Beer recommendations for Wine snobs.

I'd still say the Supplication would be a good bet, but as someone else mentioned, a Flanders Oud Bruin might be a good choice - http://beeradvocate.com/lists/style/52

La Folie, Goudeband, the Dissident.

Report back with the result of your experiment.

 

Personally, I would try to avoid beers that had wine-notes to them. A wine lover may just reason that a full glass of wine is simply better than such beers (and thus leave without fully appreciating what great beers have to offer).

Serious wine lovers seem to appreciate bold tastes such as tannins, astringency, some booziness, woodiness, tart fruits, and if they also enjoy cofee and chocolate, alkaloids.

So maybe try beers that highlight some of these bold flavors. Maybe a great coffee stout like Stone Espresso, or a fruity DIPA like Lake Erie Monster, or a banced one with slight woody & boozy flavors like Burton Baton?

Unlike most others here, I actually think beer is better on it's own and doesn't pair with food as well as wine does. So I'd do the beer tasting without food.

 

Chimay GR
Rochefort - any of them
La Trappe Quad
Westmalle Dubel
Westy of course
St. Bernardus - all of them

American brewers
Ommegang 3 Philosophers
Boulevard 6th Glass

Any beer that is big and complex with out any of the, I hate to use this word but, harsher/bigger beer flavors such as, dark roasted esspresso, hops, brett and sour.

 

Basic crafts like SNPA Anchor Steam ect.

 

Dogfish Head 61

 

a nice lambic, or a belgian would be a perfect beer for wine drinkers. First one that comes to mind for me is Brooklyn Sorachi Ace. It is very similar to champaign. We have a beer in Michigan, I know it doesnt do much good for you, called Short's Soft Parade. It is a high gravity ale thats been aged with berries. When I go to the bar with non beer drinkers, I recommend Soft Parade and most people enjoy it.

 

There's a few good named beers thus far.

We'd recommend

Dogfish Head's Palo Santo Marron... Its really rich
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10099/33832
Or If you want something High end:
Allagash Victoria Ale
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/4/30174
Allagash Victor Ale

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/4/37206

 

Lambic, gueuze, American Wild Ale's, wine barrel aged beers, etc.

Rosso e Marrone from Captain Lawrence is a good choice that I didn't see mentioned yet.

 

Personally I don;t think anything you bring will please them. My wife is a wine drinker, she thinks beer is disgusting.

 

That's OK--she can have her white zinfandel

 

Avec le bon vue, Saison Rue, roll the dice with Fantome, Saison-Brett (if you can get it) or another saison that features brett (just don't give them the brett before their fancy wine)
Palo Santo for the novel wood note
An english barleywine like JW Lees - big and complex, pairs with things that big reds pair with so you can do a head to head
Parabola - complex and blended in part by wine guys in a red growing region
Allagash Curieux - fantastic beer and you can catch some of the liquor drinkers with it
Rochefort 10 - amazing and complex, also you get to flex some knowledge about trappist brewing while you pour the beer

Lots of people are going to say sours but be careful. You want something with depth of flavor, not just sour punch. The RR sours are a great choice but I'd reserve my good flanders ales until I saw how they reacted to the RR stuff. And go for one with a fair amount of wood. Rodenbach would be my pick.

 

Need to know more about their wine preferences, not just that they are snobs or that they drink $100 bottles.

However, the answer might be "none". If I could spend $100/bottle on all my wines, I doubt I would drink much beer at all. The bargain hunt for stellar wines that are cheap is a royal PITA, whereas (happily for me) the same isn't so for beer. I can drink the best beers available on a modest budget, whereas I cannot drink the best wines available for anywhere near the same $.

 

If I could afford to buy $100/bottle on wine, I'd buy a large "cellar" and stock it with a bunch of $20-25 wines. The rest can be spent on comparably priced beer

 

Duchesse du Bourgogne
Rodenbach Grand Cru
Petrus Barrel Aged Red
St. Bernardus Abt 12
Trappistes Rochefort 8, 10
Chimay Blue
Delirium Tremens
Mikkeller Monk's Brew (wine barrel aged w/ raspberries)
Thomas Hardy's
JW Lee's Vintage Harvest Ale

I would generally avoid flavor profiles that are extreme, such as geuze, lambic, RIS, IPA/DIPA, etc. Oenophiles tend to appreciate subtleties and are averse to very extreme characteristics in general.

 

Honestly just because they are "wine snobs" does not make it easy to decide what beer to drink. I love wine and have a cellar of over 300 bottles of all varieties and my favorite beer style is BA Stout. So I would provide a few different styles to try.

 

IPA's. I drink both wine and beer and have hung out with both kind of snob. Anyway. Part of the attraction of being a serious "wino" is feeling like the smartest person in the room. That isn't just a Red. It's a Huge burgundy with massive fruit and tobbacco notes and is dry as the Sahara. Or it's an earthy Pinot (you can almost taste the dirt it was grown in). Or a nice Sauv Blanc. Grassy, grapefruit, melon....... Anyway you get the idea. IPA I think can offer the same experience. A huge spectrum of flavors. Sweet to bitter. Citrus to dank weed. Straw color to burnt caramel. Most of these can be found in just one great IPA. Much more varied per glass than even a $100 bottle of wine. My wife loves wine. But she'll always take a pull or four off my IPA.

 

There's a certain cultural dichotomy. Most wine snobs and beer snobs are men. Most beer drinkers, in general, are men. But a combination of successful marketing and cultural trends has pushed more general wine drinking toward women. It's almost like wine is the cultural default for women who 1) don't want the fast buzz of heavy liquor, 2) can't be bothered to make their own mixed drinks and 3) are culturally pushed away from beer. This is less of a differentiating factor with 20-somethings who will drink pretty much anything you put in front of them and it's not as bad as the traditional stogy British image of upper-class men drinking Scotch and upper-class women drinking sherry, while the masses are reduced to a pint (or a few) of bitters for men and women who hate them for it. But traditional divisions really haven't changed that much. There is absolutely no objective reason for it (other than women being a bit more apprehensive toward straight liquor as it has a greater impact because of physical divergence--face it, women are generally smaller and lighter).

 

I would agree with all of this. It's ironic that women who don't want straight liqour will drink wine over beer. Most wines have much more alcohol per Oz than beer. Barley wine is named as such for a reason. There has been successful marketing taking advantage of pop culture trends. Shows like Sex and the City and Cougartown have made casual day drinking acceptable for women. Wine lines like Skinny Girl have taken advantage of that trend. Not great stuff I would imagine but the name itself panders to a certain specific demographic. But it also simples the intimidation factor of going to the store and finding something to buy. Beer does not do this. Another hurdle is women in particular associate beer drinking with beer guts. They see wine as a "healthier" alternative that won't make you fat. My wife usually will only have a 10-12oz beer if we go to the brewery. She says they make her feel too full too soon. But I think the beer gut aspect plays into this.
So back to convincing wine drinkers to enjoy a beer? Stick with what the y enjoy about wine drinking. Serve it to them in a great wine glass. Talk about the aromas and complexities they are about to encounter. Point out there is most likely less alcohol but just as much if not more flavor to be enjoyed so is less likely to make them drunk off just a glass or two.

 

chimay particularly the blue.

 

I'd drop the SB Abt 12. You've already got it covered with the even better Rochefort 10. You could substitute for one of the other SB offerings. You might consider Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA or another sweet, malty DIPA. How about a nice stout? I was impressed by the Oak Aged Yeti. Creamy, vanilla and very little bitterness. Or, how about Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier? I mean, it is summer after all.

And if you really want to have fun, buy a $10 bottle of wine and slap a fancy label on it and tell 'em you spent $100. See if they can tell the difference.