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I think that is an important point but, with that said, I'd suggest that perhaps the reason Anchor were struggling is they didn't really innovate. Rather they r

I think that is an important point but, with that said, I'd suggest that perhaps the reason Anchor were struggling is they didn't really innovate. Rather they rested on the laurels of that 127 year heritage. Certainly a very personal opinion but the first time I tried Anchor beers sometime in the noughties I was underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong: they're certainly better than Bud, Coors, etc., but as a Brit coming from somewhere with a by then thriving real ale scene, Anchor's beers just weren't that great. More than that, they weren't up to the standards of many other US-brewed craft beers I'd tried, many of which are at least as good as anything the UK or mainland Europe has to offer[0]. The microbrewing scene in the US has really taken off over the past 20 years so, to me, it felt like Anchor just got left behind by it. And maybe Stone Brewing have a bit more to offer[1] and it was easier for Sapporo to buy them and roll with it than to try and revitalise a brand seen as ailing? I'm not saying I like it but I can certainly imagine that perspective within the company. [0] By the mid-2010s there did seem to be a tendency to overegg IPAs by making many of them ludicrously strong, and just trying to cram in too much flavour, not to mention the consistency of many was borderline gloopy (more like drinking blood than beer) - mercifully I think this trend may be reversing. [1] Pure speculation: I don't remember ever trying any of Stone's beers so have no comment to make on their quality or otherwise.

sfpotter 3y ago
I'm a little surprised Anchor didn't do better. I personally got worn out by all the craziness and experimentation in the craft brewing scene. Really unique IPAs or sour beers were fun for a while, but after a while, I realized I just wanted something reasonably good and predictably normal, i.e. a Normal Good Beer. It seemed like Anchor was delivering on this, but maybe there were enough other options that they just didn't distinguish themselves well enough. Too bad, considering they're a local beer with a lot of history and had a successful unionization effort.
- uoaei 3y ago
  The recipe changed after the acquisition by Sapporo. Fans of the original Anchor Steam didn't like the new taste and stopped buying. So it faded into the background with the other ~3-5 domestics being served at a given bar. Lots of people talking out their ass here, clearly none of them spend any time in SF dives talking to other patrons.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bialczabub 3y ago
    Do you have proof that they changed the recipe/process. My wife and I have long suspected this, but I believe officially they denied any change. The rebrand was an absolute disaster of marketing. You have a 125 year old brewery with an old-fashioned looking logo, and you throw that all out for a more modern design that looks like every other beer on the shelf that got their designer off of fiver. Shades of New Coke.
- yamazakiwi 3y ago
  I don't have the numbers... but I'm going to assume that regular beer drinkers drink the popular light beers or already have a craft beer they like and spend less money trying new products. It took contentious political media to get die-hards to stop drinking their favorite light beer. That's how ingrained these brands are. It's harder to sell a new Amber Ale than a Juicy Mango/Dragonfruit IPA. These 2 beers serve different personas and the beer industry is focusing on growth over providing new products to their base.
  - voidfunc 3y ago
    I think this is right. When I was in my 20s I was really into beer. Now I'm older and I split my time between the usual light beer culprits when I'm drinking out and enjoying a few craft favorites when I'm drinking in and gaming/doing hobbies. Also when a four pack of 16oz cans is approaching $20 (or exceeding that) I'm less likely to be exploratory because who the he'll wants a fridge of rejects they don't like.
    - chrisweekly 3y ago
      I (rarely) homebrew, for fun, but when it comes to beers in the fridge I have so many great local options to choose from (here on the south shore of MA, near Cape Cod), it's ridiculous: Second Wind, Stellwagen, Mayflower, Timberyard.... typically canned just a week or two before purchase. A few times a year I'll make a trip to Treehouse (worth it), otherwise the local package stores are well-stocked. I do remember enjoying Anchor Steam and IPAs back in the day (as a big upgrade from shitty mass-produced lagers), but my palate evolved and my preference for the best and freshest brew simply rules out generic bottles from the opposite coast.
      - zerocrates 3y ago
        My understanding is that this is kind of the pattern of the beer downturn. The huge operations are doing okay, shifting around amongst their sub-brands, introducing seltzers, etc. And the hyper-local stuff is still doing well it seems. But the "pretty big" craft brewers that went nationwide, they're facing the brunt.
- WatchDog 3y ago
  > Too bad, considering they're a local beer with a lot of history and had a successful unionization effort. 127 year old company, unionizes in 2019, shuts down in 2023, I wouldn't really call that successful.
  - sfpotter 3y ago
    Unions in the US are on the ropes. Union membership is down, and companies have loads of resources and help to stymie unionization efforts. Frankly, unionizing at all is a successful unionization effort at the moment, since it shows other people it can be done. Can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
    - balderdash 3y ago
      It’s on the ropes in corporate America - but not in the public sector.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        I know this is just one example, but public school teacher unions don't seem to be doing so great, seeing how teaching is still the example always brought up as the most tragically underpaid profession. Sure, a union isn't a magic bullet that fixes all problems, but I know school teachers in some very different districts in the US, and their pay is universally awful for the amount of time they put in, and some of them even end up having to buy their own school supplies, out of pocket, because their classroom is way underfunded. I guess we could argue that, without the unions, things would be even worse, but I still think teachers unions have mostly failed their members. On the flip side, police officer unions seem to be doing pretty great, negotiating reasonably high pay, and helping to shield their members from accountability for wrongdoing.
        s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Like you said it depends on the sector. I have a lot of friends that work for the state and it seems like their unions are doing great. Six figures, guaranteed raises, 2 Days in office per month, and what seems from an outsider to be like a 20 hour work week
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  > had a successful unionization effort Just forming a union should not be a measure of success. If it ultimately led to shutdown of the division because it was unprofitable, I would argue it was a pretty unsuccessful effort.
  - reillyse 3y ago
    I haven’t seen anyone suggest unionization has had anything to do with it, in fact I’m going to groundlessly state that it probably is the only reason they lasted this long.
    - alasdair_ 3y ago
      They only unionized four years ago. The union probably wasn't a reason why they lasted.
      - reillyse 3y ago
        I was just pointing out the obvious anti-union bias of just mentioning they were unionized as if it had something to do with them failing. Sounds like they got bought by a conglomerate who closed them down. Normal capitalistic practice unrelated to the existence or lack of existence of a union.
  - sfpotter 3y ago
    It should be. See my other comment.
- MarkMarine 3y ago
  This seems to be a conclusion in the beverage world as well, the craft beer wave has broken and people are just trying to drink something that tastes like what it says on the label. I home brew beer and the instinct is to make something crazy, but I get sick of my own experiments and double sick of paying 18$ for a 4 pack of someone else’s experiments. I could never stand being told that hop burn was a sign of craft beer, it’s a sign of a shit process and you should never have those flavors in your beer. I’ve actually been shocked to discover hard kombucha with some fruit juice is great. I still drink my beer, but this stuff is light, refreshing, and it’s 7% so it gets the job done. Anchor’s taste changed to me sometime after the acquisition, I liked it in years past and there was something off to me now.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    Homebrewer here too. I agree. I like some experimentation but also like some "normal" stuff. I also don't like the really expensive odd stuff in the store. I've also begun to dislike the really plain stuff in the store. Even if my beer is a little different every batch, I think I prefer it. It's fun to grow your own hops and even grow/malt your own grain.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Some of the highest-status beers during Peak Beer were well-executed straightforward beers; Pliny comes to mind. As does Zombie Dust.
    - spaceguillotine 3y ago
      Pliny adapted to shifting tastes too, they reduced the grassiness and switched to bittering hop extracts to get a more mass appeal flavor and reduce waste with flower hops that would also soak up more wort. If you aren't constantly adjusting in beer you'll go the way of Anchor.
    - MarkMarine 3y ago
      I think the whole world is off axis if Pliny is a straight forward beer. Maybe we were all better off when Russian River was sending it out for us to buy in lots of 2 bottles to a local store that you had to call every day and check to see if they got any.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  I still only love sours; I'm a little gay cocktail freak usually, but sour beers have always seemed kind of special to me - I love the flavour and the history of using wild yeast (I think there was a river somewhere with the right type of yeast where they just used to leave fruit next to the river for the yeast to collect). But unfortunately there doesn't seem to be as many sours around in the UK now, when I was still in NZ we have tonnes, but now all I find in the UK is IPAs and "DIPA"s etc. So boring. Ah there we are: https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/lambic-and-geuze-a-success-story-with-a-sour-taste/ https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/lambic-... tbf idt they leave the wort by the riverside anymore per se, the yeast seems to just be in the air all around that area. Super cool, though. Belgium is definitely worth a visit if you like interesting beers, there are countless places, but I'd have to recommend Delirium Café (a honestly confusing maze of various beer halls) but for good weather "Little Delirium" is great too, smaller location but with nice outdoor seating.
splonk 3y ago
Anchor actually did have a bunch of more modern beers after the Sapporo acquisition, but they were only available at the taproom. They only had retail distribution for the old reliable flagships (and then had a rebranding that was not well received).
- kelnos 3y ago
  Yeah, that was the weird thing. I visited their tap room a few times here and there (I live fairly close), and some of their selections were truly different and interesting and good. But you couldn't get them anywhere else. Meanwhile, I hardly ever go for an Anchor beer when in a bar, as there are always more interesting choices. I wouldn't call myself a beer connoisseur, even. Seemed like shooting themselves in the foot.
ecocentrik 3y ago
This news has nothing to do with lack of innovation. The entire beer market is currently contracting. Also, not everything needs to innovate. Every field needs a canon of notable creations that have stood the test of centuries or millennia and beer brewing is no exception.
- giantg2 3y ago
  I don't know. It seems a mix of traditional and innovation does well. Yuengling seems to be a good example of a small brand becoming regional and now almost national. They have their traditional brews and have added a few new ones.
  - trafficante 3y ago
    Grew up in PA and love seeing Yingers blow up, but I bet their success is largely due to the same reason we loved them back in the early 2000s: they brew a tasty no-frills lager at a good price. Seems a lot of the brewing industry chased fads for 20 years.
    - Projectiboga 3y ago
      I like Yingling Porter. I'm annoyed they aren't in NYC while brewed so nearby.
- ibejoeb 3y ago
  I'd like to see what '23 the numbers look like before declaring it a contracting market. Sales by volume for the entire category are indeed down, but somewhere between 2-3%, and that is still likely attributable to the crash starting in 2020, when it was actually illegal to serve or even order beer in many places. (To this day, there are still aggressive measures taken against breweries, brewpubs, and taprooms, like this extrajudicial order that is crushing the business in New Jersey: https://www.nj.gov/oag/abc/downloads/LimitedBrewerySpecialConditionsFinalText-6-30-22.pdf https://www.nj.gov/oag/abc/downloads/LimitedBrewerySpecialCo....) Still, imports are up, and regionals and crafts are up as a percentage of total beer. The small operations that weren't entirely destroyed are still in the process of coming back online. I'm not convince the empirical decline is the market at work and not external forces.
Rapzid 3y ago
Their Porter is fantastic and on par with Fuller's.
- stickfigure 3y ago
  I love porters but they're getting hard to find. Every supermarket is wall-to-wall IPAs. I assume they know what sells, so apparently that's what the market wants right now. You can't make a living brewing porters. I would be a lot more disappointed with this turn of events if I had access to their porter. But the ubiquitous steam beer was never one of my favorites.
  - spookthesunset 3y ago
    Totally agree. The craft beer industry needs to stop with all this IPA nonsense. It’s absurd how hard it is to find anything but yet another weird IPA. If the craft beer industry is shrinking, this is one large component. Stop with the nonstop IPA’s. There is way more beers than just IPA’s.
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      Not sure why you were downvoted. What you say is true! I’m a bit biased, but I’d like to see a few more Porters and Stouts.
      - spookthesunset 3y ago
        Stouts are so good but even in a store with a large beer selection they are hard to find.
        kelnos 3y ago
        At least you can usually find Guinness. Obviously not the best stout in the world, but at least it's consistent and you know what you're gonna get.
jms703 3y ago
Why does a beer have to innovate?
- giantg2 3y ago
  Not the beer, but the company. Even places like Guiness come out with new stuff like Baltimore Blonde to increase their line up and appeal to a bigger market for better scale.
- serf 3y ago
  the same reason as any market needs to innovate : consumer trends and goals shift with the times. Let's take the most run-of-the-mill common bolt in the world as a product example : the 200 year old company that has changed to sell that run-of-the-mill bolt online w/ fast delivery and with a companion app has innovated without a product change. innovation doesn't imply a product change, it implies that a company is necessarily flexible to meet the shifting demands of consumers. This can be done in other ways than shoving newer and shinier products out the door.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- xp84 3y ago
  It doesn’t have to necessarily, however, it does have to in inverse proportion to how much their product appeals to the market presently. If your popularity and sales, for instance, take a 50% hit, you’d better introduce some new product lines. That doesn’t have to mean abandoning your original recipe product.
efsavage 3y ago
My beer journey started in the 90s and Anchor had good distribution when such things were difficult for smaller brands, but even back then it was always the last beer in the cooler at a party. I'm surprised they lasted this long.
- bartread 3y ago
  > the last beer in the cooler at a party. I'm a bit surprised by this. I think a lot of my disappointment with Anchor stems from the fact that people raved about, and feted them, whereas to me they were always at about the level of a fairly mediocre British ale (sorry). But then, on the other hand, if what you're used to is Bud, Coors, etc.[0], then they're absolutely going to be a breath of fresh air, so it sort of blows me away to hear that it was so unpopular at parties. I guess it all depends on point of view and I absolutely don't want to come off as gatekeepy about what good beer is because, as I said in my original comment, the last 20 years US brewers have really pulled it out of the bag with a ton of absolutely great beers that can stand amongst the best. I forget exactly when but I guess I had Anchor Steam Beer for the first time somewhere between 2005 and 2009, just as the craft beer movement was starting to build up steam. Back in 2005 a friend and I took a roadtrip partway across the US, including a stop at Salt Lake City. Irony of ironies, that's where we had the best beers on the trip, in a "private members club" (literally just a bar). I particularly enjoyed a local brew called "Polygamy Porter" - a really lovely beer, and better than anything I've had by Anchor in the years since. No idea if it's still in production, although I hope so. [0] Of all the mass produced beers in the US I do have quite a big soft spot for Blue Moon, to the point that if a bar offers it, because it's relatively uncommon in the UK, I'll often order it in preference to craftier offerings, particularly if those craftier offerings are mostly IPAs or APAs.
paulmd 3y ago
> [1] Pure speculation: I don't remember ever trying any of Stone's beers so have no comment to make on their quality or otherwise. Most of the Stone beers I've tried have ranged between "meh" and "pour out the can". Buenaveza (salt and lime cerveza) is the only one I've really enjoyed from them, and I've given them a number of tries. Buenaveza is a perfectly fine lawnmowing beer or party beer though and I do get it occasionally, but there's also several other cervezas here that are super good and super cheap too (Cerveza Delray is great). They seem reasonably popular so it's entirely possible it's just me, I'm a picky drinker and I know what I like and don't like. But that said, it doesn't seem like "brewed by stone" is some massive mark of quality for sapporo, at least to me. Maybe they're good relative to the alternatives who could produce beer at macro scale. (is there a term for the Goose Island-style operations that are owned by macrobrews and produce relatively large quantities? Some of those operations really straddle the line between macro and micro.) Anyway though, there are definitely companies where I agree with the head brewer's taste and ones where I don't.
monkeyodeath 3y ago
Sapporo's "innovations" for the Anchor brand were to pick a fight with labor, tinker with the recipe of their most historic beer, and green-light of the most infamously eye-searing rebrands in recent memory.
tezka 3y ago
> but as a Brit coming from somewhere with a by then thriving real ale scene, Served at room temperature. Yikes.
- _xerces_ 3y ago
  Served at cellar temperature, so around 55 F, sometimes cooler.
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  You can buy more than Ale in the UK. Out of all countries I've been to, New Zealand has the best craft beer scene though, imo.

sfpotter 3y ago

I'm a little surprised Anchor didn't do better. I personally got worn out by all the craziness and experimentation in the craft brewing scene. Really unique IPAs or sour beers were fun for a while, but after a while, I realized I just wanted something reasonably good and predictably normal, i.e. a Normal Good Beer. It seemed like Anchor was delivering on this, but maybe there were enough other options that they just didn't distinguish themselves well enough. Too bad, considering they're a local beer with a lot of history and had a successful unionization effort.

uoaei 3y ago
The recipe changed after the acquisition by Sapporo. Fans of the original Anchor Steam didn't like the new taste and stopped buying. So it faded into the background with the other ~3-5 domestics being served at a given bar. Lots of people talking out their ass here, clearly none of them spend any time in SF dives talking to other patrons.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bialczabub 3y ago
  Do you have proof that they changed the recipe/process. My wife and I have long suspected this, but I believe officially they denied any change. The rebrand was an absolute disaster of marketing. You have a 125 year old brewery with an old-fashioned looking logo, and you throw that all out for a more modern design that looks like every other beer on the shelf that got their designer off of fiver. Shades of New Coke.
yamazakiwi 3y ago
I don't have the numbers... but I'm going to assume that regular beer drinkers drink the popular light beers or already have a craft beer they like and spend less money trying new products. It took contentious political media to get die-hards to stop drinking their favorite light beer. That's how ingrained these brands are. It's harder to sell a new Amber Ale than a Juicy Mango/Dragonfruit IPA. These 2 beers serve different personas and the beer industry is focusing on growth over providing new products to their base.
- voidfunc 3y ago
  I think this is right. When I was in my 20s I was really into beer. Now I'm older and I split my time between the usual light beer culprits when I'm drinking out and enjoying a few craft favorites when I'm drinking in and gaming/doing hobbies. Also when a four pack of 16oz cans is approaching $20 (or exceeding that) I'm less likely to be exploratory because who the he'll wants a fridge of rejects they don't like.
  - chrisweekly 3y ago
    I (rarely) homebrew, for fun, but when it comes to beers in the fridge I have so many great local options to choose from (here on the south shore of MA, near Cape Cod), it's ridiculous: Second Wind, Stellwagen, Mayflower, Timberyard.... typically canned just a week or two before purchase. A few times a year I'll make a trip to Treehouse (worth it), otherwise the local package stores are well-stocked. I do remember enjoying Anchor Steam and IPAs back in the day (as a big upgrade from shitty mass-produced lagers), but my palate evolved and my preference for the best and freshest brew simply rules out generic bottles from the opposite coast.
    - zerocrates 3y ago
      My understanding is that this is kind of the pattern of the beer downturn. The huge operations are doing okay, shifting around amongst their sub-brands, introducing seltzers, etc. And the hyper-local stuff is still doing well it seems. But the "pretty big" craft brewers that went nationwide, they're facing the brunt.
WatchDog 3y ago
> Too bad, considering they're a local beer with a lot of history and had a successful unionization effort. 127 year old company, unionizes in 2019, shuts down in 2023, I wouldn't really call that successful.
- sfpotter 3y ago
  Unions in the US are on the ropes. Union membership is down, and companies have loads of resources and help to stymie unionization efforts. Frankly, unionizing at all is a successful unionization effort at the moment, since it shows other people it can be done. Can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
  - balderdash 3y ago
    It’s on the ropes in corporate America - but not in the public sector.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      I know this is just one example, but public school teacher unions don't seem to be doing so great, seeing how teaching is still the example always brought up as the most tragically underpaid profession. Sure, a union isn't a magic bullet that fixes all problems, but I know school teachers in some very different districts in the US, and their pay is universally awful for the amount of time they put in, and some of them even end up having to buy their own school supplies, out of pocket, because their classroom is way underfunded. I guess we could argue that, without the unions, things would be even worse, but I still think teachers unions have mostly failed their members. On the flip side, police officer unions seem to be doing pretty great, negotiating reasonably high pay, and helping to shield their members from accountability for wrongdoing.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Like you said it depends on the sector. I have a lot of friends that work for the state and it seems like their unions are doing great. Six figures, guaranteed raises, 2 Days in office per month, and what seems from an outsider to be like a 20 hour work week
darth_avocado 3y ago
> had a successful unionization effort Just forming a union should not be a measure of success. If it ultimately led to shutdown of the division because it was unprofitable, I would argue it was a pretty unsuccessful effort.
- reillyse 3y ago
  I haven’t seen anyone suggest unionization has had anything to do with it, in fact I’m going to groundlessly state that it probably is the only reason they lasted this long.
  - alasdair_ 3y ago
    They only unionized four years ago. The union probably wasn't a reason why they lasted.
    - reillyse 3y ago
      I was just pointing out the obvious anti-union bias of just mentioning they were unionized as if it had something to do with them failing. Sounds like they got bought by a conglomerate who closed them down. Normal capitalistic practice unrelated to the existence or lack of existence of a union.
- sfpotter 3y ago
  It should be. See my other comment.
MarkMarine 3y ago
This seems to be a conclusion in the beverage world as well, the craft beer wave has broken and people are just trying to drink something that tastes like what it says on the label. I home brew beer and the instinct is to make something crazy, but I get sick of my own experiments and double sick of paying 18$ for a 4 pack of someone else’s experiments. I could never stand being told that hop burn was a sign of craft beer, it’s a sign of a shit process and you should never have those flavors in your beer. I’ve actually been shocked to discover hard kombucha with some fruit juice is great. I still drink my beer, but this stuff is light, refreshing, and it’s 7% so it gets the job done. Anchor’s taste changed to me sometime after the acquisition, I liked it in years past and there was something off to me now.
- giantg2 3y ago
  Homebrewer here too. I agree. I like some experimentation but also like some "normal" stuff. I also don't like the really expensive odd stuff in the store. I've also begun to dislike the really plain stuff in the store. Even if my beer is a little different every batch, I think I prefer it. It's fun to grow your own hops and even grow/malt your own grain.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Some of the highest-status beers during Peak Beer were well-executed straightforward beers; Pliny comes to mind. As does Zombie Dust.
  - spaceguillotine 3y ago
    Pliny adapted to shifting tastes too, they reduced the grassiness and switched to bittering hop extracts to get a more mass appeal flavor and reduce waste with flower hops that would also soak up more wort. If you aren't constantly adjusting in beer you'll go the way of Anchor.
  - MarkMarine 3y ago
    I think the whole world is off axis if Pliny is a straight forward beer. Maybe we were all better off when Russian River was sending it out for us to buy in lots of 2 bottles to a local store that you had to call every day and check to see if they got any.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fennecfoxy 3y ago
I still only love sours; I'm a little gay cocktail freak usually, but sour beers have always seemed kind of special to me - I love the flavour and the history of using wild yeast (I think there was a river somewhere with the right type of yeast where they just used to leave fruit next to the river for the yeast to collect). But unfortunately there doesn't seem to be as many sours around in the UK now, when I was still in NZ we have tonnes, but now all I find in the UK is IPAs and "DIPA"s etc. So boring. Ah there we are: https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/lambic-and-geuze-a-success-story-with-a-sour-taste/ https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/lambic-... tbf idt they leave the wort by the riverside anymore per se, the yeast seems to just be in the air all around that area. Super cool, though. Belgium is definitely worth a visit if you like interesting beers, there are countless places, but I'd have to recommend Delirium Café (a honestly confusing maze of various beer halls) but for good weather "Little Delirium" is great too, smaller location but with nice outdoor seating.

splonk 3y ago

Anchor actually did have a bunch of more modern beers after the Sapporo acquisition, but they were only available at the taproom. They only had retail distribution for the old reliable flagships (and then had a rebranding that was not well received).

kelnos 3y ago
Yeah, that was the weird thing. I visited their tap room a few times here and there (I live fairly close), and some of their selections were truly different and interesting and good. But you couldn't get them anywhere else. Meanwhile, I hardly ever go for an Anchor beer when in a bar, as there are always more interesting choices. I wouldn't call myself a beer connoisseur, even. Seemed like shooting themselves in the foot.

ecocentrik 3y ago

This news has nothing to do with lack of innovation. The entire beer market is currently contracting. Also, not everything needs to innovate. Every field needs a canon of notable creations that have stood the test of centuries or millennia and beer brewing is no exception.

giantg2 3y ago
I don't know. It seems a mix of traditional and innovation does well. Yuengling seems to be a good example of a small brand becoming regional and now almost national. They have their traditional brews and have added a few new ones.
- trafficante 3y ago
  Grew up in PA and love seeing Yingers blow up, but I bet their success is largely due to the same reason we loved them back in the early 2000s: they brew a tasty no-frills lager at a good price. Seems a lot of the brewing industry chased fads for 20 years.
  - Projectiboga 3y ago
    I like Yingling Porter. I'm annoyed they aren't in NYC while brewed so nearby.
ibejoeb 3y ago
I'd like to see what '23 the numbers look like before declaring it a contracting market. Sales by volume for the entire category are indeed down, but somewhere between 2-3%, and that is still likely attributable to the crash starting in 2020, when it was actually illegal to serve or even order beer in many places. (To this day, there are still aggressive measures taken against breweries, brewpubs, and taprooms, like this extrajudicial order that is crushing the business in New Jersey: https://www.nj.gov/oag/abc/downloads/LimitedBrewerySpecialConditionsFinalText-6-30-22.pdf https://www.nj.gov/oag/abc/downloads/LimitedBrewerySpecialCo....) Still, imports are up, and regionals and crafts are up as a percentage of total beer. The small operations that weren't entirely destroyed are still in the process of coming back online. I'm not convince the empirical decline is the market at work and not external forces.

Rapzid 3y ago

Their Porter is fantastic and on par with Fuller's.

stickfigure 3y ago
I love porters but they're getting hard to find. Every supermarket is wall-to-wall IPAs. I assume they know what sells, so apparently that's what the market wants right now. You can't make a living brewing porters. I would be a lot more disappointed with this turn of events if I had access to their porter. But the ubiquitous steam beer was never one of my favorites.
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  Totally agree. The craft beer industry needs to stop with all this IPA nonsense. It’s absurd how hard it is to find anything but yet another weird IPA. If the craft beer industry is shrinking, this is one large component. Stop with the nonstop IPA’s. There is way more beers than just IPA’s.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    Not sure why you were downvoted. What you say is true! I’m a bit biased, but I’d like to see a few more Porters and Stouts.
    - spookthesunset 3y ago
      Stouts are so good but even in a store with a large beer selection they are hard to find.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        At least you can usually find Guinness. Obviously not the best stout in the world, but at least it's consistent and you know what you're gonna get.

jms703 3y ago

Why does a beer have to innovate?

giantg2 3y ago
Not the beer, but the company. Even places like Guiness come out with new stuff like Baltimore Blonde to increase their line up and appeal to a bigger market for better scale.
serf 3y ago
the same reason as any market needs to innovate : consumer trends and goals shift with the times. Let's take the most run-of-the-mill common bolt in the world as a product example : the 200 year old company that has changed to sell that run-of-the-mill bolt online w/ fast delivery and with a companion app has innovated without a product change. innovation doesn't imply a product change, it implies that a company is necessarily flexible to meet the shifting demands of consumers. This can be done in other ways than shoving newer and shinier products out the door.
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xp84 3y ago
It doesn’t have to necessarily, however, it does have to in inverse proportion to how much their product appeals to the market presently. If your popularity and sales, for instance, take a 50% hit, you’d better introduce some new product lines. That doesn’t have to mean abandoning your original recipe product.

efsavage 3y ago

My beer journey started in the 90s and Anchor had good distribution when such things were difficult for smaller brands, but even back then it was always the last beer in the cooler at a party. I'm surprised they lasted this long.

bartread 3y ago
> the last beer in the cooler at a party. I'm a bit surprised by this. I think a lot of my disappointment with Anchor stems from the fact that people raved about, and feted them, whereas to me they were always at about the level of a fairly mediocre British ale (sorry). But then, on the other hand, if what you're used to is Bud, Coors, etc.[0], then they're absolutely going to be a breath of fresh air, so it sort of blows me away to hear that it was so unpopular at parties. I guess it all depends on point of view and I absolutely don't want to come off as gatekeepy about what good beer is because, as I said in my original comment, the last 20 years US brewers have really pulled it out of the bag with a ton of absolutely great beers that can stand amongst the best. I forget exactly when but I guess I had Anchor Steam Beer for the first time somewhere between 2005 and 2009, just as the craft beer movement was starting to build up steam. Back in 2005 a friend and I took a roadtrip partway across the US, including a stop at Salt Lake City. Irony of ironies, that's where we had the best beers on the trip, in a "private members club" (literally just a bar). I particularly enjoyed a local brew called "Polygamy Porter" - a really lovely beer, and better than anything I've had by Anchor in the years since. No idea if it's still in production, although I hope so. [0] Of all the mass produced beers in the US I do have quite a big soft spot for Blue Moon, to the point that if a bar offers it, because it's relatively uncommon in the UK, I'll often order it in preference to craftier offerings, particularly if those craftier offerings are mostly IPAs or APAs.

paulmd 3y ago

> [1] Pure speculation: I don't remember ever trying any of Stone's beers so have no comment to make on their quality or otherwise. Most of the Stone beers I've tried have ranged between "meh" and "pour out the can". Buenaveza (salt and lime cerveza) is the only one I've really enjoyed from them, and I've given them a number of tries. Buenaveza is a perfectly fine lawnmowing beer or party beer though and I do get it occasionally, but there's also several other cervezas here that are super good and super cheap too (Cerveza Delray is great). They seem reasonably popular so it's entirely possible it's just me, I'm a picky drinker and I know what I like and don't like. But that said, it doesn't seem like "brewed by stone" is some massive mark of quality for sapporo, at least to me. Maybe they're good relative to the alternatives who could produce beer at macro scale. (is there a term for the Goose Island-style operations that are owned by macrobrews and produce relatively large quantities? Some of those operations really straddle the line between macro and micro.) Anyway though, there are definitely companies where I agree with the head brewer's taste and ones where I don't.

monkeyodeath 3y ago

Sapporo's "innovations" for the Anchor brand were to pick a fight with labor, tinker with the recipe of their most historic beer, and green-light of the most infamously eye-searing rebrands in recent memory.

tezka 3y ago

> but as a Brit coming from somewhere with a by then thriving real ale scene, Served at room temperature. Yikes.

_xerces_ 3y ago
Served at cellar temperature, so around 55 F, sometimes cooler.
fennecfoxy 3y ago
You can buy more than Ale in the UK. Out of all countries I've been to, New Zealand has the best craft beer scene though, imo.