Is it just me, or are artisan-produced products often a bit, well, rubbish?

Beer: I like IPA. I’ve bought a few boxes of beer from craft breweries but they’re mostly insipid and uninteresting. I know I’m not supposed to admit it, but I quite like BrewDog, and I can buy that in Tesco.

Coffee: Occasionally I’ll buy a bag from a local roaster, or mail-order from one of the better-known English roasters. I’ve never had a bag I wasn’t a bit disappointed with, ranging from flavourless to overly burnt or just impossible to dial in. Meanwhile, Lavazza red is totally fine.

I’m sure there are other examples. Am I right? Or do I have unsophisticated tastes?

That’s a very subjective question, but IMHO it’s you.

To me Brewdog tastes of chemically produced mass produced artisan beer (exception, Elvis Juice I like). Way better beers also on the Tesco shelves, as well as from small local breweries. IMHO

Lavazza Red is totally drinkable and many locally roasted offerings taste crap, but that’s a bit like trying one red wine once and then discarding all others. Many different types and roasts and …… have a look at James Hoffmann

NB, while it’s you, you’re not wrong. If it’s what you like, go ahead.

No, I think you are right in a lot of cases.

We got a Christmas hamper from work this year that was full of handmade this & artisan that. I looked it up online (obviously) and it was retailing for £99.

There were a couple of things that were really good in it, but the rest was distinctly meh.
The worst was some handmade chocolates that looked really nice, but tasted of…..hmmmm, virtually nothing.

I’ve often wondered the same about my tastes. Maybe I’m not high brow enough to appreciate the subtle nuances?! Or maybe it’s mostly just marketing bollocks?!

I can’t stand Lavazza Red, Tesco Finest Sumatra is much nicer.

I really like the beer from Mad Squirrel but can’t stand some of the other local brews.

artisan means a lot of different things though. It can mean better ingredients, or it might mean it was produced locally, or hand crafted. I quite like getting locally produced things as it means less air miles and a more direct, understandable supply chain.

Doesn’t necessarily mean it tastes nicer than something that has flown round the world 8 times though.

Lavazza Red is totally drinkable and many locally roasted offerings taste crap

This was the first thing came to my mind. But it’s totally down to the individual. Artisanal is likely to mean “niche” rather than everyone will like it.

Artisanal seems to mean zero quality control, so while it may be the best coffee/sourdough/beer etc you had today, there is absolutely no guarantee it’ll be the same tomorrow.

I’ve had a fair share of crappy artisinal stuff. Often gifted, but most disappointingly, purchased.

Meat from a trendy butcher, to whom I irrationally continued to give the benefit of the doubt, was frequently poor. Products were on the verge of being off on the day bought, scrag ends punted out as premium and lousy, chewy steak was a particular horror.

Tesco Finest is incredibly consistent by comparison, and far better value.

But matey is presumably running a tiny butchers and can’t really afford to have the quality control that Tesco can turn on in an instant, nor their business model to reduce waste and overheads.

Likewise, have been gifted artisinal tea bags which are basically tiny linen sacks full of sticks. They have no tea flavour, just the overpowering aroma of whatever flavourings came out of a bottle bought from Amazon. Horrific.

By contrast, some of the best ham I’ve ever tasted was knocked out by some bloke from a wooden shed high in the hills of Corsica, miles from anywhere. And a local coffee shop bakes its own cakes to perfection daily. I’m a regular as a result.

It’s a minefield. Big corps have access to R&D worth millions, plus cash to fund production lines that knock out perfect products every time. But they lose the individual-ness that made the original products so popular.

I think the answer is ‘it depends’

I too like IPA. I’ve had some small batch brews that are absolutely delicious and other which are decidedly mediocre to my tastes. I am fortunate enought to have Black Iris brewery just up the road and they brew many a beer to my tastes. I can also buy Vocation beers from tesco – I often buy them direct through as I think they are a great middle ground brewer – small enough to stay interesting but big enough to be cheap in tesco.

Coffee. Oh I’ve had some expensive crap and right now I get on really well with Sainsburys colombian beans – really nice for not a lot of money. I don’t think I get even twice the flavour out of a bag three times the cost – certainly not for a ‘daily brew’

(exception, Elvis Juice I like).

Even after they changed the recipie? I found it took on the same insipid taste as clockwork orange which was very disappointing, it used to be incredible.

Fancy pickles and chutney, always watery

Round here eating the saucisson sec which has been produced by artisans is a bit risky unless your gut bacteria have been used to it for years. Factory stuff is completely safe.

Artisanal seems to mean zero quality control, so while it may be the best coffee/sourdough/beer etc you had today, there is absolutely no guarantee it’ll be the same tomorrow.

Worked with someone who had a stint in the marketing department of a small brewer. They had one main product line and then everything else was a “special edition” – essentially everything that didn’t turn out like it should, got a new label made for it and marketed at a premium.

exception, Elvis Juice I like

Even after they changed the recipie?

Good question, I’ve barely drunk at all this last year, and when I have Elvis Juice has not been on the list given I had a bit of a Brewdog ‘falling out’ over the staff scandal. So I’d probably rather not test that out, I’ll go with your info.

Anything similar from someone else I should try instead?

They had one main product line and then everything else was a “special edition” – essentially everything that didn’t turn out like it should, got a new label made for it and marketed at a premium.

I think this is part of the issue – a larger scale producer will likely have more consistent processes so you are less like to get batch-to-batch variation like you would with an art is anal producer.

I too like Brewdog but Hazy Jane or Layer Cake would be my tipples of choice.

It’s a very interesting discussion. In terms of steak, I find Aldi very hard to better. We have a local farm shop which raises and butchers it’s own livestock and I find the steaks to be very variable in quality.

I think the answer is ‘it depends’

This ^^^^^

Obviously anyone can call anything artisan it’s not a protected term. Sometimes it just means amateurish. Sometimes it’s still applied to businesses that started out independently making stuff by hand using finest ingredients and now make mediocre stuff en masse in a factory owned by inbev.

However it can mean someone super nerdy/passionate about what they do making stuff with care and attention out of the best materials/ingredients they can find.

I don’t mind a Punk IPA but life is more interesting when you can go to a place and get stuff that isn’t easily available in every shop from my local corner shop to a supermarket in Dubai.

‘Artisanal’ is not a protected term. I’m not even sure it was a word before about ten years ago tbh.

There are some good small indie coffee shops near me, but also some terrible ones. Being a small independent is no guarantee of quality. Large chains often start out as small independents and become large chains because they are good.

Meat from a trendy butcher, to whom I irrationally continued to give the benefit of the doubt, was frequently poor.

This – I used to buy my Christmas turkey from our local butcher and it was nothing special with one year being particularly dreadful. I just get mine from Aldi now – a third of the price and I have never been disappointed.

What I often find with artisanal products is the sheer absurdity of the pricing. A tiny block of cheese for £3.50. Or three tiny blocks of cheese for £10. Handcrafted gin for £35. No thanks.

Most stuff from “farmers’ markets” TBH.

Not that I’ve been to one for years.

Depends who the ‘artisan’ is. There’s a world of average beer still being made in this country under the new banner of ‘local/craft/artisan’. Some people make good beer, some don’t.

Bread, there are a couple of bakeries round here I’d rate, one is French and really helped get me interested in bread again, they are amazing. There’s another whose sourdough is decidedly sour and underwhelming.

There’s a butchers shop on a farm locally, the guy is great and always asks what you are doing with the meat and suggests alternatives if he doesn’t have what you wanted originally, the meat is lovely. There’s nothing fancy or marketed about this place though, it’s just a shop on a farm.

As for coffee, well it might just be that you can’t brew to get the best out of it, but I got a batch from a place recommended on here a while back, I’ve had loads of good coffee from them, but there was nothing I could do to make a drinkable cup with this coffee.

It’s like anything, look for the stuff you like, leave the stuff you don’t.

Handcrafted gin for £35.

Now there’s a scam and a half. Most ‘craft’ gins etc aren’t actually made by the people selling them, they’ve just bought in spirits and added some flavourings, which is fine, but they aren’t upfront about this and are then charging the same as a single malt whisky which has had to age for 7 years or whatever.

Small independents are also sometimes just an entrepreneurial sort looking to cash in on a trend.

Might need to remortgage before going but I’ve never been disappointed:

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What I often find with artisanal products is the sheer absurdity of the pricing.

Some stuff yes but supermarkets have got us hooked on cheap food. How much should things cost when they have been grown sustainably and picked/processed by people being paid a fair wage etc?

I think a lot of people fancy giving up an office job and becoming a maker of something (gin/bread/coffee etc) and as it’s a small setup they call it artisanal but it’s often fairly average IMO (but this all depends on your Idea of nice).

I quite like baking(and eating) so enjoy finding a good bakery but I find a lot of them are decidedly average, this could be down to me having high standards (a lot of people must find Mr Kipling tasty but not for me) or that being slightly better than average is all you need to keep afloat. I often read reviews of bakeries being great and visit them to find mediocrity.

Some stuff yes but supermarkets have got us hooked on cheap food. How much should things cost when they have been grown sustainably and picked/processed by people being paid a fair wage etc?

I do agree with that to an extent, but there has to be some value for money and the claim ‘when they have been grown sustainably and picked/processed by people being paid a fair wage etc’ is often not substantiated (or even claimed) by the sellers.

I thought everyone knew that artisanal was just a by word for expensive and not very good?

Bread, there are a couple of bakeries round here I’d rate, one is French and really helped get me interested in bread again, they are amazing.

Not Maison Clément? My French teacher is always raving about their cakes…

Yeah, can’t say I’d ever buy an artisanal IPA, cos IPA is foul. I prefer beer.
Don’t drink coffee.
Anything else is overpriced (ie. I can’t afford it)

The thing about small breweries is there’s basically 3 ways to do it

1) be uninteresting and middle of the road and try and get in supermarkets
2) be interesting and unusual which at this point mostly means horrible, since there’s so much beer to there. Carrot and uranium flavour.
(3) Gluten free or vegan.

And of course it’s an IPA because IPA is super easy to make but sounds fancier than lager. Just like gin- anyone can make gin, all you need is a credit card, a bucket and a stick.

So yeah, at this point it’s almost self-fulfilling that most are crap.

Troll thread of the decade 😆 Coffee, beer,cheese and even the local butchers. Well done, you’ve included all of us, and should get a fair old singsong 😆

My artisinal milk shake is better than yours!

How much should things cost when they have been grown sustainably and picked/processed by people being paid a fair wage etc?

But how much would that fair wage have to increase so the people on it could afford to buy the food?

Not arguing for low wages/costs but it’s a complex area.

Bought some Kimchi & sauerkraut off a chap at the Hexam market last month – definitely not cheap. Kimchi was OK, sauerkraut was closer to elderly coleslaw than sourkraut.

Had the MiL staying at the time who grew up making sauerkraut out of neccessity – she was outraged both at the taste and the price. The good quality stuff you get in baltic or polish shops is night and day nicer and about 20% of the price. The polish stuff morrisons sell is actually very passable.

My brother in law gave us a large cheddar from Cheddar. Looked the part, tasted like rancid old trainers. It was massive as well. Had to say something as I didn’t want it to become a yearly waste of money. This year my sister bought us some beer from an East Lothian based brewer. One of the beers, I say beer in the loosest sense of the word, was undrinkable. All style and no substance. Luckily we have Crossborders Beer just down the road from us who are very good.

Now there’s a scam and a half. Most ‘craft’ gins etc aren’t actually made by the people selling them, they’ve just bought in spirits and added some flavourings, which is fine, but they aren’t upfront about this and are then charging the same as a single malt whisky which has had to age for 7 years or whatever.

I like the Sicilian blood orange gin made by Jensens in Bermondsey, they only sell it at the distillery and you can see the still and the huge tubs they steep the oranges and gin in and they only make it when they can get the oranges.

nothing else i have tasted comes close, Gordons, Tanquery, Malfy etc. there might be others that could potentially cut the mustard but all those i have tried taste weak and artificial and i’m not taking a £30 risk if i try something else labeled ‘artisanal’

Tonic is another example but going the other way, mass produced fever tree is great, i bought some ‘London Essence bitter orange and elderflower tonic and its weak piss water that tastes of nothing.
says on the tin: “specialists in the art and alchemy of taste”
my arse are they.

Back onto Brewdog. I got a couple of mixed boxes last Christmas and by god, the Zombie Cake is undrinkable. Foul stuff and I can’t drink it.

Don’t drink beer but I’ve had some stunning ” Artisan” cheese which, in my opinion, is well worth the extra money .

I think a lot of people fancy giving up an office job and becoming a maker of something (gin/bread/coffee etc) and as it’s a small setup they call it artisanal but it’s often fairly average IMO (but this all depends on your Idea of nice).

This is often the problem…….Lawrence was an account manager at a global nut and bolt manufacturer but got burnt out by the corporate bollox. Lawrence followed his dream of making cheesecakes in his potting shed. Lawrence’s previous career has allowed him to develop a contemporary website and a high profile social media presence which is very attractive. Unfortunately Lawrence’s love of cheesecake prior to setting up the business was largely involved in consuming it and had previously never cooked anything more adventurous than a jacket spud. Lawrence makes a shit cheesecakes but styles it out with his awesome insta posts.

It’s that A word that is a complete load of twaddle. Why not just call it cheese? Of course, if cyou did some dimwit wouldn’t pay twice its va;ue for it.

Actually, most gins in the UK aren’t compounded (i.e just neutral alcohol mixed with flavourings) but are re-distilled with the flavourings. So it’s slightly more complicated, but not that difficult. I don’t really rate it as a process, especially as a commercially trained whisky distiller (i.e. mash, ferment, distil twice, barrel maturation).
It’s not a million miles away from Skittles vodka.

I was also trained as a commercial brewer, though did come in to it from the homebrew/craft beer side.
I agree that there is often a huge lack of process control in “craft” brewing and I see the advertising of “small batch” brews as meaning you’re too useless to do it again.

However, there is a sweet spot where science/art/marketing/commercial existence come together to make something great. Hopefully that’s my shed.