The Off Topic Topic

[celedhring]

Yeah, I'd never choose a Catalan craft beer over a yank/brit one, but it'd be good to have decent crafts generally available at supermarkets.

[derspiess]

It will get better-- hopefully a lot better.  You have to start somewhere. 

Speaking of beer, the Cincinnati area will have more than 50 breweries up & running as of this weekend.  At its pre-Prohibition peak when Cincinnati was one of the main beer-producing cities in the US, there were 36.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Yeah there are more and more opening up around here too, especially if you include Austin and the Hill Country areas between the two cities.  Freetail, Live Oak, Real Ale, and Ranger Creek are probably my favorites.  I want to say Real Ale has made it out of the state (not like Shiner, but that has become one of the bigger brands).  Not sure about the others.

E: 512 makes a good wit too.

[derspiess]

I've had some great Houston beers from Buffalo Bayou & St. Arnold.  Karbach was right up there with them until they sold out to ABInBev.

[Valmy]

Yeah there are more and more opening up around here too, especially if you include Austin and the Hill Country areas between the two cities.  Freetail, Live Oak, Real Ale, and Ranger Creek are probably my favorites.  I want to say Real Ale has made it out of the state (not like Shiner, but that has become one of the bigger brands).  Not sure about the others.

E: 512 makes a good wit too.

Live Oak and 512 are my favorites. Love that stuff.

[katmai]

If your beer doesn't come from Alaska, it sucks.

[Eddie Teach]

If your beer doesn't come from Alaska, it sucks.

Agreed.

Alaskan beer sucks too.

[Barrister]

If your beer doesn't come from Alaska, it sucks.

Alaskan Brewing Company made some fine beers.

But I imagine by now there most be a ton more craft brewers in Alaska.

[katmai]

If your beer doesn't come from Alaska, it sucks.

Alaskan Brewing Company made some fine beers.

But I imagine by now there most be a ton more craft brewers in Alaska.

Anchorage alone has like 10 breweries. the best is Anchorage Brewing Company. and 34 in state with roughly 740,000 residents.

[Josquius]

I hope it isn't a bubble.

[derspiess]

I hope it isn't a bubble.

There's a lot of talk about that, especially around here.  I'm sure there will be a contraction at some point, but what is fueling the growth is that everyone wants a brewery with taproom in their own neighborhood, and in that sense there are still some niches to fill.  People, even old people, are abandoning traditional bars/pubs for brewery taprooms (especially if the taproom has a food truck parked outside).  The brewery makes much more money off of direct on-premise sales than selling through a third party (even if they self-distribute)-- so with lowered regulatory cost to open and run (thanks Kasich), nano-breweries that do 80-90% sales on-premise are killing it.  Again this is only Cincinnati, but I have seen the nano model thriving in other towns.

[Jacob]

Yeah, if the micro- and nano- (this one's new to me) breweries can make the finances work as "popular local drinking establishments" with an additional stream of revenue from limited local distribution then there should be long-term room for a lot of them IMO.

Popping down to your favourite local brewery for a few pints with friends - or to buy some to take home - seems like something that has the potential to be long lasting.

That's not to say there may not be people taking on undue financial risk in expectation of unreasonable returns, but the fundamentals seem reasonably solid. People like drinking beer. People like getting something with a bit of authenticity to it that expresses their personal preferences.

[Josquius]

It's curious really, like things are going full circle.
At the dawn of pubs they largely served stuff they had brewed themselves, then with time it grew into town and then local breweries only for in the past few decades the big multinational companies to take over.
Now its going back to beginning

[Jacob]

It's curious really, like things are going full circle.
At the dawn of pubs they largely served stuff they had brewed themselves, then with time it grew into town and then local breweries only for in the past few decades the big multinational companies to take over.
Now its going back to beginning

It's past the "back to the beginning" already - the big multinationals are buying up brew-pubs and micro-breweries though trying to keep their ownership off the radar since it would counter the microbrew marketing story.

[celedhring]

According to Basque regional TV, ETA will officially announce their dissolution in the first week of May.

They have been pretty much neutered for nearly a decade, but it's good to definitely put that scourge behind us.