Your Beer Time Machine

I would go 75 years into the FUTURE. I want to see what the BA members then are complaining about. Perhaps how their beloved milkshake slushy fruity sugary "beers" are being displaced from shelves by these weird, thin, hop-laden bitter IPAs.

 

When I was serving in the US Army in the early 1990s, I had the opportunity to travel to Great Britain and Europe. At the time I was just beginning to discover craft beer but really had limited knowledge. I recall having some "strangely warm" ales in London and what I considered excellent lagers and those "cloudy" wheat beers in Germany. While I enjoyed all the beers, I didn't appreciate them as I would today. Plus, I would be back in my early to mid-20s in age again.

 

So, in between do we re-run the gammut of good brown ales, ESBs and more Porters?

I could live in that old world before IPAs take over. Again.

 

Would travel back to late January 1983 to tell the much younger and better looking ery naive version of myself, newly arrived in Philadelphia from 8+ years of real ale drinking in England, to keep an eye out for the early craft brewers in the US, avoid the macros, and watch out for something called BeerAdvocate. Knowledge is power.

 

have you or @RaulMondesi been to Mcilhenney brewing?

 

Yeah buddy

 

no time machine needed. While, the OG alpine had really good food, and did distro some bottles Mcilhenney brewery’s beers area OG good.

 

I’d go back to 2009 where I could buy Sam Adams black lager in a distro again.

 

It's a toss up between going back to around 2015, join BA and review all those IPAs I drank...I might have reached Poo-Bah status by now.
The other would be.....being the first customer at Weihenstephaner. Prost.

 

Does a '74 AMC Matador Count?

 

Yes!

That rod looks sweet plus what a cool name: Matador!

 

You are a WEALTH of
historical knowledge. I read your post to my wie as an example of why I spend so much time on BA.

 

Man, just stopped in to a local pub to finish some paperwork on my way home and it'd reminding me how unnecessary a time machine is.

On tap currently;
Pilsner
Kolsch
Vienna Lager
Marzen
ESB
Duesseldorf Alt
Dry Irish Stout (Nitro too)
English Porter
Imperial Golden Ale (Nitro too)
A number of pale ale/Ipa options
A blend of barrel aged quad, barleywine, and stout
And 4 barrel aged fruited sours.

Everything brewed toward style, all of it acceptable (their Pilsner and the ba sours don't wow me but they aren't poorly made) or better (their Vienna and alt, which I went with tonight, have really been ringing my bell lately and their hoppy offerings are always solid to wonderful).

I don't know if that kind of taplist exists anytime before 1990?

 

I specifically referenced bitter IPAs because when you think about it, in the absence of any experience or prior knowledge about them, it is kind of weird to think that bitterness becomes a desirable trait in something we voluntarily drink. I can easily imagine the dismay among future drinkers who have been conditioned to drink fruity, sweet stuff, when they are faced with some unexpected trend toward bitter flavor profiles.

 

So, similar to back when the unexpected trend toward bitter flavor profiles started to scare all the thin, flavorless beer drinkers?

Funny thing is, I can still find bitter profile beers on shelves -- alongside the fruity, murky stuff. I just can't find the well-balanced, traditional maltier beers that used to always stand proud alongside PAs & IPAs on shelves.

The last, locally-brewed Brown Ale I had tasted like an IPA. If poured in an opaque cup you'd think it was the latest West Coaster.

So yeah, take me back to the days when there was *real* choice of a myriad of styles on shelves, not a choice between hops and flavor additives.

 

I hope that she received the message well.

Cheers!

 

time machine: early 1900s bamberg when, within the city walls of this small town, there were 110 or so breweries in operation. then id ride my bicycle out into the countryside to explore the 1000 or so more places

 

And backing up @steveh 's post, Stanley Baron (in his Brewed in America, 1962) went on to write, after he quoting that line of Bradford's journal: