[fredthecat]

I gurantee you that ratio doesnt hold around here at "the prettiest of craft bars."  Many sell no ABI, etc. products whatsoever.

that could be true, i know i saw this in an article somewhere. ill try to find it, but yes it could be an exaggeration or regional feature only. where i live here i would definitely wager it to be true.

[Megary]

i think the most loathsome and invasive style is actually this "cream ale". in my experience its simply the cheapest craft beer to make that will sell well. low OG, low hopping, simple and cheap grist. it would be better called "table beer", and its often done with no particular pinache or even skill because they know who will drink it, and they know these peoples tongues will simply identify it as "like bud/bud-light, but not as gross tasting". what a crap style.

I love a good Cream Ale.  One of our locals (Wallenpaupack Brewing) makes a great one.

[denny]

I gurantee you that ratio doesnt hold around here at "the prettiest of craft bars."  Many sell no ABI, etc. products whatsoever.

that could be true, i know i saw this in an article somewhere. ill try to find it, but yes it could be an exaggeration or regional feature only. where i live here i would definitely wager it to be true.

It's a gross over generalization.

[majorvices]

yeah, the distributors are probably a lot more savvy at this point in terms of understanding what sells in craft beer compared to 10 years ago.

10 years ago, here in Alabama, craft breweries were a fledgling product. Neither the breweries nor the distributors had any idea what they were doing. I could brew anything I wanted and send it to the distributor (draft and bottles, before we even dreamed of owning a canning machine).

But suddenly the brewery and the distributor looked around at the inventory at the distributor and about 80% of whatever crazy styles were shipped weren't selling and had to be bought back and destroyed, especially since at that time we didn't have legal tap rooms yet. Things are a lot different now.

As far as Cream Ale goes, it's a fine style when done correctly. I grew up sneaking beers out of my dad's cases of Gennessee Cream Ale. I still could probably enjoy one of those from time to time.

[fredthecat]

I gurantee you that ratio doesnt hold around here at "the prettiest of craft bars."  Many sell no ABI, etc. products whatsoever.

that could be true, i know i saw this in an article somewhere. ill try to find it, but yes it could be an exaggeration or regional feature only. where i live here i would definitely wager it to be true.

It's a gross over generalization.

i dont want to get into semantics, but i did some major research this year on craft beer vs. industrial vs. total alcohol consumption in some US states. and while for our world craft/homebrewed is everything, for the vast majority of the north american population industrially produced/mega scale brewers are still the default almost all the time. living in a mid-sized rust belt city, i can promise you that the figure in the link below of craft holding ~13.2% of the volume of beer sold in the US seems very accurate where I am, if not higher than i'd expect. and that naturally leaks into bars that brand themselves as craft/micro. to really restate that, 87% of all beer drunk in america is not craft. this probably decreases slightly in more urban/educated/wealthier areas and increases greatly in rural/poor areas.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/numbers-craft-beer-industry-u-s/

[reverseapachemaster]

I gurantee you that ratio doesnt hold around here at "the prettiest of craft bars."  Many sell no ABI, etc. products whatsoever.

that could be true, i know i saw this in an article somewhere. ill try to find it, but yes it could be an exaggeration or regional feature only. where i live here i would definitely wager it to be true.

It's a gross over generalization.

i dont want to get into semantics, but i did some major research this year on craft beer vs. industrial vs. total alcohol consumption in some US states. and while for our world craft/homebrewed is everything, for the vast majority of the north american population industrially produced/mega scale brewers are still the default almost all the time. living in a mid-sized rust belt city, i can promise you that the figure in the link below of craft holding ~13.2% of the volume of beer sold in the US seems very accurate where I am, if not higher than i'd expect. and that naturally leaks into bars that brand themselves as craft/micro. to really restate that, 87% of all beer drunk in america is not craft. this probably decreases slightly in more urban/educated/wealthier areas and increases greatly in rural/poor areas.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/numbers-craft-beer-industry-u-s/

Those numbers are probably accurate but ten years ago I believe that number was around five percent of all beer. It doesn't sound like a lot to go from five to thirteen percent but think about how much beer is consumed and how much money large brewers have to throw around. Doubling or tripling the market share which includes a lot of breweries who spend very little on marketing is more of an achievement than it seems on the surface.

Certainly even in a craft beer supportive city like here in Denver, where you can find bars absent any large conglomerate beers, industrial lager outsells everything across the city. I'd venture a guess just what is sold at sporting events and concerts outsells all craft beer even counting what brewers sell on premise.

[dbeechum]

i think the most loathsome and invasive style is actually this "cream ale". in my experience its simply the cheapest craft beer to make that will sell well. low OG, low hopping, simple and cheap grist. it would be better called "table beer", and its often done with no particular pinache or even skill because they know who will drink it, and they know these peoples tongues will simply identify it as "like bud/bud-light, but not as gross tasting". what a crap style.

Them's fighting words!

[fredthecat]

i think the most loathsome and invasive style is actually this "cream ale". in my experience its simply the cheapest craft beer to make that will sell well. low OG, low hopping, simple and cheap grist. it would be better called "table beer", and its often done with no particular pinache or even skill because they know who will drink it, and they know these peoples tongues will simply identify it as "like bud/bud-light, but not as gross tasting". what a crap style.

Them's fighting words!

my issue is somewhat historically/location based, as "cream ale" was always a thing in canada and never really faded out of view. i know some places in the states have had it as well. it was nothing special, and known as basically NAIL by another name mostly.

over the past decade in ontario cream ale has in my opinion come to be the default macro replacement on craft taps, and so it is not done from any true passion or belief in the style but just doing what they expect people will buy.

more specifically, i have a lot of problems with ontario microbreweries because i think they are generally very bad, and continue to exist because they are "in" on the provincial government's beer monopoly, and because of the province's history of keeping out the great american microbrews. the latter has led to even educated and into-craft people having very poor palates for beer, while imagining that they are totally up to date and consuming beer of a similar quality to the stuff they see elsewhere in the world.

resultantly there are a lot of really bad examples of cream ale (bland all 2row grist or maybe corn or rice or even adjuncts, 10-25IBU, ANY yeast) here all selling for the minimum domestic craft price which is an insane $3.50 (pint at a bar $7 and up) per can wholesale.

[allenhuerta]

i think the most loathsome and invasive style is actually this "cream ale". in my experience its simply the cheapest craft beer to make that will sell well. low OG, low hopping, simple and cheap grist. it would be better called "table beer", and its often done with no particular pinache or even skill because they know who will drink it, and they know these peoples tongues will simply identify it as "like bud/bud-light, but not as gross tasting". what a crap style.

Them's fighting words!

I'm on Drew's side lol I mean, I don't just drink cream ales all the time but if it's a summer heat wave and I can't find any helles, I'm looking for that Cream Ale.

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[allenhuerta]

Off topic, I also had a dream last night that I went to mash in but didn't crush my grain.. I pulled my grain out and it was just corn.. odd.. but then I was like, well let me see if I have that I need to make a cream ale no lie.. I don't know that's going on with me right now.

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