Beer That Doesn't Taste Like Beer

That was a doozy. Thanks for sharing. Life does seem to have become parody recently

 

I like trying damn near any beer but I do know for the most part what I do not like. Some are well defined by styles, descriptions and names and I know I wouldn't enjoy them so I don't even bother. I do however occasionally like a surprise with beer. Just go out there with an open palate, with no expectations for flavor other than it's style and I love the adventure! Where brewing fits into culinary I do not know but it's a beautiful thing! Pastries, fruits, candies, peanut butter, smokey roasty toasty nutty, hops, ridiculous amounts of hops! If a brewer wants to make the backbone of their beer more on the "special flavor" or "exxtreme" end for lack of better terms and not stick to the norm that's okay by me. Regular good ol' beer will always be out there.

 

Well yeah I mean they’re still loaded with malt and hops respectively so it’s at least close right?

 

Beer, water, hops, yeast, malt.
But, to each their own.
All the experimentation in brewing is a great thing, and the thing that has gotten us to one of the greatest periods in brewing history.
Right now, I'm appreciating traditional styles more, which could just be yet another phase in my beer drinking, time will tell. In the meantime I'm very thankful for Craft Beer.
Cheers!

 

That would eliminate popular bees like Lindemans Framboise, and quite a few fruited sours.

 

I guess it might, but those beers have been considered beers for a long time. I accept that. I'm talking about brewers tossing all kinds of odd ball flavors into Stouts, Barleywines ect.

 

I don’t like the Lactose in any beers thing, the pastry stouts and weird adjuncts are experimenting to drive a market. Depends on the brewer but mostly I’m kinda lukewarm, it drives up the cost and I don’t like pecans or hazelnuts in my beer. I can life with adjuncts as well, but there’s exceptions between brewers.

 

Funny, Lindemans was always one of the original "beers that don't taste like beers" to me. Not because they use fruit in a lot of the Lambics, but because of the Aspartame used, it always reminded me of diet fruit soft drinks.

Though its fightin' words for me if someone says Hanssens, Boon, Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, Girardin, etc. don't taste like beer

 

With all respect - a beer having been around a long time isn't really an acceptable way to classify "this is beer" vs "this ain't beer". It's been a LOOONNNGGG time since I had a Lindemans, and I'd be curious to see how it tastes comparatively today. But going by memory, those beers always struck me as too sweet/fruity (for my tastes) compared to other beers in that space, and I generally avoided. And they add actual fruit juice to those beers don't they? Isn't this sort of the poster child for the exact type of beer that this 'beer doesn't taste like beer' commentary is pointing to today? That with it's taste profile and additions, it is making it more accessible than it "should" be?

My personal opinion is people should just let other people drink what they want. But if someone is going to take a hard line then I think it's a case of hops/water/barley/yeast and nothing else, or bust. People are getting into exceedingly slippery-slope territory when it becomes things like "coffee in beer is ok but coffee and chocolate is not", or "dumping fruit juice into this beer is ok because they've done it for a while, but doing it to this other beer then cmon man just buy a fruit cup you don't like beer"

 

lol snap

 

I guess the fear is that craft beer primarily and historical represented a higher quality and more flavorful beer option with variety compared to AALs and other macro produced beers, of the world, but now a vast majority of the ratio of craft beer on the market is morphing into these questionable areas that even challenge the definition as to whether this product can even be classified as a craft beer due to all of the additive ingredients besides the basics that alread have thousands of combinations of flavors (yeast,malt and hops and water). Not to mention the various brewing techniques to get various characteristics. Dumping in 20% puréed fruit or pecan pie or lactose seems like we may be jumping the shark in a leather jacket.

 

Now that I have inserted myself into the thread...and specifically talking about your second paragraph.

I'll say that everyone will probably have their own line in the sand. Though as has been said before in the thread, for me, its when beers are intentionally being made, marketed and packaged to look and taste like some kids dessert and candy bars, or intentionally like other food products found in a pantry. Not the fact that adjuncts, or flavor additives are used. Lindemans association with diet drinks (for me) aside, I don't really remember that happening a lot 10-15 years ago. Outside of one offs or very few novelty beers. Now, that is a breweries entire schtick in some cases.

Note: Not trying to gatekeep, or saying anything to offend people that like those beers, just an observation.

 

I agree with that statement. Examples of 'early' craft beers are beers like Anchor Steam, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Sam Adams Boston Lager, etc. One aspect these 'early' craft beers had in common is that they were solely brewed using malt, hops, water and yeast. No 'additives' added so to speak.

There certainly are a number of craft beer brands that fit this description but if we used the metric of craft beer sold by volume (e.g., barrels per year) I sincerely doubt these sorts of beers/beverages would represent the majority. There is still a lot of beer being sold such as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Yuengling Traditional Lager, New Belgium Fat Tire, etc. It just seems that on BA forum threads the beers brewed with flavorings/additives get a lot of discussion. Much more discussion than amount of craft beer sold by volume.

Cheers!

 

FWIW I agree 100% with this sentiment. When a brewery formulates a beer to intentionally taste like a German Chocolate Cake and achieves on this intention than that beverage does not taste like beer IMO.

But as you rightly stated: "...everyone will probably have their own line in the sand."

Cheers!

 

Germany has their 1516 thingy, so where does Gose or Radlers fit in here? They stray outside the big 4.

 

And there is also the German Wheat Beers (Hefeweizen) which is non-compliant to the Reinheitsgebot.

I suppose every BA will provide their individual 'answer' here so let me be the first:

A Radler is a beer cocktail with a mixture of beer and soda-pop. So I would say it is exactly that: a beer cocktail with soda.

Gose, just like a Hefeweizen, is brewed with malt (a combination of barley malt and wheat malt) but has the additions of coriander and salt. Plus there is the sour aspect as well. Do these additions mean it does not "taste like beer"? To my mind the answer is no since these additions were not added to make a Gose taste like Kool-Aid, German Chocolate Cake, a smoothie, a ....

I am sure that some other BA(s) will have differing thoughts here.

Cheers!

 

A beer that tastes like beer comment screams AALs, Lagers and such, IPAs, it’s a bit limiting. From there beers can go anywhere the brewer wants to go I guess. But there’s beers that have been brewed forever that don't meet the beer tasting like beer comment. Wild Ales, Abbey Ales, Fruited sours, pick your poison. It’s impossible to strictly enforce that beer is beer and it’s only made with 4 basic ingredients.

 

Needless to say that I agree with you here since I already commented about the Gose beer style above.

Having stated the above, there is no way in hell that I will state that a beer intended to taste like Kool-Aid (or insert other modern day flavored beer type here) is a beverage that tastes like beer.

Where do you personally draw the line?

Cheers!

 

To add to what @JackHorzempa said about actual volumes, just looking at square feet of shelf space in even the hoitiest boutique beverage purveyor the presence of these "questionable" styles is well well under half. Maybe there are parts of the country where fruit puree sours and whole dessert stouts are all that's for sale, and there are certainly brewers that offer predominantly these styles, but its more of a case of the vast majority of media coverage on the "craft beer space" () focuses on the explosive growth of these styles in the cultural milieu. After all, when a style goes from 0 examples to hundreds of examples that's infinite percent growth!

 

Hey isn’t that the Bud Light recipe?