when is it not beer?

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cageybee

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I dont mean to insult the tastes of others, but being a home coffee roaster that that cant abide by flavorings added to "coffee" (snob...I know), how much stuff (fruit, etc) can one add to a brew before its not beer anymore? i hope to start a fiery debate like the one on odds, only more interesting....(maybe not as interesting as Mary Ann vs Ginger)
 
i hope to start a fiery debate like the one on odds, only more interesting....)

Why?

Just like what you like, don't like what you don't like, and don't be a tool about it or judge or even care what other folks like in their beer.

No one really cares what you like, so why should you care what other folks do? There's many flavors of pleasures on this planet, and plenty of room for all.

Especially where beer is concerned.
 
I believe that as long as you have the 4 core ingredients per the German Reinheitsgebot (Beer purity law), which states in the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley and hops. The law also set the price of beer at 1-2 Pfennig per Maß. The Reinheitsgebot is no longer part of German law: it has been replaced by the Provisional German Beer Law, [2] which allows constituent components prohibited in the Reinheitsgebot, such as yeast, wheat malt and cane sugar, but which no longer allows unmalted barley. - Wikipedia

Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast. Anything else is extra. There are beers whos style lend them to additional flavorings, but in my opinion, as long as it compliments the base beer and dose not overpower it, it's fine with me.

Now, I also abide by a few rules when I make or consume my beer:
1. With VERY few exceptions - Thou shalt not "Fruit" thy beer
2. I make beer that I like. To hell with what anyone else thinks of my beer.
3. Beer is NOT A MIXER - See rule 1
4. Beer is for drinking and experancing. Liquor is for getting drunk.
 
I knew I was gonna be slapped down for a poorly posed debate question, the question I intended to ask is about what people consider "beer", not what we like verses don't like. when does something go from beer to wine, of from beer to a cooler?
 
Revvy said:
Why?

Just like what you like, don't like what you don't like, and don't be a tool about it or judge or even care what other folks like in their beer.

No one really cares what you like, so why should you care what other folks do? There's many flavors of pleasures on this planet, and plenty of room for all.

Especially where beer is concerned.

Wisdom from Above.
 
All I know is Bud Light = :( Bud Light + fresh lime = :) Bud Light Lime =
smileyPuking.gif
 
I think we can all agree it has to be fermented.

Does it have to be fermented by Brewer's Yeast? What about other strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, e.g., wine yeast or bread yeast? What about all-brett beers, are they in?

It's gotta be barley-based.... or, does it? Can we leave out hefe with a majority of wheat in their grist? What about various obviously-beerlike gluten-free beers? Or, if we let them in, do we accidentally admit soju, sake, or, gawd-forbid, BMC-brewed beverages?
 
There are exceptions to every rule.

Every body is different.

Most of all, Brew what you want. Who is anybody else to tell you what to brew? If you like it, Do it.

Oh, IMHO, Cereal grain based (Barley, wheat, Rye, Ect.) + Hops = beer, Fruit or Veggie base = Wine

Brew on!
 
Revvy nailed it. Nobody really gives a rat's butt, look at all the threads here.

+1 I just never get why, especially among new brewers or converts to craft beer that folks gotta care what other people stick in their glass or their fermenters. Some folks expect everyone on here to be a beer snob, to hate bmc, and agree with them when they start threads about it. The get tanked when they find out that many folks on here came into brewing, because THEY LIKE BEER, and their definition of said beer was the american light lager.

It's even funny how some folks bring out the Reinheitsgebot, but they don't realize that the "German purity law" wasn't as "pure as they think it was."

That sugar, and corn, and many things that the snobs believe were "impure" were actually considered ok by them....like anyhing, politics gets involved in "purity."

...nor was it prohibited by a Rheinheitsgebot type law in the Austria-Hungarian area of Bohemia at the time.

"Wheat" has a separate entry in "100 Years of Brewing" under the ingredients sections, as do "Rye and Oats" and "Sugar, Syrups, etc." so I doubt they're including wheat under the discussion of "Corn".

Notably, under "Sugar, Syrups, etc." they write:

"In all German states, Bavaria alone excepted, sugar is used in brewing...Grape sugar for brewing was experimented with extensively as early as 1856, under the direction of the Bavarian minster for commerce, at Weihenstephan."

The book also notes that "the materials used in the manufacture of these different beers are: For German beers (Bavarian character) malt, hops and other cereals, and saccharine matter for special brands."

(That means "adjuncts" in other words.)

Not so "pure" is it? ;)
 
it not about what peeps brew, its about what we call beer...for the purposes of this website for example. if one wants to ferment chicken soup...Who gives a....but is it beer?
 
I make a quinoa pale ale. Quinoa is not a grain. Its a pseudo-grain. Does it make it a beer? Dunno. Do I tell everyone its beer? Yeah cuz I'm not an ass. Haha!
 
At some point, if you add enough honey to a beer recipe, it can become a braggot. If you can define when that change happens, you might be on to something.
 
it not about what peeps brew, its about what we call beer...for the purposes of this website for example. if one wants to ferment chicken soup...Who gives a....but is it beer?

If along with chicken soup it fits the following criteria,

: an alcoholic beverage usually made from malted cereal grain (as barley), flavored with hops, and brewed by slow fermentation

Which means that the CLASSIC recipe for Cock Ale (that the term cocktail comes from) which is not too different from your argument of "fermented chicken soup," is STILL a beer.....an ALE, actually.

classification: cock ale, historical, 1500s, chicken, meat Source: Chris Sutherland ([email protected]), 6/20/93
The recipe for authentic Cock Ale has finally arrived. Boy it sure is scary: COCK ALE (circa the 1500's) A real recipe from some obscure text found in the Scottish Highlands... Enjoy....
Procedure:

"Take 10 gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better; parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a stone mortar until his bones are broken (you must gut him when you flaw him). Then, put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it five pounds of raisins of the sun - stoned; some blades of mace, and a few cloves. Put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has been working, put the bag and ale together in vessel. In a week or nine days bottle it up, fill the bottle just above the neck and give it the same time to ripen as other ale."
Alternate recipe:

Brutal, eh? I was also given a modern recipe written by some guy named C.J.J. Berry.... Here goes this one... "Take a few pieces of _cooked_ chicken and a few chicken bones (approx one tenth of the edible portion of the bird) well crushed or minced.
Also take half of pound of raisins, a very little mace, and one or maybe two cloves. Add all these ingrediants to half a bottle of string country white wine. Soak for 24 hrs. Then make on gallon of beer as follows:
1 lb Malt extract
1 Oz Hops
1/2 lb demerarra sugar
1 gallon water
Yeast and nutrient

Add the whole of the chicken mixture to the beer at the end of the second day. Fermentation will last six or seven days longer than usual and the ale should be matured at least one month in the bottle. This cock ale is of the barley wine type.

It's a beer!!!!!!


Which if anyone wants to see it brewed, go to this thread.
 
If you don't recognize fruit, spice, herb or whatever beers as beer, you earn a special hard dude beer bro card which is irrelevant in the context of beer, but has sociological implications that you don't really want to be part of.
 

We win....debate over. ;)

Note that even in the dictionary definition of beer, the main thing mentioned is MALTED GRAIN...hops are considered a "flavoring." LOL.

A gruit (made with herbs instead of hops) is STILL a beer.

A beer is fermented grain (and anything else you add) a wine if ferment fruit, a mead is fermented honey, a cider is fermented apples...then there's the subtle gradiations as someone mentioned with a braggot above.

But if it's a beverage fermented with an amount of sugar that comes from the malting of a grain, then it's a beer.

That simple. Check mate, game over.....
 
fermented maltos (at least the bulk), hops, carbonation.

My ginger and pumpkin beer are beer. Ones bittering is mostly ginger with a small hop addition, I'm not sure I'd concider a true gruit a beer.


a cherry, wheat, dry okra'ed with a cadbury egg addition at bottling might be bad beer but its beer


At some point, if you add enough honey to a beer recipe, it can become a braggot. If you can define when that change happens, you might be on to something.

I'm in this place myself with a wine I added some honey to. Where does a white honey wine become a niagra grape melomel.
 
What drink is fermented seeds?

Not too different from what gluten free.brewers do, malting seeds..I'd call it a beer.

Though the australians make an great beer with Wattle Seeds. But it's still I think mostly grain.

Blackwattle.jpg


What about prison toilet sangria?

More than likely made with ketchup packets and juice boxes....Ketchup is made with tomatoes, which are a fruit...so Wine it is.
 
Not too different from gluten free...I'd call it a beer.



More than likely made with ketchup packets and juice boxes....Ketchup is made with tomatoes, which are a fruit...so Wine it is.

Somewhere, deep in a swamp, a man is muttering at his monitor right now:

"Tomatoes are vegebles. Pluto is a planet. I dun care what that newfangled science done call it!"
 
Rant! Rant! Rant! A-B products pander to the lowest common denominator. Honestly they have stakes in a lot of the craft beers you guys drink. Distribution rights and the sort. So no a-b product is beer.
 
Fruit & veggies fermented in beer is beer. Fruit on the glass or in the bottle is a beercolada.

If it doesn't have hops, it's not beer. If 1/2 of the fermentables aren't from grains, it's not beer. I'm not saying they are bad. Just that I don't think of them as beer.
 
Once when I was in Belgium, I got their cheap canned beer; red was 5%, silver was 10%, and gold was 20%.

Gold did NOT taste good, it would be 40 proof, but still beer.
 
Funny, but if people didn't actually LIKE Abheuser-Bush Products, do you think maybe they'd still be in business? :rolleyes:

This is where we get into bs snobbism, eh? Which this thread has managed to sidestep so far.



Revvy,

Not trying to be snobbish, all things have their place. B/M/C, by purchasing a stake and distribuiting these smaller names, They are exposing a whole new generation to something other than Bud Light, MGD, or Coors.

My issue is that they do it in such a way that you don't know that is one of their mass produced products. Consistancy is a good thing, and it is something that I believe all homebrewers strive for. I, for one, would love it if I could manage to never make a poor quality beer again. But, my setup and the amount of experiance that I have precludes that. I am still learning, and they have mastered the process.

But that is not what this is about. This is about making the beer/cider/mead/graff or whatever it is that you like to drink. As the person making it, you reserve the right to call it what ever you want. What you call it is just a name. Something to label it. And as most of us make our own labels, label it what you will.:rockin:

There are exceptions to everything. We are all different. So shall be our fermented beverges. End rant.

What's on tap at your place?:tank: Cheers.

Ziggy-Zoggy-Ziggy-Zoggy-Oy-Oy-OY!!!!:mug:
 
Shock top can't make a beer worse than midnight wheat.

I thought the same thing about Blue Moon's Winter Abbey until I bought a sampler 12-pack and cracked open a Short Straw. Dis-gus-ting. What is a "traditional farmhouse ale" supposed to taste like? This one tasted like licking the haunches of a sweaty horse.
 
The origin of the word cocktail is disputed.

The first recorded use of the word cocktail is found in The Morning Post and Gazetteer in London, England on March 20, 1798:[5]

Mr. Pitt,
two petit vers of “L’huile de Venus”
Ditto, one of “perfeit amour”
Ditto, “cock-tail” (vulgarly called ginger)

Cock ale is no doubt for the manly man, but when compared to a recipe found in the journals of a brewer from Jamestown settlement, it lacks depth and pioneer ingenuity:

Take thy ay 40 wayt o barly grain sun dried small sprout't low bak't oer aldr wood.
Soke thy bak't grain 9 days in hoghead oer low simmr't spring watr with 3 stones o lime plastr thee size of n egg n one handful o potash.
Draw thy barly watr boil't oer thee saks wovn o sail 4 times oer thee barly to half hoghead.
Cool't barly watr to blood warm n taketh thee ay ripe undrgarment o ay frothee trolop n add to thine hogshead coer't with sail cloth with 15 wayt sugr drawn from thee beet.
Let work 1 fortnyt scum thee bile each evening.
Whence done working giveth undergarment return't boil't to frothee trolop. Coereth hoghead loos 1 fortnyt whence thee vapors escape.
Runeth ale oer cobs o sweet corn smok't light n mix't on m'lasses.
Runeth to woodn kegs o sherry plug't loos.
Ale shall be worthy on resting 3 fortnyt drawn to jugs.
 
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