I don't actually know the answer to that question, but it is one that I find myself asking more often as it seems a new brewery is opening up ever couple of weeks in the Twin Cities area. It makes me think at some point there's going to be a saturation level where some of these places start failing. There was one in Stillwater a few years ago that closed (I don't remember the name) and Pour Decisions and Bent Brewery merged, but those have been the only examples I know of so far.
The reason I'm wondering this is as we go to more and more of these places and try them out, we're finding that they don't really stand out. It's not that they are making bad beer but they aren't doing anything exciting with it. And at least three of the places that we've been to, there wasn't a lot of variation in the taste between their IPA, the brown, a pale ale, or anything else on the menu. It was just disappointing, really.
That's not to say that all of the breweries that have opened up in the last few years are bad. Indeed Brewing is doing some amazing stuff, especially at the tap room with their infusions. Bent Paddle up in Duluth is just incredible. (Yeah, not the Twin Cities area I know. But I've been playing a lot of Ticket to Ride lately and well that messes with my sense of where Duluth is.) I've also enjoyed Tin Whiskers, Fulton, Northbound (disclosure: I'm an investor there), and Steel Toe.
I'm interested though to see how this can keep going, especially as people try to can or bottle more for distribution. I would think at that point the market is going to come in to play and some of these places will either start to fail or need to scale way back on product. Which leads to another interesting thought I had about the boom.
Are microbreweries the new neighborhood bar? A lot of the breweries have really cool and inviting spaces, they are well stocked on board and card games, and don't offer food giving people the option of bringing in things from home or working with various local restaurants or food trucks. In that vein, a lot of breweries could exist occasionally bringing in outside folks but mostly relying on a strong, close local core of guests that really keeps them going.
None of this is me wanting any of these places to fail. I'm just not sure how they all succeed. I'm by no means an expert in beer or tasting either so "It all tastes the same" to me could just be me not getting it. But I also know I'm not the only one with that opinion. For the people involved that love what they are doing, I hope as many of these places can succeed as possible. For me though, it's just been disappointing visiting another brewery where everything just kind of tastes the same.
There are a lot of great beer people out there and if anybody has any thoughts or just thinks I'm off my rocker, feel free to comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment