I do not usually write op-ed pieces on this blog but today is a bit different. Something got me going. The forums on BeerAdvocate.com are notorious. I stopped paying attention a couple years ago, to be honest. While I subscribe to Beer Advocate the magazine and generally appreciate what it contributes to my psyche, I am sometimes embarrassed by my fellow beer lovers who frequent the online forums.
Over at BeerAdvocate.com someone recently started a thread asking, “Which craft brewery is the most overrated?” BeerAdvocate.com locked the thread after 496 responses. People on the BA forums go nuts when you ask them to talk about what sucks. It’s like a bad karma snowball. Ask the same people to talk about what they like, and you can hear the crickets chirp.
The writer of the initial comment called out Dogfish Head Brewery by name and a lot of people have been talking about Sam Calagione’s response, which I’ve included below.
What makes this a bigger issue for me is that the pompous beer dorks (polite language) on the BA forums reflect the attitude of many people I encounter offline. Apparently Sam Calagione, the founder and President of Dogfish Head Brewery, knows what I mean. Sam’s response addresses a larger issue, not just the fact that someone called his brewery overrated.
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To me, this kind of behavior on public forums amounts to a lot more than merely throwing a particlular craft brewery under the bus. Rather, it is like creating a whole new bus route just so you can throw a craft brewery under the bus that is now coming down the street.
It’s Not About the Beer, It’s About the Beer
Overrated is not a function of the brewery, it is a function of us.
No brewery should be disparaged just because people like it. Russian River Brewing should not be penalized because of Pliny’s cult-like following. Dogfish Head should not be criticized because people recognize Sam from TV. Judge a brewery on what matters: the beer.
I understand that some people define themselves by the breweries they do and do not like. I get it.
Breweries make beer. They are not rock bands or religions. They are not cool or uncool just because of who does and does not like them. Adoring one brewery or hating another does not make you smarter, better, or more sophisticated than anyone. You will not be saved or doomed because of the beers you do and do not like.
Good beer is good beer. Period. I am happy that the craft beer segment of the overall beer market has grown. Are you? Or do you hate the fact that breweries like Redhook, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, and Dogfish Head are succeeding? I hope that there will be more breweries that grow and achieve a level of success that makes dorks on beer forums deem them overrated. I promise, I will not hate Elysian or any other brewery just because it succeeds. I hereby pledge to judge a brewery only by its beer.
If you fail to understand the difference between what breweries like Anheuser Busch and Miller-Coors are doing and what breweries like Sierra Nevada, Redhook, Stone, New Belgium and Dogfish Head are doing, then maybe you need to learn more about beer.
Good beer is good beer. Period.
Here’s a link to the original comment thread on the BA Forum.
Anyway, here’s what Sam Calagione had to say:
It’s pretty depressing to frequently visit this site and see the most negative threads among the most popular. This didn’t happen much ten years ago when craft beer had something like a 3 percent market share. Flash forward to today, and true indie craft beer now has a still-tiny but growing marketshare of just over 5 percent. Yet so many folks that post here still spend their time knocking down breweries that dare to grow. It’s like that old joke: “Nobody eats at that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded.” Except the “restaurants” that people shit on here aren’t exactly juggernauts. In fact, aside from Boston Beer, none of them have anything even close to half of one percent marketshare. The more that retailers, distributors, and large industrial brewers consolidate the more fragile the current growth momentum of the craft segment becomes. The more often the Beer Advocate community becomes a soap box for outing breweries for daring to grow beyond its insider ranks the more it will be marginalized in the movement to support, promote, and protect independent ,American, craft breweries.
It’s interesting how many posts that refer to Dogfish being over-rated include a caveat like “except for Palo…except for Immort…etc.” We all have different palettes which is why it’s a great thing that there are so many different beers. At Dogfish we’ve been focused on making “weird” beers since we opened and have taken our lumps for being stylistically indifferent since day one. I bet a lot of folks agree that beers like Punkin Ale (since 1995) , Immort Ale (wood aged smoked beer) since 1995, Chicory Stout (coffee stout) since 1995 , Raison D’être (Belgian brown) since 1996, , Indian Brown Ale (dark IPA) since 1997, and 90 Minute (DIPA) since 2000 don’t seem very weird anymore. That’s in large part because so many people who have been part of this community over the years championed them and helped us put them on the map.These beers, and all of our more recent releases like Palo Santo, Burton Baton, Bitches Brew continue to grow every year. We could have taken the easy way out and just sold the bejeezus out of 60 Minute to grow but we like to experiment and create and follow our own muse. Obviously there is an audience that appreciates this as we continue to grow. We put no more “hype” or “expert marketing” behind our best selling beers than we do our occasionals. We only advertise in a few beer magazines and my wife Mariah oversees all of our twitter/Facebook/dogfish.com stuff. We have mostly grown by just sharing our beer with people who are into it (at our pub, great beer bars, beer dinners, and fests) and let them decide for themselves if they like it. If they do we hope they tell their friends about. We hope a bunch of you that are going to EBF will stop by our booth and try some of the very unique new beers we are proudly bringing to market like Tweason’ale (a champagne-esque, gluten-free beer fermented with buckwheat honey and strawberries) and Noble Rot (a sort of saison brewed with Botrytis-infected Viognier Grape must). One of these beers is on the sweeter side and one is more sour. Knowing each of your palettes is unique you will probably prefer one over the other. That doesn’t mean the one you didn’t prefer sucked. And the breweries you don’t prefer but are growing don’t suck either. Respect Beer. The below was my favorite post thus far.
