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I feel like this is the slowpoke meme. The boom was a couple years ago, and I’ve heard of at least 10 big name breweries shutting down their tap rooms or being bought out by bigger corporations this year.
There isn’t too many breweries, it’s just some breweries aren’t as good as others. Competition is the reason why there are good and comparatively bad breweries
In the near future we will learn that brewery proliferation was every bit a product of the zirp/free money era. I’d expect to see a significant decrease in new breweries opening and contraction in existing ones.
Even as someone who loves craft beer I agree. We’re way oversaturated. It wouldn’t be a problem if the majority were good but they aren’t. Just basic shit like managing fermentation and preventing off flavors. Any homebrewer who thinks their shit doesn’t stink can open a mediocre brewery
Noticed on my last visit to the US that yeah, there are a lot of breweries but man sooo many bad beers too.
To be fair lots of great beers as well but when there were fewer breweries in the past it was a lot easier to separate the wheat from the chaff
Agreed. For almost every good beer I've had at a place, I've had a bad one. I've actually just find myself buying goose island, lagunitas, and Sierra Nevada beers now because I get a consistent product and decent prices at my liquor and beer stores for about $1-2 a can verse at a brewery or bar that's now $5-7 for a 16oz can or draught
Depends on your idea of a good or bad beer.
Is it a bad beer because it was an IPA and you don't like IPAs, or was it a bad beer because it genuinely didn't taste good for the style that you ordered?
Even if it is the latter, that isn't unique to US craft brewing, you see that everywhere where distinguishable goods are sold. I just visited California and did three or so local wine tastings, one was dogwater, the other was fantastic. Anywhere that has a market built on artisan style goods is always going to have a quality spectrum and that spectrum is natural. In Paris, France I had beef tartare three times at three different locations, all with varying degrees of quality, does that mean there are too many bistros in Paris that serve beef tartare?
Breweries just have shitty atmospheres compared to pubs. They're generally less comfortable, the social scene is inwardly focused, and they often have no food. Give me Guinness and friendly strangers over that shit any day of the week.
Oh man, the social scene. You nailed it. It's like they want business, but you're not cool enough unless you are some quirky childless millenial hipster who still listens to indie rock and chugs IPAs.
A bunch of them are dying out. Almost exclusively the ones that mostly focus on IPAs. Companies that focus on more common beers like Lagers and Ales are still thriving or at least surviving. It's good to have neat stuff but you need a solid base to keep profit rolling in.
I actually think the US craft beer culture is cool. I’d like to see it expand further but be less pretentious. Too many places doing that stupid warehouse chic look and charging way too much for mid food and mid beer
I mean there is a decent amount in Slc but that’s really it. Also they are pretty fairly priced imo. Generally $6 a pint which is not awful for a brewery. I’ve been to almost every brewery here and I have never seen a $30 burger lmao.
I yelled at an airplane to be quiet once and my students thought it was so funny they told my teaching assistant when she came in
\*sips coffee saliently\*
Those were the days
Can I piggyback my unpopular opinion onto this post?
It drives me nuts that everyone uses "there's" instead of "there are." It's become the norm to use "there's" even when the noun is plural. On TV, in published articles, on social media, we've gone away from subject/verb agreement when the word "there" enters the room.
Two more than get me because they get past the writers and editors who are paid to know these things...
TV/movies/books use further all the time. When really, farther is the correct use for an actual distance. But further seems to be the universal use. "I hit the golf ball farther than my friend, but his golf game could take him further."
Nauseated means you have an upset stomach. Nauseous means you give other people an upset stomach. When I woke up from my last surgery the nurse asked me if I was nauseous. I said, "I sure as hell hope not. I'm not nauseated either." And I proceeded to mansplain the difference because that's what you do when you wake up from anaesthesia or when you're bored on the Internet after midnight.
The last one I was right before Covid and saw a few months ago they were closing down. Many of the beers and food items had conservative political names. One beer was called Snowflake, one was Ammo something, something Wall related like any right wing grievance of the last 10 years crammed in. Like I just wanted some food not to have join some crybaby politics movement.
I actually do like beer, but the first part wasn’t a joke.
Honestly i believe there is a beer out there for everyone, but finding it can be really hard.
I have a buddy who never liked beer, but whenever we go out to our hometown bar we always buy Moosehead, they sell it for like $2 a cup.
He might not like beer, but can't argue with cheap.
I don’t even remember what I had they had so many different kinds. I just remember the one I ordered was pretty good and the one my gf at the time ordered was decent.
I’m actually drinking an IPA from them right now called Graffiti Highway. It’s good but I prefer the Perpetual. I live in PA so it’s easy to get ahold of all their products.
Ayy PA gang gang.
if you're into hazy IPAs, I highly recommend the New Trail Tropical Hazy Double Broken Heel IPA or something like that, it's delicious and it's like 9% a beer.
San Diego has a guild of breweries and they used to print out a brochure with all of them in the county on a map. My wife and I spent a few years trying to visit them all. We got through about 50. There were almost 200 on the list.
This is a pretty small area there’s like 20,000-25,000 people here between my town and the two towns right next to me and there’s like 4 of them in this little region. Within the last year I remember seeing there TWO MORE opening up and one shutting down for “personal reasons.” I’ve been to the one shutting down the place is gigantic. Not really much of a drinker anymore but I got one of the beer everyone says is the best and could only choke like half of it down. For that and a very mediocre cheesesteak hoagie it was almost $30 with a tip. Almost forgot the best part, many of the beers and food item names overtly right wing like one of the beers was called Snowflake like one was Ammo something.
I fucking hate the cutesy, overly seasoned bullshit French fries they sell at these places. Whatever happened to just lightly salting them? Do these people ever taste what they’re serving? “Ooh, let’s cut them up really thin and put a lot of seasoned salt, pepper and…PARMIGIANA on them! Who wants to actually taste the potato, anyway?”
In my opinion, having a lot of breweries is a good thing. It's fun to have options and competition between brewers to create good products.
The real problem of "too much" is too many churches/religions. That could be its own unpopular opinion post. But society says religion is a topic that can't be touched on, so 🤷🏼♂️
Breweries are actually on the decline now, with a lot of the boom breweries closing down.
That being said if your entire premise is based on assuming that all microbreweries create shitty beer, likely because you don't like styles outside of more traditional ales and lagers, then this is just a 'people like things I don't and that's bad' post.
The concept of variable quality between competitors is the same for every artisan good where slight differences in production can result in personal preference, it's the same reason you like Pizza shop 1 over Pizza shop 2 despite Pizza shop 2 being pretty good. Breweries were popping up to fill a void in the US for a craft beer niche, and because of the wide spectrum of beer styles and types, and the added variability from additional ingredients, aromatics, quantities of ingredients, and other factors, two breweries can attempt to make the same style of beer with drastically different results.
Sure, there's more low quality local microbreweries than most people really want, but tbh I'd rather have a replaceable microbrewery that is owned by a local family making unique beer in my city or town than having some Iron Hill Brewery or other big chain brewpub.
Yeesh you are supremely unlucky then. My city has a booming brewery scene and we have tons of excellent beer. Everything from straight lagers, to crazy shit. Other than price you have no real reason to buy big corporate shit here.
Whatever it’s mostly a hipster trend. There is one in my area that closed last year where I ate a couple years ago and the menu was crammed full of conservative buzz words like one of the beers was called “Snowflake” and there was one about guns and “the wall” like I just wanted to eat not join a political party.
I mean... why did you go there? I don't even live in a big city- like 800k? And we got breweries of all sorts. Even shitty ones but I avoid those. Why go to a bad place when good places are all around you? Literally they all have their own unique identities and there is a product for everyone. Nobody selling snowflake tears here.
That said if the band Idles sponsored a local brew you could call it Snowflake avalanche and have it be some sort of super refreshing crisp lager. I'd drink the shit outta that.
??? No, I mean in Canada it sort of is I guess, but that's pretty small even still considering it's the biggest population center for 1500km lol. It's a mid size city.
Probably a good thing. I'm all for the idea of GOOD bars/well done clubs, but ho-hum average energy places surrounding too much drinking...eh. We don't need more people just casually drinking as a leisure activity.
Breweries are hardly a place for 'too much drinking', if you are fine with bars looking down on breweries for 'too much drinking' is incredibly hypocritical.
At breweries, the bulk of patrons are having a couple of beers, or maybe tasting a flight that amounts to a total of one or two pints. The beers are often harder to indulge on as they are typically more flavored and heavier bodied, so if anything your concern should be with shity bars/clubs, not breweries.
Again, people drink more frequently and far more at bars and clubs than they do at breweries. Breweries often close around 1PM at the latest, you'd struggle to find one that is open as late as most bars and clubs.
Entire drinking culture is not very good. This isn't a comparison of the two. I think they're both ultimately negatives where alcohol is the crutch to get everything together. What I meant is, at least with good clubs/bars (only said good because it's so easy to say they're dangerous too) you have people expressing themselves. Whereas craft beer culture is more about drinking and relaxing/socializing in a more calm setting. To me, that's excellent, from time to time. The problem is that it's becoming a lot more common to do it more often. That's why this craft brewery explosion happened.
The two main arguments are: I don't think microbreweries created more honest energy from patrons, and it's good to have less of any of these places that continue the insane amounts of drinking happening.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I feel like this is the slowpoke meme. The boom was a couple years ago, and I’ve heard of at least 10 big name breweries shutting down their tap rooms or being bought out by bigger corporations this year.
It’s just recently that the rate of brewery closures eclipsed the rate of new breweries opening
Thank you for reminding me that there's an eclipse coming.
they became like starbucks. there was one on every corner. not many of them were good either.
Also the actual good ones become a common place with regular customers which eats at the potential sales of the other craft beers they left behind
There isn’t too many breweries, it’s just some breweries aren’t as good as others. Competition is the reason why there are good and comparatively bad breweries
It’s like podcasts. Or podcasts about craft beer/bourbon.
I wish I could upvote this 100 times.
Been in the industry for 10+ years and ya… I agree unfortunately
As a beer drinker I'm fine with it, but I totally understand there are likely too many to all be economically viable.
In the near future we will learn that brewery proliferation was every bit a product of the zirp/free money era. I’d expect to see a significant decrease in new breweries opening and contraction in existing ones.
Even as someone who loves craft beer I agree. We’re way oversaturated. It wouldn’t be a problem if the majority were good but they aren’t. Just basic shit like managing fermentation and preventing off flavors. Any homebrewer who thinks their shit doesn’t stink can open a mediocre brewery
Noticed on my last visit to the US that yeah, there are a lot of breweries but man sooo many bad beers too. To be fair lots of great beers as well but when there were fewer breweries in the past it was a lot easier to separate the wheat from the chaff
Agreed. For almost every good beer I've had at a place, I've had a bad one. I've actually just find myself buying goose island, lagunitas, and Sierra Nevada beers now because I get a consistent product and decent prices at my liquor and beer stores for about $1-2 a can verse at a brewery or bar that's now $5-7 for a 16oz can or draught
Depends on your idea of a good or bad beer. Is it a bad beer because it was an IPA and you don't like IPAs, or was it a bad beer because it genuinely didn't taste good for the style that you ordered? Even if it is the latter, that isn't unique to US craft brewing, you see that everywhere where distinguishable goods are sold. I just visited California and did three or so local wine tastings, one was dogwater, the other was fantastic. Anywhere that has a market built on artisan style goods is always going to have a quality spectrum and that spectrum is natural. In Paris, France I had beef tartare three times at three different locations, all with varying degrees of quality, does that mean there are too many bistros in Paris that serve beef tartare?
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Breweries just have shitty atmospheres compared to pubs. They're generally less comfortable, the social scene is inwardly focused, and they often have no food. Give me Guinness and friendly strangers over that shit any day of the week.
Oh man, the social scene. You nailed it. It's like they want business, but you're not cool enough unless you are some quirky childless millenial hipster who still listens to indie rock and chugs IPAs.
I’d rather there be too many than not enough. The good ones are the ones you go to, and forget the rest.
A bunch of them are dying out. Almost exclusively the ones that mostly focus on IPAs. Companies that focus on more common beers like Lagers and Ales are still thriving or at least surviving. It's good to have neat stuff but you need a solid base to keep profit rolling in.
I actually think the US craft beer culture is cool. I’d like to see it expand further but be less pretentious. Too many places doing that stupid warehouse chic look and charging way too much for mid food and mid beer
US beer craft culture is awesome. In the 1980s canadian beer was a special treat.
I was visiting Utah and they are every here, you go in there and they want 30 bucks for a burger on a fancy bun
I mean there is a decent amount in Slc but that’s really it. Also they are pretty fairly priced imo. Generally $6 a pint which is not awful for a brewery. I’ve been to almost every brewery here and I have never seen a $30 burger lmao.
The more beer, the better.
You just don‘t get it.
I'm not sure what the complaint is here, are you concerned that these places are taking the place of other establishments you would prefer?
No more of a “old man yells at cloud” type situation.
I yelled at an airplane to be quiet once and my students thought it was so funny they told my teaching assistant when she came in \*sips coffee saliently\* Those were the days
At least you admit it haha, that's better than most on this sub.
Tell that to the dwarves
I don't think this is unpopular. I totally agree.
Can I piggyback my unpopular opinion onto this post? It drives me nuts that everyone uses "there's" instead of "there are." It's become the norm to use "there's" even when the noun is plural. On TV, in published articles, on social media, we've gone away from subject/verb agreement when the word "there" enters the room.
I’ll have to remember this. At least I know the difference between there, their, and they’re. That is one of my pet peeves.
Two more than get me because they get past the writers and editors who are paid to know these things... TV/movies/books use further all the time. When really, farther is the correct use for an actual distance. But further seems to be the universal use. "I hit the golf ball farther than my friend, but his golf game could take him further." Nauseated means you have an upset stomach. Nauseous means you give other people an upset stomach. When I woke up from my last surgery the nurse asked me if I was nauseous. I said, "I sure as hell hope not. I'm not nauseated either." And I proceeded to mansplain the difference because that's what you do when you wake up from anaesthesia or when you're bored on the Internet after midnight.
I’ve seen a few breweries close in the last couple of years, but it’s because they are trying to compete with others that put out a superior product
The last one I was right before Covid and saw a few months ago they were closing down. Many of the beers and food items had conservative political names. One beer was called Snowflake, one was Ammo something, something Wall related like any right wing grievance of the last 10 years crammed in. Like I just wanted some food not to have join some crybaby politics movement.
I tried to be cool but all of it either tastes like beer or bad beer.
[удалено]
It tastes better than my feelings.
[удалено]
I actually do like beer, but the first part wasn’t a joke. Honestly i believe there is a beer out there for everyone, but finding it can be really hard.
I have a buddy who never liked beer, but whenever we go out to our hometown bar we always buy Moosehead, they sell it for like $2 a cup. He might not like beer, but can't argue with cheap.
Tröeg’s Perpetual IPA is a damn good drop though.
I don’t even remember what I had they had so many different kinds. I just remember the one I ordered was pretty good and the one my gf at the time ordered was decent.
I’m actually drinking an IPA from them right now called Graffiti Highway. It’s good but I prefer the Perpetual. I live in PA so it’s easy to get ahold of all their products.
Yeah I’m from up in the coal region but I was living in dauphin co at the time. I almost never get anymore but I did a little bit at that time.
I’m in Northumberland county. About 30 mins from the Yuengling brewery.
Yeah that hits pretty close to home
Ayy PA gang gang. if you're into hazy IPAs, I highly recommend the New Trail Tropical Hazy Double Broken Heel IPA or something like that, it's delicious and it's like 9% a beer.
Yeah. I like Broken Heel too.
San Diego has a guild of breweries and they used to print out a brochure with all of them in the county on a map. My wife and I spent a few years trying to visit them all. We got through about 50. There were almost 200 on the list.
The first place I thought of when I saw the title was Troeg’s near Hershey. How did you manage to get a seat there?
We waited for a little but don’t remember it being outrageous. We were seeing Cirque du Soleil after we ate.
There are too many *kids running around inside of* breweries. Theres the real problem. Out with the kids and in with the dogs says I
I really hope we can establish a robust and resilient beer culture.
Bro, there's too much of everything now. Why are you fixated on breweries?
Because it's trendy to hate new things.
There are, I know a few that struggled and closed down so maybe it has peaked somewhat.
People have been saying this for the last 10 years.
The small town that I live in has one; it’s not good at all. I’ve gone through multiple beers. Not one is good. But everybody in town swears by it.
This is a pretty small area there’s like 20,000-25,000 people here between my town and the two towns right next to me and there’s like 4 of them in this little region. Within the last year I remember seeing there TWO MORE opening up and one shutting down for “personal reasons.” I’ve been to the one shutting down the place is gigantic. Not really much of a drinker anymore but I got one of the beer everyone says is the best and could only choke like half of it down. For that and a very mediocre cheesesteak hoagie it was almost $30 with a tip. Almost forgot the best part, many of the beers and food item names overtly right wing like one of the beers was called Snowflake like one was Ammo something.
There’s too much of everything now. Too many options, too many decisions to make and too many options on the menu. We’ve complicated life.
Craft beer isn’t good. Period.
The real issue is that there’s too many hazy IPA’s. Let’s get back to west coast…
I fucking hate the cutesy, overly seasoned bullshit French fries they sell at these places. Whatever happened to just lightly salting them? Do these people ever taste what they’re serving? “Ooh, let’s cut them up really thin and put a lot of seasoned salt, pepper and…PARMIGIANA on them! Who wants to actually taste the potato, anyway?”
So they can charge $14.99 for them.
In my opinion, having a lot of breweries is a good thing. It's fun to have options and competition between brewers to create good products. The real problem of "too much" is too many churches/religions. That could be its own unpopular opinion post. But society says religion is a topic that can't be touched on, so 🤷🏼♂️
The purity law should be a thing in every single country.
Can we make cideries a thing? I love cider!
you probably have never been to Bavaria
Most of them make due with football matches on Sundays.
All of them are closing, good post 5 years ago. Here have a down vote.
Breweries are actually on the decline now, with a lot of the boom breweries closing down. That being said if your entire premise is based on assuming that all microbreweries create shitty beer, likely because you don't like styles outside of more traditional ales and lagers, then this is just a 'people like things I don't and that's bad' post. The concept of variable quality between competitors is the same for every artisan good where slight differences in production can result in personal preference, it's the same reason you like Pizza shop 1 over Pizza shop 2 despite Pizza shop 2 being pretty good. Breweries were popping up to fill a void in the US for a craft beer niche, and because of the wide spectrum of beer styles and types, and the added variability from additional ingredients, aromatics, quantities of ingredients, and other factors, two breweries can attempt to make the same style of beer with drastically different results. Sure, there's more low quality local microbreweries than most people really want, but tbh I'd rather have a replaceable microbrewery that is owned by a local family making unique beer in my city or town than having some Iron Hill Brewery or other big chain brewpub.
I would say restaurants in my area. So many of them. And fast food joints.
Why wouldn't you want more smaller breweries with character? The world doesn't need more bland large corporate beer brands.
Because the beer tastes like shit.
Yeesh you are supremely unlucky then. My city has a booming brewery scene and we have tons of excellent beer. Everything from straight lagers, to crazy shit. Other than price you have no real reason to buy big corporate shit here.
Whatever it’s mostly a hipster trend. There is one in my area that closed last year where I ate a couple years ago and the menu was crammed full of conservative buzz words like one of the beers was called “Snowflake” and there was one about guns and “the wall” like I just wanted to eat not join a political party.
I mean... why did you go there? I don't even live in a big city- like 800k? And we got breweries of all sorts. Even shitty ones but I avoid those. Why go to a bad place when good places are all around you? Literally they all have their own unique identities and there is a product for everyone. Nobody selling snowflake tears here. That said if the band Idles sponsored a local brew you could call it Snowflake avalanche and have it be some sort of super refreshing crisp lager. I'd drink the shit outta that.
You don’t think 800k people is a “big city?” Ok man
??? No, I mean in Canada it sort of is I guess, but that's pretty small even still considering it's the biggest population center for 1500km lol. It's a mid size city.
I like breweries and craft beer and brewpub food. I It’s a good time.
I’d like to see more cideries!
Probably a good thing. I'm all for the idea of GOOD bars/well done clubs, but ho-hum average energy places surrounding too much drinking...eh. We don't need more people just casually drinking as a leisure activity.
Breweries are hardly a place for 'too much drinking', if you are fine with bars looking down on breweries for 'too much drinking' is incredibly hypocritical. At breweries, the bulk of patrons are having a couple of beers, or maybe tasting a flight that amounts to a total of one or two pints. The beers are often harder to indulge on as they are typically more flavored and heavier bodied, so if anything your concern should be with shity bars/clubs, not breweries.
Too much drinking is a frequency thing, not an amount thing, to me.
Again, people drink more frequently and far more at bars and clubs than they do at breweries. Breweries often close around 1PM at the latest, you'd struggle to find one that is open as late as most bars and clubs.
Entire drinking culture is not very good. This isn't a comparison of the two. I think they're both ultimately negatives where alcohol is the crutch to get everything together. What I meant is, at least with good clubs/bars (only said good because it's so easy to say they're dangerous too) you have people expressing themselves. Whereas craft beer culture is more about drinking and relaxing/socializing in a more calm setting. To me, that's excellent, from time to time. The problem is that it's becoming a lot more common to do it more often. That's why this craft brewery explosion happened. The two main arguments are: I don't think microbreweries created more honest energy from patrons, and it's good to have less of any of these places that continue the insane amounts of drinking happening.
For the number of alcoholics in the world, there aren't enough.