“Modern beer consumers are grazers; they’re always looking for something new,” says Lester Koga of San Francisco’s Barebottle Brewing. His sentiment is shared by many brewers with whom I spoke about the commercial realities of today’s brewery tasting rooms.
Long gone are the days that a brewpub could thrive on the strength of its core lineup of a pale ale, an amber ale, and an Irish stout. Today’s beer fans demand an ever-shifting menu of disparate flavors. But we all have that one friend or loved one who—try as we might to get them on board the haze train, join the pils parade, or at least try that totally “not-beery” kettle sour—is just not that into beer.
Koga doesn’t want those drinkers to go thirsty at Barebottle; he wants them to be excited about being in the tasting room, too. “It’s a fun case to tackle,” he says. “If we can’t get them to like beer, we want to give them something to drink.”