Worst Beer Protips?

Decanting?

 

I see what you did there, even if you didn't.

Just don't say anything to @woodychandler

 

Even Woody's been known to deCANt now and again.

 

That made me laugh out loud.

 

Exactly. Just get clever with the "business name" on the box and they don't ask any questions. Anyone who I trade with knows what's inside the box from "Rug's BBQ Sauce & Rubs"

 

Me. Cellar temp or room temp is my ordinary preference over “ice cold” for light AALs.

 

You know, I remember when I was 16/17 living in rural Quebec, my friends and I would bluff our way into the taverns. A lot of the older guys would avoid the cold draft beer and order the old quart bottles of Labatt Blue, Molson Export, etc. They’d be served with a very small glass (or sometimes two glasses) and a shaker of salt. I was told by one guy that the draft was too cold and took forever to warm up and be drinkable. The small glasses helped bring the bottled beer up to the temperature he preferred. Two glasses allowed one to sit while the first was consumed. A shake of salt helped him avoid gas. Many of the older guys did the same thing. I never got on board with the warming up of those beers, but the little shake of salt was enjoyable.

 

Nice post. Shifting to the topic of adding salt - that’s also a big reason why I like to drink out of a glass rather than a can or bottle - I want to release carbonation from the beer. It’s odd to me that when people talk about drinking from a glass vs a bottle/can, this seems to be hardly mentioned ( but @jesskidden did so in this thread). Almost everybody just talks about aroma and being able to see the beer.

I can obviously relate to the preferences of those older guys you mentioned, but I still stick to draught when I’m out (as long as the draught product is good). It’s more fun and everything doesn’t always need to be ideal. It might be 180 degrees away from my ideal, but I am still capable of having a very enjoyable drinking experience by drinking ice cold, gassy and light-struck beer straight out of a green bottle. I’m here because I like beer.

@SFACRKnight

 

Rebel....

For special occasions or a beer like Blessed, or Mother of All Storms, yeah, I'm gonna use a glass. And probably the right glass for the beer. Most of my drinking is pretty spontaneous these days, and usually a beer that is lower in abv or something I've had before. I can't spot a discernable difference in having pilsner urquell in a glass or from the can. You bring up an interesting point with carbonation. Some beers are markedly less bitter when poured into a glass. I enjoy bitter ipa, so a neipa from the can is more enjoyable for me than in a glass as a result of that. Some US pilsners are so bitter in the can they HAVE to be poured into a glass in order to tame the bitter. But even at that, those beers can go into a shaker and lose that edge. It doesn't HAVE to be a pilsner glass. I think the emphasis on every beer needs to be served in the proper glass is over rated as a result of all this.

 

Hmmm... interesting. I'd think in a lot of US bars the bottled beer would often be colder than the draught.

Only place I ever saw people in bars drinking quarts on-premise was in one of the old industrial towns west of Binghamton, NY. I thought it was an interesting idea - a quart w/lunch - but now wonder how the price compared to a 12 oz. bottle.

I'm always saying it - just do a search for "excess C02" by "jesskidden".

 

Back when I used to review beers in the New Beer Sunday threads, I occasionally got comments because I consistently used a regular water glass for my beers. It's my default. I also use my dedicated beer glasses when I feel like being more ceremonial, careful or fun. BTW - going beyond any flavor or feel differences due to carbonation, if you find that you are often bloated when you drink your beers straight from the can, see if it changes things for you if you pour them in a glass first. This isn't why I specifically like my beers poured, so I have nothing to add with personal experiences, but I have tried the "napkin test" often pushed by Anheuser-Busch.

Wait, are you trying to tell me that us frequent posters are constantly repeating ourselves... and in some respects to the same audience each time? I'm shocked. When I do it I feel like a broken record, but in your case I tend to view it as being consistent. Does one person repeating themselves over and over again count as an army of voices?

 

I know! There are certain topics... ... when they come up, I say to myself, "Nope, not me. I'll let somebody else get it this time..." but an hour or a day later, there I am, typin' away or searching for a previous post of mine I can self-plagiarize or link to.

 

I think the quart versus draft temperature choice had more to do with the glasses used. The ones that came with a quart were very small. Maybe an ounce or two larger than the ‘flight’ glasses used today. I always called them juice glasses. The draft at these places wasn’t served in a pint glass if I remember correctly, but the glasses were significantly larger.

The old Quebec taverns were the last bastion of the quart bottles here (625ml to be precise). You could buy them at the depanneurs, when I was first buying my own beer (late 80s) but not everywhere.

 

Yeah, in a lot of the US bars, pre-craft (and pre-shaker pint) the typical draught serving was 7-10 oz., but you could also get a short beer in that same straight-sided "juice glass" type glass aka a "shell", esp. if you ordered a shot and a beer when the beer was a "chaser". (Gee, haven't heard that word in a long time.)

Same glass might have been served when a bottle of beer was ordered - if it was multiple beers carried to a table on a tray, the glass was often inverted on top of the open bottle. One of my favorite pics - see the beers in front of the bartender on the right and the ones being held by the Stroh's and Goebel drinkers at the table:

Hey, who's checking ID's?

 

That place seems to have a severe squirrel problem.

 

Vat 69? Man, that had to be one crazy party!

And it looks like they're partying with their moms!

 

Look, just because she’s not classically beautiful in your eyes, don’t criticize a couple of guys for going out on the town with their (old) ladies and a 8 year-old chaperone…

 

Yeah, like all the saguaro cacti you see scattered all over Texas. lol

 

"Aging makes beer better"

In my experience, this is rarely the case. Only really true with high abv stouts, but overall, I find that beers dont get negligibly better with age

 

Is there a universal definition of "better"?