Looks like Little Fish recently collaborated with Yellow Springs Brewery on a...lager. Anyone had a chance to try it out? I’m overdue for a visit to Yellow Springs.
Yellow Springs makes nice beer. I always enjoy that town and tasting their stuff at Ohio Brew Week. I haven't tried this one but suspect it's good.
To get back to the debate on styles, at the risk of sounding like a politician, no one is really wrong. You like what you like and there is something for everyone. A few notes on the local breweries, in my nominally educated opinion...
All three Athens breweries are good, and they all do certain things well above average. Whether you like them or not speaks more to personal preference than anything else. That's because they all approach brewing with a different philosophy, as evidenced by their flagship beers.
The biggest seller at Jackie O's is Mystic Mama, a west coast IPA. They are big enough to make a lot of different styles though, and they make something for everyone. Their barrel-aged program is excellent. They don't make many lagers, but Ricky is an ale that drinks like a light lager with the low ABV and IBU to go along with it.
Little Fish's flagship is Saison du Poisson. A flagship saison is really, really, really rare. Saisons are funky, farmhouse styles that don't appeal to everyone. The taste delivers a bit of barnyard, which some people love but others hate. Little Fish does funky stuff really well. This includes an array of sours, coolship-made beers and Belgian styles. But they are not a one-trick pony. They make a really great stout and their pilsener is tasty when available.
Devil's Kettle has Spider Silk as its flagship. An easy drinking beer, it's also unusual as a flagship because it's an imperial blonde that packs 7% - deceptively smooth. But it fits with the philosophy there, as it's a classic European style. Cameron does all kinds of lagers really, really well. All kinds of awesome European brews executed true to style.
As to the debate on which is better, that's up to you. They all know how to make beer well, but each may be your favorite for a different reason. It says nothing about their talent as brewers. Put another way, you can't say Jacques Pepin sucks at cooking just because you don't like French food.
One last note on lagers. In a way, they are harder to make than ales. Big macros are mostly lagers and they have it down to a literal factory science. But for small breweries, lagers can be tricky for two big reasons. First and foremost, they take more time -- lager roughly means "to store" in German. They need temperature-controlled time to mature - as much as two months. And lager yeast is fussy - if the temperature is not right, it will result in off flavors. Some ales can be made and served in a couple of weeks, and ale yeast is not that sensitive to temperature. So less time, more ease and less requirement of specialized equipment for ale. Ale yeast also makes it easier to hide "off" flavors, and there is much less room for error with lagers. Throw in the public perception that lagers = crappy macros, and craft brewers have little incentive to make lagers. That's changing, but slowly.
Last Edited: 6/16/2019 12:46:02 PM by Recovering Journalist