German craft beer

There are a lot of people who review light lagers and immediately say they taste corn -- even when there's no corn in the grist. Point being: the reviews here can not always be taken at face value. People like beer, but they don't always have the wherewithal or experience to recognize what they're tasting.

 

Budweiser has its own malting plants. And a decocting mash? That's not a skill any more than a step mash is - it's following a fairly simple process. And you don't think macros maintain their own yeast? Huh?

Right, and several others mentioning fruit, you'll also see references to tartness here and across the internet.

Stating that there's a taste of something in a beer does not imply that something is in the beer. Does anybody believe there are bananas in a German Hefeweizen?

 

I never claimed Bud was particularly easy to make. But if you can't tell a difference in the quality of the malted barley from Augustiner to Bud (or Coors) -- much less in the final product with its melanoidin richness of the malt character vs. the husky/graininess (and really tart, green apple tang) -- then I'm not sure what else to say.

 

The real point is that they're used to tasting macro beer, which they've been told has corn, and when they taste something lighter -- akin to that macro in their mind -- they knee-jerk to "corn." But my real point is to the reviews -- there's no telling where or how most of the reviewers learned about beer and tasting.

 

That's because there isn't a difference in "quality". The ingredients are all of high quality, and they're all there for a reason - to produce a largely flavorless product - but a consistent one. Believe it or not (and trust me, I sometimes find it hard to believe myself ) some people drink those sorts of beers because, gasp, they want to!

If we're measuring quality as a function of the amount of flavor, than you invite the very dismissiveness you speak against, when others speak about industrial light lagers. You rail against dismissiveness by being dismissive. How is that helpful?

 

Certainly the phenomenon of suggestiveness influencing tasting is very real - but in this case there's no suggestion that there should be fruity tastes, and yet it's not an uncommon comment. I'm telling you I taste it too - perhaps accept that if you can't that others can?

 

I'm not sure how you get that I am equating intensity of flavor with quality of flavor. The grainy/huskiness of a U.S. macro may be just as intense as the bready/melanoidin character of a German light lager; but the former is still a flaw and the latter is not.

 

Okay, and that's an opinion of yours, great. You are entitled to it - why get so upset then when others have poor opinions of beer styles you like?

 

I am not upset that you have a poor opinion of Augustiner. What I question are your comparisons of what I (and many, many others) consider a world-class example of the Munich Helles style to apple juice, Bud, Coors, and other "largely flavorless products." Just trying to understand your reasoning behind those comparisons.

EDIT: also, grainy-huskiness in (2-row and/or pilsner) malt is considered a flaw because it usually indicates a problem (i.e. too high temps) during the malting process. It's not just "an opinion of [mine]."

 

I agree it takes a lot of skill for Bud etc, made on such a massive scale, to be consistently the same, but that does not mean it is good.

 

I'm speaking more broadly, not about me - you generally seem to have a pretty dismissive attitude around craft beer - which is fine I suppose, but it seems to come from a position less about the beer and more about the way people talk about it. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but you almost seem to mirror what you are mocking when the subject comes up - extreme dismissiveness of people that don't share your opinions as obviously not knowing about beer.

Questioning my tastes didn't come up until I dared let slip that I find Augustiner to not be that great.

And I mean it shouldn't be hard to understand the reasoning - I'm just really am not a fan of light lagers. I recognize (and have acknowledged) that all light lagers are not the same, but clearly they share some characteristics which drive me to not like them. Some people don't like stouts - there's tons of variability in stouts - yet some people simply don't like any of them.

That's fine. People have their own tastes. When someones don't agree with yours, it's not necessary to try and explain them away.

 

Sure, but that was my point - good or not good is subjective, and is something everybody gets to decide for themselves. Skill is skill, and deserves respect, even if we don't like the end results or even particularly care for the business practices of a brewery.

 

I admit that I dismiss of the notion that something is "craft" beer simply because you choose to call it that, and not because it is particularly well-crafted (as is the case with many, many "craft" beers these days). Conversely, it should be possible to not be a fan of light lagers but still acknowledge that the exemplars of the style are well-crafted, right?

 

If you say so, but are you positive it's an apple character? Seriously, that's my point (ad nauseam), most (maybe not you) of the reviewers reviewing beer here are winging their descriptions. They've never read a book on beer flavors, never sat in a beer competition to learn from experienced tasters, never brewed beer to understand processes.

If you tell me you're tasting apple, so be it. Only time I've ever tasted apple in a beer there's been something wrong with the beer.

 

This is what I was going to say as well. I don't like Gueuze, but I understand that others do and I don't discredit them for it -- and I don't immediately discredit beers of the style either... and won't review them with a misunderstanding of the style.

 

Sure, absolutely. In fact, I find the whole craft label stupid, and the "craft not crafty" thing (not sure if you are familiar with that) a waste of time. As far as acknowledging the exemplars of the style - I certainly can recognize that enough people seem to like it, so there's obviously something there. That doesn't change that some people don't, and their experience is just as valid.

 

Yeah being honest - batch issues were my thought too once I started to really put my finger on what it was - but as I've continued to look out for it, the features seem still to be there. A feature, not a bug, as it were.

 

Absolutely those experiences are valid. But comparisons to apple juice, Bud, Coors, and flavorless products are not.

 

The apple juice comparison was made as a joke in the assumption were able to detect these flavors - I've made this comment to others (granted in person, so the tone of my voice made it clear that I didn't literally mean apple juice) and have had others confirm.

The Bud and Coors thing was not a comparison - you need to go back and reread - the original statement was that asking me to drink it fresh from the tap is silly - everything tastes better fresh from the tap (again, barring of course things that tend to get better with age) - that's the stock response when somebody says you don't like a beer - "well did you try it fresh in the town it's made?!". The joke was that even Coors likely tastes better fresh, in Golden Colorado. I wouldn't know - my only stop in Golden I ordered something else.

 

I've gotten apple from German beer before, although I'm not sure Augustiner was ever one of those beers. I will say, though, that Augustiner was never my favorite of the Bix 6 Helle Biere, I think because of the presence of sulphur in the bottled version (I've never had it vom Fass, and I do think that makes a difference). I would drink an Augustiner Hell ten times out of ten, though, if the other choice was Budweiser. And I don't even mind Bud all that much.