Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

And if I'd kept going to five or six pints, I'd probably have gotten a few more descriptors still, enjoyed the beer even less, and would've had a rough next morning. Diminishing returns.

 

I've never tried a beer in a flight, then bought a pint and thought "I don't like this beer now" so I'd say flights have served their purpose for me. I rarely order them, but on a recent beercation I got a couple. New breweries, lots of on site only beers on tap, yada yada. Won't order them if a place is slammed though. I don't review them either.

 

Bullshit.

 

This is the big question. Homebrewers who do it strictly as a hobby, that's one thing.

We both have seen homebrewers pop up in these forums, bragging about how cheap it is to make beer, we know they're trying to prove a point. They conviently ignore the buy-in price of the most basic system, the cost of ingredients, and the time.

Shrug.

If brewing is someone's hobby, and it's how they choose to expend their free time and energy, great. But, do not preach to those of us that don't worship at that altar that its the cheapest beer ever.

Plus, yes, some homebrew may equal, or exceed, certain commercially available beers. Most don't.

I been drinking on a mountain all day, YMMV.

 

The point about flight is that as soon as you sample one beer it affects the taste of the beers following.Persistence of taste is quite amazing, after a couple of pints of a session beer I can still carry the smack of malt in my mouth for 20 minutes.
That's why in competitions we drink water and eat crackers in between samples in an effort to prevent this ; it helps a little but that's all.

 

Adjunct heavy stout, fruited lambic? Full pours are way, way fucking different than small pours.

 

All great points, but the fact remains that you can do it like I did with my second system (2007), which is build it free (even easier to do today with so many people giving away systems they have grown out of), and you can get five gallons of really good beer for twenty five to thirty bucks total. And for an extra 20 you can get five gallons of five different beers. Then your next batch goes down if you make the same beers, since you won't have to buy yeast if you're careful. And that next batch will be delicious beer cheaper than even the shittiest AAL in any store in country. A good beginner system is about 150 so every batch you do the cost gets amortized even lower, so even if you buy and add that in it is damn cheap, which was my only non-preachy point in response to someone who said it isn't. Two cases of beer as good as SN pale ale is not hard to accomplish even for a beginner who knows how to read a recipe, with good hops and fresh yeast and quality malt, for 25.00. Pale Ale is called the perfect beginner beer for home brewers for a reason.

I think folks value their time as if that time was taking away from their paid work/professions. Unless you actually take time off from your paid work to brew at home, it ought to be either considered free time if it's a hobby, or else ?--- how do you value your leisure time as its own reward? Which is what the question you quoted asked.

 

Entirely dependent on the beer. 2oz of pils is useless. 2oz of a bourbon barrel stout is perfect.

 

The best homebrewers I know took YEARS to produce decent beer reliably. Maybe you could get there faster if you bought all the right equipment and read all the right books before you ever brewed your first batch, but people don’t typically operate like that.

It’s only cheap once you get past the expensive part.

 

I haven’t witnessed a formal judging and don’t know the process other than what I’ve read skimming over the BJCP Judge Procedures Manual. There are posts in this forum suggesting the BJCP score is less informative/helpful than the comments by the judges.….I just don’t know.

@marquis is there a standard quantity of ounces in the samplings used in your judging, and do you typically imbibe the entire sample? Was your judging a part of a format (BJCP or other) that adheres to specified guidelines?
If, as you say, evaluation is difficult with the sample sized used, could one reasonably infer that the results of the judging is incomplete or at least could be more accurate/useful if the sample size is typical for the style?

This is more an exercise in me getting educated than being controversial.

 

Now THAT'S a profundity.

 

For me the difference between home brewed beer and the cheap shelf variety is the same as that between home made bread and the cheap shelf variety.

 

I’ll say a couple more things on this and then drop it

1. I understand diminishing returns, but one full pour would appear to still be on the right side of the line, given you a) said you liked the beer less after only one full pour, and b) came up with 40% more descriptors over the course of only another 12oz. Sounds meaningful to me.

2. This isn’t really a 4oz vs full pour thing. But personally I also don’t know how you can give a proper review/rating until you’ve had the beer on at least a couple of different occasions. I know I’ve bought like a 4-6 pack of something, drank one and had a certain opinion, then drank another a day or two later and changed my mind pretty significantly. All based on things I’d eaten/drank previously and/or other specific circumstances.

I guess that’s why I don’t rate/review - because IMO you really need to have drank a significant amount of a beer on a few separate occasions to really have a rounded opinion.

If people are blasting out reviews after one gulp of a BA coffee vanilla doughnut stout, no wonder beers like that get such relatively high ratings

But then if you’re Islay and operating on a higher plane than mortal beer drinkers, maybe it’s different

 

Beer nerd communities were far more tolerable before brewery only releases really gathered steam and rarity because a major factor.

 

The idea that you can't even tell whether you like a beer or not based on a 4 or 5 oz pour is just as crazy the idea that you can know a beer intimately after said taste. Ill say it again, a flight is a great way to get acquainted with a brewery. From a spread of 4 or 5 4 or 5 oz pours you will know whether a new brewery is someplace you might find things you will enjoy or whether it is a place you won't be visiting again.

 

Don’t remember seeing anyone say this. And if directed at me I certainly didn’t. Obviously 4-5oz should give you a great idea of whether or not you like the beer. And I mentioned earlier I totally get the appeal of flights. I just don’t think drinking 4-5oz one time will give you enough of a picture to score/review a beer properly. That’s all.

 

Not directed at you at all, or any one in particular, but there has certainly been the sentiment expressed that less than 8 oz isn't enough to know anything about the beer. Just another area where people tend to migrate toward the extremes even though they are patently ridiculous.

 

Another great setting for a flight that I just remembered; I stopped into a brewery I hadn't been to in a couple years. They had morphed from a brewery that kept a core lineup of six beers across the classic styles (an IPA, a porter, a stout, a blonde, an imperial red, and a lager) to a brewery that is doing all the hip modern IPA stuff (a brut, a few hazies, some wcs with cryohops, etc). They also had up a series of IPAs with the same base beer with different hop bills in the dry hop. A flight of those was super interesting.

 

I guess we should all just be grateful that a lot of you self-proclaimed amazing reviewers aren't billing us for your services or charging us per read. Thank you.

 

I thought flights were for grossly misguided beer consumers?