CGTN's Sean Callebs spoke to Stephen Beaumont, Author & Reviewer at BeaumontDrinks.com about the decline in the craft beer industry in the U.S., and how the ...
The best I can tell US craft beer is terrible. Last time I was there I tried several places to pick up some beers and the stores basically all just had IPAs and juicy-ass sours
This is unfortunately pretty true still. Funny thing is that brewers don’t like that either, but owners demand trendy beer (where brewer-owners land on that spectrum is naturally on the trendy side though).
My experience in the home brew community (and lurking pro brewer communities) was typically people meming on the trends of the day: lots of pics of “buying ingredients” from the gas station candy aisle, complaining about the latest IPA fad, and bemoaning that they weren’t brewing a personal or local favorite (lots of German styles, which are great, but there’s a whole ass-world out there of beer y’all).
Heck, from what I understand, homebrewing popped off in the 90s in response to terrible American macro beer options. It was pretty common back then to hack together your own equipment for brewing (probably mostly for mashing, apparently home sized equipment wasn’t really sold in the states then) to make a cool style (like a dunkel lol, we really had 0 beer options back then) they had never seen before.
It would be really cool to see more experimental or regional styles brewed again, but, obviously, the petty bourgeois owners want to make bank instead. We really need more coop breweries! Funnily enough, my SIL has mentioned to me that she wants to open a brewery with me. Every time I say “only if it’s a coop,” then the conversation ends. Wonder why that is?
The best I can tell US craft beer is terrible. Last time I was there I tried several places to pick up some beers and the stores basically all just had IPAs and juicy-ass sours
This is unfortunately pretty true still. Funny thing is that brewers don’t like that either, but owners demand trendy beer (where brewer-owners land on that spectrum is naturally on the trendy side though).
My experience in the home brew community (and lurking pro brewer communities) was typically people meming on the trends of the day: lots of pics of “buying ingredients” from the gas station candy aisle, complaining about the latest IPA fad, and bemoaning that they weren’t brewing a personal or local favorite (lots of German styles, which are great, but there’s a whole ass-world out there of beer y’all). Heck, from what I understand, homebrewing popped off in the 90s in response to terrible American macro beer options. It was pretty common back then to hack together your own equipment for brewing (probably mostly for mashing, apparently home sized equipment wasn’t really sold in the states then) to make a cool style (like a dunkel lol, we really had 0 beer options back then) they had never seen before.
It would be really cool to see more experimental or regional styles brewed again, but, obviously, the petty bourgeois owners want to make bank instead. We really need more coop breweries! Funnily enough, my SIL has mentioned to me that she wants to open a brewery with me. Every time I say “only if it’s a coop,” then the conversation ends. Wonder why that is?