Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

You need a certain amount to assess the most important attribute- complexity; whether it has it or doesn't.

 

Try living in WV.........

 

I think if the style was important to Dupont they would have made an effort to convey the name in a truly Belgo-French fashion. To place two distinctly English words after a very traditional wine/beer term is a wink to the fad of dry-hopping everything.

Saisons, especially an OG like Dupont, should be (and are) complex enough to hold their own without needing the help of an extra hop blast. I understand why Duvel and SD are doing it, but it's not traditional, and that bugs me. Still ISO.

 

I just don't get this mindset. I drink local, and I like to drive to different spots, to try new beers. As for trading.. why do you care if I drink something from your neck of the woods, do you have a case of FOMO?

 

This guy gets it.

 

Beer in this current climate is about as stupid and controversial as it gets.
i hate beer.

 

Whiskey seems pretty obviously a non-starter. 90 proof distilled alcohol and 28 proof barrel aged beer aren’t near similar enough to even compare.

As for wine, I’ll just re-affirm what I said in my first comment on this topic — that I can’t claim some particular amount as right, other than knowing that (at least for me) 1oz-2oz isn’t enough. Again, totally fun, totally harmless, total within someone’s rights to enjoy, but it just doesn’t make me feel like I really experienced it.

 

Just clarifying this a bit, I've been to a whiskey tasting (maybe a wine one too, I forget), but not with the sole purpose of trying to dissect the beverages. It was just for fun. I'm far from an expert on how to conduct a proper tasting of either one.

Fair enough. Admittedly whiskey is a bad analogy, but it still illustrates the overarching point...that different alcohol percentages require different volumes to assess them. It's the reason beer comes in 12 - 16 oz. servings, wine in 3 - 5 oz. servings, whiskey in 1 - 2 oz. servings...

I agree with both of you. However, I think @Sweatshirt"s point (or part of it) is that a lot of craft beer today is a higher ABV...ESPECIALLY a lot of these sought after beers at bottle shares (double IPAs, barrel aged stouts).

You likely need more than 1 - 2 oz. to assess Bourbon County (and its variants)...but not much more, maybe 3 - 5 oz.? Do people drink half a bottle of wine when assessing it?

But for something like a pale ale or Pilsner, sure, I think you need at least 12 oz. or so to get a good read on it. But let's not lump 15% barrel-aged beers in with English milds.

Personally I think you need multiple pints of most beers to truly experience all that the beer has to offer, but that's not realistic.

 

When it comes to serving size in beer it all depends on the beer:

Utopia is meant to be served in 2oz pours same goes for whiskey, hence you drink Utopia like a cognac or whiskey

Had a 12oz Pirate Bomb bottle split between 2 that's 6oz. Loved it and was enough to detect all the flavors and enjoyment, sure I wanted more but it was split....15% abv I don't need the whole bottle to myself

11.2oz J.W. Lee Harvest shared and that's like 5.6oz

Gone to breweries to sample 5oz pours because they only serve barrel aged in 5oz pours.

Hell I can tell if a beer is going to be good on just a couple sips. My feel toward a beer in first couple sips rarely changed come the end but at times it has.

I agree more is better but these high abv beers are much of the time meant to be shared.

Edit note:

A lot might also depend on the glassware used. Improper glassware and you don't get the full effect.

 

Shaker glasses! 27 pages and no one's done shaker glasses yet?

Shaker pint glasses should never be used to serve beer in. The only reason most bars, pubs and restaurants use them is because they're cheap, easy to clean and they can't be bothered training their waitstaff to pour beer properly. I have probably five or six souvenir pint glasses and the only thing they're ever used for is spare change and making chocolate milk for my kids.

A pulled beer never looks as good in a shaker-style pint glass, it doesn't smell as good and, for whatever inexplicable reason, it never tastes as good to me.

 

I agree with a lot of what you said and I buy tons of local beer (and almost exclusively local foods).

But I trade beer for many different reasons. Some is the fun of trying something special, but a majority of the time it is the fun of sharing and interacting with my fellow BA's. At this point most of my trades are repeats with past partners or through people I meet in BIF's. Half the time I'm sending stuff out with only a basic understanding of what I will get in return. I like opening the box and seeing what I get to drink!

I'll also give a shout out to the NBS BIF crew. Hard not to meet a bunch of awesome trade partners after getting involved with them!

 

Notice that there are two things being confounded here (e.g., in the portion of one of his posts you quoted). There is the portion size and the context (e.g., a bottle share or a 4 oz flight of beers). In my post where I disagreed with what he seemed to be saying the focus of my comments was upon the sampling of multiple different beers during bottle shares or while having flights to decide which beer to have more of. Since he chose to ignore my comments and reply only to those of others I concluded that he either didn't disagree with my comments or that he considered them irrelevant and honestly I didn't bother worrying any further about what was his real point. (I should also mention what may be a bad habit acquired from my professional life. I tend to take with a large grain of salt someone's claim of competence to do or to judge something when it is made by an anonymous, faceless individual who simply asserts the correctness of her/his own views or experiences without any supporting evidence to offer. )

Turning to the question you've raised, no I don't believe that intensty of flavor derived from a small volume tasting does any more than, as suggested by @TongoRad , give you a sense of complexity.

I also think that comparing Beer, Wine, and Whisky tastings on the ABV dimension and assuming that what may be an adequate tasting amount for one is therefore adequate for the others is confounding two things, ABV and the nature of those beverages. Take Beer and Wine for example. It is often the case that at a Wine tasting, of say red wines, a great deal of attention will be paid to having an appropriate glass and to swirling the wine around in the glass. Lots of beer beer drinkers think that this unnecessary and even pretentious. However, with beer, an adequte pour raises a head that releases aromatics critical to assessing flavor. Most wines have no carbonation and have to be coaxed into releasing their aromatics. The same is actually the case for Whisky. Many of the aromas and flavors in the whisky "go to sleep" during their long rest in the bottle. A number of experienced whisky tasters (not the pro blenders) will often pour a shot of their Whisky into a glass, smell and sip, and then add just a few drops of water to "wake up the whisky" and repeat the sniff and taste (sometimes doing the water, sniff, taste routine several times). The aromas/flavors change noticably and open up with those first few drops of water. It often requires several repeats for one to find their own sweet spot with the amount of water to be added. (Also high end whiskies should never be iced and the water should be spring water... I didn't believe that at first until I tried a blind side by side tasting and realized I could spot the whisky that had chlorinated water in it almost every time.)

So to end my rambling (time for a second cup of coffee), I agree with you completely that different beers may require different quantities to fully unravel what they are all about, but I disagree that one can explore or understand the full complexity of a high ABV beer (or a good malt whisky) on the basis of one small sample such as offered with flights or poured at a bottle share.

 

Not sure that I agree with you 100% on your police work there, Lou.

 

What they said

Seriously - I think I said in my post that different ABV beers should be / are consumed in different serving sizes. I’m definitely not arguing for imperial pints of 15% ABV stouts. And people can consume / enjoy beer in whatever serving size they like, I just meant that when it comes to formally reviewing something, 1-2oz pours don’t give any beer a fair shake in my opinion. But yes of course 6oz of the 15% stout may be enough. For something like a bitter it won’t be.

And although ABV is a major factor in the conversation, it’s not the only one either. I doubt anyone needs an imperial pint of Fou Foune either.

 

Damn. Pandora's Box here. Nicely done!

 

So I have a question for you.

In Belgium when you buy a bottle of Cantillon the label says: Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic Bio.

In English language speaking countries it says: Cantillon Classic Gueuze

http://www.sheltonbrothers.com/beers/cantillon-classic-gueuze/

In this case who or what fad is Cantillon giving a wink to in using the English Words???

 

A pint glass is my preferred drinking vessel.

 

For me? Nonsense. I have not yet begun to defile myself.

 

Thinking this is more a legal issue than anything. To be labelled "bio" (organic) in the US, you have to pass USDA inspections, which are costly and have different parameters than Euro regulations.

If they ever put together a dry-hopped gueze, you can bet your ass it won't be "classic"

 

Agree to disagree. Like I said, ISO. I'll try it when / if I see it.

And then I will relish even more in a glass of regular Dupont, knowing it is as close to perfect as you can get without unnecessary additives.

Oh yeah, same goes for dry-hopped pilsners. Why mess with perfection?