After the Show # 2 | “Beer Trends in 2011”
It seems the craft beer industry (like many other industries) is prone to trends. Some of the most recent trends in memory are bourbon barrel-aged Stouts, Imperial IPAs, and Cascadian Dark Ales. Not only do some craft breweries want to be known for their creativity, but many have to step up their game simply to be competitive. Tim and I got together recently before reviewing a few beers and wanted to share a few trends that we’d like to see in 2011. Some may just be a dream, but we think many of them are possible in the current craft beer environment. Let us know what you’d like to see in 2011.
Let us know your thoughts by rating and commenting on this video.
Posted by Jamison Moeckel on January 8, 2011 at 9:16 PM
I never expected to watch this and hear my name! Thanks for that shout out! I think you are on the money with the comment of a Islay style Scotch barrel aged with a scotch ale or even a Imperial stout inside. I too would advocate a blend 25% BA and 75% normal would sound great to me.
I also would tell you if they are sherry butts that can hold a much bigger volume you might wanna use more of a BA percentage.
The trend I do not wanna see is sours becoming more rare and rare and every time some one sees Cantillon they buy the whole shipment and it ends up on Ebay. Just search Cantillon on Ebay not even the rare stuff sells for 60 bucks…. this is a disturbing trend.
Posted by thehopry on January 8, 2011 at 9:53 PM
Yeah, that discussion point was fresh in my mind from commenting on your review the other day. And Tim actually suggested the Wee Heavy idea before we started the camera. All around I bet it’d be good as hell.
Posted by Marc Bayes on April 18, 2011 at 4:42 PM
I liked the vid a lot and you both nailed some really good points for trends that would be cool to see. Collaborations would be my top pick, mainly for new styles being produced but secondly for those markets that can’t receive one breweries beer but can receive another. A note on peat’d beer: It would be very cool to see more beer smoked using scotch whiskey barrels and perhaps even Mescal barrels. Have you tried Tactical Nuclear Penguin? I know it’s pricey but the beer is aged for a year and half in single malt whiskey barrels and is truly peaty. One of the few beers that the cost is worth the experience and the peat notes are incredible.
Posted by thehopry on April 18, 2011 at 11:13 PM
Thanks Marc, glad you enjoyed it. No, I have not had the TNP, mainly because of the price. Even with that said, I was not aware that it was aged in single malt barrels. Interesting…thanks for sharing.
Posted by Eric Carlson on January 8, 2011 at 9:32 PM
One trend I’d definitely like to see in 2011 is better representation of bottling dates on packaging. As craft sales and consumption increase breweries and distributors must realize that beer drinkers are becoming more particular and educated about what they consume. Part of that education is understanding the value of freshness or age, depending on the brew, and whether it’s worth gambling $10 on a sixer that may be well past or before its prime.
Posted by thehopry on January 8, 2011 at 9:52 PM
I couldn’t agree more Eric. To take it just a tiny step further, I think the exact bottle date should be on all IPAs (if not all beers in general). And for some of the beers that aren’t hop-forward, it’d be nice to have the brewery suggest a cellaring age.
Posted by theReaper16 on January 8, 2011 at 10:13 PM
Agree 100%. All beers need a freshness date if they aren’t an obvious cellaring candidate. And even then, the cellaring age is a great thing to put on the label. Goose Island labels will have things like “develops five years in the bottle” and Deschutes has the clever “Best AFTER 20XX,” but what if a label for a big Barleywine had BOTH? A bottled-on date AND a recommended cellaring time, dated by years would be very beneficial for consumers.
Posted by theReaper16 on January 8, 2011 at 9:35 PM
Three things that I would LIKE to see become trends in 2011. Three things that I think Mark and Tim will appreciate:
1.) More collaborations with local businesses. Boulevard is going to release their Chocolate Ale collaboration with Christopher Elbow in the coming weeks, which is a beer I’m very excited about. It makes me think about all of the opportunities that other breweries have to collaborate with producers or growers local to them. We see this already with coffee stouts, but there are more interesting plays to be made. Another good example that comes to mind is Terrapin’s Gamma Ray, which is a wheatwine that incorporates honey from Savannah, GA’s Savannah Bee Company. Brewers collaborating with local companies to make beers that really express the nature and character of a specific community is something that I am always eager to see.
2.) Breweries collaborating with chefs. Goose Island has been innovative in this area. They have a series of beers now that are collaborative efforts with a local (Chicago, for them) chef, including such culinary titans as Laurent Gras and Graham Elliot. The fact is that every year beer is more and more respected as a food pairing. 2011 could see a 100% increase or more in the number of certified cicerones employed in restaurants. Why not involve the chefs more directly in the pairing by tailoring a recipe to a restaurant’s cuisine. Beer is much closer to cooking than wine, so such collaborative efforts make perfect artistic sense. Plus, a restaurant & specifically designed beer to suit it will make for happy, enlightened diners.
3.) The rise of the gypsy brewer. Mikkeller has been making all sorts of international waves with their beers. Mikkel, as I’m sure all of the commenters reading this know, does not own his own brewery. He contracts out space, time and manpower with established breweries in order to brew his creations. This model of brewing allows him to be in total control from an artistic standpoint (and, if you know me, you know I’m all about the breweries that are truly artisan in nature). Mikkel uses specific breweries for specific purposes. For example, he’ll frequently brew IPAs at Brewdog, and he’s fond of brewing stouts at Nogone Ø. I would love to see this approach come stateside. There are a lot of good breweries in America, with a lot of differing styles of expertise. A true beer artist, or a collective of inventive homebrewers that don’t want to be tied down with a corporation & large number of investors, could put the gypsy model to great use. There is at least one gypsy brewer in the U.S.: Brian Strumk, of Stillwater Artisinal Ales. Brian is sort of a gypsy, American version of Dany Prignon (Fantome). He basically only brews eclectic Farmhouse Ales. Missouri JUST signed a contract to get Stillwater this month, look for it at Gomers Lee’s Summit. BTW – Mikkeller and Stillwater have a collaboration beer coming out soon called “Two Gypsies.”
Each of these three things would be very welcome in the new year.
Posted by thehopry on January 8, 2011 at 9:49 PM
And the winner for the most detailed comment of 2011 goes to…
Hahaha…yeah those are all great. I’m pretty excited about the collaboration with Chris Elbow as well. He’s done some great things here (as has Mr. Pauwels).
And I’m totally on board with the gypsy brewer concept. In fact, it’d be easy for any one of the great brewmasters to brew their own beer for other states by hiding it in a “collaboration.” Of course, pending any approval from the hosting brewery…
Posted by theReaper16 on January 8, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Heh, so detailed that I decided to port it over and make a thread on BeerAdvocate.
That’s a really intriguing idea about brewmasters making beers at, and to be released by, breweries that aren’t their own. One one hand, it would diminish a sort of “brand consistency” in terms of artistic vision. On the other hand it would expose regions to new ideas and new directions. I’d like to see someone try it.
Posted by Landon on January 9, 2011 at 1:23 AM
I’d really like to see the can trend catch on at more breweries especially anything that is imported. But what would Heineken drinkers think if their beer wasn’t skunked?
Also I’d like to see less focus on high abv and more on making flavorful session beers.
Posted by Phredrik on January 9, 2011 at 6:48 AM
As a comment to theReaper, it seems that the gypsy-brewing tradition is more developed in Europe, i.e. Denmark than the USA. Of course we have Mikkeller and BeerHere, but also Xbeeriment, To Øl, Three Amigos (former JK Hotmann) and a bunch of brewers that I’m forgetting. This really is a great opportunity for brewers to make good beer without making the big step economiccally.
Perhaps we’ll see a lot of “pilot” brews in the US from small homebrewers that make small batch commercial beers to see if there’s any interest. That would be great and would really open the beer scene for the creative underground of homebrewers.
Beer style-wise, I think we’re going to see a lot of farmhouse ales being produced. This hybrid between a sour ale, an IPA and whatever element you’d wanna incorporate is such an exciting style to make.
I think barrel aging will be a hit in 2011. I don’t mean bourbon, we’ve seen that. Sure, they’ll always be made, but I think we’ll see a lot of new barrel types being taken into use. Tequila (I know that Amager Bryghus and Mikkeller are making this), white wine, cedar (which Cigar City is already doing), cognac barrel (e.g. Närke Stormaktsporter and Mikkeller Black). Port and red wine barrels has grown to be a bit popular in the impy stouts, but I think that we’ll see more of these experiments in barrel aging.
Can’t wait to see what the innovative brewers are gonna do in 2011.
Posted by Dan on January 9, 2011 at 8:02 AM
I would love to see more session beers. After spending time in Britain I fell in love with 3-4% bitters on a handpull. Amazingly flavorful and very drinkable.
Sours are an area I think we will see continued growth for years to come.
As for the scotch barrels. I have had a few beers aged in them and the really peatty ones just don’t work IMO. Strange since those are the scotches I tend to drink.
Posted by Ethan on January 9, 2011 at 9:01 AM
Totally and 100% agree with the real “session” ales. We need to see more.
Posted by Kaylea on January 11, 2011 at 2:52 PM
We are starting to see real growth in our Ontario craft beer culture WAY up here in Canada and I think seasonals are really trending up here now…which is great; but I think we could do with more collaboration, especially with our provincial neighbours in Quebec and yourselves south of the border.
Beau’s out of country’s capital – Ottawa – did do a collaboration with Belgian Trappist brewery De Koningshoeven to celebrate the Canadian WWII Liberation of the Netherlands back in Spring 2010 – commissioned by the Dutch Embassy. So, more coolness that like that would be ideal…
Look forward to more from you guys!
Cheers
Posted by KevSal on January 11, 2011 at 3:07 PM
i think you hit the nail on the head about blending beers, ive noticed a lot of brewers doing this already, but would like to see it expanded.
just over the weekend at the bruery tasting i noticed they have been doing A LOT of beer blending lately with some tasty results. the Melange series brews are their blends of already fantastic beers creating newer twist to the palates and expectations. for example the melange #1 is a mixing of their flemish red Oude Tart with their infamous imperial stout Black Tuesday. Melange #3 (which is extremely delicious) is a very interesting blend of Black Tuesday, their White Oak (which is also a blend of a barrel aged wheatwine mixed with their Mischief) and their anniversary english old ale Papier. might sounds like a mess, but by blending it right they really pull it off.
i hope to see a lot more interesting mixes in 2011 with other brewers. even though these tend to cause the biggest hangovers sometimes they are the most delicious.
reaper- ive heard Mikkeller has come to the US already, didnt he just do a collab with Cigar City recently?
Posted by theReaper16 on January 11, 2011 at 3:44 PM
Yeah, Mikkel went to Cigar City last month and brewed a couple of imperial stouts (one recipe by Mikkeller, one by Cigar City). Those two stouts will be released individually, but some of the batches will be blended together and aged in rum barrels.
Posted by KevSal on January 11, 2011 at 4:35 PM
sounds delicious
Posted by bierfesten on September 1, 2011 at 10:59 PM
I didn’t know that info about Mikkeller either, that is interesting to learn about. The wine industry does ‘contract’ wine making a lot of the time, and I could see this work with brewers creating special blend beers for certain events/restaurants. I think the Whisky barrel idea is to a limited audience as I have had a few of them and dont really like them, where I love whisky by itself. In saying that though I love Bourbon Barrel aged beer from some brewers, but not others.
Its funny as I’m now back in Sydney and there is not enough US craft beers here, and over there everyone is craving Epic from NZ and using the Sauvin hop such as Widmer. Isn’t it funny you crave what you don’t have.