What Is The Future Of Beer

[rclemmett]

The most improtant thing for me is beer appropriate to the climate. Seasonal rotation is the key.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I think its a big chunk of pointless shoving your head in the sand to decide that the only reason people in the larger population drink lightly flavoured crisp dry, and dare I say it... fizzy yellow beer, is because they have been lead there by "marketing gurus" - do you really think people are quite that docile and senseless? Because all the high tech mass marketing gurus are obviously the reason that lager beer took off like a rocket in the 1800's when it was first invented - that makes heaps of sense.

Rather it is because those sorts of beers are easy and pleasant to drink - they taste good and are not too overpowering. They are the difference between eating a bowl of marinated olives and feta as a snack and eating a bowl of chips. You might love olives and feta - but I bet you order a bowl of chips more frequently.

There seems to be some confusion about why breweries brew lightly flavoured beer - its not harder to brew more flavoursome beer, its not particularly more expensive. In fact its easier to get away with lower standards when you brew beer with stronger flavours, for the same reason you might see a new homebrewer pumping out drinkable porters but not able to nail pale ales. Faults are less obvious. And alternatives have always been there, decent ones. Its just that what it is hard to do, at least in Australia, is to sell more flavoursome beers on an industrial scale. Doesn't mean brewers stopped making them. Coopers has always been there, Old brown, old black, Abbotsford Double stout - all good, tasty, highly flavoured and comparatively speaking... deeply unpopular beers.

So the big brewery businesses concentrated on the popular beers... what the hell else does anyone expect them to do?? Try to tell their customers that they should be drinking "better" beer even though they don't want to?

Its a fact that smaller breweries could take a little notice of - People LIKE subtly flavoured beers. Try making them one and see. The guys at Mt Goat did and their Steam Beer has gone through the roof. Is it a boring flavourless beer?? No-way!! Its a really nice example of a subtle, well crafted, easy to drink people pleasing beer. They still make big beers, interesting beers and thats great - but they have at least gotten over the arrogant attitude that a lot (certainly not all) of craft brewers seem to display, that the beer the brewer likes, is the beer that their customers "should" like; and made the very ordinary and sensible business decision to actually give them what they want. And as a result they will diversify their customer base considerably, and almost certainly be responsible for introducing more people to the joys of big flavoursome beers than all the stubborn "I'm not making one of those sorts of beers" brewers put together.

I know I appreciate it - I like an IIPA as much as the next guy, but now, from one brewer at least, I can also have the choice of drinking a well made, locally made, craft brewed beer that isn't beating me over the head with the flavour stick till I bleed from the ears.

All I need now is for someone to make a good Kolsch locally and I will be pretty much sorted.

 

[gregs]

I see the future of beer in Australia at least, as educating the general public in the appreciation of beer. The wine industry has done this very well in the past and stands out amongst all other alcohol styles as the beverage of connoisseurs. I think beer has as much if not more to offer in the appreciation stakes, as you all are aware. But we are few and the general public Im sure would benefit from our appreciation of the drink.

 

[Dazza_devil]

Perhaps the future of beer will be politically dictated. Who know's what future taxes and/or prohabition could do. Even a trend away from the designer drugs of today.
If we look back at the history of beer perhaps we could gain an idea on what is possible as far as change goes.
The future will always be dictated by what's readily available and what's within the customers budget regardless.
I guess the first ales were full of flavour and it was the accepted norm, particularly before the use of hops with gruit etc.
Mass production appeared to be the killer, why is beyond me. Was it really that hard to mass produce a beer that tasted good?
I would like to think that on the whole the future of beer will develop in a similar way to that of the maturing palate. Perhaps a gradual trend toward more flavoursome brews will allow this to happen. If someone had of given me an IPA or Imperial anything to drink in my weening days It could of possibly turned me off the idea completely.
Beer with real flavour, you gotta be kiddin me.
What ***** me is there aren't enough Australian beers to brew 'in style' that are generously hopped or malt driven.

 

[Bribie G]

Bloody well put .. plus one Thirsty Boy. :icon_cheers:

I love UK real ales and am now able to produce them consistently, but as TB well knows my other main thrust in home brewing is to make a Carlton style cold light coloured and flavoured full strength beer that hits the same spot that the Brisbane "Bulimba" draught did in the 1970s. And you know what, when I put a keg on at a birthday party or at Christmas / Oz Day, the punters rave about it.

Most mainstream Australian beers have a heritage that goes back to the six o'clock swill days when the hard working men (yes men) would pour out of the factories and offices with only an hour to drink before the pub shut. A light bodied but full strength 5% beer that could be slammed back schooner after schooner.


BribieG overcome with thirst heads for the kegerator and puts mouth over spout and pulls and sucks deeply :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2:


OK that's better..............

Rant: I feel that the Aussie home brew fraternity has been somewhat seduced by the Cascade laden all malt boutique USA model. Look I don't mind the very occasional LCPA style beer but I reckon if every pub in Australia were to suddenly serve only APA Fat Yak JSGA beer then there would be a huge migration to drinking alcopops because the beer has "turned to ****".
Personally I like to sit at the Major Money or Jetsetter pokies at the pub a couple of times a month and slurp a couple of XXXX heavy. It's a good taste reference to what I'm brewing and it's a reliable well brewed product. My first mouthfull I reckon I could brew a lot better, but by the end of the schooner it occurs to me that there are not actually any off flavours, that what flavours there are are actually quite well balanced, and that if I genuinely wanted to brew something identical I would be hard pressed as an amateur brewer. Very hard pressed indeed.

 

[glennheinzel]

Referencing the ratings of beers in the AHB recipe database would support the claims that easy drinking ales are a hit. The top 5 are less than 5% ABV and the #1, #3 and #4 beers are English Best/Special Bitters.

1. Dr Smurto Golden Ale clone - English Best/Special Bitter
2. Tony's Little Creatures Bright Ale clone - APA
3. Dr Smurto Timothy Taylor Land Lord clone - English Best/Special Bitter
4. Ross's Nelson Sauvin summer ale - English Best/Special Bitter
5. Doc's Bavarian weizen - German Hefe

 

[gregs]

Perhaps the future of beer will be politically dictated. Who know's what future taxes and/or prohabition could do. Even a trend away from the designer drugs of today.
If we look back at the history of beer perhaps we could gain an idea on what is possible as far as change goes.
The future will always be dictated by what's readily available and what's within the customers budget regardless.
I guess the first ales were full of flavour and it was the accepted norm, particularly before the use of hops with gruit etc.
Mass production appeared to be the killer, why is beyond me. Was it really that hard to mass produce a beer that tasted good?
I would like to think that on the whole the future of beer will develop in a similar way to that of the maturing palate. Perhaps a gradual trend toward more flavoursome brews will allow this to happen. If someone had of given me an IPA or Imperial anything to drink in my weening days It could of possibly turned me off the idea completely.
Beer with real flavour, you gotta be kiddin me.
What ***** me is there aren't enough Australian beers to brew 'in style' that are generously hopped or malt driven.

Remember though that Australia only ever copied the worlds wine and built an enormous industry on that. So much so that the rest of the world have now (copy-write) on there original styles by name. That is quite impressive when you look at how well that industry educated the Australian public on the wine they copied.

I think there is a similar future for beer although this appears a long way off. Also mass production may well have helped save the future of beer in this country.

 

[chappo1970]

like i said i am really interested in finding out what the masses think. When i say masses i am talking about the people on this site who know and appreciate different beers.

TB and BribieG whilst I in part agree with your sentiments on Megaswill I think we are unnescessarily crossing swords here. I didn't see this post as a "Lets bash the Megaswillers again" (yawn) but rather "hey you home brewers what turns your wheels boys?"

Or did I miss something?

 

[Dazza_devil]

I just can't drink the beer off the tap at the locals here anymore. I used to drink it till the cows come home and wake up with a pearla of a headache and a fowl taste in my mouth. Perhaps it's not the beer but the way it's being treated by the reatailers. Or perhaps there are additives to preserve it that are ruining the beer as a whole. The most likely reason in my opinion is that my homebrew tastes so good and doesn't give me a hangover.
I'm with you on the mild flavoured session beer BribieG and that is what people have become accustomed too, but I did sit down and drink 11 pints of my OZ Galaxy Pale Ale in one session without becoming overwhelmed with flavour. Session drinking is becoming socially unacceptable(apparently) and the government will be trying to push anti-binge drinking policies in the future. I dont think IIPA or American Stouts, etc were ever meant to be session beers, just an Ale to be enjoyed in moderation over a meal perhaps. Will these drinking trends influence the way beer will be in the future, perhaps. But there will always be the die hard big session and binge drinkers and there will be a place and a drink for them. I guess it's gotta be mass produced because they need a lot more of it.
I wont be rushing out to get my block of Hahn Ice or Tooheys Red with my pension check though. Alcohol afterall is a handy tool for the government as far as taxes and suppression of the proletariat go.

 

[scrumpy]

pale ales will become the new lagers...... thats what i see in the future..

 

[Pollux]

snip....

Most mainstream Australian beers have a heritage that goes back to the six o'clock swill days when the hard working men (yes men) would pour out of the factories and offices with only an hour to drink before the pub shut. A light bodied but full strength 5% beer that could be slammed back schooner after schooner.

......snip

I found this while I was away in Mudgee the other week, while I was in the brewery I would try all the different beers there and think about the flavours and where they had come from, then we walked across the road to the Red Heifer hotel and I noticed amongst the New/VB/CD a tap marked "Red Heifer Lager", ehhh, why not.

It was a simple, clean, non-offensive lager and I will admit it took till the third schooner before my tastebuds adjusted when comparing it to my house beers (generally APAs with an IBU count of 60+), but once that occurred I found it quite tasty and started to really enjoy it.

I think if we can move people away from the dogma of being a "VB man" or a "New man" etc etc and push them towards checking the bank of taps whenever they walk into a new pub for the first time then perhaps that will help the smaller breweries get a decent foothold and also broaden the Aussie beer palate.

Another area where beer could go is the concept of beer and food matching, ala the lunch at Bitter & Twisted and also Fusion Brewing Co craft all their beers with the concept of matching them to a style of food.

 

[The Mad Hopper]

In part I think the future of craft beer will be dictated by the success or failure of pubs such as Grumpy's Green, The Local Taphouse, The Royston Hotel, The Fox Hotel and The Lambs Go Bar (there are many more I could mention here). I have heaps of mates that I've convinced to go to a place like this and have something a bit different then their usual 5% lager. They generally start off with something easier to drink like an ESB or an (ordinary!) IPA . The thing is, they almost always love it and they go back for more and start to experiment with different styles: "hey what about this imperial stout, I wonder what that tastes like". These are guys who have no interest in brewing beer (I've tried to convince them!) but they start to enjoy variety in their beer regardless. I think that if we can support pubs like these then we'll slowly convince the majority to try something different.

I remember a few months ago I went to a local craft brewery that I knew brewed 2 or 3 decent beers. When I walked in I found that they actually had close to 10 beers that I never even knew they brewed, and some of them were bloody fantastic (and unfortunately only on tap!). The name of that brewery: Hargreaves Hill. I would think that if you wanted to gain a wider market for your beer a great idea would be to open a pub in Melbourne and stock the same beers that you can buy at Dan's. But at the same time you could also have taps pouring your more experimental batches (I loved that scotch ale you had!) and see what people are trying and buying. Your place up in Yarra Glen is fantastic, I just think that it doesn't get the same exposure that a place in the city would. Finance wise this is probably a heavy investment, but the great thing about being "some guy on a forum" is that I don't need to worry about things like that!

When it comes to beer styles, who really knows. Personally I love beers with a complex maltiness to them. One of my mates loves stouts. Another prefers lagers and pilseners ... each to their own, I'm just happy for the choice!

 

[The Mad Hopper]

I think if we can move people away from the dogma of being a "VB man" or a "New man" etc etc and push them towards checking the bank of taps whenever they walk into a new pub for the first time then perhaps that will help the smaller breweries get a decent foothold and also broaden the Aussie beer palate.

That's exactly how I drink: walk into a pub and order the beer that I've never heard of.

 

[petesbrew]

Well the low carbs seem to be here to stay for a while, so it'd be good to see some breweries add some actual FLAVOUR to them.
No I'm not trying to start a "it's not the carbs, it's the alcohol" off topic tangent - just stating it's a trend/bandwagon/moneyspinner, so why not?

Same goes for Low alcohol beers. I had a Rogers for the first time last week and it was bloody nice (Cheers Eric8!). Yeah ok, it's more of a midstrength than light, but you get my drift. Something nice and hoppy.

 

[PostModern]

I think its a big chunk of pointless shoving your head in the sand to decide that the only reason people in the larger population drink lightly flavoured crisp dry, and dare I say it... fizzy yellow beer, is because they have been lead there by "marketing gurus" - do you really think people are quite that docile and senseless? Because all the high tech mass marketing gurus are obviously the reason that lager beer took off like a rocket in the 1800's when it was first invented - that makes heaps of sense.

Well we all know that you and I are too smart to fall for advertising, yet the big breweries spend tens of millions a year on advertising their pleasantly tasteless fizzy yellow swill. Someone must be listening, or they wouldn't do it.

Yes, like white bread, bland beer is the biggest seller, but like you I have come across some really nice balanced craft brews, unlike the unbalanced sweet **** coming from CUB.

I think the future of beer will see the craft/micro market stay fairly small. Extreme beers will be there, but in small volume for extreme palates. Would be nice to see local breweries take over the mega's but in reality, the barriers to entry to the market are too massive. Only a Coca Cola scale organisation can attempt it, and look at the label they bought!!

 

[jbowers]

If this was America, this would be a valid debate.

The fact of the matter is, there isn't a single commercial brewer here making a IIPA which is anywhere near the middle, let alone the higher end of the scale in terms of IBUs or ABV.

There is no danger of Australia becoming overrun with 'big beers' any time soon. It might seem like it within a beer-centric community, because that's what a lot of us enjoy drinking and talking about. But the majority of people who are interested in well crafted beers are opting for things like little creatures, fat yak, knappstein lager etc. All very moderate, well balanced and highly drinkable beers.

I think the future of Australian beers, atleast in the next few years, is to push a few boundaries and take a few risks. Or atleast I hope so.

 

[bum]

If this was America, this would be a valid debate.

What?

 

[jbowers]

What?

Perhaps I made too strong a comment but -

'We seem to be in the grips of a bigger is better attitude at the moment where the bigger the hops or higher the alchohol the better the beer.'

From what I can see, when applied to current Australian brewing, that doesnt seem to really apply. Atleast not from where I'm sitting?

Edit: Perhaps I should summarise more concisely what I was trying to get across. I don't think Australia is in any imminent danger of having an influx of over the top, hopped up or high ABV beers any time soon.

 

[PostModern]

I think you're right jbowers. There is an awesome IPA at my local brewery tho. 7% and about 80IBU with tons of finishing hops. Unfortunately, it's been backed off a little due to *sigh* excise.

 

[jbowers]

I think you're right jbowers. There is an awesome IPA at my local brewery tho. 7% and about 80IBU with tons of finishing hops. Unfortunately, it's been backed off a little due to *sigh* excise.

Sounds awesome man. What brewery is that?

And the excise thing... so frustrating.

With the new laws though, they could bump it back up to 6.9% and still stay in the same tax bracket, apparently