Beer That Tastes Like Beer?

I feel like most people look for something like a Vienna Lager or Pilsner when talking about a beer that tastes like a beer. A balance of traditional? hops and malts.

For me, any beer tastes like a beer because it is a beer and beer varies..though I know that's kind of a cop out answer.

 

When I hear that,(& I don't say that) I think of ones that taste like the basics : grain, hops*, yeast.
* & by hops, more in the noble hop vein - not fruity, not piney, maybe vaguely floral &/or spicy, but don't stand out beyond the other flavors distinctively so.

Which is why, until I was 25 +/- I thought I didn't like beer, except in very rare when-the-mood-strikes instances.

 

I like all beer styles, I drink all beer styles.
But, if had to pick one? I'd pick an ESB as a beer that tastes like beer, and put the recipe in a time capsule for future generations.

 

I use the phrase "beer that tastes like beer " a lot and am not stuck on AALs. I do think that a beer should taste like the style it claims to be. An Imperial Stout should taste like an Imperial Stout not like a soda fountain drink for a child. An IPA should have a strong malt presence and not taste like fruit juice.

 

Hamm's tastes how beer should taste.

 

The phrase evokes some sort of amber lager to me

 

I wasn't much of a beer drinker during my formative years. I was more of a cheap wine guy. It does make me wonder what my first all-malt beer was, though. That might make an interesting discussion in itself. My first verifiable all-malt beer was Alaskan Smoked Porter. That was about 20 years ago. Before that, it was a mish-mash of Stroh's, Pabst, Miller Lite, etc. #neverBud

 

And people thought I was off-base.

 

I like a lot of beers that don't taste like beers, such as pastry stouts. Still, for beers that taste like they "should", go Belgian;

• Westvleteren 12
• Rio Reserva
• Gouden Carolus Cuvée Van De Keizer Imperial Dark
• Trappistes Rochefort 10
• Trappistes Rochefort 8

 

During the fall season I drink a lot of imperial stouts, ipa's , barrel aged beers, and coffee stouts. It is refreshing to reset my tastes by having a lager or amber ale to get back to a basic profile of beer. Then when drinking Russian imperial stouts I appreciate the underlying flavors of the stout that tastes similar to the same brewers lighter ales.

 

I think a lot of it depends on what one started drinking or drank primarily for a period of time. Most people do not know that there are more than 100 beer styles.

As for beers that taste like beer I’ll go with:

Two Hearted
Old Rasputin
Weihnstephaner Hefewiesbeir
Psuedo Sue.

As for beers that do not taste like beer:
Fruit Beers such as Wisconsin Belgian Red
Gueuze’s

While enjoyable, if someone were at my house and asked for a beer, those are the bottom of the list of things I would offer.

 

"Beer that tastes like beer" perhaps most easily can be defined as "beer that isn't beer that doesn't taste like beer." I frequently use a similar phrase, "beer that features flavors historically associated with beer" or variations on that theme. I use it to distinguish a certain type of flavorful beer, in which the flavors can be extraordinarily wide-ranging but derive naturally and in untortured fashion from the core ingredients (which I sometimes call "second category beer") both from the AALs, ALLs, and similar styles that are designed to be very low in flavor ("first category beers") and, even more so, from heavily flavoring-adjuncted beers as well as modern beers that intentionally warp core beer ingredients to mimic flavors from outside of the world of beer and for which the appeal lies largely in the fact that they don't emphasize flavors historically associated with beer but rather replace them with flavors historically associated with other, usually familiar and accessible, realms, often fruit or desserts ("third category beers"). I often use the parallel of dessert hummus: Sure, it's technically hummus, but nobody would ever describe the taste of hummus as the taste of such a product, and I think most people can agree that it's hummus that "doesn't taste like" hummus even though hummus evidently can be doctored to taste like that.

I think the three categories tend to appeal to different people or the same people under different circumstances, though obviously there's some overlap in the Venn diagram, and it can be unclear at the margins into which category a given beer falls. I think most craft beer enthusiasts, even those who resist it, intuitively understand this categorization and what I mean when I use my version of the phrase.

I realize that second category beers predated first category beers. I've assigned the numbering from a modern American perspective, in which what I call first category beers long have been dominant, the second category increased in popularity in recent decades, and the third category, of which there long have been some examples, has exploded in popularity in the last half decade or so.

That said, I do think there's a segment of first category beer drinkers who, ironically, use "beer that tastes like beer" to refer to first category beers, when they really mean "beer that doesn't taste much like anything."

 

We'd have to go back hundreds (if not thousands, tho I doubt many of those ancient styles are around today) of years and find a common thread, or take all the styles, brands, expressions, etc. today and see if there's any flavor (or group of flavors) common to all of them.

 

I agree with this, as well as in what geographic region that they were drinking. For me, I'd probably have to go with Yuengling Lager.

 

It tasted like aluminum with plastic lining. Very Un-Germanic. I hated that beer,,,,

 

Beers with no sugars added, no fruit, no coffee, basically any beer that sticks to a water/barley/yeast/ hops/ either rice or corn etc. so basically Lagers to include AAL. Beers that taste like beer to me as an example is a simple Budweiser, but there’s many.

 

I do believe, or at least always understood it to mean, beer that existed before beer became something to hobby around. To me your examples would not be good examples, but it doesn't matter because its just something that is said.

For me it would be Michelob.

 

Lots of US AAL's are brewed with "sugars" - in the case of MillerCoors' flagships and their economy brands - dextrose for Coors Banquet, Coors Light, Miller Lite, Keystone / maltose for High Life, Henry Weinhard Private Reserve, Hamm's and Leinenkugel. Most of the Pabst brands brewed at MC facilities likely also use one or the other, as do some of AB's "value" beers like the Busch brands.

UK and Belgian brewers also have long used various sugars as adjuncts.