About 15 years ago, we had a great brewery that changed the game, and it felt like all of a sudden, there were so many options and relatively little difference

About 15 years ago, we had a great brewery that changed the game, and it felt like all of a sudden, there were so many options and relatively little difference between them. There are only so many IPAs with so many hops that a brewery can make. That got old quickly, but I still look fondly upon the days of cracking open a tall boy of Surly Furious. I threw up my hands and chose a brewery that was local and reliably high-quality, and I suspect many consumers will feel overwhelmed with choice and short on time to peruse the dozens of offerings at their beer purveyor. I wouldn’t advise anyone to try to hop into that sector with dreams of making it big. The first movers got a great deal by tapping a fresh market and forming early consumer followings. Those days are over. Consumers don’t need to have an allegiance to a microbrew because it’s so easy to get now, and unless your brew is God’s very own nectar, your business will be tenuous. Some of the biggest names sold out to The Enemy (i.e. AB InBev), like Goose Island or Wicked Weed. They got rich, and then their product went to shit. I’m fairly certain I got formaldehyde poisoning from a Devil’s Backbone IPA bender (another AB InBev casualty). So in support of my body, please make great beer — just don’t quit your day jobs. (Sorry for the two awful puns. I swear they were unintended but I left them in anyway after groaning.)