Controversial Beer Opinions (Round Two)

I think the person quoted regarding Cantillon availability was speaking about that availability 10+ years ago.

 

Beer from the cask beats both by a light year

 

I dont think this is true. Do I need four month old Firestone Walker on my shelf? Do I need a new Chicago IPA or a new regional giant in the cooler of my beer store? No. I need neither. I need less.

To be honest, I’m shocked I’m not getting more love for this stance. How often, in a given year, do I buy beer from outside of my region (New England)? I’m talking Stone, Founders, Pipeworks, Toppling Goliath, Cigar City-esque outfits? Zero times a year.

 

It comes back to the same old argument: Do I buy a "better" (often not better, just more hyped, better reputation, higher scores on BA/UT) from farther away, or one that is "almost" as good (in reality probably the equal or better of the BIG name beer) from closer? Closer is better.

Except for European stuff, and stuff I get in BIFs, I rarely buy anything farther away than WA/OR/ID/MT/AS. Ommegang and Unibroue are about it.

 

I agree with you 100% here.

Cheers!

 

I don’t think the national distro beers are about hype. Hell, it would be really easy to argue the other way, the easier something is to obtain the less hype it gets. I think that’s been a pretty well proven factoid for about a decade now, at least here on BA.

 

Well, you posted in a thread called “Controversial Beer Opinions” so at least on some level you thought it might not be well received. And it ended up being controversial indeed.

I just don’t see how the forced removal of competition from the market would improve the overall quality of the product. Your initial premise of easy to acquire self space leading to better quality local just doesn’t make much sense either.

If you choose to never buy anything from Stone, Bells, Founders, etc that’s certainly your right. But rigidly sticking to that seems like you would miss out on some great beers. And I just disagree that local is always better. Local is only better if the products are equitable. If I go to a local beer store there might be what, 30-40 regional IPAs available. How many of those are going to be better than Stone IPA or Two Hearted? Maybe a handful, and even if it is that many you’d still have to sift through 3 dozen inferior products to get to the few superior ones. This would of course be regional, some locales like NE, probably have high hit rates of IPAs on beer store shelves (I’m not sure what you can get on the shelves up there vs brewery or limited release only) but here in the SE every brewery has an IPA, they are almost always the first beer of a brewery to be canned, and most all of them just aren’t very good. So for me, someone who might only drink a dozen or so IPAs in a year, I would rather go with a Stone IPA which I know is an exceptional beer then grab something local that’s probably an overly malty mess or brewed with a plethora of adjuncts to try to make up for an inferior hop profile.

I have no problem with individuals supporting local, I think that’s great if the local product is good, but a pitch to remove gold standard craft breweries (which mind you, revolutionized the beer world, opening up the door for all these other breweries to emerge) seems misguided.

 

Yup, not all regions are 'up to snuff'. I am very lucky to be living in my area as regards local beer quality. Not everyone is as fortunate.

Cheers!

P.S. And I still often purchase Bell's Two Hearted; I have a 6-pack in the fridge right now.

 

Carlsberg is dead cool. (For the science. And they let me look at their brewing records without having to sign an NDA.)

 

Blasphemer. Abt is one of the best beers ever brewed.

I'm typing this with my left hand as I have a glass of it in my right.

 

They have a whole laboratory complex full of scientists. And literally carved in stone in the entrance hall it says that they will make public any discoveries which have practical or theoretical use. Their lab was the first to publish about Brettanomyces and invented the pH scale.
A shame their Pils tastes shit, but the lab is wonderful.

 

Preach!

Ahh, sorry about that, missed that part.

I don’t think that’s terribly controversial. Although you could probably say many versions of the same style taste similar, regardless of the style.

Although I think something like Jever and Rathaus taste quite different, and I think I could pick out the two in a blind taste test.

New England IPAs do seem fairly similar to me. Then again I did a blind taste test between two New England IPAs this past winter and was able to pick out which was which. I did something similar with two Czech pale lagers from a local brewery. While I did like one better than the other, I did not correctly blindly pick which was which.

What about a sour oatmeal stout?

I didn’t see it that way. I liked that post because to me, I’d like to see less regional/national breweries clogging our shelves here. Many of them are old and just take up shelf space.

Our locals are fresher and oftentimes just as good. @mrmattosgood and I are both in New England though, so as has been mentioned already, it depends on your local scene. There’s no shortage of good beers on the shelves here locally. Which is probably a contributing factor for regional/national beers collecting dust here.

Wouldn’t it be “cheers” because it was a controversial opinion?

They invented the pH scale?

 

Google says it was Soren Sorensen, Carlsberg's director of chemistry, about 100 years ago, who invented pH.

 

I am sick of all the IPA's out there.. they are all the same ..All these homebrewers who started breweries because they can brew an ipa.. you want to impress people, brew a true to style pilsner where you cant just dump shit into it to hide the fact your lazy .. People want a variety of styles not just 9 version of the same crap

 

What's with all of the "boozy sodas of the week" BS that so many breweries are making? You know, the triple mango IPA aged in rum barrels with cherries in them weighing in at 10.5% abv or the imperial chocolate birthday cake biscotti pastry stout that's 12% abv? And they all cost $25 for a 4 pack. The only thing I can think of is that these beers are for people that don't like beer or have the palate of children. If I want a 12 or 13% alcoholic beverage I'll have wine. And a good one too. Not one that tastes like fruit juice. The other reason I can think that these beers are made is that it's easy to mask the imperfections in your beer if you're a bad brewer by having a shit load of hops, fruit, coffee, wood and alcohol in it . I wonder how many of these brewers can make an elegant American brown ale, British bitter or Czech style pilsner that are 5 or 6% abv.

 

Based on what is flooding the market here, no, they don't.