Controversial Beer Opinions (Round Two)

I will play. Here is mine. Athletic makes some of my favorite domestic lagers. Their Pilot series is great, especially the Octoberfest and Schwarzbier. They are making my low abv October more manageable.

 

Holy crap!

 

Oh yeah that takes me back! Beer filled bong! We did this back in college. We dared or payed some kid to drink it afterwards. I think he threw up.

 

Does the pilot series have alcohol? I’ve heard a lot of hype around their NA stuff, they’re in relatively high demand and pretty new to my distro area.

Just making sure you’re not referring to >0.5% as simply low-ABV

 

Nice to hear. Going to order it all the way from the United States of America!

 

All of their beers including the Pilot Series are .5 or less from Athletic and low calorie. I am consistently amazed with how much well crafted beer taste I get from them--especially the lagers. Prior to trying them most non-alcoholic beers I have had tasted tasted like sugary poorly made pilsners. I would try them on a lark and then pass. Athletic has been an eye opening experience.

 

I’m with you here. I’ve had a few and have been surprised how good they are. Easily the best NA beers I’ve tried, and they seem to be able to do it well in a number of styles. My wife loves what she has had too, in particular the Gose.

 

My oldest brother disagrees with me when I compare English beer to American craft beer. I've always said that British breweries know the value of restraint, which they use to make delicious beers that are balanced and full of character without being in your face and over the top.

The American craft beer industry on the other hand, seems to think the bigger and bolder, the better. They seem to go out of their way to make, bigger, badder, more in your face beers and that's not always a great thing in my opinion.

 

I see your point but its simply not quite true.

 

I mean those are both sweeping generalizations. Both sides make bold and restrained takes on styles. There’s breweries all over the world making big-hopped beers and pastry stouts as well as there are making high-quality lagers and traditional ale styles that require more finesse and delicate touch.

 

Admittedly i don't have sweeping access to american and english beer here in alberta. But for the beer I have access to, it holds true.

 

I totally understand. I bought a 4 pack not long ago and enjoyed it so much that I went back and bought out the last 2 the store had.

 

Examples?

 

This might make more sense as a style argument than it does a geographical argument. Cloudwater vs. Yorkshire Square for example, or Brewdog vs. Machine House. Not all English brewers stick to cask mild. Not all American brewers focus on triple IPAs.

 

On the one hand yes, anchor steam shows delicacy and restraint but compare that against the average american barleywine which is HUGE and malty. Then compare the american barleywine against british barleywines like Orkney Skullsplitter or pale ales and browns like the beers of Fullers or Wychwood

 

I would consider English barleywines much more malty, sweet, dense and rich. Maybe you’re focusing on a lot on what “American” style and “English” style beers should be in the traditional sense. Yeah, a lot of the American craft beers have been comparatively more hoppy, but that doesn’t mean every American barleywine made today is going to be hoppy. Nor does it mean any English barleywine made today will be malty. Both sides of the pond have influenced each other so deeply at this point that you probably wouldn’t be able to tell which country made what in a blind taste test.

Maybe a blind taste test 20 years ago and you’d be right, but it’s pretty homogenized at this point.

 

Like I said, I'm just going by the american beers I've had over the years compared to the british ones I've had over the years. Not a hard and fast rule maybe, but more of a general trend I've noticed in american craft beer vs traditional british beers

 

While both of these posts are true, in general I would say each country is "known" for certain styles.

Ask your average craft beer geek where New England IPAs and pastry stouts are ubiquitous, they would say the US.

But if I want to drink an abundance of cask mild or bitter, I'm going to the UK. If I want an abundance of Helles, I'm going to Munich. Rauchbier? Bamberg.

There's NO WHERE in the US where I'm going to find more breweries per capita solely focused on lagers like in Bamberg, or pubs with sessionable English ales like in the UK (granted I've heard this is less and less these days).

 

Gonna be a bit of a devil's advocate here. It's also possible to put something like Skull Splitter in a blind tasting of American-made barley wines today and have it immediately jump out at you as the outlier. Not because of its "restraint," but because of its "boldness." In this case the boldness isn't from alcohol, hops, oak and maple syrup... it's from the expressiveness of the yeast that's lacking in the American beer and/or differences in the brewing practices. Sometimes it's striking just how little homogeny there is. At least that's been my experience, but to be fair, it's not always easy to determine how much of the difference is exacerbated by the poor condition of an import. @TongoRad

 

Dark beers like stouts should be float around the 9.5-11.5 ABV. Low ABV stouts are not nearly as satisfying and generally have a thin mouthfeel I don't know.

Not *all* dark beers qualify for this complaint. This one goes out to the kids drinking 4.5-6% stouts.