Why you shouldn’t settle for “Bad Beer”

In light of the previous post, several reactions via social media or here on the blog seemed to indicate I was advocating “participation trophies” or “letting brewers off the hook”. Nothing could be further from the truth, so let’s clarify

There are many, many people out there who are venturing into the brewing world without much experience or formal education under their belt. The industry is exploding and many all grain homebrewers decide it might be fun to open up a brewery. They find some family, friends, buddies and acquaintances who are willing to put up some money since they like the guy. And after all, his little homebrew experiments weren’t all that bad after all. Usually they think something along the lines of “Hey, if <fill in the blank of a local brewery> can do it, so can we. We’re not that bad”

By telling your homebrew-buddy-turned-pro-brewer his beer is great, while you know in all reality it’s not, you’re not doing anyone any favors. So why is it important to give good, open and honest feedback:

The brewers never improve

Good feedback is a mechanism to get better. Back to the previous post, “it sucks”, is very seldom feedback any brewer can do anything with. “I didn’t like it because I thought it smelled like old socks” or “I didn’t like it because it reminded me of stale bread” is better. Feel free to use your own words, but it make it actionable. Without some kind of feedback, the brewers will never be able to improve.

We are their only feedback

The most successful large companies have regular feedback sessions. Small brewers can usually not afford these elaborate taste panels. They rely on us, craft beer consumers, to be that taste panel for them. We owe it to them if we want to see them succeed to give them feedback. We owe it to them if we want to see them get better. And I personally want to see every brewer succeed. Not all of them will, but we’ll cover that in a minute.

It helps the community around us

The competition is fierce. Available shelf space and tap handles are getting fought over more and more. Bad beer won’t sell and that means the small brewer will go under. Imagine you have put up a big chunk of your savings in your buddy’s brewing venture. If he closes, you (most likely) will lose a significant portion of that. If they don’t succeed, several good and decent people will lose their hard earned money. And these people are our neighbors, friends and acquaintances as well.

It helps the next brewery

Much in the same vein as the argument above. If someone is looking for an investment, but knows that their brother or uncle or sister has just lost a chunk of change in a failed brewery, they are probably going to be a bit more careful. Along comes the next small brewer with an investment proposal. The likelihood of convincing our investor that his brewery is better and will succeed just became a whole lot more difficult.

 We owe it to the beer world at large

I know that not all brewers will listen. Some are stubborn and believe their creations are the best of the best. I know some brewers just can’t seem to get it right and refuse to ask for help. And those are the ones that will disappear from the landscape. It may be unfortunate, but on the other hand, it might just perhaps be a good thing for the beer world that those making “bad beer” and are unwilling or unable to improve cannot create a product that would discourage those seeking out better beer. This unfortunate fall-out will raise the standards of the craft beer world and I think we’re all in favor of that.

Trying to summarize these last two posts, I would say this:

• Give feedback.
• Be open and honest.
• Be specific.

Only then will this world of small brewers continue on the path it’s on. And I for one, would very much like to see that happen.