Controversial Beer Opinions Thread

Never tasted a foreign saison, do they have the potpourri taste as well? How do they differ from their American counterparts?

 

I wish more American breweries would focus on them instead of treating them as afterthoughts.

 

Could you recommend one that would change my mind on the style? Would have to been something that's not impossible to obtain.

 

I don't agree with this statement. If that were true it would mean any controversial statement ever made would be an attempt at trolling. This is a discussion forum, not the youtube comments section.

 

I would start with Saison Dupont, which is available in most markets (I think). For me, it is the quintessential Saison.

Right now, in my shop, there are so few available to me. I sometimes buy Allagash's saison, which is good, but not sure it would sway you. When Fantome shows up I always pull the trigger

 

Regarding Saisons...

In the “Worst Beer Scenes” thread from a few months back, we were told by one of our learned breatheren that Canada (the country as a whole) has the worst beer scene in the world.

There were several reasons. Government involvement in alcohol sales, regulations, taxation, etc. One other important reason was that all Canadian made Saisons taste like dog piss. This surprised me, as I have enjoyed several Canadian made Saisons and have always assumed that I would not like the taste of dog piss (full disclosure; I have never tasted dog piss, so this is merely an assumption on my part).

Having had well regarded Saisons from other locales that were not markedly different than what I believe to be the better Canadian versions, I am left with the understanding that a good Saison must in fact taste like dog piss.

Therefore, it is my opinion that saisons taste like dog piss, and boy do I love a good glass of dog piss from time to time.

 

Do you get 2 Road's Worker's Comp. Saison ? They are based in Western CT. Pretty good one and they have a Barrel aged version.

 

Agree with Ahonky here, Saison Dupont is your best bet. Beers like that are made with much more finesse and restraint, and won't wind up reminding you of potpourri.

Also, in general, you'd be doing yourself a favor by starting out with classic examples to get a better feel for whatever style.

 

Saison Dupont and the Allagash are definitely accessible and I have tried neither. Never scared to try a new brew even if I dislike the style so on my next trip to the bottle shop I will grab both. Will definitely post feedback once I have tried them.

 

I agree with your statement regarding classic examples as I try to do this when possible (accessibility) to experience a style in its purest form. I am a firm believer that whilst the classic examples do tend to be better, a style can absolutely be improved upon.

 

I'm definitely not triggered. I don't care about what beers you like or don't.

But your comments on lagers and Pilsner seem to indicate that you really don't know much about the basics of beer.
In modern American parlance, Lager and Ale are the two basic families of beer, and are differentiated by what yeast is used.

Pilsner is only a specific style but Lager really isn't a specific style.

Lager includes styles that are anything but flavorless such as Bocks, Doppelbocks, Baltic Porters, and Rauchbiers (for example Schlenkerla).

But you seem to be making the ignorant assumption that Lager just means the pale yellow macro beers like BMC.

Likewise Pilsner as a style has a few strains of thought that makes it difficult for me to find which ones are actually good.
There are the people that think Pilsner is just a synonymous for weak bland beer. This I think comes largely because they hear BMC beers called Pilsners and Miller Lite calls itself that on the packaging.
Then the majority of the common imported European beers aren't much better as in Stella Artois, Warsteiner, Beck's, and St Pauli Girl. I find a lot of American craft breweries have this assumption and a lot of the "Pilsners" that I come across bear no resemblance to actual traditional Pilsners and try to be bland.
Then you have traditional Pilsners. These are full flavored beers that should have a moderate and noticeable malt flavor and moderate to strong hop presence. These beers are more than comparable to Pale Ales generally. I even know of ones that put a lot of modern IPAs to shame even without deviating from the range of bready malt flavor and floral/herbal hops.
Then you have the noveau Pilsners that are often IPAs in disguise. Based on modern fruity hop aromatics and more commonly without any noticeable malt flavors.

One last point that I want to make is that I find MANY people confuse "flavors I recognize" with "flavors that are there". I mean people think that IPAs are more full flavored because they recognize the fruity flavors from being familiar to them. Stouts have the chocolate and coffee flavors that people identify.

But good pale lagers have lots of flavors but they are not often as identifiable. The bready crackers flavors can be harder to identify when paired with the residual sugars or hops. The herbal and floral flavors aren't as readily separated from each other so they aren't as easy to identify as most of the fruit flavors are.

But that's not saying there are actually less flavors. You just have to understand what you're tasting to really notice it.

 

Thanks for your input, a lot of this information I was already aware of but I'm sure others have taken some unknown knowledge from it. You stated, "Lager includes styles that are anything but flavorless such as Bocks, Doppelbocks, Baltic Porters, and Rauchbiers (for example Schlenkerla)." These are all examples of styles of lagers I dislike. I personally am not the biggest fan of extremely malt forward beers or brews that remind me of chewing on a biscuit. The vast majority of lagers tend to come across this way to me. You also stated, "But you seem to be making the ignorant assumption that Lager just means the pale yellow macro beers like BMC." I never said or implied this but I would say that statement can be applied to my thoughts on pilsners specifically as most are pale fizzy yellow brews. I know this doesn't apply to ALL of them but a good majority.

 

I do. I recall it being pretty simple, but good for the price. Almost reminded me of wit...if I remember correctly

 

Lager purists are old farts.

 

Only insufferable Millennials make goo-goo babyshit noises when they see a silver can with pink and yellow ribbons on it

 

I was about to disagree, but I woke up with back pain this morning.

 

We are in sync because I was actually just gonna post the same thing about IPAs. Your timing is eerie. People think that American/modern IPAs aren't a good match for cask. For me, cask is the absolute most enjoyable way of serving a modern IPA. Period. As far as I'm concerned, you even get bonus points with me for saying "in" cask rather than "on." I'm weird.

Practically speaking, there isn't any major beer style that really "should" have effervescent carbonation. There are simply specific beers made with this, or are supposed to have it, and then there's the personal preference of the drinker. Having a German Pilsner with low carbonation by design, served via gravity cask, effortlessly sliding down your throat can be a beautiful thing. If the individual drinker doesn't happen to like this then that's a different story. Eye of the beholder/brewer rather than a style thing.

 

Who is the other most obnoxious poster involved in this thread?

 

There are definitely some american IPAs that I can imagine would work well via a cask. And maybe the type of IPA being brewed these days would be better suited to it. But I remember a handful of times ~2010-2013 period at Blind Tiger trying to choke down some DIPAs that just weren’t suited. I think in one instance it was a variant of Ruination / Ruinten. For me the beer needed the carbonation and temp of a keg to cut through the hop bite and the sweetness. Eye of the beholder as you say though

 

I too recall having one of the Bear Republic IPAs from cask at Blind Tiger... and thinking to myself, "This is actually way more enjoyable than all of the fancy-schmancy Oregon saisons I had earlier today... and it's due to it being cask beer." I wouldn't be surprised if most people agreed with you though (and I know you're being discriminating rather than being anti-cask).