this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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What's wrong with craft beer? Or do you mean the competition aspect?
It's flooded the market with terrible "beer" that contain all kind of crap that doesn't belong in beer.
I mean, there's definitely some bad, syrupy stuff out there these days. I still much prefer the current amount of selection and creativity from local brewers to the "Coors or Budweiser" way it used to be.
Personally I think local brewers come up with some amazing stuff
Sure, as long as they adhere to the purity lawn.
Are you German? The reason the US has been kicking ass in microbrews is because we don't have beer purity laws. We can do some crazy shit. I absolutely hate sours. A lot of people enjoy them, I'm not going to complain about them being made. Because there are thirty other breweries in my town. Some breweries keep things tame and you always know what you're going to get when you go there. Some have weekly small batch releases (those can get crazy) and if you're adventurous, a fun place to try new things. Those breweries honestly brew for their own pleasure. If people like something, they're happy but they're making crazy things to try new profiles to expand the breadth of more mainstream beers.
If your imported beers aren't available you might look to tariffs over the microbrew scene.
Germans know this is nonsense, they use wheat and fruit in centuries old traditional styles. They had to change the Reinheitsgebot because it originally did not even include yeast
Except import beers disappeared from my market years ago, way before the current tarrifs. Maybe something happened 10-15 years ago with tarrifs that I'm not educated about. I drink a few beers a year at this point. I want something I like, not an adventure in a bottle.
Are these beers no longer made or just not being imported? I've not seen many breweries give up on a reasonably popular beer for novelty. They just add to the lineup. Genuine curiosity on this one, if you have the names of any of the beers, I'll check Untappd to see if it's available to me.
I can't find Newcastle brown ale around me anymore, used to be one of my go-to's. Smithwicks is very hard to find, but a decade ago it was regularly on tap at bars. Rochefort is only in the smaller bottles now, can't get the big ones for sharing. I could go on, but I think that's a good start. None of these are out of production, they just aren't available in my area anymore.
You're right about Newcastle. It was changed and brewed by Lagunitas for a while there. Everyone hated it. Imports from the UK started again a couple of months ago. It's owned by Heineken, so you might be able to contact a distributor to find or request it. Sales were really slumping before the change so it might not have a super long life span with import costs. And yeah, people having more options have probably kept this one at bay for you. Same with Smithwicks. They are good beers but would need better sales to really become available to you.
You should look into how distribution works. It’s very likely that companies doing distribution, which are shockingly also mostly the major beer companies, simply decided to offer less of it or raise prices for it to push retailers and bars toward things they fully own, which is a sizable chunk of the craft beer market available in stores other than the brewery itself.
It’s all really shady nonsense collusion shit, but not really the fault of breweries. Most of them don’t benefit either.
I'm sure this has a lot to do with it, but that's exactly what I'm going on about. I'm not mad at the guys downtown that want to brew beer, or their customers. I'm mad at the stores for filling the shelves with crap I don't want to drink at home when there are plenty of great beers that get pushed to the wayside so that a mega brewery can sell a more expensive product.
What gave it away?
Very much in the same way you kicked traditional pizza's ass by turning it into pizza pockets, sure.
America's greatest strength was always how immigrants came here and adapted their traditional cuisines with resources they had at their disposal when they got here. You complain about American beer, but i am sure you have no issues with German curry wurst.
I know what you mean.
But curry wurst is an original German dish, so not sure that was the best example. Döner Kebab would be a better one, since that is very much a German variation on the original Turkish dish. And yes, German Döner is better. I never said I wasn't a hypocrite.
Yes, the very German foods of curry powder Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup.
No one in the US confuses pizza pockets for pizza. Pizza pockets are pizza flavored snacks. They took off because we had an entire generation if not generation and a half of latchkey kids who were coming home from school to an empty house.
We did however create Chicago style, New York style, California style and my favorite, Connecticut style pizzas that seem to be enjoyed the world over to my knowledge.
I love the staunch tradition that goes into German and Belgian beers. As well, the tradition in French wines and champagne. The makers and growers should be damned proud of their heritage because they nailed some shit. I think laws protecting or defining them are goofy and have kept tradition at the cost of experimenting. I love to see people in the UK buying backyard smokers and doing Texas style BBQ. I love that Guinness has remained true to itself and popular and don't care for the Gonster myself but I love that they're putting it out there. It's just food. It's okay to be playful in my opinion.
The lack of humor, mostly
Perfect, that's what I was going for.
Most breweries do some fairly standard lagers and ales in addition to their experimental selection. I never got the outrage over this - if you don't like it then don't drink it. There's an entire case filled with basic macrobrew at the grocery store. Nobody is forcing you to drink some blood orange, acorn grist beer finished on gummy worms and marshmallows.
because 90% of the beers in my craft beer store are undrinkable crap. and then the industries whines abotu nobody is buying beer.
well, maybe more of the 10% of beer i want to drink? diversity your offers for quality products instead of another 8% DIPA that tastes like horse farts?
Right, and before craft beer your only option was Bud, Coors and maybe Yuengling or Blue Moon. There was no such thing as a craft beer store or local brewery. The reality is that breweries make these beers because it is what customers buy, and despite that, someone like you still has many more options than you would have had in the early 2000s. Even in terms of the import market, I bet your craft beer store has a bunch of German and Belgian beers you could hardly find in the US before the craft beer boom created more interest in that kind of thing.
before craft brew there were micro brews. i have been drinking that stuff since the late 90s. Back then Sam Adams was 'craft' beer.
As a millennial this is pabst erasure
How quickly can we erase Pabst?
But there's people who love their local brewerys Smoked Seasalt Chocolate Strawberry Mango Liquorice IPA.
I am one of those people, lol. Tastes good, and one can gets me absolutely hammered.
Honestly the reason I often drink IPAs. Sometime I just wanna get buzzes.
I like the fruity ones but sometimes I go for the full grass flavored too.
Fruity/spicy flavors come from yeast or hops and have been brewed for literally ages
Yeah this is such a weird misanthrope hill. Breweries make what customers want, and they almost always have safe offerings available for less adventurous drinkers.
An we shall deal with them soon enough.
...hops don't belong in beer...??
Only thing I could think your problem could be is like glitter beer, which yeah I think the point was to be silly and they were only around for a very brief period, so seems sillier to complain about all of craft beer over that. Otherwise, what, you don't like pepper or herb beers? I don't either, but again I see those so rarely, they're only a tiny fraction of craft beer.
It very much does.
Cool, so then you don't have a real complaint 🙂
Not about hops. But about all the stuff that doesn't belong in beer.
Such as? I already addressed glitter and pepper/herb beers, but like I said, these were so niche and fleeting of trends that I can't imagine that's your issue.
Beer is made from water, hops, barley and yeast. That's it. Nothing else.
...and wheat (brewed for at least 8,000 years), and rice (brewed for at least 10,000 years). Lambic beers can contain fruits and are even older, literally the oldest style of beer.
It's interesting that you're so quick to complain about these imaginary extra ingredients that don't belong and yet, you can't even name them. Hmmmmm.
EDIT: ooooh and I forgot about corn! Brewed for about 1500 years.
Is having such little whimsy fulfilling for you?
Well, the bottom line is you seem quite ignorant about beer in general. The reality is that nearly all craft beer, with the exception of some niche styles, is only made with water, barley (or wheat), hops, and yeast. The other flavors that you're mistakenly attributing to other ingredients are actually from the type of malt, yeast, or hops.
Examples:
Most all craft beer is not "new", with the exception of a small handful of styles, but is repopularizing historical and regional beers, and brews them the traditional way.
You're just grumpy about tasting hops and yeast.
Belgian brewers have been adding spices to saison-type beers for hundreds of years. Some examples are listed in this article.
This is such a stupid fucking grampa hill to choose to die on. Get the fuck over yourself.
mfw dying on the hill.
I agree with this. When I first started drinking I could get a beer and be pretty sure I would like it. Then the micro brews came along and pushed the IPA fad to the extreme. Now the only thing at the store is cheap ass lagers and skunky IPAs. If I wanted my mouth to taste like skunk I would smoke a joint ffs. In the last 20 years nearly all of my favorite imports are either no longer around, are almost impossible to find around me, or have gone up so far in price it's not worth it. When a local brewery actually makes something I like it's rare, and generally limited runs.
I can find seasonal brews that are great. But it's limited selection. Like... the bitter they make once a year for 3 weeks. Or the brown ale, or the dark lager they make in December...
but 12/12 it's 10 nasty IPAs, a flavorless lager, and some fruited up candy sour/stout. Everytime I find someone really nice... i go back two weeks later to the store and it's gone forever.
i used to drink 1-2 packs per week, now I do like 2 a month because 90% what's on the market is nasty and lazy. They put all the effort into weird names and elaborate art on the labels... and very little into the actual beer.
You just have shitty breweries near you, I guess. The ones near me do a variety of pale ales but also lagers, wheat beers, marzen, bock, etc.
The breweries near me only can the 6 IPAs they make. and the one light lager that tastes like piss. They refuse to distribute the non-ipa stuff, so unless I drive two hours to the brewery, I can't get it. So it might as well not exist.
I can get a ESB, or a wheat beer, or a bock, but only if I go to the brewery and I cant' get it to take home.