It’s definitely a lot more intensive in terms of quality. When I got here, we had issues. I remember one day, a couple of months after starting at Oskar Blues, I was on a forum, back when forums were actually a thing, and somebody started a thread about Dale’s Pale Ale. Then somebody just put a picture of someone eating popcorn, and the comments flooded in. Back then, the beer had the wrong kind of reputation. We’ll always listen to critique, but these days we’re our number one critic thanks to our sensory panel and the analysis we do.

Thanks to our processes, we can tell when something’s not OK. The problem that happens 0.1% of the time when you're brewing a small amount is that the more and more you brew, that 0.1% gradually becomes more, and that’s a problem. Take a look at Schlitz back in the '80s—it took a few instances of snowglobe beers and all of a sudden they were out of business. Well, that and an affair and some embezzlement, too, but the quality drop-off was a major aspect of that. It did not take many instances of bad beer to create a disaster, and then all of a sudden they were gone. The biggest brewing company in the U.S. for a long time, and then AB stepped in and took over.

My role has changed into keeping up with that 0.1% and making sure it doesn’t happen. I’m the guy that says we must do this and this and this and this, so I’m kind of the "yes" guy while at the same time being the "no, we can’t continue to do this anymore" guy. If we can get better, and we want to get better, we will, because craft brewing is about your expression. We could easily put tasting panels across the entire country and let a huge amount of the population determine the best thing to brew. If you do that, guess what science will tell you? Light Lager. But that’s not craft beer, [craft beer] is the brewer making an impression using brewing as their art and saying, “Here’s what I make, take it as it is.”

I still personally respond to all the quality issues, I don’t know how much longer that will last if I’m being realistic. Eventually we’re gonna start getting way more than I can handle, but right now that’s still the case. You can’t please ‘em all, but you should never discount somebody’s opinion.