Craft and imports grow, macro declines

Because we all want "more"!?!

Cheers!

 

Here's a potentially fun idea :
Blind taste-off between a good industrial AAL, good Mexican version and even an independent version (like Straub, Yuengling, etc.) . Maybe we could see if there's a big difference after all.

 

Michael, I am reminded of a past post on BA. This BA worked at a bar and he stated that his customers claimed they could taste the difference between the various Mega-Brewery beers. One night the Bud Light keg kicked and they didn’t have another keg of Bud Light so he put a different keg on the Bud Light tap (he mentioned either Miller Lite of Coors Light). Not a single customer made a comment to him after he served them the ‘new’ Bud Light.

Cheers!

 

I could see that, but those beers are the low end of the spectrum. Drinkers, too, I bet .

 

I'm sure there is marketing research out there that answers this question - but I wonder if the growth in popularity of brands like Modelo and Tecate are related to a growing Latino population in the US?

 

I was at a beer tasting event in Milwaukee last year, and met two brewers that worked in the basement at the Miller Brewery. The beers they had were good and different than the macros. I have never seen the beers come out from Miller. The macros have too much to lose if the new beers bomb, it's all about $$$. The new trend for macros is to buy micros and reap their rewards.

 

That is exactly what is going on in NJ. The laws were changed just over 2 years ago and the number of small breweries exploded. They all seem to be doing well and are selling most their beer at the brewery.

 

Lines suck, but I'd love to have that problem: multiple local breweries pumping out stuff that's popular. Depending on how you count them, we have just three here in Bryan-College Station, and one of them only opens their taproom on Friday-Saturday.

Your story of the other night, though, very much makes me think of 8th Wonder pre- and post-super duper taproom. I visited that brewery 3-4 years ago before they opened the big taproom, and it was definitely close quarters. The line(s) weren't terrible, but you felt cramped and ... well ... just uncomfortable. Now you go there and wonder how they ever fill up all that space (I went on a Monday; I bet they *do* fill it up on the weekends).

As for that 60% number, (again, apologies for repeating points I likely missed) I wonder if part of that isn't inflated because that number used to be 0% for most breweries. Like I say, here in Texas you couldn't sell your own beer on your brewery site until just a couple years ago. That's 0% for EVERYBODY.

 

Believe it or not my friends and I did this maybe ten years ago. I think it involved the usual suspects, Bud, Coors Original, either High Life or MGD (maybe both), Pabst, Schlitz, Black Label, Corona, and a random Hacker-Pschorr or Hofbrau Helles.

Corona won. The German import did terribly, looking back it was likely very old. This was WAY before I was checking bottling dates.

Personally I find Corona (and other Mexican AAL) to have distinct tastes separate from your typical Budweiser/Coors.

 

Sounds like a good idea. I'm always looking for a good excuse to blow money on Mexican food and beer!

Tecate, sort of like Coors, has a distinct "yeasty" flavor versus the other major brands that taste much more generic IMO. At least in my mind that's how it is. It's well past due time for a blind taste.

 

I'm definitely game. I can't do it for a month or so, but will try to get something going after that.

 

@TongoRad

I actually found one post where I recalled this particular tasting. I couldn't quote it for some reason directly, but the quotation is pasted below.

"Haha, I did the same thing a few years ago and also bought all my beer at Downtown Wine and Spirits.

I predict Schlitz wins. It did awful during our tasting but this was before Gusto came out.

Coors, PBR, and Narragansett did awful in our tasting I believe.

Corona won believe it or not. We threw in a Hofbrau Original to compare and it was horribly skunked. This was before I became obsessed with checking freshness dates."

 

Agreed. It's definitely a summer thing anyway. Perhaps a Cinco de Mayo theme is in order...it happens fall on a Friday this year

 

Niiice! Let's pencil this in, and post a reminder mid April.

 

@TongoRad @AlcahueteJ @tzier

I'd definitely expect you guys would/will find some noticable differences.

Maybe a year or two ago I deliberately made a point of serial tasting of some non-US AALs (about 8 or 9, using the categorization on this site) that I'd never tried before. While it wasn't a blind or a side-by-side tasting (they were individually reviewed about a week apart), I still wanted to see for myself what they were like. (I figure that the ratings/reviews for AALs is the style most contaminated by negative biases.) While I found them all to be relatively lightly flavored and lacking in complexity, I am convinced that I did find some differences.

Edit: Just be sure you avoid beers that rely on strong hop flavors for about a week in advance.

 

Is it the taste of antifreeze, maybe?

 

There's no solid evidence of antifreeze as an additive in beer. There is, however, evidence that some folks have confused the name of a chemical found in antifreeze (propylene glycol, a synthetic chemical) with the name of a chemical occasionally used in some beers (propylene glycol alginate, which is derived from kelp) as an FDA approved food additive. They are, however, not the same chemical with the same effects.

 

I dig Corona, what can I say? I just can't kelp myself.

 

I'm kidding, I like the occasional Corona myself.