So…what styles or trends did you see in 2019?
Here in Wisconsin we saw more breweries open, filling in small cities and area. No real stylistic trends, Hazy IPA probably still king, but pretty much open for brewers to do what they want. Lager skills slowly but steadily increasing. Not many good Belgian style beers, as those seem to be falling back into obscurity…people know they like Citra and Mosaic…but don’t even really know what a Dubbel is. We don’t really see many imports any more as there are constant new local and national beers.
New Zealand hops on the rise. Always a geek favorite for sure, but I see them more and more in the beers I gravitate towards. Nelson Sauvin, Motueka, ect ect…loving them.
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‘Pastry sours’ are the big new trend for me. Increasingly many breweries are making sours with utterly absurd quantities of fruit of them along with lactose / vanilla / cinnamon etc., and the level of hype they generate is enormous so more and more breweries are joining in.
NYC has certain idiosyncrasies, driven in large part by high rent and limited space. Accordingly, barrel aging and the like is limited. In addition, because storage is limited, there is an impetus to have high turnover, which in turn leads to loads of short shelf like IPAs. As for styles, (i) pastry stouts are getting boozier (OH and Grimm are regularly putting out beers in excess of 12%), (ii) triple IPAs, I feel, are more common, (iii) unsustainably fruited pastry sours have definitely blown up (some with granola), and (iv) brut IPAs have rightly receded into the oblivion from whence they came.
With respect to breweries generally, I noticed that many NYC breweries are opening additional branches. OH has a Rochester location and is opening one in the DC area and one in Williamsburg. Threes has another tap room. Big Alice has a new barrel room. Finback is opening a new brewery very soon as well.
I’ve definitely noticed that I’ve seen, drunk (and enjoyed) quite a few more coffee beers in the last few weeks than I ever have. Maybe just a factor of the season but still sticks out as an anomaly to me.
With this White Claw fad hitting peak this Summer, I’ve noticed breweries hopping on the hard seltzer train.
Hard no, from me.
^^^^Definitely this. Otherwise didn’t see any major trends. A few new small town breweries popping up and trying to please people with craft pale lagers but otherwise, same old same around here.
