You named off 4 of the probably over 200 breweries that are in Oregon. So you may wanna hold back on the "Oregon is overrated" talk
50 States Rated for Beer
- Thread starter nfrine
- Start date
You named off 4 of the probably over 200 breweries that are in Oregon. So you may wanna hold back on the "Oregon is overrated" talk
I agree, that's the strongest list. Surprised how weak texas is for such a big state.
I would tend to agree and I have 4 of them in my fridge right now. I actually prefer Moon Man. Spotted Cow is good but I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5 but I don't give anything 5 stars.
Session IPA's have brought a new light to my life. Can't wait to put them to the tailgating test.
I thought the same thing about Lakemaid until I had it this summer when I was in MN. That **** is not good at all.
It's all very complicated and depends on:
Where the brewery is located
What the state laws are
What the brewery wants to/can do (i.e. do they want to be in that state, and if so, can they produce enough to serve it)
What distributors want to do
What retailers want to do
What the market wants
Breweries have the ultimate say in what states they decide to go into, but state law, franchise law and distributors dictate how they have to approach those states. And that's all before you even get into what the market will bear (which impacts what retailers want to put on). Some big breweries don't want new brands to cannibalize sales from other, similar older brands. Some distributors don't want to cannibalize draft lines from one brand to another. Etc.
The market is changing, and some of that will change though. It wasn't so long ago that IPAs (particularly hop-forward ones) were a tough sell in Iowa. American Light Lager sales are declining somewhat, and the entire market for beer is shrinking, even as craft grows dramatically, which puts even more pressure on the big breweries to preserve and/or maintain market share. So we'll see how that goes.
Anyway, that's a very short list of things to consider in how the big boys work. There's a somewhat similar parallel with the craft breweries, but it's a little different due to the vastly smaller size. There's almost always a market for a small amount of one brand of beer. It's when you start pushing 10-15 SKUs down a market or when demand outstrips your supply (New Glarus, Cigar City, Toppling Goliath etc) where you start to run into some complications similar to what the big guys face.
Didn't say it was. But you can't say it's overrated when you've tried maybe 1% of the beers from the state.
And if it weren't for New Glarus, Wisky's big accomplishment would be Miller. And Leinkugel's
Not true. Just because you've never heard of more than that doesn't mean there are not other great ones.
Lake Front makes some awesome beers. As does Ale Asylum and Great Lakes Brewing to name a few.
I agree. When I first moved to Wisconsin that is all I drank. Now it's just a "meh" beer. It's usually terrible on tap too. Then again my taste buds have developed and I like a different flavor.
Iowa is getting there, I drink a lot of different beers and Confluence, Firetrucker, TG, Exile make damn good beers, better than quite a few other craft brews I have had. Black Rocks from Marquette Michigan makes tasty beer, I like their 51K IPA.
