Swine City is definitely punk rock, but not for the reasons that the Enquirer wants you to think they are. It’s been nagging away in the back of my brain since the article that Matt Koesters wrote was published and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why – so I thought we could talk it out together.

Before we begin though – I encourage you to go read the article in question – advance warning – it’s behind a paywall… which is another article for another day. I also encourage you to head over to Fairfield, belly up at the Swine City bar and read this with a beer in hand (that’s a lot easier of a task).

If you want to know more about Swine City – make sure you also hit them up on social media – or you can read more here on the website!

Who Is Swine City On The Surface

The Enquirer isn’t all bad. They get the back story nailed down. Koesters tells about a young Dan Ebben, finding some beer and a wine making kit in the basement of a new home – and how he headed down a rabbit hole of experimentation, growth, improvement… and of crafting what he does.

They go on to showcase the feeling of the taproom, the murals on the wall – the amazing artwork in the bathrooms… the space outside. If you’re wanting to understand what it feels like to have a beer at Swine City – I’ve got nothing bad to say. I think they hit it right on the head, actually.

Heck… Koesters even drops a couple fun hints at what we can expect from the “next phase” of Swine City (did someone mention another taproom? I thought we were supposed to pretend that was only a rumor…) – like I said, though, the Enquirer isn’t all bad.

Modern Beer In Cincy, And How Swine Fits In

The article starts out with a mention of how exciting craft beer in Cincinnati is. Beautiful facilities, slick package artwork, and an adherence to traditional styles. It then goes on to explain that Swine City is Swine City because they don’t adhere to these “rules” that craft beer does. That they do it their own way.

Here’s where I have to call b.s. on the whole thing.

Swine City is beautiful. They have kept poking away at their packaging artwork to make it even more slick and effective than it was before. They have worked their butts off to make a taproom that is friendly to all, comfortable… exactly what they should be doing. To pretend that being “punk rock” is about ignoring all of that is wrong (in my very honest opinion).

Even bigger than that, though, pretending that Swine City somehow ignores all of the things that have made Craft Beer more accessible, approachable, and enjoyable to a large number of people is sort of offensive to me. These are some of the very things that from my outside perspective that Swine has worked really hard on over the years.

That Beer… The Pilsner

This is my biggest sticking point with the article in question. Matt Koesters writes:

If you were to distill Swine City down to a pint glass, it would be Easy Go, the brewery’s bohemian pilsner. A traditionalist might find the beer’s sweetness and lack of clarity to be off-putting, but it’s made the way Swine City founder Dan Ebben wants it. 

Cincinnati.com

Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I think Dan’s (and Kurt’s…) Pilsner misses a few things that make a Bohemian Pilsner what it’s “supposed” to be. That’s also ok, it doesn’t make it “bad”. I think if I sat down with Dan, though… which I did… he would say that their Pilsner is what it’s supposed to be. He might say that it is not just the way they want it to be, that it’s the way the style is supposed to be. (Again… I disagree, but that’s not the point).

Swine doesn’t do things differently because they’re some kind of punk rock black sheep of the family.

Swine works their butts off to try to do things the right way. They try to make it so that when you see a style up on their board, and you know that style… it fits. I think that when they make a beer “to style” they are trying to make it to style. I also think that when they decide they want to drift from a traditional style, they drift (and try to communicate that to their drinkers).

It’s not some “punk rock” ideal of never making a beer that fits into a mold that everyone else has decided. They simply make the beers that they want to make and try to do the best that they can with them.

If you think that a beer on the board does not represent what is written under it as a style name… that’s a whole other argument than it was “on purpose” because they wanted to do it that way. That’s not bucking a trend, that’s ignoring your customers, and setting them up for disappointment – something that I don’t think owner Dan Ebben would ever roll his eyes at.

Setting customers, new or old, up for anything other than a great time is not at all what Swine City hangs their hat on, (again… from my outside perspective).

Back To That Punk Rock Craft Thing

What is punk rock… what is craft beer? We could go around in circles for a week talking about these two questions, but I’ll save us the time, and just say what I think.

Punk Rock was (and is) a movement against excess. It’s about stripping down who you are to the core and owning it. It comes out in music, and it certainly comes out in attitude.

Craft beer? Craft is about working your skill to make something. Improving that skill and making it better every time you try again.

Does Swine City meet both of those definitions… yeah, I certainly think that they do. Maybe I’m a little defensive over craft beer, and perhaps even so a little bit over “punk rock” ideals – but I finished the article with a sour taste in my mouth. I felt like the Enquirer was saying that the reason that Swine was “punk” was because they ignored trends. I felt like they were following that up by saying that the trends that they were ignoring were things like beer-style guidelines, slick packaging, or beautiful taprooms…

That? I couldn’t disagree with that idea much more than I currently do. Every brewery should be striving to create the most beautiful space that they can to fit their personality. Their packaging should be the slickest it can possibly be to get the most folks to pick it up off a shelf, and their beer should not only taste the best it can, but it should be as easy to understand for customers as possible. That’s the craft.