Beer That Tastes Like Beer?

Touche. Having felled the straw man, I'll work on tuning my sarcasm detector.

 

I knew the folly of the argument which is why I would never present it as one to begin with. On one hand yes I chide the immoveable person who's stuck in the past but all the same time mocking those who push for progress for progress' sake even if it's not good. A situation we see all too often where people ignore the merits of each. Sarcasm all around for I fit neither side.

 

Just poking around and looking for beer that tastes like beer. Belgian Lambics are pre 1600, so they’ve been around for what 400 years, so they’re beer. The beers that taste like beers imo are really asking about AALs were all familiar with like Budweiser etc., beers we know, beers we grow up with. Beers here in the US perhaps. So what’s a beer that tastes like beer if you grew up and live in say Luxembourg? I can pretty much guess in Germany, but still there’s Gose and smoked beers too, and their not new. Really no way to answer that question as a whole, only with what you grew up drinking and was popular.

 

To me, Miller High Life or MGD come to mind.

 

It is not just the US where AAL beers are the popular (top selling) beers. The top selling beer in the UK is Carling Lager which is an AAL. The top selling beers in China (lots of beer drinkers there) are AAL beer. The top selling beers in Brazil are AAL beers, The top selling beers in...

Cheers!

 

Exactly what I’m thinking as well, most are happy in this zone, the other 5% or less are a bit different.

I believe I saw where Snow was the best selling beer in the world. So Bud Light, Carling, Snow makes sense. The only thing I could find in Germany was Pils, but the same I’d bet would be true in Belgium and France.

 

I use the phrase “I like beer that tastes like actual beer” quite frequently. To me all that means is beer that sticks to the traditional styles that primarily use hops, malt, water and yeast. I usually stick with pale ale, pale lager, IPA, Stout, pils, etc. in contrast to peanut butter flavored porter, cannoli flavored stout, milkshake this, strawberry that... you get the picture. Although I know the Belgians use a lot of different spices in their ales and I do like some Belgian beers.

 

MAP: The Most Popular Beer In Every Country

It's from March, 2015, but probably still more or less accurate.

 

Snow is a family of brands. There's Snow Beer, Snow Globe Trekker, Snow Draft Beer, Snow Light Refreshing Beer, Snow Premium Light, Snow Ice Pure, Snow Premium Dry Beer, Snow Specialty Brewed, etc. My understanding is that Snow as a grouping of brands outsells Bud Light (the actual best-selling beer in the world, as I understand it), but it doesn't outsell Budweiser brands, let alone AB InBev brands, collectively. Both Bud Light and Budweiser separately outsell any individual beer made by Snow, from what I've gathered. I believe the 4.0% ABV version of "Snow Beer" is the best-selling of the bunch.

 

When I started drinking beer more actively, I always looked to regular beers like the easy to find AALs and standard styles for more of an understanding of what beer was, kind of had always been with brands like Michelob and Miller. Once I started drinking imports (like Chimay, Hoegaarden), I stated to learn what beer could be, and then I started seeing the craft beer world as this exciting almost circus of excitement and color, and there have never been a shortage of things therein that I would find myself bored of trying. While not loving all of it, I feel the craft sector remains stratospheric in what brewers could do (though one could argue the "should") and as an artform proves to be nearly limitless. The shackles are off, and the while some deviate to the point of being absolutely disgusting, the only negative is that I would have to go back to drinking imports and other basic styles which isn't a negative at all. I've learned that I love beer, as a hobby, as a history, and as a culture that permeates throughout our species. Standard AAL? Bring it on. Strawberry Pastry Sour with whatever else? Bring it on. Beer. Bring it on.

 

Kona Longboard tastes exactly like beer.

 

According to the internet:

"Jupiler, the most widely distributed variety, is a 5.2% abv, pale lager. It is made from malt, maize, water, hops and yeast."

Cheers!

 

I often joke that I like "coffee-flavored coffee and beer-flavored beer." I feel even more strongly about the coffee than the beer (the smell of hazelnut coffee makes me gag) but for beer I am especially talking about things like skittles beer and other candy nonsense like that. Coffee should taste like coffee. 95% of the beers I drink are traditional styles, but sometimes I like to drink a "weird" beer and as a homebrewer I think about whacky beers all the time--I just never actually brew them.

Jeff Alworth has just posted on his Beervana blog about the mixed feelings he has about the beers at Great Notion in Portland:

"But let’s be clear: no one goes to Great Notion for the pilsner. People show up for beers that taste like muffins. And here we come back to the issue of polarization. Everyone agrees the beer tastes like muffins, and even critics would be forced to admit it’s an uncanny recreation. The debate, instead, is this: should beer taste like muffins?

There are many people in the world, and certainly readers of this blog, who believe that beer has a fixed, permanent, and knowable essence. It has a defined scope. Beer should taste like beer. At the risk of alienating 80% of my readership: this is an ahistorical view. Beer can and has tasted like anything. Brewers, over the course of 12,000 years, have put everything in it you can imagine (including things you can’t imagine, and things they shouldn’t have). Even within the scope of what those same folks would consider the acceptable canon are beers that either require asterisks because they’re so weird or that once themselves were hugely polarizing. A beer that tastes like a blueberry muffin is an abomination right up until the moment it hits a tipping point and becomes a paragraph in the sacred text of beer.

Great Notion is a challenging brewery because it forces us to consider what we think of beer. I find it hard to believe many people find Blueberry Muffin objectionable on the grounds of flavor. It might not be the beer for every occasion, but is perfectly toothsome on its own merit. I definitely crave such a beer from time to time. No, we dislike Blueberry Muffin contextually; that is, because our definitions don’t include beers like this, so it must somehow be wrong."

 

I think many people like to display that they have a discriminating palate by making statements that seem to show such a thing. So these people easily can make statements about two beers and say one tastes like beer and the other doesn't. It isn't that these folks have some sort of rule about it that can be explained, but that they just make blanket pronouncements they feel their exalted status and great abilities to discern entitle them to make

 

I understand this sentiment, I've always associated "beer that tastes like beer" as something without terribly intense flavor and is generally devoid of flavored adjuncts. If someone tells me they want a "beer that tastes like beer" I'm getting them a German or Czech Pilsner, maybe a Munich Helles Lager, something that is stylistically similar (but a much better version of) to the lowest common denominator for beer which is macro i.e Coors, Bud, Molson etc.
Most friends (that aren't into craft beer) aren't so dedicated to one brand that if you offer them a Spaten or Pilsner Urquell or Bitburger, they'll turn their noses up at it, because there are many similarities flavorwise to the macro beers they normally drink, these are just better renditions of malted barley, yeast, water and hops. They usually rather enjoy these and sometimes will ask where I bought them. I know a couple friends slowly got onto the craft train by taking these very steps.

These are also "mowing the lawn beers" for craft drinkers, lots of subtle flavors and aromas, but easy drinking and you don't necessarily think about what you're drinking when enjoying these brews. I'd find that much harder to do with a Mango Vanilla Milkshake IPA or Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Coffee Stout.

 

Sounds like most AALs.

 

The only one here and that is PU, if I can find it at 3 months I buy it, and....I don’t buy it all that often often. Mostly it’s 6 months old or worse.

 

Ideally no adjucts but as long as they dont dominate.

Ive been drinking Mackeson and after contempation it seems to taste normal in the most special of ways. not overpowerinf with the lactose