If somebody makes a standard porter, not only are they going to lose that high-concept audience, but if it's bad, people are going to know it's bad and not blame it on their own palate. You'd better have a very wacky label or name.
Using a porter as an example here is even strange, though, because aside from the high concepts, a vast majority of these beers are labeled IPA and virtually indistinguishable from generic lagers aside from possible hoppiness and their high concept.
In many ways, beer is like pizza. The best recipes already exist. There is nothing new to create or innovate. Microbrews are like hot-pockets filled with canned tomato sauce, yak cheese and caramelized watermelon. It might be novel, but it's probably not very good.
I guess I agree with this in a way, in that what most people are looking for are water substitutes that will give you a low-level buzz. I don't think most people want "good" brews, they were just told that's what they should want, and since the mass-market beer prices rose to nearly meet small brewery prices, there was little benefit in continuing to drink cheap. Buying an apricot flavored light (colored) beer in my view is similar to buying something from the new "flavored water" category. Or a White Claw.
I think this is a market failure rather than a failure in taste, though. Distinguishing yourself by quality in a glutted market is not going to work. It's better to think of a variation that is easily marketable than to compete on quality (except in a luxury market, where you can signal quality through pricing and exclusivity and rely on the effects of conspicuous consumption.) It's going to be easier to sell an IPA flavored with violet essence with a lot of flowers on the label, strong branding through color, and an evocative name than a beer whose only notable characteristic is that it tastes better than others of its type.
All that being said, as long as I can still get Edmond Fitzgerald porter, all is right with the world.
This is not really what I meant. I mean to say, for instance, I prefer Sam Adams over 90/100 microbrews I've tried. Name the top 6 non-economy beers in the supermarket, I enjoy most of them more than 75/100 microbrews. Taste-wise, I think most microbrews are a bad product, even if they were priced less than the premium national beers, I wouldn't buy them.
In many ways, it's like self-proclaimed 'audiophiles' and people that love vinyl. It's about something other than just the enjoyment of music. Similarly, as you suggest as a result of market forces, microbrews are about things other than taste. That explains the brewery's side of the equation, but no so much the customer's. Are people drinking microbrews simply because it's cool? Probably, and probably most of them.
I often visit local breweries when I travel as a form of supporting local businesses and such. I do enjoy trying new beers. I found, up until about 10 years ago, a local beer that had supermarket distribution was usually pretty dang good. It was the 'locals beer' which is not really the same as the microbrews we have now.
All a matter of taste, of course, but I've always found Sam Adams to be on par with Magic Hat as the worst of the Big 'Craft' group. They tend to produce the most inoffensive option of any style, typically devoid of any of most palatable of its respective flavors.
After years of drinking these kinds of beers and being consistently disappointed, I'd rather reach for a macro lager or a small brewery's pale ale, gose or berlinerweisse. I think this is because they tend to appreciate what makes each style work and demonstrate that.
Sam Adams pale ales are basically post hopped, skunked lagers.
Most of the macros have a 'flagship' product, and that's what I was more or less referring to. Most micros have a fleet of beers, all bad or mediocre. A handful of them have 1 or 2 flagships that are quite good. It's rare that a microbrewery has more drinkable than dumpable beers, IMO.
TBH, though, preferring the top 6 macro-micros to 75/100 microbrews is praising with faint damnation. 1/4 of microbrews being better than all non-economy macro-micros is a good hit percentage in my book.
Not precisely what I meant. I meant, pick the top 6 (probably in terms of gross sales), not my favorite 6. Also, I don't mean to say that all microbrews are bad, but the majority of them are, and the ones that are good are no better or only slightly better than the macro-microwbrews. My top 3 favorite beers are micros (or IMO, really more of a regional, has supermarket distribution).
By American adjunct lagers, I assume you mean budweiser, coors, etc? Maybe Magic Hat also made a lager but I was most familiar with their #9 which was a floral, light IPA that was definitely a big step above a cheapo lager. And the article is saying that if anything they were too out-there and experimental, which is basically the opposite problem as being undifferentiated from all the other cheapo lagers.
Strongly disagree; I believe that the late 90s to early 2010s were the high point of the American brewing renascence, before it all got completely carried away, IMNSHO in hipsterism and bitterness-chasing, but perhaps more charitably just in neophilia. Back in the 90s there were numerous breweries just trying to make good English-style beer; nowadays it is all American Pale Ales, so bitter as to be very nearly undrinkable.
It feels that there's not nearly the room in the craft beer scene for high-quality, traditional beer that there was not all that long ago.
Nah. There is way too much of that, yes, but there is tons of other stuff, too. Between all the *PAs on the shelf you can find plenty of tasty beers, probably many of them brewed in your city or at least your state. And if you find a good one, you can go hang out at their taproom and probably say hi to the brewer. You could never do that in the 90s or 2000s :)
As the smaller, more rabid craft beer industry grew from the late 90s, bigger regional brewers like MH never really evolved. Some of that might have been due to the acquisitions, but survival in this extremely saturated space means making a name for yourself via taste and/or quality and Magic Hat didn't measure up. Very few people I know would reach for a MH over a cheapo adjunct lager.