Beer That Tastes Like Beer?

Like many others, I always think of German styles when I think of "beer that tastes like beer".

While I enjoy them from time to time (in very small doses) I do not consider "beers" that pour like a frozen Margarita to be beer at all.

 

“Beer that tastes like beer” are, to me, drinkable and well-delineated above all else. They’re not marred by added flavors, concentration or hopping that overpowers the base to the detriment of a clean finish. Their flavors are crisp and defined, vs. muddied or indistinguishable.

Examples that come to mind: Highland Gaelic Ale, SN Pale Ale, Columbia Craft Lager, Orval, Saison Dupont, and Ayinger Oktoberfest-Märzen.

 

When I think of what "tastes like a beer" I would think of those made along the lines of the original German purity rules, Reinheitsgebot those only containing water, barley and hops.

Having said that, I do greatly enjoy all the deviations from this rule. What kind of world would it be without adjunct stouts, fruited sours, etc?

 

Czech and German Pilsners (although really good ones can be hard to find)

 

I'm willing to bet Belgians and Germans (perhaps add the English) would come to blows over the idea their beer is the only "true" beer

 

Bohemians (Czechs) can certainly claim that their pilsners are the only true pilsners ... after all, it's right there in the name

 

I've used the phrase before but it's around a pretty selective audience. Obviously for a macro drinkers standpoint, most craft beer doesn't taste like beer. For me though as a craft beer drinker, beer that taste like beer is usually easy to identify just based on how the brewer describes or markets the beer. If they describe the beer as tasting like pop-tarts, you can be sure the beer does not taste like "beer".

In the past few years has been, many brewers have gone away from the creative use of malt, hops, and yeast to get different flavors, to straight up adding those raw ingredients to get those flavors. We went from citrusy hops, to full on citrus fruit IPAs. Coffee-ish malt in stouts, to full on coffee in the stout. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and I'll try most beers, but I'm far more impressed when a brewer can extract a complex layering of flavors from four simple ingredients, than someone just adding a bunch of other stuff to hide their lack of brewing skill.

 

as for aa beer that tastes like beer, my taste buds would say Pilsner Urquell.

 

Weihenstephaner

 

I always understood the phrase, when used by craft beer drinkers on this site, to mean beer that has the traditional flavors that come from barley malt, wheat, oats, corn, rice, hops, and yeast. Malts and grains can have flavors and aromas of chocolate, smoke (which some associate with smoked meats), coffee, bread, crackers, etc. Hops can impart bitterness, along with aromas and flavors of a wide variety, especially citrus fruits, tropical fruits, pine, etc. Yeast can also contribute a variety of flavors and aromas, which can also include fruits (e.g. banana), etc. It also includes flavors from traditional brewing methods (i.e. barrel, etc.). In my mind, "beer that tastes like beer" includes ALL of the traditional beer styles.

So, what is beer that does NOT taste like beer?

Beer heavily flavored by flavoring additives that do not come from malts, hops, or yeast (e.g. pastry, cinnamon, fruits, etc.).

I also include in this (by "I include" I mean how I interpret the phrase when used --- I don't recall if I have EVER actually used the phrase myself...) certain brewing techniques intended to make the beer taste AS IF it was something other than beer... e.g. fruits juices, fruit smoothies, etc., especially when combined with intentionally hiding other aspects of hops character in beer (e.g. pine, bitterness) with has a sweet finish ... IOW, NEIPAs.

Technically, I suppose the phrase should also include whiskey flavors, etc.

Coffee and chocolate... not sure.

 

I am certain to give the question its due as soon as I figure out what is the taste of breakfast cereal, ice cream, soda pop, sucking candy, and what is the color of balloon.

 

Not sure about coffee myself. Chocolate no, get ahold of some Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. No added chocolate all flavor from the malts.

 

Ice cream is a great parallel, as the taste of cream so often gets covered up with other flavors. We're just so used to ice cream not tasting like iced cream and instead tasting like a cold, creamy version of whatever flavorings are added that many people think of it as a substance without a characteristic flavor or set of flavors. I hope that never happens to beer.

Question: Do you think the Impossible Burger or the Beyond Burger "tastes like plants?"

 

Weizen, Pils, Helles, Fest, Weizenbock, or Doppelbock?

(Their NA Weizen is pretty "beery" too! )

 

Some feel a need to reminisce about times when:
"Men were men"
"beer tasted like beer"
"Simpler times"
People who feel the zeitgeist is in a different language than they can speak, doesn't pertain to them, and that their revolution has seen its apex, come and gone. Longing for relevance in a rapidly evolving amorphous world, that grows newer and scarier with each passing moment.

 

More like beer tastes like Butterscotch. Unless Minhas has really fixed their system, their beers are the worst. Shame what they did to the Huber Brewery -- there was beer flavored beer.

 

Oh c'mon, it's not like that. This isn't some sad grasping for relevance and 'the way things were'. The vast majority of beers noted as 'beer that tastes like beer' are readily available and held as the pillars of the craft. If you want to make some sort of allusion to evolving with the times, I'll counter that the vast majority of mutations that it takes to move evolution forward are unviable/deleterious mutations. Kind of like Milkshake IPAs.

 

Are you implying that in every niche of society, every hobby, every trend, every cultural aspect there is only and always progress, that the latest is necessarily the greatest, and that anyone who ever laments or resists a new bend in or distributary of the meandering river of culture is a pathetic regressive who deserves only pity and/or mockery? I'm very much a rational optimist about economic and technological growth and the improving aggregate quality of life that they bring, but an attempt to apply that overarching positive tendency to every individual aspect of society and culture strikes me as jarringly naive and completely untenable as some sort of broad rule of life.

Many (but not all) aspects of life are getting better. Many (but not all) aspects of craft beer and its trappings are getting worse. There's nothing inconsistent or inherently dismissable in those statements. Indeed, those who guard and battle against the deterioration of the cultural aspects about which they care, and who push for innovation that represents real progress rather than winding up in regrettable dead ends, are performing a valuable service in promoting those very real net improvements in quality of life.

 

It was a ribbing on my part, all sarcasm gents.

 

Well played, you had me. Cheers!