Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Salt City Homebrewers in Syracuse, NY. Former member of Escambia Bay Brewers, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers. Ken has been writing on beer-related topics, and interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast, for well over 30 years.
The craft scene has expanded, contracted, then expanded many times. But I think we have reached what, I hope, is a permanent plateau, and paying attention to how the industry exists as it is now is crucial.
Back when it started brewing a good porter or stout, a tasty light ale that’s more flavorful than the biggies, an IPA, well, you were all set. You were a credit to the growing craft beer community. Hell, even if they weren’t that good in some places you were set… for a while.
Oh my, how times have changed. You don’t stand out as much in craft beer world. Even most of the big brewers are brewing porters, stouts, IPAs.
Sorry if that’s bad news, but for most that no longer works as well as it used to. You walk into some of the more thriving breweries and they have several sours, maybe a barleywine, several kinds of IPAS: a trend I expect to shrink at least a little eventually, various fruit beers, maybe even a braggot, a gruit and/or a graff: a fermented cider/beer mix.
Just so you know, I have General McGraff’s Appley Braggot I just bottled in my kitchen as I type. A cider, mead, beer mix. Yes, I do tend to go crazy. And I admit I write this as a fan of unique brews.
Back to the topic…
I heard a friend of mine who left his career as a bookkeeper to start a brewery has gone out of business. He was very good at brewing standard styles and survived for quite a while. He didn’t want to do “weird stuff.”
I held my tongue for the most part. When he went out of business he couldn’t sell all he had built. Now, there were many reasons for this, but I suspect the refusal to brew out of style may have been a small, I repeat, small part of the problem here. While he kept on keeping on other breweries proliferated willing to stretch the boundaries, and, yes, an occasional bad brew does happen. The general public is far more forgiving than us beer geeks.
But, to me, seems the wise path these days is to brew and ferment out of the box of standard styles too. Beer has become AN ADVENTURE. Who wants to walk down the same paths if you’re out for adventure?
I don’t see an end to this trend. Heck, Saranac (Matt Brewing in Utica, NY.) foresaw this trend long ago: I suppose one might say they saw the wort drizzled writing on the wall. They have been expanding styles and versions of styles for many decades now. Thanks to FX Matt and his sons.
One of the problems is people get stuck in a rut. Maybe it was BJCP training or business school training. It also could be brew school training. Any discipline can suffer from education “can’t see out of the box” blindness.
We need both classically trained brewers and out of the box. In a partnership two people of each type, as long as they can get along and both are willing to compromise, might make an ideal partnership. I’ve seen that kill a business relationship, I admit. Partnerships are tough.
I know the dangers: my own career was filled with out of the box thinking, yet luckily the ability to pull back and reassess.
Without out of the box thinking many styles popular today, like hazy IPA or even lagers would be absent. “A new yeast, really? Stick with the tried and the true!” After all, if we brewed and distributed as we did 100’s of year ago there would be no IPAs, or IPAs shipped would be sour. With no out of the box thinking India wouldn’t have built their own breweries and IPA would be known as a cardboard-y sour. England thought shipping IPA’s on long journeys, in hot holds would be fine. The hops would preserve the product.
Not so much.
Every style, or alternate version of a style, started as some out of the box project. Yes, sometimes it works, sometimes briefly. Brut IPA, anyone? (Oh, where, oh where, did Brut go?) Yet so many DID work.
So, yes, following trends in any industry can be wise, and ignoring them costly. Following them does have risk, but also adds to that competitive edge needed these days. Remember, you probably won’t remain the only game in town. It may just help keep you in business.
If you haven’t yet, and yes such breweries are out there, one tap, small batch. Try one tap, and go from there, remembering you’re already competing with craft breweries ready to serve from many unique taps. Otherwise you may find yourself floating up soon to be out of business creek with no more tap handles to paddle with.
-30-
Brew Biz: Werts and All: a column dedicated to reviewing, discussing, and commenting on beer-related topics. Including, but not limited to, marketing, homebrewing and homebrew/beer related events, how society perceives beer. Also: reviews of, and commentary on, beer related businesses, opinions about trends in the brew business, and discussions regarding all things beer.
©Copyright 2025
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
all rights reserved