What’s with this craft beer craze?

Are beards gone yet?

Man-buns?

I think it ended in most places. The problem with craft beer is all the disgusting, heavy flavors.

It's going strong here in Los Angeles and the suburbs. Breweries keep popping up everywhere. IPAs are the name of the game in Southern CA.

It is everywhere. I dislike it, only because I don't really care for beer. If it was craft cider or craft whiskey, I'd get excited. I love the legal moonshine distilleries that are in some areas.

Its 10 years old, at least.

Remember the black lesbian who was super pissed off no deplorable hipsters in her redneck town wanted her expensive lezzie craft beer?

R5 is right — at LEAST five years in the US.

I have no interest in it but I assume it's a way to break the big brewer's monopoly stranglehold on retailers.

Just like the 1951 court case which broke MGM's monopoly stranglehold on small picture theatres.

The wine crazy is over because there been a few very bad years of wines. This is going to get worse because of Climate Change. Americans love alcohol, so there is money in it.

Some of them are good. But there are a lot of people who don't really know what they're doing. The market is oversaturated in general.

I've been seeing a lot more local liquor distilleries as well.

[quote] I assume it's a way to break the big brewer's monopoly stranglehold on retailers

BAH!

Craft beers are twice the price or more, than the "big brewers."

Talk about a stranglehold.

All Millennials are untreated alcoholics. They drink every dingle day. They'll all be in rehab someday, with liver transplants.

What about hard alcohol? When I was a kid in usa - 60s, 70s, grown ups drank cocktails and straight up whisky and bourbon, schnapps, grappa, sherry and port.

Well, like anything else, you don’t just buy something because it’s “craft beer” and assume it’s going to be amazing. There are sites you can go to in order to get a rating of the beers, to see if the craft beer is really worth buying, or just a ripoff. Almost every brewery’s output is rated by multiple beer sites, like beeradvocate.

Microbrews were a thing in the mid- late 90s, then it faded and now it's been back for a few years full force. I travel a lot for work and it's a thing everywhere. Doesn't bother me as I like beer.

I noticed 2 end caps in the supermarket yesterday, of craft sodas. Non alcoholic soda. It was 2.50-4 bucks a bottle or can. I mean, really! The middle class supermarket not some fancy food shop.

Craft beer is everything here in Minnesota. I enjoy trying new flavors and seeing the different styles of breweries though there are a bazillion now. It's really just something to do. I love sours, ciders, and lighter beer.

Millennial beer.

People have been crafting beer for 5,000 years so I'm pretty this craze will continue.

As far as the modern craft beer movement, The Boston Beer Company's iconic Sam Adams was rolled out 35 years ago in 1984 and was the driving force in small batch beer crafting. We're 35 years into this craze now.

We have many breweries here and more every year. A few have closed, but not many. We also are getting a few craft distilleries, cideries and a couple of meaderies. I like craft beer and many of the breweries produce really good beer.

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Craft beer is a way for people to pretend they're not alcoholics.

If you guzzle grocery store beer like Coors or Budweiser, you're a derelict. If you guzzle craft beers made by bearded hipsters in a charming converted barn, you have a "hobby."

I don't see where all the animosity is coming from. I should think more Americans would respect the entrepreneurial aspect of these craft brewers and micros. I'm not hostile to people considering their love of beer or wine to be a sort of hobby. FFS, we all need to love something in this life, more power to them. Seems quite harmless, and I'm not buying "they're all drunks" from the Carrie Nation sorts.

You have to understand that DLers just like to hate on stuff. No one really cares that there's a craft beer craze.

R22 Exactly. It’s such a joke. And you pay twice as much for this “special” beer.🙄

R24 Yet you responded to the topic...

Beer is disgusting.

R27 drinks White Claw.

R22 Is just back from coffee after a meeting.

I like craft beers, but it's amusing how lots of people try to pretend they don't have a problem because craft beer is their "hobby."

So are you saying that the two alcoholics portrayed in East Siders are real life? That Williamson made them alcoholics because hipsters are mostly alcoholics?

The backlash is similar to the kind directed to those who seek out gourmet, artisan, or organic foods IMHO. A sort of reverse snob mentality. Though the Carrie Nation types clearly have their own issues. It's best to only count one's own beers or drinks.

Beer is a good drink for young people who move around a lot. Its quite bloating. But how fun was getting trashed on beer in HS and College, and no bloat! I prefer wine or straight hard liquor. Dry champagne only has calories mostly from alcohol, as with whisky. Beer gives calories from carbs and protein, in addition to alcohol.

Are you kidding? "Craft beer" has been around since the late 80's early 90s.

It is the same in Manhattan and in hipster areas of Brooklyn and Queens, There is a guy near me that sells craft beers on draft rotating from breweries in Massachusetts to Upstate New York and in Brooklyn and Queens. They are delicious and interesting tasting. Because they are craft, they don't have preservatives and the brewers are very selective and precise about the grains and fermentation process. Craft beers have been part of European history for at least 1,000 years because they were safer to drink than water, like wine in the Mediterranean and Persian regions.

All beer tastes like piss no matter how you try to fancy it up.