[The Beerery]

Paranoia
The Destroyer

....if you are buying pre-made kits to clone a beer you like, do you really care what the grain bill is?

Good point

I absolutely would! If you find a beer you like, and you want to uderstand what the ingredients are to make your beer taste like that, you need to understand the ingredients.

I'll be honest, never cared about the AB buying NB thing until now. I stopped buying from Williams Brewing because they wouldn't share the ingredients to their recipes years ago. It's the principle of the thing.

I don't know the answer to this, but do you share your recipes for yellowhammer to the public? I know I have recipes that I refuse to share, so I guess it doesn't bother me.

[HoosierBrew]

Paranoia
The Destroyer

....if you are buying pre-made kits to clone a beer you like, do you really care what the grain bill is?

Good point

I absolutely would! If you find a beer you like, and you want to uderstand what the ingredients are to make your beer taste like that, you need to understand the ingredients.

I'll be honest, never cared about the AB buying NB thing until now. I stopped buying from Williams Brewing because they wouldn't share the ingredients to their recipes years ago. It's the principle of the thing.

I agree, Keith. The good kits I bought back in the day helped me learn about ratios of ingredients because they came with a recipe. It's been pretty common practice for awhile now.

[Slowbrew]

It may just be my crappy memory but it seems like this isn't a new development for NB. 

I recall wanting to find a recipe I had cribbed from NB many years ago to give it another go.  What I found in my own notes were rather less than I was looking for so I hit their site to get the grain/hop bill again.  And I found nothing but kits with no ingredient lists.  That was at least a year, if not two, ago.

I can understand a company wanting to protect their intellectual property, so while I was disappointed I did not see a big, scary conspiracy.  Just a company policy change.

AB-InBev didn't buy NB directly (as far as I know) but via an incubator type venture capital group.  NB brewer likely has a licensing agreement with Goose Island, AB or both that limits what they can release about the ingredient list.  In this day and age, where a company can patent "a rectangle with rounded corners" it is the way business is done.  Like the many trademark conversations we've had, if you don't protect your IP you don't own your IP.

Homebrewers as a collective don't like the macro breweries but not everything they do is automatically an evil development to crush the craft market.  We need to keep a bit of perspective on these developments.  Decisions get made and we aren't privy to the details but that's okay, NB isn't my company.

If you buy the kit with unmilled grain, maybe you can start reverse engineering the recipe.  Then you can post your clone of the clone recipe.

RDWHAHB and brew happy.

Paul

[dzlater]

   I was curious , so I went to the Goose Island web site to see what I could find out about the Milk Porter, it isn't listed amoung the other beers.
  But they do give some recipe info about the beers so if one really wanted to one could probably get pretty close with some trial and error.
http://www.gooseisland.com/our-beers/goose-honkers-ale

[majorvices]

Paranoia
The Destroyer

....if you are buying pre-made kits to clone a beer you like, do you really care what the grain bill is?

Good point

I absolutely would! If you find a beer you like, and you want to uderstand what the ingredients are to make your beer taste like that, you need to understand the ingredients.

I'll be honest, never cared about the AB buying NB thing until now. I stopped buying from Williams Brewing because they wouldn't share the ingredients to their recipes years ago. It's the principle of the thing.

I don't know the answer to this, but do you share your recipes for yellowhammer to the public? I know I have recipes that I refuse to share, so I guess it doesn't bother me.

Look in the back of Denny's book "Experimental Homebrewing" for your answer.... but, I'm also not in the business of selling kits to homebrewers. If you personally asked me for a recipe I would give you the recipe. Not every single detail, mind you. But certainly the grain bill.

[The Beerery]

Paranoia
The Destroyer

....if you are buying pre-made kits to clone a beer you like, do you really care what the grain bill is?

Good point

I absolutely would! If you find a beer you like, and you want to uderstand what the ingredients are to make your beer taste like that, you need to understand the ingredients.

I'll be honest, never cared about the AB buying NB thing until now. I stopped buying from Williams Brewing because they wouldn't share the ingredients to their recipes years ago. It's the principle of the thing.

I don't know the answer to this, but do you share your recipes for yellowhammer to the public? I know I have recipes that I refuse to share, so I guess it doesn't bother me.

Look in the back of Denny's book "Experimental Homebrewing" for your answer.... but, I'm also not in the business of selling kits to homebrewers. If you personally asked me for a recipe I would give you the recipe. Not every single detail, mind you. But certainly the grain bill.

Yea, lets just say I won't be doing that, but.. Cool.

[leejoreilly]

Do pro brewers have some sort of responsibility to provide their customers with detailed recipes that will allow us to copy their commercial products? While I do deeply appreciate those pros who do share (I just brewed a Black Butte clone from a recipe that Deschutes shared in "Brew Your Own"), I consider that a generous gift by the brewer rather than my "right" as a consumer. I don't expect my favorite Italian restaurant to provide me with a detailed recipe for their famous red sauce...

Nobody is suggesting there is a right to a pro recipe but it has been the norm for a long time that when you buy a recipe kit that it comes with the recipe. To not offer the recipe makes the kit less valuable.

Sorry, that came across as a challenge and I meant it more as a question for discussion.

[majorvices]

Paranoia
The Destroyer

....if you are buying pre-made kits to clone a beer you like, do you really care what the grain bill is?

Good point

I absolutely would! If you find a beer you like, and you want to uderstand what the ingredients are to make your beer taste like that, you need to understand the ingredients.

I'll be honest, never cared about the AB buying NB thing until now. I stopped buying from Williams Brewing because they wouldn't share the ingredients to their recipes years ago. It's the principle of the thing.

I don't know the answer to this, but do you share your recipes for yellowhammer to the public? I know I have recipes that I refuse to share, so I guess it doesn't bother me.

Look in the back of Denny's book "Experimental Homebrewing" for your answer.... but, I'm also not in the business of selling kits to homebrewers. If you personally asked me for a recipe I would give you the recipe. Not every single detail, mind you. But certainly the grain bill.

Yea, lets just say I won't be doing that, but.. Cool.

Why does this not surprise me coming from you? lol

Like I said, I'm not in the business of selling kits to homebrewers. There's your difference. I'm not afraid of sharing my beer recipes because I have all the confidence in the world in my ability as a brewer. I also said I wouldn't share every single detail. The difference is always in the details. You should know this.

[The Beerery]

I am not sure why you are upset. I wanted your insight, coming from a person who's livelihood comes from making specific recipes.. I didn't agree or disagree, purely curiosity.   

I think what everyone is failing to see is that is a business strategy, trying to ensure return business. IF you buy a kit at retail price that they are paying wholesale prices for they get a profit. If they don't share the recipe then you can't go buy all the ingredients in bulk and undercut them, you will return to buy the kit and they make more money. It's business 101.
You can buy a Betty crocker cake mix at retail or you can make the cake from scratch, but Betty crocker won't be giving out the cake ingredient recipe!

[majorvices]

I am not sure why you are upset. I wanted your insight, coming from a person who's livelihood comes from making specific recipes.. I didn't agree or disagree, purely curiosity.   

sorry didn't mean to come across as upset. Its the 4 shots of espresso coming through. A would have conveyed that I'm not upset.

But like I said "I'm not in the business of selling kits to homebrewers" in case I didn't make that clear.

[majorvices]

I think what everyone is failing to see is that is a business strategy, trying to ensure return business. IF you buy a kit at retail price that they are paying commercial prices for they get a profit. If they don't share the recipe then you can't go buy all the ingredients in bulk and undercut them, you will return to buy the kit and they make more money. It's business 101.

There is truth to this and it may be a  good business practices for selling to beginner brewers who don't know any better but it turns off advanced brewers in the long run. Honestly, it would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to just go buy Goose island IPA rather than brew the kit.

[The Beerery]

I think what everyone is failing to see is that is a business strategy, trying to ensure return business. IF you buy a kit at retail price that they are paying commercial prices for they get a profit. If they don't share the recipe then you can't go buy all the ingredients in bulk and undercut them, you will return to buy the kit and they make more money. It's business 101.

There is truth to this and it's good business practices for beginner brewers but it turns off advanced brewers in the long run.

Right, but advanced brewers aren't buying kits!  Its all about knowing your audience, maybe if they lose the business from 10 advanced brewers buying bulk goods, they still turn a profit because of kits. 

[majorvices]

I think what everyone is failing to see is that is a business strategy, trying to ensure return business. IF you buy a kit at retail price that they are paying commercial prices for they get a profit. If they don't share the recipe then you can't go buy all the ingredients in bulk and undercut them, you will return to buy the kit and they make more money. It's business 101.

There is truth to this and it's good business practices for beginner brewers but it turns off advanced brewers in the long run.

Right, but advanced brewers aren't buying kits!  Its all about knowing your audience, maybe if they lose the business from 10 advanced brewers buying bulk goods, they still turn a profit because of kits. 

Truth but when it turns off the people who are coming back to your store over and over again rather than buying one kit one time then you start to have loyalty issues. I buy a lot of small ingredients and have used NB a lot regardless of the AB buy out. And I won't cut my nose to spite my face if I really need something but  business practices like that chaff my ass and I will do my best not to go through them from now on.

[The Beerery]

I think what everyone is failing to see is that is a business strategy, trying to ensure return business. IF you buy a kit at retail price that they are paying commercial prices for they get a profit. If they don't share the recipe then you can't go buy all the ingredients in bulk and undercut them, you will return to buy the kit and they make more money. It's business 101.

There is truth to this and it's good business practices for beginner brewers but it turns off advanced brewers in the long run.

Right, but advanced brewers aren't buying kits!  Its all about knowing your audience, maybe if they lose the business from 10 advanced brewers buying bulk goods, they still turn a profit because of kits. 

Truth but when it turns off the people who are coming back to your store over and over again rather than buying one kit one time then you start to have loyalty issues. I buy a lot of small ingredients and have used NB a lot regardless of the AB buy out. And I won't cut my nose to spite my face if I really need something but  business practices like that chaff my ass and I will do my best not to go through them from now on.

Nope, I totally get it. It may not be "right" but it is what it is. Big business is all about taking advantage of the consumer.

[majorvices]

Hard to argue with that but the educated consumer has the right to chose.