Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

Not very controversial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_glassware

As they say: content is king.

 

Yeah, it's somewhat unique - though if you add up the people/dollars involved in the purchase of good beer, good wine, good spirits etc, you're going to hit some high numbers

Regardless though, it's still just a variant of the overall masking nature of the issue (masking as a social thing, masking as a work thing, etc etc). If someone has something constructive to say that's specific to craft beer then I'm all ears, but whenever I see it crop up on here it's either not constructive, or yawnsville, or both

 

You are about as glib as they come, I like it!

 

If encouraging people to be honest about their drinking habits and acknowledge potential issues is yawnsville or not constructive, that's super disappointing.

 

You say girl like its a bad thing

 

This is a conversation that I wish could be addressed in a more objective way, but, as is, it simply cannot be. It has also been discussed ad nauseum on this board and boards like it.

 

Oh no...just like chocolates and lingerie for Valentines Day...

 

I've got a couple.

PBR, High Life, Coors Banquet, and Miller Lite are all excellent (4.25 or better) beers for what they are.

Tree House and De Garde are two of the most overrated breweries in the world by a long shot, and they always have been overrated. Founders, Ballast Point, Oskar Blues, Stone, Toppling Goliath, Surly, Revolution, and Three Floyds are all overrated as well, just less so.

On the flip-side, Sierra Nevada, Boulevard, Urban Chestnut, Ommegang, New Glarus, Town Hall, Dogfish Head, Anchor, North Coast, Deschutes, Bells, Dovetail, Lazy Monk, Holy Mountain, Tired Hands, The Alchemist, Dieu du Ciel, Ale Apothecary, La Cumbre, Jester King, Central State, Sante Adairius, Von Trapp, Chuckanut, Bierstadt Lagerhaus, Stoudt's, Suarez, Russian River, Fantome, Blaugies, Samuel Smith, Fuller's, Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen, Girardin, Tilquin, and Hill Farmstead are all underrated.

Hill Farmstead is by far the best brewery in the world.

Tilquin Oude Gueuze is the best standard release gueuze. Girardin 1882 Black Label is a close second. Cantillon is a very distant fourth (Drie is somewhere in between).

Jester King Spon is one of the worst examples of a Methode Traditionnelle Gueuze-style beer.

The line between homerism and being a fan is nonexistent nowadays. Locovores are usually idiots (this extends beyond beer).

The beer community as a whole has gotten much more selfish and less fun and familial over time.

A great lager, saison, bitter, or mild is much more impressive than a great IPA or stout. As a corollary, lagers, saisons, lambics, barleywines, and the entirety of the English brewing tradition are the apex of brewing.

Cask beer is (almost) always preferable to standard beer, and nitro is a terrible poor-man's imitation of cask.

Wisconsin and Washington state have really underwhelming and underdeveloped beer scenes.

More style categories are generally a good thing (to a point).

Samuel Adams Triple Bock was delicious.

 

What's wrong with de Garde? They definitely make beer I flat out don't like, but on the other end of the spectrum, they also make the best sours I've had too.

 

Much of what they make is hilariously imbalanced and shows little to no nuance. A lot of the beers taste pretty similar. They have some beers that were flat out bad.

I will say that their price structure is amazing, and The Broken Truck and The Anniversary were both fantastic.

People treat them like they are the best sour brewery in the country, but they're not doing anything particularly special with most of their output.

Just to be clear, I don't think they are bad by any means. I actually think they're very good (even the same-y beers). I just don't think they are as good as the hype, hence "overrated".

 

Nice points, overall. Allow me to retort regarding the following:

Never had a beer from them that was less than great, but there are reasons why the cannot be the best. The first is the narrow breadth of styles that they make. A close second to that is how small their distribution footprint is. There are others, but those two stand out to me.

I wouldn't say that, but there sure are a lot of people out there that are fans of beer because it is local instead of being fans of good beer. The latter is being a student of the game. The former is just being a homer.

A couldn't agree with this more if I tried. Lots of self-centered people populating the craft beer scene, as of late. However, there are some very generous people out there. You just have to try harder to find them than you used to.

I'll go with that, just because they are less common.

Ehh . . . any excellently made beer impresses me. Whether it is of a certain style is superfluous.

For beers of the British tradition, sure, that fits. However, beers that require high levels of carbonation, like saison, are a shadow of themselves on cask.

 

HF makes a pretty wide variety of styles: saison, wild, IPA, IIPA, pilsner, helles, brown, barleywine, biere de garde, porter, stout, imperial stout, old ale, and blondes. They don't do much Belgian/Abbey type stuff, English stuff, or German stuff outside Marie and Mary, but I'd say of breweries on the level that they are, that's a pretty wide breadth.

I somewhat agree regarding cask, and I've amended my original post accordingly.

 

Alcohol abuse is bad for you,sensible drinking certainly is not. Moderate alcohol consumption actually significantly reduces mortality rates. Only at above 30 to 35 units a week does the risk increase over abstinence.
While I am here,Scottish Ales are simply ales brewed in Scotland and can be anything from a Mild to an IPA.

 

I'm sure most of these have been said before, but here goes:
1.) As much as I love me some American IPAs, the number on the market has gotten ridiculous. Almost everybody brews tons of them now, and quite frankly, they can get tedious quickly.
2.) Most American brewers cannot brew traditionally styled German and Czech lagers that stand up to their Old World counterparts to save their lives.
3.) Traditional weissbiers are underappreciated.
4.) I could live with fewer barrel-aged beers, especially stouts. Maybe it's because I'm bourbon country born and bred and every local brewer does them here, but they're overdone.
5.) Sessionable beers, in general, are not taken as seriously as they should be.
6.) The beer community is neither as welcoming nor as fun as it once was. Thanks a lot, snobs!
7.) Kentucky Common deserves to be listed as a unique style apart from American Wild Ale.

Even if most of what I have just said is repetition, I think there is enough ammo there for everyone. Enjoy.

 

I like NEIPAs a lot. I also like some West-coast IPAs. I like pale ales. I like stouts. I like sour beers. I like spontaneously fermented beers. I like lots of different things. NEIPA doesn't have to be "training wheels for craft beer". I liked beer before NEIPA was a thing.

 

I care only about how it tastes and what it costs.

 

I just thought of a couple more:
8.) Stone Brewing is both overrated and unadventurous. Seriously, how many IPAs and Double IPAs can one brew before people begin to realize that nothing all that new is being produced.
9.) Brasserie Fantome's inconsistency is greatly exaggerated. I have been drinking their stuff for years and have literally never gotten a bad bottle. Either I'm extremely lucky or a lot of people don't get what that brewery does nearly as much as they would like to have everyone believe.

 

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

That wasn’t what I meant. Obviously alcoholism is a major problem, that requires a great deal of empathy. It’s close to my heart - it’s an extensive problem in my family.

When I say it’s yawnsville or not constructive on here, I mean because 9 times out of 10 it’s some dick responding to someone who’s saying they drink 3 beers a night with “you’re probably an alcoholic bro you should check that out”. That is both boring and not constructive. When have you ever seen the topic discussed in both a beer-specific and constructive way on here?