Biggest beer pet peeves

Good one...but I'll go one better:
Recently, against my better judgement (based on negative past experiences), I re-visited a World of Beer establishment recently and at the bar, I overheard a conversation between a customer unfamiliar with beer styles and a bartender:

Customer--"What is bock?"
Bartender-- "It's a traditional seasonal German beer style"
C-- "What does it taste like"
B-- "It tastes dark."

A peeve I have with "craft" bars. is that for businesses that tout themselves as "beer central", they seem to hire bartenders and other staff who know very little about beer (on top of which, these places seem rather lax about properly maintaining their beer lines). W.O.B. is a particularly good example of this.
The only reason I even ventured into this place again was because they had St. Bernardus ABT 12 on draft that week (fortunately, it was damned good).

 

Grown men saying "goodies"

 

I hate when people declare one beer or brewery as 'best' or 'better' as if it is fact, written in stone. Beer is subjective...duh.

Also - I really hate when people pour beers with no head cuz they just 'wanna fit that whole can in the glass'. I try not to care too much about what other people do, but I'd be lying if I said this doesn't annoy the shit out of me.

 

I once went to a 40th birthday party for a Bud Light drinker. I am not exaggerating when I say that there was a pyramid in his lawn made of approximately 50 cases that people had brought as gifts. People could were kind of freaked out but also curious that I had brought my own "weird" beer to drink.

 

This. I learned this just recently from watching beer reviews and it makes so much sense. If you pour the beer to the rim, little head will form and you won't have the benefit of the curvature of the glass to focus that aroma.

 

That's funny. "weird" beer, "fancy" beer, still a good amount of ignorance out there.

 

American craft breweries lacking variety when it comes to beer styles. Nearly every brewery has an IPA or pale al, porter or stout, and some sort of Belgian as well as a rotating one-off. Yes these are the styles that sell, but I expand and brew some variety. I think this is an issue that is contributing to the implosion of craft beer

 

Another one is when a homebrewer makes a few decent beers in his kitchen and then decides to open a brewery but winds up brewing bad beer. I've had my fair share of less than desirable beer from small breweries because of this.

 

Dang, there goes my idea for Fruit Loops beer.

 

Too late:

 

Massachusetts miserable growler laws. I'm stuck with more glassware than a Crate & Barrel. Why wasn't this law part of the latest election

 

Perhaps there are more important things to decide?

 

I'll say it again....

.......Old beer.

 

Here's my pet peeve: having to purchase something you don't want in order to purchase something you do want. If it's been posted here before, pardon my redundancy.

This is what I picked up today, and what triggered the post...

A great couple of beers, right? But there should have also been a Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout there - however, to purchase it, I had to buy a 4-pack of Sofie or Matilda...

This is what happened the last time I bought Sofie...

Drank two, poured two. I know that's real upsetting to fans of the beer and opponents of drain pours, so sorry you had to see that. I just didn't enjoy the two I drank. Sofie's an okay beer - I've had it (and Matilda) before, but its just not what I enjoy now. I used to drink tons of Belgian pales, saisons, tripels, and the like, but I've become more of a (D)IPA/imperial stouts/occasional barleywine guy now.

That said, I bought the damn 4-pack of Sofie for the BCBCS, but I hated the way it made me feel. I tried to make the best of it, and offered the manager a bottle, but he declined. I offered the Goose Island/InBev rep/watchdog a bottle, and he declined - he suggested mixing it with OJ to make a "mimosa" ... I thought to myself, this is how you get rid of product that doesn't move on its own; I literally couldn't give it away, and even the GI/InBev rep was suggesting ways to make it more agreeable...

So after brooding in my car for a minute, I went back in and returned the BCBCS and Sofie. I've had BCBCS probably at least a half-dozen times, and it is really good, but paying for Sofie just in order to get it would just be pouring money down the drain (again).

*end rant*

 

I don't know whether it's a case of the bloom falling off the rose, concerns over picking up other releases or just that I'm way too busy, but I thoroughly forgot that BCBS was released Friday. In fact, I so very profoundly forgot about it releasing that seeing your post made me a little dizzy and disoriented in a temporal distortion kind of way.

 

Experienced a new one at Thanksgiving dinner. Family member trying to pour Hill Farmstead Anna into a used iced tea glass still with ice and some melted water/iced tea remnants at the bottom:

Luckily I made a diving save not literally, but I did holler "wait, don't pour it!" like a lunatic just before any liquid hit the glass, and said "let me get you a clean glass for that".

Yikes!

 

Yet, I started a post about this subject a month or 2 ago, and from responses we discovered that many of the best commercial brewers on the planet today, followed this same path from home brewing hero to commercial success without much or any prior formal beer industry experience or education. So although there are a lot of failed homebrew to commercial sightings there are some success stories.

 

Time to get a new store. No issues like that in MA.

 

You should look at the bright side, at least you have the opportunity to buy BCBCS. All we get around here is regular.

 

My biggest pet peeves would have to be:

1: Bars that promote themselves as "craft beer bars" whose wait staff can't tell you what is on the rotating taps and then treat you as though you are a snob for getting up from your table to go look at the taps.

2: Liquor stores that have a special list for every single limited release beer that comes in. I hate going into a place and looking around for a while, then when staff asks if they can help, I ask, "do you have (insert beer here). "Are you on the list?" At this point I take my money elsewhere.