Host Csaba Babak has posted the roundup for The Session #117, during which he asked contributors to take a look at the future of beer and what we’ll see more off.
He has a proper summary, but here is the short version: diversity of ingredients, historic styles, diversity of people, less, indigenous brewing styles, stress on freshness, unfined, “schtick”, small & local, fake.
The crawl is on.
Curiosity and the skunk.
The concept — “the crawl is on” — should be enough to suck you in. If you follow John Duffy on Twitter you know he was knocking about the US recently. Last Monday he began chronicling those travels. As always, excellent drinking notes paired with telling cultural commentary. [Via The Beer Nut]
Data Says Women Driving Craft Beer Growth.
A lot here, including that sales data from the big stores are going to overvalue the hard sodas and undervalue the North East IPAs. Leading us to . . . [Via BeerGraphs]
Our marching orders for The Session No. 117 are pretty straightforward, to consider the future of beer and “capture ONE thing you think we will see MORE of with an explanation of the idea.”
I’m not all that great at making predictions, so I’m going with something I hope we see more of, and that is less. I’m pretty sure this will happen, but I’m just as certain that we going to see more in-your-face-big-flavor beers as well, full of plenty of hops or plenty of alcohol, or both.
What did I miss? (Other than the spiffy paint job at and new address for A Good Beer Blog?)
As promised, there was no blogging here in October after the 3rd. Daria and I traveled to and around Australia. It was not a beerless trip — I went at the invitation of the Australian homebrewers (meaning they paid my way) to speak at their biannual conference — but it was not a beer trip. No visiting hop fields, no taking notes in and around stainless steel tanks. We were in Sydney for a portion of Sydney Craft Beer Week, but we didn’t attend a single event. In fact, we saw a Time Out “Hop-Up Craft Beer Bar” (a pop-up, obviously) and did not sample a beer.
But a couple of observations. First, for those who would like to get rid of the term “craft beer.” Sorry, ain’t happening. That boat has sailed. Second, because discussion about Carlos Brito’s suggestion that consumers “get a bit tired of choice” has cluttered my Twitter feed I got to thinking about this blackboard I saw at Mrs. Parma’s in Melbourne. The place specializes in parmas and serves only beers brewed in Victoria; highly recommended.
As you can see, this board lists what’s coming on tap. It feels as if we’ve been looking at blackboards like it for more than 25 years. We went from zero small, local breweries in America to more than 4,000 because drinkers want something different.
I remember talking with the late Greg Noonan about the first years after he opened Vermont Pub & Brewery in 1988. “The styles were amber, golden, porter and stout,” he said. That’s changed. The interest in the new has not.
Host Csaba Babak at Beer Means Business has announced that posts for The Session No. 117 should “capture ONE thing you think we will see MORE of with an explanation of the idea.”
This should be fun, if only to see if some participants write about what they would like more of in the future versus what we will see. I’ll simply be going with the former. But when I tweeted the announcement, Bryan Roth replied:
Betting lines on words/phrases mentioned among entries:
IPA – 2/1
“Sour beer” – 3/1
Buyout/sellout/acquisition – 4/1
We’ll find out Friday.