"Beer snobs – the hipsters with the fedoras who want to know if this beer is vegan – confuse scarcity with quality and ubiquity with mediocrity. "
Quoting the Boston Magazine Article:
Authenticity is extremely important to millennials, more so than any other generation that we’ve seen before,” says Michelle Snodgrass of Vizeum, a strategic marketing agency that works with global brands such as Anheuser-Busch. “Millennials can see right through insincerity, and they’re actually looking for it.
“BULLSH1T. Authenticity might be important to millennials because they have absolutely none of it themselves.”
Basically, see my autosig. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a palette of Hopslam to illegally truck across 7 states.
Disclaimer/Asterisk: I have never really LIKED Sam Adams. When someone would serve it, I was kind of excited…I guess…that they had something better than Miller Lite, but even before I became a beer nerd, I wasn’t ever a huge fan of the TASTE of it. Kind of like Starbucks. When the options were Starbucks or gas station coffee, yes, there is a clear and easy decision. Now that I’ve had a french press/vacuum-brewed single-origin cup that I roasted myself to a City roast? Starbucks tastes like the rinsewater from a horse-track ashtray.
John Kimmich makes a great point over and over that if Heady Topper didn’t TASTE delicious, they hype would run out. But it tastes delicious in his opinion. And in the opinion of many others.
Boston Beer Company is awesome, but just like any other free enterprise company, it needs to learn how to survive, or it will die. That’s the American way. I love Sam Adams Boston Lager, but I don’t know if it can compete with the hip new stuff. It’s a bummer to think about. So I won’t.
Disclaimer: I have been drinking. German beers. Always so yummy. Later dudes.
Whether you like the beer or not, Sam Adams is one of the forefathers of the modern craft brewing movement. Beer lovers should be aware of it and appreciate it for what it is. They don’t have to like it or drink it regularly, but it’s a pioneer beer, just like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. These beers deserve respect. I don’t care for how Jim Koch handled that situation in that bar by making that person cry…that was pure douchery. But this millennials BS about authenticity is just stupid. Most of these people these days don’t really seem to even like beer, they just like the IDEA of beer.
Boston Lager is a great beer, but other than that, BBC brews a LOT of crap. Every once in a while they have something that I’d consider to be top-notch (Noble Pils and Stonybrook Red are two that come to mind) but they put out a ton of SKUs and most of them are average to below average.
I’ve met Jim Koch before and he’s the only person in the brewing industry I’ve ever met that seemed to go out of his way to be a dick. :cheers:
Brewers are generally a friendly bunch but there are more than a few dicks out there. Some get swollen heads when they win awards, poo on homebrewers, etc. Jim is nowhere near that.
[quote=“Wahoo”]Boston Lager is a great beer, but other than that, BBC brews a LOT of crap. Every once in a while they have something that I’d consider to be top-notch (Noble Pils and Stonybrook Red are two that come to mind) but they put out a ton of SKUs and most of them are average to below average.
I’ve met Jim Koch before and he’s the only person in the brewing industry I’ve ever met that seemed to go out of his way to be a dick. :cheers: [/quote]
I remember that story and smile every time I read your sig file
Interesting article.
Like me, I’m sure there are many on the Northeast coast whose first introduction to ‘Good Beer’ was Sam Adams lager. Before starting my own brewing adventure, I started to expand my beer horizons, with other Sammie’s offerings, then other brands(Long Trail particularly). Then I started to brew and wanted to try other beer styles to see if I liked them enough to brew my own versions. So I tried many other brands and styles, both domestic and from across the pond. Found many I liked just fine, and a few that I poured down the sink( sorry, with me it’s mostly Belgians). But, I still come back to Sam Adams and almost always have at least a sixer on hand, (especially like their Oktoberfest). Besides, their bottles are great to reuse!
A guy I used to work with works for Sam Adams in Boston, doing their experimental brewing, trying to come up with new offerings, etc. So he finally brewed a beer he thought was good enough to get released. All his brewing colleagues agreed that it was great, and so a taste test with Jim was set up. It was done over videoconferencing or something similar if I remember correctly. So Jim takes a sip, does his swishing around thing for a while, and states his review as follows:
“Well, I only have one tasting note, and it’s why the fuck am I tasting this?”
Boston lager is a fine beer and was a great transition to the world of beer with flavor but for me there are so many other beers in the same price range that I’d rather drink. I wonder if the inventor of Atari is sulking around like pshh X box :roll:
As with most innovation, finding a need and filling it is what spawns new brands and breaths new life into flagging industries. Boston Lager did just that imo. They filled that niche and did a tremendous job of producing a great product imo. I could give a crap about what a dick the founder Jim is. The palate is the final judge and zillions have not found it lacking. As far as Millennial’s opinions of “non nostalgia, what have you done for me lately.” attitudes: That demographic is one that seems to be trending on the side of hype over quality. Well I say the emperor has no clothes to that BS. I’ll take a Sam too, it is a lexicon of a well balanced American lager.
Just for the record, a buddy of mine had a TERRIBLE experience at Three Floyds with their staff. He, as well as I, still get our hands on Zombie Dust every chance we get. Most people in the brew world are pretty cool. Some are dicks. The owner/brew master of my fav brewery is a straight up ass to home brewers… yep I still buy his product to.
I agree if it wasn’t for Boston Lager and their Oktoberfest I would have probably never really gotten away from the swill I was drinking. However lately even BL and OF are not up to the taste palette anymore. Some batches are just OK and others seem down right bad. I do like the effort they put into Rebel IPA and don’t mind ordering a glass but with the diversity that’s out there now Sam Adams really only has a place in franchise restaurants and big chains. Any good pub or restaurant is going to do multiple kegs of multiple styles of beers and keep rotating them.
There are a few of the Sam Adams seasonals that I enjoy as a “go-to” and something quick I can get pretty much anywhere.
Now as far as the blog is concerned, I tend to just grab for something new just to try it. I wouldn’t consider myself a “beer snob” and I’m definitely not a “hipster,” but I think I am still developing my ability to taste new and different things. I enjoy reading about the beers and the processes used and then how it can translate to how I make my own beer. I think I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life and I am totally OK with that
I have found a few local to me in North Carolina that I enjoy and I repeat them often because they are good, not because they are trendy or whatever.
