If Beer Twitter didn’t love to talk about hard seltzers so much, I don’t think I would notice them anymore.
When seltzers started becoming big and trending and we started seeing big ends of them at the grocery store and it was White Claw Summer and all that, yes, I noticed.
But now, seltzers blend into the background for me.
I can still get all the same Indie Beer I could before the seltzer boom. The taps are mostly the same. The part of the shelf I look at for beer in the grocery store, looks the same.
Although I think the Big Beer section looks like it has more seltzers and less beer, but I really don’t know.
So, what is the fuss?
Lot's of side conversations, but I'm going to leave you with this tonight. Professional brewing is a business. That means you need to make money. That also means that you are going to have to make things you don't like.
Make that money. Whatever it takes for a brewery to stay Indie and open is cool by me.
Have a new seltzer release every week. Be like Humble Sea is with their beers and slightly change one ingredient and call it a brand new name and slap a new label on it every week! Go for it.
As long as I can still get all the Craft Beer I want, have your fun with your seltzers. Just keep making beer and putting on the shelves is all I ask.
I don’t really know that I truly live in the suburbs.
Geographically I am in the middle of the city. My neighborhood is 70 years old. Can that still be called “the suburbs”?
I had always thought of the suburbs as like, the small towns and track homes around the city as the real suburbs.
Well anyway, I live in a house that 60 years ago, was the edge of town. So … vintage suburbs then.
Which finally leads me to: Do we drink differently in the suburbs? Are beer trends the same as the core of the city? What about people out in the country?
Do I drink more living where I am at? Less? ANY difference than if I lived in a loft downtown?
Maybe.
A different part of the city might be closer to taprooms or breweries. Another has basic liquor stores. Out in the boonies you have a small country market.
That would have to make a difference, right?
I feel like I drink more grocery store beer than anybody in a different part of the city or countryside.
Are styles used differently? More Lagers out in the boonies? More Stouts in track homes?
Yeah but there’s nothing worse than an old IPA, especially a hazy.
I currently have the space for them. They may not taste good but they are still beer. And I don’t have an infinite beer budget and sometimes run out BUT still really want a beer.
And sometimes a dude will show up and just want beer and not care how old they are.
Well, I guess I’ll keep them around then. Since I have the space for them at the moment.
Glad I worked that “problem” out here.
If I only live bed in a place that snowed and I needed to save parking spots, my problem would be solved here: