Are lagers more "refreshing" than ales?

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Beerbeque

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I brought some of my homebrewed ales to a social gathering and got many kudos and praises but as the evening progressed I kept noticing that some were going back to the commercial lagers and saying that they now wanted a "more refreshing beer" While they liked my ale, they said that they thought that ales were "thick,heavy,viscous,chewy" and the like. Some said that they like a beer to be "refreshing" and I guess my ales,while good, just did not have what they want in a beer. I guess that's why most all commercial beers are lagers eh?
 
that happens sometimes. sometimes people just won't like it. i wouldn't say the lagers are inherently more refreshing - i'm sure if you made a munich lager they'd be saying that was "chewy" too! they just like the light lagers popular in the US - you can lead a horse to homebrew but you can't make it drink.
 
Depending on the type of beer, I can see why they would want a lager. After about 6 homemade, or not even homemade, just stronger flavored, thicker, basically BETTER beer, people do turn to lighter flavored beers.

I made a very crisp and refreshing IPA but after about 6 of them, you A. are pretty buzzed and need something lighter, or B. need a lighter flavor.

I wouldn't take it as an insult, but with a grain of American Vienna!
 
I work with a bunch that are strictly into mass produced light beer. Had one of the fellows over and gave him a Goose Harvest Ale. He took a sip and promptly put the bottle down saying it tasted like sun-tan lotion. I do find lawn mower brew refreshing when I'm out, well, mowing the lawn on a hot day.
 
Water is the most refreshing beverage. As a beverage approaches water, it becomes more refreshing. Compare and contrast: strawberry milkshake vs. Gatorade.

In general, lagers are crisper in body and lighter in flavor than the average ale, but after mowing the lawn, I know I'd rather have a pale ale than a rauchbier.

:D
 
I don't think it's lager vs. ales, per se. Most Americans are so used to drinking BMC and this is a hard habit for people to break. Until someone has "the awakening", they'll always revert to what they're used to.

However, BMC has an FG of what 1.008 max? Your ale was probably at somewhere between 1.010-1.014... plus it hasn't had all the nutrients, suspended yeast, and flavor stripped from it by filtering. I have a Helles right now that finished at 1.012 and while it is delicious and refreshing to me, the average BMCer would probably find it thicker than they're used to.

They can drink all the BMC they want, they'll just have a bigger headache/hangover the next day than if they stuck to your delicious, nutricious homebrew.;)
 
"Filled with mingled cream and amber;
I will drain that glass again;
Such hilarious visions clamber;
Through the chamber of my brain;
Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies;
Come to life and fade away.
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today."
- Edgar Allan Poe

Beat that, lagers.
 
compared to the average homebrewed Ale, yeah...a bottle of budweiser is much much lighter. it is an American light lager after all...more corn than barley, so no mouthfeel beyond the massive carbonation, and an ultra low final gravity.

my dad bitches that Blvd Wheat is 'too heavy' for him...and sticks to Bud Light...

take no offense, you were offering caviar to cod lovers. they lack the experience to know better.
 
I love sharing my homebrews but often get odd responses from those yellow fizzy water beer drinkers. I don't take it personal, it's a matter of preference.....i too must admit when i first started drinking was not a big fan of ales. But it wasn't long before i quickly graduated to flavored wheat beers and then on to the darkest of stouts. What i do love is when you give a light beer drinker there first taste of a true ale they can't get enough of it.
 
Rather than just saying that people who like BMC have bad taste in beer I look at it from a different side.

I think most people who pick up a beer are looking for a crisp palate-cleansing refreshing experience and not a chewy thick meal. All-malt with heavy dextrinous mouthfeel just isn't as refreshing as a highly fermented low bodied crisply hopped and highly carbonated ale.

Instead of dismissing those who prefer to switch back to BMC after a heavy ale or two offer them something like Ed Wort's Pale Ale. I do an even lighter bodied one with a few less IBUs, 1/2 pound of honey to dry it up a touch, and the real trick is to give it a little extra carbonation. I'll bet you'll see people picking something along those lines over BMC regardless of the situation.

EDIT: Something from my own experience. I remember a long time ago (circa '93) when I had about 20 cases of homebrew in my cellar and my friends and I spent an evening partaking of a bunch of them. After I had had about six we went out to a bar and I had a Bud and it was fantastic. I was so thirsty and full from my heavy beers that the Bud was like an icewater after walking through a desert. After that I stopped looking down on BMC drinkers and tried to add a couple similar beers to my repertoire.
 
I, too, am a convert to ales. Being an American, I grew up believing that pale lagers constituted beer, although the occasional import came as a hint of something better.

As with several other people I know, it was actually the penetration of Guinness into the American market that made me start to "think different," and that I actually liked this stuff better.

I now drink primarily homebrewed beer, have done a wide variety of extract ale kits, am pretty content and feel no need to move to all-grain. Commercial lagers make it into the house usually under the rubric of "something new & different."

If I want "light," I'll have a glass of water....it's cheaper.
 
I think your friends have a point. I would consider many ales to be heartier than most standard lagers. "Refreshing" to me is something different from taste. Lemonade is refreshing, chocolate milk, not so much. Both taste great.

My wife and I occasionally get what we refer to as "the unquenchable thirst". We can drink a lot of water, but still feel thirsty. We find quite a range of beverages just don't quell the thirst. It is odd, as it isn't really just about needing liquids, there is a feeling that must be satiated too. On these occasions, what does the trick are drinks that I would qualify as refreshing. Lemonade often works, Ginger ale, and Squirt are other go to drinks to quench this type of thirst. A light lager will work too - but it must be very cold.
 
The difference is, DRINKABILITY...lol. I'll say this, on a hot ass summer day I aint drinking a 9% Russian Imperial Stout but a lager or a light session ale.
 
A beverage's level of thirst quenching refreshment, for me, has a lot to do with a tart crispness and high level of carbonation- so I think Kolsch and Berliner Weisse and Saison. YMMV.
 
I, too, am a convert to ales. Being an American, I grew up believing that pale lagers constituted beer, although the occasional import came as a hint of something better.

As with several other people I know, it was actually the penetration of Guinness into the American market that made me start to "think different," and that I actually liked this stuff better.

I now drink primarily homebrewed beer, have done a wide variety of extract ale kits, am pretty content and feel no need to move to all-grain. Commercial lagers make it into the house usually under the rubric of "something new & different."

If I want "light," I'll have a glass of water....it's cheaper.


+1 on that. If I don't have a nice wheat or pale ale lying around, I'll just drink water after yard work, untill I'm ready for whatever homebrew I do have at the time. Good beer > water > mass produced lager in my oppinion.
 
The people in the story have been brainwashed by multi-million dollar advertisement campaigns. I still can't get over the fact that Coors advertises how their beer is "Cold as the Rockies." Well so is my fridge and thus any beer I put in there.

Any beer can be refreshing. Just depends how thirsty I am ;)
 
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