Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

Truth is I'm a word burdened verbose fellow with lots of beer and wine tasting experience. I have found descriptions to be dead wrong, but I read other's words believing them to be trying their best to describe their impressions. I know when to keep reading or to stop reading. Things do taste different to different people. It really is part of the fun, I think. I have never taken any thing about beer (or wine) too seriously. I hope I didn't sound grouchy earlier because I simply love describing the things that I drink and encounter daily.

 

FWIW, when I honeymooned in Thailand almost 4 years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the beer places I hit. Ther was a couple of bottle shops with some of the bigger US breweries’ wares (suprisingly fresh), a decent amount of Euro imports at several bars/restaurants and all for prices that would make your jaw drop. Let’s just say, I’ve been to more beer-starved towns in rural America...

Thailand is also home to a massive expat population, including many Germans and Aussies along with many Americans. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to see a solid craft brewery opening to cater to them.

 

Belching Beaver PB Milk Stout and PB Latte are both good. Mikkeller SD Traeblod is a terrific maple imperial stout. I think folks are just running into bad examples.

 

Yea I've heard good things about Beaver haven't had myself being in CT but I agree sometimes flavors on bottles/cans don't show in beer and people assume all are like that but there is lots of beer out there and some hit those flavor profiles better than others. I know for a while I did not think peanut butter would translate but that Victory changed my opinion.

 

Any homebrewer will tell you an easy way to boost the ABV of a beer is to add honey [or sugar, syrup, etc.]

 

There's a lot of value in variety too.

 

Controversy: In the world of beer brewing, coffee, vanilla, chocolate, peppers, fruit, vegetable, lactose, and spices are add-junks not adjuncts. Should not be a controversy, but apparently for some it is.

 

interesting, I have very limited homebrewing experience and have never brewed beer with any added sugars except at bottling, but from making mead it seems like the honey takes forever to be digested by the yeast. I wonder what the difference is.

 

Not an expert at all here, but I think the mead yeast ferments the honey sugars super quickly: the issue then is that this hot and fast fermentation leaves a lot of undesirable by-products, so it takes a long time for the yeast to “clean up” after the main fermentation period. So it’s not fermentation that is slow in mead, it’s the waiting until that unholy booze bomb is remotely drinkiable.

 

I didn't realize that we were still doing that, but I'm on board if we are .

 

Spices, fruit, etc. literally predate hops...

 

I believe that hop flowers are not a grain, so cannot be an adjunct either

 

I think most folks lost track of the purpose of the thread at about page 4. If this thread ever ends, it would be interesting to know how many folks contradicted themselves, forgetting their earlier arguments.

 

Ah, I get what you are saying!
But ‘add-junks’? Cahm ahhhhn!

 

Hey, I have that trademarked. Had to have a clever name for the non-adjuncts.

 

that makes sense, i never did try some mead at say 1 month into fermentation. I will say though that there must be some complex sugars in honey because i've had some at a year that are still super sweet.

 

aren't they just additives? I'm with @JohnnyChicago, a lot of these things predate hops, just cause some modern brewers are using them in junky ways doesn't diminish their validity in the whole scope of brewing

 

I agree that they have a place in beer (though some disagree), and sure, you can call them additives. It's just that the word "additives" has a negative connotation which leads some folks to think "dangerous chemicals", such as food additives.

 

haha true but doesn't 'add-junk' come with it's own set of negative connotations?
maybe we can just call them 'natural flavors'?

 

You're just trying to avoid my trademark fees