I fucking love IPAs. I’ll drink a pilsner, lager, stout, if I have to and I won’t complain. But man, do I love IPAs.
As to the swell of microbreweries, in my state (Pennsylvania) there were changes in the law that allowed the sale of growlers and created a special liquor license that made operating a microbrewery possible economically.
When growler sales were first legalized, a friend who owned a beer store with 100 varieties in bottles and cans along with a few taps made a daring move. Nobody was selling glass growlers locally, so he got little plastic iced tea jugs that held a quart and could be sealed with a plastic cap.
If you stopped there at 5 o’clock there’d be a line of people buying quarts of beer. One day I was sitting in the parking lot and realized many people would get in their car/truck and immediately open their little jugs of beer.
Around here, it was changes in the laws that made it easier to both brew and sell beer that drove the expansion of microbreweries. Home brewing was the thin edge of the wedge, and at some point, some of those homebrewers got it in their heads to try selling their beer. That used to be illegal, and then for a long time it was legal, but difficult. But once a few of the early adopters showed it was possible to market a smaller brand successfully, a lot more microbreweries and brew pubs started popping up.
I suspect you and I spent a fair bit of time together at that bar and never knew it.
We used to own a condo on Clybourn, and no small reason for choosing that particular place was proximity to the brewpub. Even though it’s owned by InBev, I still miss that place. I’ve never found another pub quite like it.
I can’t say I went there super often, as I live by Midway, but about once a month or so back in the day (late 00s, early-to-mid-00s. I pretty much stopped after their renovations that took awhile. I think I’ve only been to the “newer” version two or three times.) It’s weird, because I’ve only been so-so about their mainstream bottled stuff (doubly so once inBev got a hold of them), but I’ve always loved their beers on tap at the pub. I didn’t like the Wrigleyville location so much, but absolutely loved the chill vibe and wonderful selection at the Clybourn one. And good pub food, as well.
To add to the responses of law changes, there have been quite a bit of those in many states over the last couple decades. Georgia changed quite a bit of their laws on beer (including the sale on Sundays one) and the microbrewery scene exploded. I live in an area where the small intown suburb had so many microbrews that they made an ‘open container’ are where you could walk among the 4 breweries in the half mile long path.
Another reason is when microbrews expanded their footprint, people realized you could get beer in non-macro styles. And yes, this led to an immediate IPA craze, but in the last few years the buzziest beers in Georgia have been sours and ever brewery seems to have at least one sour on draft. And the IPAs seem to be all super fruity.
In 1984, Charlie Papazian published The Complete Joy of Home Brewing. Prior to that, people were trying to figure out how to do this based on notes from pre-Prohibition and their results were not great. Using this book, people coiuld get into homebrewing and come up with a bunch of different beers that worked reliably and tasted good. As the stories go on the sites of the early craft breweries, some people got good enough at it that their friends said they should go into business, and they did. Most of the early craft breweries all had four or five recipes that were basically Charlie’s recipes with the serial numbers filed off: a brown ale, a cherry stout, a porter, etc.
I’m not a beer drinker myself, so I haven’t followed the industry closely enough to assert this as a fact, but microbreweries and homebrewing seemed to really take off in Georgia after the legislature made higher-alcohol beers legal. I remember a friend in the 90s, learning that I was visiting D.C., asked me to bring him back a four-pack of Duvel, a Belgian beer that he loved. At 8.5 ABY, it could not be legally sold in Georgia.
A few years later, the legislature removed that limitation, and that’s when I noticed microbreweries begin to proliferate.
That’s a great summer beer! Ojai had (maybe still has) a beer and wine festival at Lake Casitas. Friends and I went several times ages ago, and I discovered hefeweizen there. Loved it. Also an apricot beer that was absolutely perfect for a hot day by the lake.
Heh, my mom used to live on a street called Signal Butte, and she’d get so aggravated at people who’d pronounce it Signal Butt. We’d tease her by always calling it Signal Butt, so I read “Black Butte” as “Black Butt.” It seemed like an odd name until I realized what my brain had done.
Some people have said there is/was a micro-brewery bubble, although as I look for a cite I’m finding just as many people saying that’s B.S. That said, I have seen a couple of local breweries in my area start up, last a couple of years, and then go bust. Yes, I know a couple of breweries in my area going out of business is not evidence of a bubble. But I miss American River Brewing. They had a brown ale that was one of my favorites.
There was a very nice, tiny brewery called Spigot. It was run by a cool couple and they produced very good beer. Their brewery was housed in a teeny-tiny building. The bar seated ~8 drinkers and there were a couple of tables.
Newspaper described it as “cozy”, which was the opposite of what worked during COVID. RIP Spigot!
Why? Making it taste good is a bit tougher, but I don’t see why lower alcohol brews should be particularly difficult. I’ve brewed an English Mild and Ordinary Bitter at around 3.5%, without any issue. Just use less fermentables and buttress the flavor with some unfermentable specialty grains. I’m pretty sure I remember @China_Guy brewing under 4% beers pretty regularly.
Yep, I can brew 2-4% alcohol beers that are mighty tasty. Use good ingredients. One is a 2.5% wheat beer. Can use either American wheat or German hefeweizen yeast depending on your preference.
Actually, any brew pub, order their blonde or American lager as the acid test. For a clean, lower alcohol beer, there’s nothing to hide behind. Either you can make a good tasting 3.2 beer or your can’t. If they make a good low alcohol beer, then the rest of their line up is prolly pretty tasty. If the brewery has to make a 8% overly hopped beer, then it and the rest of the line up is mediocre at best.
The problem is that consumers in general don’t want to pay the “regular” price for a 2% alcohol (ABV) beer. But it costs about the same if one uses premium ingredients, which is how you get a tasty low alcohol beer.
Jennifer Talley wrote a low alcohol beer brewing guide. Nothing against Jennifer, but all her beers were around 5% ABV. To me, 5% is a high octane beer.
Chuck P’s opus the Joy of Homebrewing was my bible. It was one of the few English books I had when living in Japan in the early 1990’s. I read that sucker cover to cover at least a dozen times. And the early versions didn’t have an index. So I was constantly flipping through that thing to find some tidbit half remembered. I homebrewed in Japan, where it was illegal, and before mail order beer ingredients took off. And if you did have someone send you ingredients, then Japanese customs would send a nasty gram. That said, some of his recipes like the porter still stand up to this day!!!
Heh, I love IPAs, including all the piney, citrus-y American hops. The secondary joy for me regarding craft breweries and micro-breweries is that I can get a lager with a decent amount of bittering hops in them.
Like in other places, a change in the laws in Texas have caused more people to take the plunge and open a brewery. It used to be that a brewer couldn’t sell beer to go directly to the public or a retailer, they had to sell to a distributor, and the distributor had to sell to retailers. If you couldn’t get a distributor, you were basically limited to a brewpub. Since 2019 they can sell beer-to go directly to the public. So you can start a brewery without being big enough to be attractive to a distributor.
Well, if you ever have a hard time finding one you like, it is at least a style that finishes very quickly. IIRC, most of my hefes were ready to drink in about 3 months. They probably peaked in flavor at around 5 months, though.
