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Craft Brewery

the latest trends of non-alcoholic beers and low-cal
IPAs, their intent was made clear in their prefer-
ence for high alcohol offerings and rare, outlandish
ingredients that was showcased on their website,
and at Beer Advocate’s Extreme Beer Fest.

In breweries at the time, these extreme beers
were fairly uncommon. Dogfish Head’s brewers
stood out among their peers as the people who
were most likely to throw lobster in the boil ket-
tle, or have their entire staff chew corn to make a
traditional chicha, but in homebrew it was an easy
step. Ingredients that are off-limits to commercial
brewers due to cost, scale, or regulatory reasons
pose no impediment to a homebrewer.

The only thing stopping any homebrewer from
making a beer out of 10 lbs of Snickers bars is the
cost of 10 lbs of Snickers bars.

For years, the Brewers’ Association had a mantra
based on fear: Quality is the most important thing.
The fear was that a potential customer would try
craft beer for the first time and it would be terri-
ble and they would never try any craft beer ever
again. The idea that a macro American lager drinker
would walk into a craft brewery, drink a sub-par
IPA, and then give up forever is a myth. Instead, Now, most craft beer fans value alcohol, adjuncts,
that drinker tried beer again, maybe not that day, and adjectives over quality and classic styles.
but at some point. Everybody drinks craft beer
now, macro American lager drinkers. And they should. We taught them to. The only
way back to classics is forward through education
For years, craft breweries were not at the mercy and inspiration of a whole new set of craft beer
of their customer’s tastes, they defined them. Now, fans.
the educational period is over.
Erik Lars Myers is an
When thousands of homebreweries started author, brewer, and lover
throughout the country, they brought their recipes of beer. He currently works Joe Kesteloot, Head Brewer, Peace Tree Brewing Co.
with them and taught millions of craft beer fans to as the Director of Brewing
love what they made: chock full of lactose, break- Operations at Fullsteam
fast cereal, candy bars, fruit, and all kinds of sugars. Brewery in Durham, NC
More and more brewers experimented with more where he strives toward
and more ways to get hops into beer, because innovation every day while
they had been trained by those giant hopheads of supporting the Southern
yesteryear, and they found the gold mine in New Beer Economy by using
England IPAs. brewing ingredients sourced and grown across the
American South.
Today, our most successful small breweries flour-
ish on a small variation of hazy IPAs, fruited sours,
and dessert stouts. Our most successful large brew-
eries cling to the waning popularity of their flag-
ships in a broken distribution system.

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