USA #1 in beer?

Which is why I yanked right back... :-)

 

Next time you are in Glassboro, chedk out the Hops and Grapes on Delsey. Nice bottle selection.

Locally we have a lot of reasonable choices. Took my wife out to dinner tonight at our nearest neighborhood Pizza/Cheesesteak place. Could have had DFH 60, Victory Summer Love, Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale, Victory Hop Devil, Anchor Steam (or any of about 6 other bottles I didn't seriously consider) all though I'd have had to ask that the glass be non-frosted. And they have a limited selection compared to the place a couple of blocks down the road from them that does food preparation to take out and cook at home or to eat in. :-)

 

Did you know there are more than a dozen places in Bamberg, Germany, making some of the best Philly Cheesesteaks in the world? (Note: I have never been to Philly).

 

If true, rather than just a gimmick, that would be as surpising to a native of South Philadelphia as finding a traditionally done Kellerbier in Philly would be a native of Franconia.

Edit: On the other hand, if those cheesesteaks are above a certain quality threshold I personally am not going to care all that much if its is exactly like what I get around here. Some kinds of variability are worth experiencing and can be enjoyed for what they are. And names, after all are mostly somewhat arbitrary place holders not determiners.

 

Sounds like my kind of place. I do wish it was a little like that up here.

I bet Northern Vermont is pretty well-established, too. There are definitely pockets of pretty nice beer culture in the country; I just wonder if the focus on the latest big thing is helping or hurting things in the long run.

Thanks. I will definitely keep that in mind if my son decides to attend Rowan- I just might be down there a few times a year .

 

Well lets see, during Freshman year you'd need to drop him off, that’s 1. You and the wife need to visit for parents day, that’s 2, you need to pick him up at Thanksgiving, that’s 3, you need to take him back, that’s 4, you need to bring him home for the semester break, that’s 5.... Then there's spring term...

 

Winner? Me. You. Anyone who can go into the corner packey and buy a single of Belgian Trappist ale, a German exported Munich Helles, a Fullers' ESB and a big American IPA and go home and enjoy them in their home with their friends. Or at the local watering hole. Or a Biergarten. Or an Irish pub. Or a pub styled after any nation.

We all are the benefactors of the strive to excel!

 

Booked my flights for a trip this fall only two days ago!

 

Haha, not sure I agree with you there, but it's all good.

I haven't been a part of a huge release like that. I've stood in line for about 20 minutes for a couple of Avery's big releases and went to a bar that was serving Pliny the Younger and incidentally (maybe "accidentally" is a better word) started the line for tickets, so I didn't really wait for it.

Full disclosure, I don't care for the idea of waiting hours for an over-priced, limited release beer, BUT I admit, the stories I hear of the comraderie and beer-sharing going on during the wait makes it sounds almost worth it.

 

that's a violation

 

Ah, you would like Denver.

 

Agreed. The propensity for drinking at home is definitely a uniquely American thing

 

Nice try, but in Germany and Belgium and England beer culture is dominated by light lagers/pils, just as here. In fact, Jean Van Roy came on this very forum to thank American craft culture, young and stupid as we are, for the upswing in his business that he was concerned was failing due to apathy for his style by the European cultures you trumpet in your reply above. We love styles Europeans barely, for most part, know exist. Our passion is at least the European, though smaller per capita. I don't usually add anything to this truth but here is the long and short of it. You guys in Europe were too busy drinkiing your Euro and other light lagers, and didn't enjoy arguably the best, most delicious artisan styles produced by your craftsmen. You trumpet your culture but the facts seem to indicate you support just barely better than our young and qucikly growing culture. Which is why I can get 10 Berliner Weisse today, and Germans can't get 5 this month. Which is why we love Gueuze, Lambic, Gose, Falnders, Biere De Garde, Saisons, Wild Ales here to a degree much greater than Europeans, and best examples that sit on shelf in Europe don't make it to shelf here.

Here is a Wiki quote about Belgium:

"Pils or pale lager[edit]
Main article: Pils
This style makes up the bulk of beer production and consumption in Belgium. Belgian Pilsners are not particularly distinctive or renowned by connoisseurs.[24][25][26] The top brands include Jupiler and Stella Artois (both brewed by Inbev), Maes pils and Cristal (both brewed by the Alken Maes branch of Heineken). Stella Artois, originating in Belgium, is distributed globally."

You make the point that we aren't as old as European culture, a test we cannot win. Except when you consider that the brilliance of artisanship in product, and enthusiasm for it, is highest and best when that culture is young, growing, and finding itself.

No, your points only hold water when considered from the points of view of there isn't a best or worst, just a bunch of different beer cultures we can enjoy for what each brings to the beer glass, which I believe. If they are to be taken as pointing to a best, that best would be America.

 

For never having been to any of these places, you sure seem to know a lot about their beer cultures @cavedave.

 

Volume-wise I think the split between off-premise and on-premise beer sales is very similar between the US and Germany (page 11) to name one example, about 80%-20% in favor of off-premise.

 

Yes , I am one of those people who puts out points I read about. I hope to visit Germany next summer with some of my tasting group and find out if those folks from whom I got those opinions are exactly right, mostly right, or dead wrong. So far nothing anyone says points to dead wrong. The only facts either of us can point to are what you say, that European culture is older, and what I say, that American culture is more vibrant with its youth and growing, both, ironically, facts neither side of the Atlantic can do anything to change. To those facts I say Cheers!

 

Well I'm told by some that one should trust the observations about the international beer scene made by people like Michael Jackson and Ron Pattinson, both of whom have commented on the lack of diversity in German brewing, the myth that German beer is the best in the world, and the overly restrictive effects of the Reinheitsgebot on the German beer scene.

And I do have to say that based on my own travels there are certainly no shortages of mass market beers (and ethnocentric nationalistic natives) in Germany, Belgium and the UK.

 

Yup, we're so apathetic in Britain that we only manage to support a measly 1000 or so breweries, in an area the size of California, and with only one fifth the population of America.

 

True. While living in Germany, I spent many an hour trying to convince people about the rich, varied culture of U.S. beer. I used to think this ignorance was the exclusive domain of Europeans (who had never traveled to the U.S.). Now I know all too well that it works both ways. As for people like Ron and Michael Jackson, I believe both would say that traveling to these places to experience their culture(s) -- each of which, as Hoppsbabo points out above, manages to support 100s-1000s of breweries in areas the size of a single, small U.S. state -- is absolutely indispensable. Just as indispensable as traveling to, and throughout, the U.S. to experience all it has to offer.

 

True or false. I can get a fine beer in a pub in England that is any style I want provided it is some variant of a pale ale?

Here's what's on tap at one of my locals

http://www.peekskillbrewery.com/tap-room-2/house-beers/