10 BREWING & BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES BUSINESS It was an ale which, when I first sampled it in 1993, was less than revelatory, but still quite on the edge of what was then readily available in its western Canadian home. Dry-ish, fruity, floral and eminently quaffable, it was a downright tasty brew, not to mention one that was both satisfying and fairly refreshing. Turns out, it still is. That I hadn’t enjoyed a bottle or pint of said beer in some time relates in part to the nature of my profession as a beer critic, it by definition necessitating the consumption of many different and new ales and lagers. But I think it also comes as a result of a phenomenon plaguing the beer market these days, specifically the avoidance of or even outright contempt for anything tried and true. It has been an issue of concern to breweries in North America for some time now, as the opening of new producers and the flooding of the market with new brands has gone from a trickle to a stream to a veritable torrent. And as more beers and breweries have appeared, so has the beer drinking public’s appetite for the new and unfamiliar swelled proportionately. Hard hit by this trend towards endless variety have been veteran breweries like Canada’s Big Rock, brewers of the Traditional Ale I was supping in the first paragraph, and the recently restructured Speakeasy and shuttered Mendocino, both of California. Perhaps most battered of all have been those breweries that reside somewhere between modestly sized craft breweries and the mammoth multinationals, operations like the Boston Beer Company, brewers of the Samuel Adams line of beers, Sierra Nevada and New Belgium. In answer to this new beer mania, several if not most of the breweries in the segments noted above have responded by joining in the rush to bring new brands to market: •New Belgium of Colorado morphed their Ranger IPA and Rampant Imperial IPA into a full line of Voodoo Ranger brands, complete with a grinning skeleton mascot and several ‘special edition’ fruited variations. •Big Rock first branched out into pilsners and other styles outside of their traditional wheelhouse and then opened brewhouses in Vancouver and Toronto, each complete with their own small batch, limited edition brands. •Sierra Nevada responded first with their monstrously successful Torpedo Extra IPA, followed with the innovative Hop Hunter, turned to the sour beer category with their Otra Vez Gose, and then finally, perhaps inevitably, stuck a toe into the fruit-flavoured IPA sector. •Boston Beer, already well known for supporting their core brands with a large and varied range of seasonal and special releases, doubled down with the now- mostly discontinued ‘Nitro’ line of canned ales, then added a non- nitrogenated Rebel IPA and several variations thereon before metaphorically throwing up their hands and very publicly reformulating the original Rebel. And so on. While the above and many other similar strategies might have seemed like great ideas at the time, few have had the desired effect of reigniting volume growth. Which makes one wonder if a superior approach might have been to instead re-emphasize the enduring appeal of legacy brands. Because let’s face it, beers like Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and the aforementioned Traditional Ale – known as simply Trad – are good, indeed very good beers. If you work from that premise, and add in the fact that many of today’s new and shiny brews are, well, frankly not so good, it would seem that there might be value in reminding people of what has always been there, like a cozy sweater or a comfortable pair of shoes, and in so doing encourage their return to the fold. Of course, cozy sweaters and comfortable old shoes rarely make headlines, and in today’s social media-driven market that could be cause for serious concern. But given that an endless bombardment of new brands doesn’t seem to be working that well – Boston Beer and Sierra Nevada both reported declining volumes in 2017, as did New Belgium’s flagship Fat Tire Ale – perhaps a renewed emphasis on the classics really is what’s in order. “Return to your roots” has a nice ring to it. Stephen Beaumont Letter From North America STEPHEN BEAUMONT Variety is the Spice of Life, or is it? A professional beer writer for 27 years, Stephen Beaumont is an award-winning author or co-author of thirteen books on beer, including the new, recently released third edition of The Pocket Beer Book, and 2016’s fully-revised and updated second edition of The World Atlas of Beer, both co-written with Tim Webb. Stephen’s latest solo book is Will Travel for Beer: 101 Remarkable Journeys Every Beer Lover Should Experience, which will be published this spring. Follow him on Twitter @BeaumontDrinks BEST BEER & TRAVEL WRITER 2017 A few months ago, I found myself facing down a beer I hadn’t given a thought to for years, perhaps decades. It was billed an “English-Style Brown Ale,” but in the early days of Canadian craft brewing, back in the 1980s, I believe it was just a “dark ale,” or words to that effect. 10_Layout 1 12/02/2018 09:43 Page 1