What are your contrarian/"unpopular" beer opinions?

Totally copying this thread idea from another forum.

What unpopular or contrarian opinions do you hold about beer, be it homebrew or commercial?

One rule: No arguing. This is supposed to be a happy occasion!





I'll start...

There are too many damn IPAs. One craft/micro near me makes IPAs almost exclusively. Then there's now "brown IPA" and "session IPA" ... it all sounds gimmicky to me. At this rate there'll be a gose IPA by the end of the year.

Rehydrating dry yeast is unnecessary. I know Palmer says to rehydrate, but IMHO this is using a baker's trick (proofing) where it's not needed. A baker needs the wee yeasties to do their thing in just a few hours before baking, and rehydrating/proofing gets things going faster. Brewing is on a longer time horizon.

"Hard" versions of sodas ... why? I really don't see the point. If I want a "hard" root beer, I'll just spike my root beer with liquor. A little gin is fantastic.

 

Fort Collins Brewery did a gose IPA. It was pretty good.

 

Hazy beer is far superior to clear beer.

 

Black IPA's without actually having roasty characteristics, just grains that give it a black color. What in the hell is the purpose?

 

My unpopular opinion: Sours suck!!! Blech! They're the beer antichrist!

 

I know there is no arguing, but just a rebuttal to your one point. I don't think proofing (which is not the same as rehydrating) is necessary if you have fresh yeast. But, not rehydrating does mean you're likely to underpitch since about half the yeast cells die when hitting the wort if they're not rehydrated. I used to also think rehydrating was a waste of time until someone with a microscope and experience did cell counts of wort after sprinkling dry yeast vs. rehydrating, and indeed, there were only half the viable cells as compared to rehydrated. I did a search to provide a link to this experiment, but couldn't find it. I think it was posted on this site.

After reading this experiment, I looked into the mechanism to explain it, and it makes sound biological sense (I have a biology degree). Basically, when a dry yeast is added to liquid, it does not have the ability to control the flow of solutes through the cell membrane at first. This can result in cell lysis and death. Rehydrating in water first allows the cell membrane the ability to control the flow of solutes before putting them into a solution full of solutes.

 

oxygen is detrimental to beer. hot side aeration is real.

that's heresy around here.

 

I've never tasted anything brewed by New Belgium brewing that's worth buying again. Frankly, I wouldn't drink it if it were free.

 

Many HBT threads contain loads of bullcrap which is not rebutted because readers don't want to be labeled anti-social.

 

Trub is good, mostly. I pour my cooled wort into my primary and leave about a quart of sediment in the kettle. Lots of trub comes into primary. No prob.

 

What unpopular or contrarian opinions do you hold about beer, be it home brew or commercial?

My unpopular opinion about home brewing with extract is that extract brews do not always finish at 1.020 or higher.

 

Agreed IPAs are overdone.

I ditched my hydrometer... haven't used one for a long time. My beer comes out great and gets me feeling good.

Never used corn sugar/dextrose. Beer tastes better with cane sugar.

 

+1. That's why I prefer the Cascadian Dark Ale categorization. Puts some emphasis on the fact that it's more than just coloring the wort.

 

Yup, CDA all the way!!!

View attachment 1484431796336.jpg

 

I think vorlaufing is unnecessary. My wort runs clear from the get-go, so what's the point?

 

I think hard and fast rules about how long bottled beer takes to carbonate cause people to either miss out on drinking beer at its best or waste beer that isn't ready. Light session strength beers carb fast and taste best as fresh as possible - great with a single week in the bottle. Opening a really big dark ale before 3 months is a waste.

Not sure if the big beer part is unpopular, but I don't hear different on drinking session beers early from many people.

 

Yeast is over rated
Except when it makes a difference

 

Too many IPAs have unbalanced or conflicting hops that make the beer nasty. Even huge beers should have balance.

 

Bull!

 

My entry: I'm not a fan of aging beers. IMO any carbonated beer over a few months old is too old. When I see beer cellars, I want to guffaw.

 

After "tasting" 5 pints of my home brew brown ale, all I can say is I can't stand super hoppy high IBU beers. There, I said it and nothing will change my mind.

 

99% of breweries make ****tier beer than me

 

Bud Light is the best Beer in the world, Millions of people agree with me.
Second Best: Best Damm Root beer
Best Foods: White Bread, Mc Donalds, same reason as above.
Best Entertainment: Network Tv, Top, Top 40 music. Any movie that has explosions.
END OF SARCASTIC RANT

 

Chilling is overrated. Just pitch the next day. No harm no foul.

 

I don't see the point in brewing a 4% lager. I'll just go buy a case of Coors for $12 and call it a day. Hell! I don't even care to make lagers anymore! I'd rather just make a fine ale!



I don't brew anything under 7% abv. That includes sours. Anything less is a waste of valuable time for me.



Bourbon barrel beers are friggin' everywhere nowadays, and are all the rage... and I don't like them at all.

 

IPA is too hard to spell.

 

Bwaahahahaha!!!🤘

 

Eye pee eh.

Duh.

 

I have been hacked!! Lol

And I fixed it for you,,,

 

People who claim to love IPA's and extreme IBU's wouldn't know a good beer if it bit them in the ass.

 

That it's ok to sell/barter/trade small amounts of homebrew. The boogeyman isn't out to get you......

 

Too many scantily clad women used in labelling.

STOP WITH THE ****ING PUNS! YOU'RE NOT THAT CLEVER!

You should make your beer be the thing that captures attention.

 

Alcohol is overrated. Let it go a couple of days it's ready.

 

And the inverse as well.

Neither hazy nor crystal clear beers are any better - it's a subjective thing and 99% aesthetic and unrelated to taste.

 

Touche, I completely agree with you, it just drives me crazy the amount of focus that clear beer gets, so I always go with the contrarian view.

 

That breweries should spend more time & money focusing on making great beer instead of marketing because marketing leads to this sort of mindset: "I bought it because of the the awesome artwork on the label....I stood in line for 3 hours so I know it's great beer....I paid $15 for a 12 ounce beer of octothorp-birchbark-lichen-peppermint beer so it's got to be good....if it's not hazy, I'm not drinking it". I had best stop there with my examples. But before you respond I will say that I brew with unusual ingredients sometimes; though I like my beer clear, my hoppy beers have a haze (different than the color of yellow skim milk); and my beer tastes better because I share it with my friends for free!

 

I love sour beers. Unfortunately, majority of the ones on the market are not very good lately... so much so that I hesitate to buy any recently. Seems every brewery wants to make some, yet only a handful seem to understand sours. Shame.


3 Floyd's always releases fantastic sours. Obviously the same for Rare Barrel. Never pass these up, sour lovers!

 

I don't see the point of recirculating the wort. If you heat exchagner is working right the wort will be at pitching temp (or as cold as your gonna get due to your cooling water) in one pass.

 

Most entertaining thread I've read yet. You're all a bunch of damned nuts.

 

That is Mr. Goofey Goober to you, sir.