Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

To paraphrase MP, Doom is a good beer for layng down and avoiding. To paraphrase my friend Paul, Doom is a good beer to decant, pour carefully into a snifter, then burn.

 

You're not gonna be happy until i have to have it, are you?

 

I'm not a big fan of Newcastle anymore, but it's still not bad. However, Bell's Best Brown Ale is delicious and I would recommend it anyone, anytime.

 

Yeah, there are plenty browns I'd rather have than new castle. But I'd still drink one if it was handed to me.

 

I have been drinking cask ale for over 55 years now so I think I might have a little understanding of it.
Most of it has had a head, but not all. Quite often beer dispensed by gravity has nothing more than a few bubbles on it.The best pint of Bass by far was as clear as a mountain lake with not a trace of foam on it, it drank like a 6.5% ABV beer instead of 4,4%. Utterly superb.
A good head on beer is around a quarter of an inch of dense foam which remains to the end of the pint and gives rise to lacing.Loose froth is just a mess.
Because of the low carbonation of cask beer the aroma in any case is muted , aroma is of course a flavour component most of which is lost to the drinker and is better left in the liquid.

 

How do you feel about sparklers, Marquis?

 

You will either be happy, sad, or uninterested that in the northeast section of this giant land that your small island nation once tried to tame and own we are busily destroying this notion with amazing success

 

Flavor can be as much as 75-90% from the aromas.

Aromas are sensed both when air comes in through the nasal passages (ortho nasal) and when air rises from the back of the mouth and into the nose (retro nasal). The two sets of volatiles will differ from each other as the saliva changes the chemical structure of some of the molecules.

If you eliminate either source of volatiles you cheat yourself of the full range of flavors. You may still enjoy what is left behind if the other is cut off, but that doesn’t mean the other is not important to the experience of the full range of flavors one can enjoy.

@marquis @EvenMoreJesus @cavedave @TongoRad @Sixpoint

 

Treehouse...don't get the hype at all

 

This really is a pet peeve of mine.


I see this most often with NE IPAs, particularly within the craft beer Instagram scene. It always makes me think those NE IPA breweries are producing flat, still beer - gross.

 

I am unsure of which part of my assertion that you are disagreeing. You seem to be simply arguing around my point instead of just admitting that beer is best served with a small head on it.

 

Oh, by all means. And beyond this discussion of the head on a beer, another thing that is important is to leave enough empty space at the top of your glass for the aroma to sort of 'collect' as it sits. I'm just as guilty as most of us for not doing it as often as I should, but it really does help.

 

My point was though a head looks good on a pint it does little to enhance the flavour.

 

Like serving brandy/cognac in a snifter or adding water to open up a whisk(e)y. There are simply better ways to drink things that aren't that difficult to do, that, as you said, really do help you to appreciate the beverage more so.

 

I'll agree to that.

 

Then you and @marquis are both wrong, except as you may both suffer from the same sensory defect(s). Others disagree, including sensory scientists who study these things for a living.

 

Would like to see studies on this. How can head enhance the flavor of beer? Head IS beer.

 

Read my earlier post again. It is both nasal and retro nasal that impact flavors. It is not all about one or the other. Data to follow later.

 

So you're saying that a beer without head won't stimulate those areas?

 

A proper head releases aromatics which can be/are inhaled though the nasal passages (ortho-nasal). No head (or drinking from from can or bottle) and those aromatics are either greatly reduced or eliminated entirely for lack of input to the nasal passages. However, you can still get aromatics from the inside of the mouth while sipping/drinking the liquid (retro-nasal). But those retro-nasal aromatics are going to be somewhat different than what comes in from the nasal passages (the ortho-nasal). Take away either source of aromatics and we influence the overall flavor profile we experience and are losing out on something. So it's not either/or, both can have an effect.