A little bit of beer education

Tinga

Active member
When ever I see beer threads on NS I always I see a lot of misinformation. So I thought I would share some informative articles on some things that I have noticed.

Dark beers:

Don't say things like "I don't like dark beer" or "I only drink dark beers". The term dark beer is not a thing. The only thing it describes is the intensity of the color in the beer. dark beers come in a variety of alcoholic strength sometimes less than that of an american adjunct lager (all of your brands from busch miller coors). the term says nothing about the body, aroma or flavor of the beer. Stop saying "Dark Beer". Use other descriptors that describe the beer in other ways, It is black and roasty. it is sweet, and nutty. It has a heavy body and is bitter. Heres an article on this myth. Although this article is written for women it all applies.

http://www.christinaperozzi.com/beer4chicks/storyone.html

Blue Moon is not a craft beer:

With the over all beer market shrinking in the United States and the craft beer market growing that means Busch Miller Coors is losing market on two fronts. This means they have to diversify their product offering. They do this by disguising some of their brands to look like craft beer that they brew. Blue Moon is the best example of this. Many people believe blue moon is brewed by blue moon brewery. It is in fact brewed by coors at the coors brewery. Here is an article that explains the difference.

http://www.brewersassociation.org/pages/media/press-releases/show?title=craft-vs-crafty-a-statement-from-the-brewers-association

If you have any other questions about beer please feel free to ask them. I will try my best to answer them. As lots of our posting members are minors this can be a good chance to get some information you may not be able to get other wise.
 
this is now post your latest beer purchases.

this stuff is amazing. so good.

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and also have had a few of these lately,

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and a couple of these..mmm

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had one of these at a friends place too. wasnt the biggest fan of it tho..

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Can you explain why beers (like Guinness, Kirin, or Sapporo) taste so different there country of origin versus here in the states? I don't know a lot about or drink a lot of beer, but this has always puzzled me. It could be placebo. With the exception of Guinness, I was pairing Beers with different foods that play differently on the pallet. I also noted that the body of the beer was different. Guinness is significantly smoother (is that the proper term?) in Ireland than in the US.
 
I read the article....I get what there saying but I don't give two shits.

He even says it himself. The vast majority of beers in todays market follow the trend of light color = light taste and dark color = bitter. When I go into a liquor store the vast majority are still going to follow that trend.

 
well beer, like food, is perishable. fresh food will taste different from food not as fresh. Same with beer. It takes time to get product from other countries here of course. Also serving is different. I'm sure lots of Guiness served in ireland is from a keg where a lot of guiness is america is from a can or bottle. temperature is also different. Americans tend to think cold beer is better. other people like it warmer. there are also different ways of serving it. Some people will serve guiness with nitrogen instead of carbon dioxide. Nitrogen results in the popular cascading effect that is fun to watch. this results in a smoother beer since the bubbles are smaller. not sure exactly how nitrogen works but it does change the beer quite a bit.
 
i was just in ireland.. and the guiness served there was fairly cold. and i believe served with nitrogen out of a keg. which ever one comes out suuuuper white and frothy out of the spout and has to sit a few minutes, then fill it some more.

either way, it was way better than here in the states.
 
fun fact or all the beer fanatics. The LCBO in Ontario managed to import about a thousand 6 packs of Westvleteren 12. They sold out in a few minutes at almost $80 a pack.
 
The first fact about dark beer i guess was interesting to know, however your second fact just seems pointless. I don't see how whoever brews the beer makes a difference to anything. i like blue moon and really couldn't careless that a major company produces it.

 
Thanks for the awesome answer! Yeah generally the beer in Ireland is served warmer. Like 45-50*F instead of fridge temperatures. From your post I gather that beer is not too different from food. Pretty interesting stuff if you ask me
 
meh i take that back, i guess i can see how a big beer enthusiast would want to support smaller independent companies and would be interested in how some companies mislead custumers into thinking that that's what they are
 
Actually your wrong on the color part. Many beers define their taste, texture, and style based on color. You have your reds, blondes, darks all from a same style..... But taste vastly different based on their color. For example I'm just going to take unibroue Blanche de Chambly vs Blonde de Chambly. Both are Belgium styles ales...... But their colors and type are different. The blonde is deep and more full bodied then the Blanche.

You can have different styles of beer, and you can even have different variatons on that style, and to go deeper you can classify a beer by its color. A dark stout, a light stout. A dark Belgium, or a blonde.... Or a red. Heck you can have different types of pilsner....

It's not back or white man...... It's a million shades of gray.
 
Dunno. I'm going to order one in January, along with a Sink the Bismarck (which is even gnarlier but not as "heavy"). Gonna have to get fucked up off one beer at some point this winter...
 
i enjoy beer but im not drawn to it like a lot of older NS seems to be. I prefer weed, just cus i use it medically and i enjoy a smoke at the end of the day. and i know a lot more about strains and just marijuana in general than i do beer. but this thread was helpful k+
 
Serpent's Stout is child's play by comparison... 11% abv. Which, granted, is a lot for beer. Since your average is probably what, 5%?

The Tactical Nuclear Penguin is 32%.

(Sink the Bismarck is 41% but it's not a dark beer.)
 
YES! YES! YES! Support real local breweries! For me that means Stone, Pizza Port, Green Flash, Beachwood, the Bruery, among others.
 
Few beers I've been digging lately:

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^ Fantastic strong Belgian Golden

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^ Another good Belgian

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^ Because beer with breakfast is fantastic
 
All of the Brew Dog beers are pretty awesome. I'm a pretty big fan of the Stone brewery as well. Stone IPA is one of my favorites.
 
stone is almost to the point that its not local any more. ha

pizza port on the other hand has great beer and amazing pizza.

carlsbad chronic is soooo tasty.
 
absolutely love Dogfish Head 90. Have you ever had their 120? It's delicious as well, although a little on the expensive side. Shit's like $10/bottle around here WHEN you can find it....which isn't very often.
 
Good thread, but I can't drink beer yet. I am way more about drinking to get fucked up, not for a taste, in which case I end up getting moonshine or rum.
 
Yeah I bought a couple of them the last time I was down that way. Got a couple growlers filled there and snagged some of the different varieties at a massive liquor store nearby.

That was the only place I went looking for it and being down the road they had everything. There was another one I really liked too but my friend hated it. Can't remember what it was called though. Used to try and hit up some of the places on road trips and see what was good in different areas. Really just depends on my friends now cause I'm taking a break from drinking, I'll try them but I'm not going to buy any for myself.

If you ever get up to vt try heady topper. Idk how widespread it is as I've only grabbed it in the burlington area I think it's the shit.

I've tried a bunch of other shit that I really liked but I don't really remember all the names places. The smaller regional brews you kind of try once, if you like it buy some for the road and never really have it again :(

Was bummed I didn't get to try anything new on the west coast. Was going to try and pic up some stuff to bring back for a friend, but realized I'd probably have to ship it, and it was too much effort.

Usually we just ask people along the way(beer stores, shows, wherever) whatthey've heard of in the direction we're going.

Funniest thing was when I was poor and drank keystones regularly(dirt cheap at my local gas station) People would laugh at me for drinking shitty beer well downing a coors/budlight ect. I was like LOLLLLLLLLLL

/cool story hansle sorry
 
It's more that they're pretty much the same thing yet one costs about twice as much.

If you drink keystone it's a shit beer, but people feel like they're drinking something classy when they drink bud/coors/miller lite.

It's all advertising. People are dumb. I like good beer but I liked getting drunk. Wasn't going to not drink because I couldn't afford better beer. Me and keith stone had a classy relationship. 8 beers for 4.25 after tax and bottle = win.
 
Currently drinkin this:

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Was at the store and i saw they were from the PNW and snowboarded on their freetime. Thought I'd buy a case and give em some support. Not too shabby but nothin to write home about. Run of the mill IPA imo.
 
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