs some age to be alright, but I think it makes a certain amount of sense for a brewery to walk before they run.

Radical Road - contract, gimmick beer
Bush Pilot - contract, gimmick beer
Spearhead - contract, gimmick beer

Blah.

Learn how to actually made a good beer first.

there's a difference between gimmicks and avante guarde beer. these beer listed above are gimmicks. Spearhead's goal was to have a strong sales team, so their focus was also on sales, branding, presence, etc. Not a fan of either of their 2 beer. neither tastes great,IMO.

the other 2 never interested me, so i avoided them, esp after the (non-RA and BA) reviews i read.

The difference between gimmicky beer and avant-guarde beer is what, exactly? From what I know of Spearhead, I'm inclined to think they were a gimmick, but I really only have third or fourth hand information about them. Not nearly close enough to actually pass judgement on their intentions. For Bush Pilot I think they were trying to make good beer, but again based on third or fourth hand info. For RR I'm pretty confident they were out to make good beer from the start, based on second hand info, which isn't so bad.

Unless you know these guys were a marketing strategy before they were a beer recipe, what's the basis for your complaint? You said you wanted new brewers to push stylistic envelopes with their first beers and I think these guys all did. Like I said, I didn't personally like any of the beers I tried, I'm just pointing out that we have had brewers try to innovate right away, like you wanted.

We haven't had them be successful, though the beers I mentioned were all in the 80th percentile on the rating websites. I think new brewers are better served proving they can make a good beer before they try to prove they can innovate.

[chris_schryer]

Mark,
While I will also defend Bush Pilot and Spearhead, if you're bound to hating on contract brewing, there's not much to be said. But Radical Road is a contract brewery, in that it's Simon and John, brewing on the same brewhouse they use EVERY DAY at Black Oak, but producing a product where they assume the risk/reward. Radical Road is as far away from the bad vein of contract brewing as you can get. If you don't like the beer, that's your call, but you are 100% wrong about the spirit of the operation.

[Craig]

On a related note, I felt the same way about house ales when they first got going. When they first started brewing their own they came out with all kinds of beers in interesting-sounding styles, but when I tried them all I pretty much always came away uninspired. I doubt anyone would make the argument that Ralph or the folks at Volo are in it for the gimmick or the quick buck, they're rightly hailed as pioneers of good beer in Toronto. But I thought their brewing operation got much better when it refocused on more common styles and their more recent forays beyond it have been better than those when they first started.

[markaberrant]

Mark,
While I will also defend Bush Pilot and Spearhead, if you're bound to hating on contract brewing, there's not much to be said. But Radical Road is a contract brewery, in that it's Simon and John, brewing on the same brewhouse they use EVERY DAY at Black Oak, but producing a product where they assume the risk/reward. Radical Road is as far away from the bad vein of contract brewing as you can get. If you don't like the beer, that's your call, but you are 100% wrong about the spirit of the operation.

I honestly know nothing about Radical Road other than they dont have their own brewery and they have put out 2 barrel aged beers with subpar reviews.r

[markaberrant]

A gimmick beer is throwing a bunch pf crap in a beer and hoping it tastes good... And even if it doesnt taste good, try to sell it anyways because it is "kooky" and "unique."

Avant garde is actually making something unique that tastes good.

As i keep saying, i am not interested in funding r&d programs for breweries and wanna be breweries. Get your shit together, otherwise you just reek of amateurism and trying to pass off crap beer as something unique and special. Bad beer is bad beer.

[G.M. Gillman]

When I said Cameron Obsidian Stout I meant of course Cameron Obsidian Imperial Porter Rum Barrel Aged.

This has been a very good discussion with a full exchange of views. The great thing about quality brewing is, the search never ends. If I find the perfect barrel aged beer (or coffee-flavoured or whatever), one that will open my eyes, great but that is not really important. What is important is the richness of fine brewing as a whole, the choices given to people by brewers willing to try new things or variations on older styles or simply to improve their existing line by a relentless focus on quality (in ingredients, techniques, and the way the beer is presented: carbonation level, filtration or none, cask or not, etc.).

Even in one's preferred areas there is a much larger choice of things to try than in decades past and quality has - overall IMO - gotten better and better. We must all be grateful for that.

Finally, good brewing, once again, is really important, I'm with Mark on that, all the rest is secondary. You can hit on the perfect blend of hops, perfect use of this spice or that, etc., but the beer needs also to be stable and (reasonably) consistent too. It is a craft whatever the scale of operation involved and brewers who master it will always have a leg up.

Gary

[Belgian]

Mark,
While I will also defend Bush Pilot and Spearhead, if you're bound to hating on contract brewing, there's not much to be said...

Some really great innovators like Mikkeller are 'gypsy' brewers. His Beer Geek Brunch 'Weasel' is - literally - the cat's ass. The motivation for renting & not owning the bricks-and-mortar facilty can be a very correct reason, like creative freedom with less financial pressure to compromise.

[PeenSteen]

I agree that it is important for a brewer/brewery to master styles and make a truly great beer before trying to change the game with innovation.

[PeenSteen]

Also, a couple pages back someone suggested TheSevenDuffs needs to drink more BA beers....that is like suggesting fish need more water, no joke he rolls deep in the whale game.

[atomeyes]

The difference between gimmicky beer and avant-guarde beer is what, exactly?

a gimmick is when you throw shit to the wall and hope it sticks. a gimmick beer's the squirting flower on a clown's lapel.

avante garde is, literally, "advance guard". It is the Beatles making Sargent Pepper's. It's the guy who invented the lighter, even though matches existed. it's the Bruery taking 3 different beer, aging them in different barrels for a year, then blending to taste and releasing it. it isn't this, which ends up tasting like this.