beers of conviction

Rogue Ales: What the numbers show us

The New Brewer magazine Industry Review issues

You may have heard that all the doors at Rogue Ales turned up shut last week. Jeff Alworth wrote an obituary, and reminded us how influential Rogue was. I agree. We first met Jack Joyce during the Oregon Brewers Festival in 1995. And I remember XS Russian Imperial Stout vividly. It paved the way for other intense beers.

Alworth mentioned that Rogue remained one of the largest craft brewers (50th in 2024) in the United States, which made me wonder when Rogue first made the list and how it had moved up and down through the years. As I was looking through the numbers, my goal changed. At one point, I thought about comparing Rogue and Anchor through the years, but that turn out to be particularly interesting. Instead, I charted Rogue and New Glarus Brewing, and added in Brewers Association defined Craft as well.

Two thoughts before I leave you to consider the numbers. First, comparing almost any brewery to New Glarus is not fair. Too bad. Also, the Craft numbers underwent some adjustments through the years for a variety of reasons (most notably to account for breweries that were once consider Craft and then were not). So there is a chance that I grabbed the 2017 number in 2018 and it has since been revised.

YearRogue AlesDomestic CraftNew Glarus Brewing
200025,000 barrels5,307,057 barrels9,406 barrels
200127,4585,352,58010,478
202229,8175,460,74213,700
200328,5035,532,03118,700
200438,0845,922,27226,113
200543,1506,409,29039,622
200651,9857,172,53654,261
200767,7378,018,23764,953
200869,6428,483,65975,137
200976,3429,064,62978,733
201081,95810,133,97791,937
201192,11011,467,337108,690
2012113,20913,246,390126,727
2013104,00015,504,850146,310
2014117,00022,133,379162,287
2015105,96124,335,413194,894
2016105,00024,302,549214,006
201798,00024,958,560226,328
201888,00025,457,429231,875
201989,00026,320,151236,161
202075,00022,842,008206,302
202188,00024,746,826232,539
202267,00024,179,853231,395
202355,88124,048,217228,132
202445,60223,103,985232,171

One link, one paragraph

The link.

You really should read the whole thing, which means sticking around for this paragraph.

“I am none the wiser as to what I, the beer drinker, am expected to expect from the use of a Burton union. These beers are both lovely, but very much in the way Thornbridge already operates. With luck, one of England’s many fine beer writers will be able to explain what difference the equipment actually makes to the product, beyond the press releases and collaborations.”

Feel seen?

Going, going, gone . . . I hope not

Earlier this month at he Great American Beer Festival, Banded Oak Brewing collected a bronze medal in the Contemporary American-Style category with their Mexican lager. That may or may not seem appropriate, but that’s not what this short post is about. Banded Oak closed its doors in Denver in September, that is before the festival. They are moving to the suburbs and into a restaurant that is also a bowling establishment and a bike shop.

In a story posted before the brewery closed, founder Will Curtin said the brewing landscape has changed significantly over the years, and believes that the traditional “garage brewery” model may be waning.

“I think sort of the age of a garage brewery is sort of, if not gone, going,” he said.

I hope that’s not true, because when I read that I thought immediately of a conversation with the late Greg Noonan, the pioneering founder of the Vermont Pub and Brewery.

“When the homebrewers stop entering the profession, and the backyard breweries are squeezed out, then it will become stagnant. You gotta keep getting the guys who say, ‘Cool, I can sell the beer I make. I can do it,’ ” he said.

Which one of these breweries is not like the others?

Waiting for food at Side Project Brewing in St. Louis
This sign helps the food truck server find you at the bar at Side Project Brewing.
A press release that the London Craft Beer Festival would include “a spectacular line-up of UK-rare, high quality, sought-after American craft beers” dropped earlier this week.

Sadly, it does not name names, but promises “creative sour and fruited sours, wild and spontaneously fermented beers, classic wheat beers and a plethora of show-stopping IPAs. Audacious flavour combinations include blueberry crumble sour ale, peach lager made with real fruit and Bourbon Barrel-aged stout made with monster cookies, honey glazed coconut, a touch of peanut butter and candy-coated chocolates to tempt the tastebuds of even the most traditional beer drinker.”

After I paused to consider what it means to be a traditional beer drinker, I scanned at the list of 22 breweries and thought about how different some of them are from the others. On the whole, diversity is good. But Side Project Brewing squeezed in there between Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada just looks strange to me.

AleSmith Brewing Co
Allagash Brewing Co
Cigar City Brewing Co
Coldfire Brewing Co
DESTIHL Brewery
Fremont Brewing Co
Hinterland Brewery
Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers
Maui Brewing Co
Mother Road Brewing Co
Montauk Brewing Co
Other Half Brewing Co
Oskar Blues Brewery
Rogue Ales & Spirits
Samuel Adams
Side Project Brewing Co
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co
Sweetwater Brewing Co
Toppling Goliath Brewing Co
The Bold Mariner Brewing Co
The Virginia Beer Co
Urban Roots Brewery & Smokehouse

It’s not beer’s fault, it’s me

Beyond the beer glass -- traffic on a New Orleans street

The headline — Costco Is Coming for Craft Beer — about store brand beers reads like click bait. The story itself, on the other hand, serves interested readers well. But . . . I can’t remember how many version of this I have read. It is a function of knowing that Mission Street Pale brewed by Firestone Walker and sold by Trader Joe’s won two gold medals and a silver at the Great American Beer Festival before purposefully hazy IPA existed.

Every few years there is a story about which Trader Joe’s beers are brewed at what breweries. (I’m pretty certain that shortly 2011, Firestone Walker quit brewing the Mission Street Pale and Trader Joe’s found another brewery to make the beer.)

And almost 10 years ago there was the “Is Walmart Looking to Dethrone Budweiser as King of Beers?” story.

That too many posts sound so familiar to me is one reason you won’t find a list of links here today, or on the Mondays that follow. Another is that a regular Monday posting does not sync the rhythm of life around here (or wherever we are). Random might work better.