More Alcohol = Better?

no

 

Taste is the main draw. If two beers are of equal taste, and one has a lower ABV. I will prefer the lower ABV. I am a huge fan of beer. I could due without the getting drunk part.

 

Wisconsinite Summer Weiss Beer - Lakefront Brewery, Inc.

 

True That!

 

so true

 

A flavorful and complex beer that confounded me was a Harvey's mild from cask in Britian. 3% ABV.

 

In general I prefer higher alcohol beers for this reason. With that being said this SoCal heat has got me drinking some great low abv beers; thank you Green Flash and Firestone Walker for your Citra Session Ale and Pivo Pils respectively!

 

But who was Zombie Dust?

 

I love high alcohol beers, oh and they have to taste good too.

 

I prefer well balanced beers that hide their booze well. For example a RIS that is 12-14% surly will have some booze taste to it. I noticed my tolerance to the taste of alcohol is getting less and less as the years go on. I cracked a Kopi Luwak Speedway Stout last night and the booze was noticeable at 12% and I thought that the beer would be a little more enjoyable if the ABV was around 10% and a little less noticeable. Again I cracked a Iron Fist Triple IPA the other night and the same thing I would have preferred a lower ABV, rather then 12%. I know the higher ABV enhances flavour but at some point the beer just gets too boozy....

 

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier is my favorite and it's 5.4%.

I don't like the super-hoppy beers, but I love belgian strong dark ales. Really they're just different tastes. I think part of the rating discrepancy is that people who prefer higher ABV, more hoppy beers just spend a lot more time rating them. A lot of my favorite beers are in the 5-8% range and have ratings in the 80s.

And personally, speaking just for myself, I can't understand why look and taste receive equal weight. I don't see how having good lacing influences my experience of the beer in either direction. Again, to each his own.

 

That Choco is something else, eh?

 

I've had about a case and a half of Deschutes River Ale, 4.0% abv. I kind of feel guilty for not scoring it higher than I did. I'd take a tasty low abv brew over a tasty high abv brew often if it weren't for the fact that the former is rarer than hens' teeth around my parts.

 

Imperial stouts have, typically, a high abv %. So, yeah, more alcohol does "= better."

 

More alcohol = quicker

Myself, I put a good hefe or berliner right up there with any good RIS, quad, DIPA. I just enjoy a good beer and sometimes a lower alcohol alternative is a good thing. They are all quite tasty and I don't discriminate on ABV.

 

Quite obviously!

 

I don't think higher alcohol content necessarily equals higher rating, especially if you control for style. Let's look at 4 Berliner Weisse beers with a high number of ratings or high visibility:

The Bruery - Hottenroth 3.1% abv 4.06/91 rating
Bear Republic - Tartare 4% abv 4.39/97 rating
Grand Teton - Snarling Badger 7.5% abv 3.48/79 rating
New Belgium - Yuzu (Imperial BW) 8% abv 3.21/77 rating

The ones with lower alcohol are rated more highly. If you're talking about comparing across styles that's a different story. It goes hand in hand that abv and flavor are more intense. The higher the gravity in general the more intense the flavor and higher the abv. So when there is more flavor a lot of times there is more alkie hall. But I would just say that some styles are more popular than others though I think overall it's not as skewed as you think.

Popular styles with high alcohol
Barleywine
Stout
DIPA

Popular styles with low alcohol
Lambic
Gueuze
Berliner Weisse
Pale Ale

I think a lot of the more rare beers are high in alcohol because they are harder to make and thus yield smaller quantities and take longer due to the barrel aging time which also further fuels the misconception because when supply goes down demand goes up. If Bruery Hottenroth were rare you would see more ISOs for it.

Feel free to refute or add!

 

Odules.

 

no 90 minute is awful beer. It has nothing to do with the alcohol and everything to do with it's too sweet and you can tell it has booze when you shouldn't be able to tell till the beer is gone.

That said to the original question. Lower abv beers don't have as much flavor but the flavors they do have require a more refined pallet to pick up on. While I won't give the macro breweries any credit, I'm amazed at how much more flavor I can taste when drinking one today than when i was in college. In college it was like a metallic soda water. Now I can taste the grain and light malts, it's an awful example of beer but I can at least taste the "beer" elements.

The reason bigger beers get strong reviews is pretty simple. We like sugar. They have more sugar. We like a wider range of flavors and bigger beers are more able to provide that. I mean there are people who go out of their way to pick a certain bean or veggie because they know one is better than another, but most of us find these items somewhat boring and just mix them in with strong flavored foods and just eat them because we think they're good for us.

 

Haha. Not sure what I was thinking there.