Saturday, November 5, 2016

Tenuous Link?

It was big San Diego beer news this week when Cosimo Sorrentino abruptly resigned from his job as head brewer at Monkey Paw Pub and Brewery and South Park Brewing Co.  The West Coaster published an interview with Sorrentino after his announcement.  I thought the interview raised more questions than it answered.  This passage in particular had me wondering about a larger meaning and wanting specific examples:
I feel San Diego has crossed over to a new era in brewing. The community spirit is being fractured; too many breweries fighting over the same styles, following trends for profit, not enough quality staff to provide front-of-house service…and let’s not get into the distributor issues. This was inevitable and will not necessarily be a bad thing for those making or drinking beer. San Diego beer will get better and those that succeed will benefit from the competition!
I want to know what Sorrentino defined as the new era and what triggered it.   And what does he mean by breaking the community spirit?  He ends the quote with the following statement: "San Diego beer will get better and those that succeed will benefit from the competition!"  His optimistic opening contradicts his previous statements, and the sentence ends with an ominous warning about breweries not surviving. Wow, there are deep levels of implications in that quote. 

This brings me to my tenuous link.  I have said before that breweries that make good beer will survive.  I will qualify that to say that good beer will go a long way to help a brewery survive.  Recently, I tried an awful beer from a local brewery I am not going to name.  It was a Belgian Pale Ale with Rose.  It had no Belgian yeast influence and no taste of Rose.  It was just a crappy, tepid paleish ale of some sort  Brewing and selling bad beers like this is going to put pressure on all breweries.  The craft beer craze has matured and people will not stand for subpar beers, there are too many other choices.  It made me think that there is something to Sorrentino's claim about too many breweries battling over the same style and a fractured community spirit.  I would add that some breweries are fighting with defective weapons.

3 comments:

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