From our point of view, an honest series of compelling craft beer ads during this year’s Super Bowl would have most definitely stood out among the mediocrity and made some form of impact.
As brewers strive to make “the world’s strongest beer,” should beers produced using unconventional methods like freeze distillation, aging in “wet” liquor barrels or cultivating super-yeast strains so they can power through sugar comas be considered “beer?”
Impress the hell out of everyone when you whip out bottles of intriguing beer, reel off brief explanations of what they are and share your liquid bread at the table. Fortify the ancestral tradition of feasting by complementing the food with beer.
It’s all too easy to forget that beer was meant to be enjoyed. In our opinion, it can often become way too business-centric, unnecessarily elite or just plain silly. Here are some pet-peeve instances of when beer is not beer.
Assuming we’d like to see the craft beer segment grow more than fractions of a percent against the market as a whole each year—and that’s a good year—craft beer shouldn’t be exclusive.
“Craft.” What the hell does it mean? We’ve been pondering its beery meaning for years now, and witnessing confusion among consumers on a daily basis. Why? No clear definition.
Personally, we agree the world could use more session beers (good ones, of course). We just don’t feel it’s necessary to bash extreme beers in order to achieve this.
Unless a beer event is paying for the beer and not charging booth fees, we ask all of you to not support it. Otherwise you’re attending an event that doesn’t support brewers and paying to drink free beer, while someone is getting fat off the proceeds.
We don’t mean any disrespect to any of the organizations who host competitions, nor are we questioning their judging methods, and we’re sure that their intentions are good, but do consumers really care about medals?
Not to be confused with the beer geek, who is simply super passionate about beer, the beer snob is stuck in the cycle, taking their passion too seriously and to a level that’s actually counterproductive to spreading the good word about beer.
Sorry, guys—while we dig a Leinie’s Red or High Life from time to time, we don’t buy that. Stop feeding the press these doom-and-gloom sound bites that only fuel the fire.
The growing trend by bars and restaurants to drop beers into 10–12-ounce glasses—and intentional short pours—is literally killing our chances of getting a proper red, white and blue 16-ounce pour of brew.
While the packing and aging of beer in wooden barrels isn’t a new concept, the past decade or so has witnessed a growing trend in brewers experimenting with oak-aging every beer style under the sun.