Macro Lager

Same here. I feel that this situation is becoming more and more rare, though.

 

Most of the people around me don't appreciate good beer. They compare founders stouts to guiness. Why would I waste money on good beer? So I am willing spend the $14 dollars on a case of third shift amber or get a great discount on blue moon and blow their minds.

Sometimes opening people up to good beer does not need to be expensive. Stepping stones.

 

Generally speaking I am not a fan of the AAL style and I have not tasted all of the beers on your list but I have to compliment you on providing the best description of ‘compare and contrast’ of AAL beers. It is fairly common on BA threads to read comments like: all BMC beers tastes alike. It is also somewhat common for folks to add the words “like water” to the end of that sentence.

I am unable to report that I agree with your descriptions but I appreciate you sharing them with us.

Cheers!

 

I rarely do, almost every time I´m a guest at someone´s house and they know I like beer they tend to buy some expensive macro lager like Stella Artois.

 

Occasionally I buy Genesee Cream Ale or Utica Club if I want a cheap beer to drink ice cold and don't feel like pondering over a beer. But mostly for nostalgic purposes and only if I see it on the shelf. They make me think of home.

 

I think some macro lagers are really good. Hell, they wouldn't be the best selling style in the world if they didn't taste good. Some people are just anti macro because it's hip to hate em. I just look at them as a style that has its time and place in my beer drinking

 

yeah I think people will get different notes on the macros if they try and everyone may find them a little different.

 

Guinness? Thats really it. I don't ask what pours out of my friends kegerator.

 

I'm traveling in Japan this week. I used to be able to enjoy a Kirin or Sapporo with some tasty sushi, yakitori or other Japanese good eats. This no longer is the case. I've been ruined!

 

Yebisu and Suntory Premium Malts are pretty good pilsners. Much better than anything from BMC. And there are shwartzbiers called stouts over there which are OK too. But there is a huge craft scene there. Maybe the biggest growing scene in the world right now.
Also a lot of Japanese food doesn't go that well with really heavy or hoppy beers

 

I wrote Sapporo but actually sampled a Yebisu yesterday. It was day 1 so I'll probably adapt in a day or two. My father in law has a couple bottles of sake from my favorite brewery so there's always that fallback.

 

I love Japanese food and will occasionally have a Kirin or Sapporo. However, most of the time I stick to Sake. (Hot or cold)

 

Your father in law sounds like my father in law. But strictly no hot sake - that's only for the cheap stuff.

 

Coors Light is my go-to on hot days when I am lounging in the pool.

Most crafts are too heavy for a Mississippi summer afternoon outside in the heat.

 

Since I've become a craft addict, I will occasionally go back to a macro brew that I used to enjoy out of curiosity. Most of the time it doesn't do much for me. I guess I have become spoiled. I'm the same way with food. For example, I have grown accustomed to buying organic cage free eggs. The other day I bought the regular eggs because it was all that was available, and the taste had dramatically less flavor.

 

I think something that is lost in the conversation is that AB provides hundreds of thousands of jobs to Americans all across the country. From their brewers to the linesmen to sales reps to truck drivers, AB provides a huge economic impact to this country. Which is why I laugh when some elitists say fuck AB, I only support small breweries that employ 20 people. All this talk about supporting local and micro, while well intentioned, is rootless without realizing that without a strong macroeconomy it means nothing. Without a strong US economy consumers don't have the spending power to pay more for beer, without a strong US economy lines of capital and financing are hard to nearly impossible to come by for smaller companies. People fail to see the big picture and understand that craft is a niche, a growing niche but a niche nonetheless. It's a segment of the market, far from THE market.

 

You're operating with the assumption that without AB their would be lss demand for beer. I think that is silly. If Walmart closed do you think no one would want groceries, tires, clothing, sporting good etc? I doubt it. People would still demand the products and businesses would pop up to provide them. People would thus be employed. Same applies here. People would still demand the beer, and breweries would exist to supply them. If AB didn't exist all those employees could just as easily be employed all the same, the only difference is that they'd be employed by smaller operations. I'm not saying that if AB were to go out of business tomorrow, every single laid off employee would have a job for sure. However, to think that all of these individuals would be unemployed without AB is ludicrous. As I said, a demand for beer would still exist and many of those employees would still have jobs in the brewing industry, albeit at smaller operations. So I wouldn't be so quick to praise AB for providing the jobs. Consumers provide jobs, not business owners.

 

I've only had macros at a handful of events where it was all that was available, free, and tick-able...

 

I always thought Heferweizen was MADE for mowing the lawn.....

 

ABInBev worldwide only directly employs about 155,000 people (not "hundreds" of thousands) according to their own 2014 Annual Report. Most outside financial sources' estimates for AB's US employment put it at 20-30k, although this 2012 "Global Citizenship Report" from ABInBev for their US AB division lists their employees at only 12,668 (!). As @Providence noted, supplier and independent wholesaler and retail jobs, while disrupted, would not simply disappear - since the amount of beer consumed in the US would not be cut in half, and the number of cans and bottles, pounds of hops, barley malt and rice (well, maybe not rice ) needed by the industry would remain somewhat constant and all that beer would still have to be delivered and sold.

While the 20 jobs that a single local craft brewer accounts for isn't much, on an "employee per barrels brewed" scale, small breweries employ many more people than the huge, automated facilities of AB and MC. The Brewers Association estimates that the "craft" segment of US industry, with only about 10% of the market, employees over 110,000 people - nearly ten times the number of AB jobs. AB no long lists employment numbers on its individual brewery pages, but just looking at MC's breweries' stats - 900 employees at the Golden CO brewery with a capacity of 13 million barrels of beer, their more modern, automated brewery in Ohio can brew 11 millions barrels with only 510 employees.

Of course, the black eye for the craft segment on this topic is the general poor pay and benefits (especially compared to the organized production "macro" jobs) and reliance by some on illegal "volunteer" employees.