I’ve just seen that 5 of the last 6 beers I’ve rated are all brewery collaborations.
when I were a lad that didn’t happen. breweries were very keen on keeping their own identity.
Do you like collabs? Do you seek them out? Do you think they work?
Often they are one off brews never to be repeated so sometimes they don’t get the chance to get the recipe right. Sometimes they are amazing and you never see it again.
What are your thoughts?
I’ve mixed feelings on them for the same reasons you point out. Almost all are one-offs and many of them I’ve absolutely loved but it’s extremely rare for them to be rebrewed, granted, I usually only drink beers I’ve not had before but there are occasions where I wish I could drink a one-off I loved once again.
And then some just don’t work but you feel like if they kept brewing it they’d be able to refine it.
I actually brought it up in a stat twat thread last year after RB did the “My 2017” thing and I saw that “collaboration” was my most common tag. It’s crazy how commonplace they are these days. I feel like a good 25% or more of beers I drink are collabs.
In general I like them though. I love when two big name brewers collaborate (e.g. Cloudwater x Verdant) and I also like when a collaboration takes place between a brewer I like and a brewer who is either a) new to me or b) foreign. It’s a good opportunity to introduce yourself to something new whilst retaining a little familiarity.
Collabs I don’t usually bother with (at least when buying cans/bottles) are ones that are between 2 or more breweries I don’t know anything about.
All brewers seems to be best friends and “just have to do a collab” What I really dislike, is those stupid long beer names. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried many great collab beers from Northern Monk, but the names, Jesus…
What’s wrong with a simple name, easy to remember? 20 letters are more than enough!
Rallkattlia Gaardsbryggeri / 59N11E Korumdalen Brewery & Farming / The Flying Dutchman Nomad Brewing Company Double Dry Hopped Black IPA - Tonka & Kopi Luwak Insane Mudcake Biscuit Bruichladdich Barrel Aged 2018 Edition with Kveik and Junipers.
Just a beer I made up 
Hate those long hipster names.
Guys, anything that keeps craft beer moving forward. Craft brewers have always tended to have too much fun; it’s part of their makeup. Collaborations are just one aspect of a universe of an incredible number of stars.
You’ve all hit most of my key points why I like and dislike collabs. One that I’ve seen in the states is the ability to slide into a market that otherwise you’ll never had seen them. My main example is Anchorage and Tired Hands. Gabe and Jean are great friends, they’ve done multiple collabs over the years. Last year Anchorage Brewing started making Alien Church, a mainstay of Tired Hands, which now pretty much gets people in the Alaska market wanting more Tired Hands beers. The same thing has happened with Hill Farmstead beers and grassroots labeled that Gabe and Shaun have done.
I’ll also throw in that when I got there in 2012 we only had distribution from within Alaska, few larger companies and west coast craft (Cali, Oregon and Washington). Now when I left we were getting Founders, Boulevard (before buyout), and other mid to east coast. Think this is opened up a bit by collabs.
I don’t really seek them out as such, but you are right that there are so many out there right now. It seems pretty common now for allot of UK and US brewers to come over here and collab with our local breweries so inevitably will encounter them when out and about, from memory some of the best collabs for this year have been with Deya, Wylam, The Veil, Modern Times.
Talking off collabs, anyone happen to know the record of a single collab beer with the most brewers? Think this years Dry & Bitter Danish collab with 23 breweries must be pretty high up the list 
Cool, insane but also stupid…
Yep, it’s cool and crazy, but you have to wonder what the individual brewers are even doing in cases like that, are there really 23+ people standing around each throwing a handful of hops in or whatever? At that point it seems purely marketing/networking rather than brewing. And yes I know collabs are partly for that reason anyway, which is arguably a good thing in general, but at some point it gets a bit silly when there’s more than 2-4 different breweries involved.
This was a total guess. I wanted to get an idea of what the actual figure was and I just counted 26 collabs in my last 100 ratings. Mental.
Most collabs are just the equivalent of international royal marriages back in the middle ages, they’re more political than actually done out of love.
Cynical, but I suspect accurate.
In what way Phil? Most brewers I’ve met are more than happy to collab with like minded people.
And how so “political”?
I’m not disagreeing, I just don’t understand your comment without further clarification.
Again, there may be something I am missing. Or a secret everyone knows other than me. I am particularly optimistic. Can you explain or clarify why it’s a political thing?
Early on I used to actively go for collaborations but it has all become pretty boring now, in fact when it comes to choosing I would go for just a home grown beer rather than a Collab as it can be a pain to get to the bottom of some of them, which brewery where the brewing took place etc.
Whoa, why has a slice of cake appeared next to my user name on here? Someone suggesting that I’m an over eater? I don’t even eat cake.
I’ll have it. I like cake. I might even rate it…
I would say that marketing plays a large role here, but then if I was a brewer I’d probably want to hang out with my mates at other breweries and brew beer with them, so it’s hard for me to be too cynical about them.
Can’t say I have any strong feelings on them either way, but I’d probably make the most effort to seek out beers brewed with hype US breweries, for e.g. I tried a couple of the Finback collaborations that came out recently with Hackney and Northern Monk. One of my favourite ever beers is Chubbles, brewed by CW/Veil.
Both parties being more than happy participating in no way precludes there being a /quid pro quo/ aspect to the deal. These things are usually not about the single beer being brewed, but something larger and forward looking. It’s an opportunity. It’s marketting.
And so this is bad because…
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