Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

In my opinion it is a chore, not a hobby. So yes, I would factor in time and labor like stated previously.

I can pay a brewery to do all the work for a similar price. Why would I do it and risk it being less than mediocre? Plus the clean up.

 

How much do you charge yourself for your other chores?

 

Lol what a joke - clearly you missed the point. Home brewing small batches (which most people do) is not cost effective when you include all resources. I've done it.

 

I can have Sierra Nevada brew me 2 cases of their Pale Ale for about $70 or I can use multiple resources, work for multiple hours, and most likely come up with a less than favorable product for a similar price. Hmm . . .

 

Yes but it is only superficial tasting. I have been a beer judge on many occasions and even when judging low ABV beers it is difficult to evaluate them with the sample sizes we use. A flight of strong beers is a waste of time as the palate simply cannot deal with all the factors involved. Every sample is strongly affected by the previous one. And after all beer is a drink not a curiosity.
I also find that even the simplest beers change as I get down the glass.
I hope nobody ever scored or judged a beer on the basis of the small samples in a flight

 

I completely understand why people may want flights/small pours.

But you’re swinging too much the other way suggesting that you get a complete picture of a beer after 4oz. Absolutely not. I’d say anyone that claims that’s the case, is the one with the palate deficiency. Countless beers have opened up as I’ve had a full pour, causing my initial opinion to change. And often I’ve had to have had several full pours over a period of time to form a complete opinion.

And while I know EMJ may have said he’s a 5-6 full pour guy, I think most people on the full pour side of the equation are saying they’d rather have one full pour than a flight of 4-5 beers. So it’s not really a case of people indulging in tons of calories (the amount of time that comes up on here these days makes me wonder if this is aspiringsupermodeladvocate) or alcohol. Just horses for courses re: one large beer or several small ones.

Had to respond because I don’t want your avatar/username giving my country a bad name.

Edit - goddamnit. Beaten to the punch by marquis yet again

 

I mostly just watch threads, rarely engage. But it seems that in every area there is a local niche for super-gimmicky beers. Lots of syrups and diabetes beers (hahaha)! But, whenever I visit these places they are usually lacking in fundamental beer quality and they usually avoid the harder to brew classic styles. Because they are so celebrated on these forums I keep getting bamboozled into visiting. I'm not a beer snob, just a good old home-brewer hobbyist who likes a solid beer.

 

You can't judge the true worth of a 3.8% bitter until you've drunk fifteen pints of it in three hours and shagged the landlords mother in the bogs tbf. I mean we've all been there right?

 

Specific Lambic? Or you’ve just never had a one that was terrible or great?

 

Close, landlord's daughter...

 

In the UK the ubiquitous half-pint, about 10 US ounces, is pretty good for this. It doesn't take me a full US pint (16 US ounces), but it takes me well into the latter half of the glass, to decide. Four- or five-ounce tasters are pretty useless for me except to determine presence or absence of infection or off flavors, not to determine whether I actually like the beer or not.

I guess my palate's shitty, but only moderately so.

I like US breweries and craft beer bars where a half-pint is an option.

 

"landlord" as in South Dakota, or UK? Either way, I applaud both of you for daring. Guy could get 86'd from his favorite pub, or evicted from his house, depending on whose country's usage we're talking about here...

 

The vast majority of my beer-drinking is via small pours at breweries. I rate and review on small pours at the other site very frequently, almost always stating the size of the pour. You can check my reviews out and explain to me where they're deficient. The breadth of knowledge gained by drinking small pours blows away any tiny incremental depth of knowledge that can be gained through large pours, as the returns to each sip diminish rapidly. I try far more beers, from a much greater variety of styles, than I would if I simply got a pint of IPA or a 10 oz. pour of an imperial stout, like so many BA users do, which leaves me with broader experience in styles and a much better understanding of the breweries from which I'm sampling than a single beer ever could give me. I focus much more closely on the beer when doing a written review, so not reviewing from small pours would hinder my understanding of the beer. If you need 16 ounces to understand a beer, that's unfortunate for you, but the limitations of your palate need not be imposed on others.*

* In reality, you're probably far more capable than your prejudice allows you to admit, but you're failing to challenge yourself and improve. Spend some time with an experienced reviewer who utilizes small pours, and your eyes will be opened.

 

Modest much?

 

Islay, please do yourself and us all a favour and buy a flatpack of Tennents, strawpedo them, and go and befriend a traffic cone

you're probably far more capable than your prejudice allows you to admit.

 

Not at all, the more I drink the more I am aware of the limitations of tasting ability.
It is common knowledge that food pairing works. Match a food with a drink and if you get it right both will taste better and different from when they are on their own.
I am an experienced beer taster, I have gone through the courses . I have spent sessions drinking beers adulterated with chemicals which simulate brewing and serving faults. I drink water and eat crackers between samples when judging.I sit on panels and nobody else finds unravelling the flavours from previous beers at all easy if it is in fact possible.
One of my favourite beers tastes pretty ordinary for the first few ounces then flavours come forward and dance on the tongue. By the end of a pint I want another and a good beer will taste better as we go along.There is another beer I often see which tastes good for the first few mouthsful but after about half a pint it just palls on me. I cannot get the measure of any beer by drinking just a few ounces. I cannot judge a country by flying over it either, it requires more than that.
Good beer deserves a fairer assessment than just a couple of ounces sandwiched between others. As I said before this is superficial tasting and beers deserve better.
You don't get a broader beer knowledge as you haven't given them the chance to show their true quality.

 

Someone really needs to make one of these big sugary beers and name it 'Wilford Brimley'.

 

I just did a small anecdotal test, reviewing and rating a beer from a pint can. I poured it in four 4-oz. increments. I did a "full" review of the first 4-oz. pour. It ended up at 130 words, with 25 comments that I consider descriptors. The other three 4 oz. pours totaled to produce 38 additional words and 10 additional descriptors. I didn't find anything to edit out of my review of the first four ounces. My numeric rating did not change. I enjoyed the beer slightly less in the final 4 oz. pour than I did the previous three, but not quite enough less to reduce my rating. This strikes me as pretty typical when I do rate from a large pour and pay attention the entire time (rather than just rate and review from the first few ounces anyway and then pay attention to other matters, as I suspect is a very common tactic among raters). I find my numeric rating very rarely changes by more than two tenths of a point after my first few sips (well less than four ounces), and, when it does change, it's much more likely to go down than up.

 

For me, part of the problem with reviewing small pours is that if the beer is really good, I find myself well into it before I realize "damn, I was going to review this". Of course if that happens it influences the score positively in that I apparently got so involved in the drinkability of it, that I forgot I was reviewing it. If the pour was only 4 ounces, it could be gone before I give the review a thought. The other thing is that - particularly with stouts - I like to drink it at varying temperatures.

 

So you’re saying when you drank a full pour you were able to come to up with additional descriptors, that (in this case) you enjoyed the beer a bit less, and that (in general) sometimes drinking more of a beer leads to a slightly different (generally lower) score.

Do I need to state the obvious here or are we good?