Lights On and In Perpetuity are two of my favorite hoppy beers from them. Wish there were more low ABV, easy drinking NE style beers available
it sure is tasty when brands who've spent years lampooning people who sell to large conglomerates then sell to large conglomerates.
i really wish they would've gotten crushed in that stupid stone lawsuit against coors from a few years ago
Petty crazy about Stone, Greg posted a longer post about it online. Craft beer really is in a shitty place these days, I don't know how they'll make it out anymore, it's almost like you can't become too big of a success anymore or you'll end up failing hard
The whole industry is going to be in shambles. Here in michigan, the rate of pay in the beer industry is about 25% less than cannabis so I know no less than a dozen people who left the industry because of that. Coupled with the pandemic, i truly believe in 5 years we'll have about 20-40% less craft breweries in the country.
Definitely a questionable time in the industry. Part of how I’m paid is tied to volume. A lot of my coworkers including myself haven’t been hitting our volume goals due to the post pandemic/inflation/gas increase. Industry is really hurting right now. Thank god for sales incentive money.
I think we’re seeing that the future of craft beer is even more increasingly local than it has been in recent years. There is just too much competition at the distribution level for it to really be worth taking a stab at that space. But if you can carve out a niche as one of the main good beer and/or hangout options in a decent sized town or city there’s still a huge demand. The clear dead or dying thing to me is the demand for new breweries for the sake of new breweries - I’m always happily surprised to try something great I haven’t had before, but at this point there is more easily accessible incredible beer than I have time or belly space to drink. New England may be a bit more spoiled in that regard than your average state, but I suspect that’s the case in just about every decently sized metropolitan area in the country right now.
Having it now... the other one honestly made me nearly puke just smelling it so I held off on opening this for a bit. It's honestly one of the best dark beers I've had. And definitely has a kick to it on the tongue with the aftertaste, but is definitely drinkable. It may take an hour or so to finish this one though.
I think companies that want to expand out of their local market might be better suited in finding partnerships in area that want to hit. Trying to do it yourself has proven to be difficult.
Finback has a newer taproom in Brooklyn that is much more convenient/near subways. Grimm and Wild East are my favorites currently, and Other Half is a classic IPA machine with three taprooms around the city
The 11th best Pilsner on their top pils list was sub-4.00 and nothing on this list is under 4.56. 8 of them are stouts, 8 are IPAs lmao
Read the Goose Island book earlier this year and it seems like craft beer has now gone through three major consolidation/regression trends - one in the mid 90s, one in the mid-2000s, and now this one. I wonder how this current one compares as far as scale/magnitude and if the industry will be able to recover. They obviously did the previous two times, but from what you are all saying things seem pretty dire right now.