I always see it purported that crafting light merican lagers is so hard. How?
The exceptionally clean profile doesn't provide anywhere for flaws and off-flavours to be masked.
You can ferment a double IPA a little hot and no one is going to notice a few fusels or some green apple under all that bitterness and hops. But in a Light American Lager, even a little diacetyl is going to be unmistakable.
Right, but with temperature controlled ferm. chamber, good yeast pitch, d-rest. Standard practice for any other lager.
New Homebrew name:
More Human Than Human
I always see it purported that crafting light merican lagers is so hard. How?
The "there's no where for off flavors to hide" mantra is oft repeated by those that have never brewed a light American lager.
@ericbw I agree to a point, but I think you're making brewing out to be a bit more grandiose than it is. Reading a yeast package that says to ferment 50-55 and keeping within that range with a fridge/freezer and temp controller isn't really requiring a bunch of skill or effort. Building a starter or pitching extra yeast isn't either.
Requires more effort perhaps, but anyone doing lagers should have this stuff anyways. And any craft brewery would for sure have temp controlled fermenters and good yeast pitching practices.
The cheapest beer you can buy is BMC the cheapest way to buy it is buy the 1/2 barrel.A half barrel is 15 gallons for $100.I can brew 15 gallons of cream of three crops (closest thing to BMC) for $50.So 1/2 price for homebrew.A good IPA higher OG will cost around $75 for a 1/2 barrel.So even the better homebrew beers are $25 cheaper than the cheapest beers bought the cheapest way.If you don't mind the work its a no brainerWhat exactly do you factor in to that cost? Grain and hops? Grain and hops and yeast? DME for the starter? Propane? Water costs? Chiller water costs? Sanitation & cleaning solutions consumed? O2 for oxygenation? Minerals for water treatment? Bottle caps? Etc?
I understand that you don't need to amortize equipment once capital is sunk. It's not a business in that sense. And I agree with folks that say that you don't need to account for putting a dollar value on your time.
But in a lot of cases, I think we subconsciously try to underestimate the amount of money that we spend on batches outside of the basic hops/grain number. I.e. for a 5 gallon lager batch, if you use dry yeast, you'll probably need 2 packs, so you're probably spending $8 right there. If you use liquid, you're spending $8 plus whatever you need in DME and yeast nutrient to make a starter. And for a lager, ideally making a big starter or stepping it up. That doesn't leave a great deal of room in the budget for your malt & hops!
A 30pk of Miller Lite at my local Bevmo is $17.99. That's about $28 for the equivalent of two cases / ~5 gal.
That's pretty cheap. I'd be hard pressed to brew some batches cheaper than that.
New Homebrew name:
More Human Than Human
Add some Robb Zombie art, and you win!
did I ever tell y'all about when I got kicked out of a Rob Zombie concert at the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis, SD? it floccin' happened.
I actually just decided to crack a Yuengling lager open, after typing this out. lol
'Sir, we've asked you multiple times to leave Mr. Zombie alone... And frankly, throwing your **** stained whitey tighties up on stage while shouting 'Rob can ROB me of my virginity' was the last straw.'
@ericbw I agree to a point, but I think you're making brewing out to be a bit more grandiose than it is. Reading a yeast package that says to ferment 50-55 and keeping within that range with a fridge/freezer and temp controller isn't really requiring a bunch of skill or effort. Building a starter or pitching extra yeast isn't either.
Requires more effort perhaps, but anyone doing lagers should have this stuff anyways. And any craft brewery would for sure have temp controlled fermenters and good yeast pitching practices.
did I ever tell y'all about when I got kicked out of a Rob Zombie concert at the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis, SD? it floccin' happened.
I have ears for this story.
It seems to me that most craft beer drinkers just don't like the taste of BMC. That's all well and good, but the "hate" is directed more toward their marketing than the actual product.
"Beechwood Aged" "Triple Hopped" "Cold Brewed" (which doesn't really make much sense to begin with) are terms that, while true, give the consumer an over hyped idea of what actually goes into the making of BMC. "This Miller is triple hopped. I've not heard of anyone else adding hops three times, so that must mean they're doing something different than everyone else. This must be a great example of a hoppy beer!" That kind of thing really gets to me because I've had family tell me that BM's Centennial Blonde recipe is way too bitter (I've not tried to give them any IPAs). BMC seems to be relying more on marketing than the quality of the actual product.
I get it, it's marketing, and they're in the business of making money. But at the same time, that kind of misinformation makes it harder for beer geeks to share what beer can actually be. Beer doesn't have to be a transparent, watery tasting carbonated beverage with a slight bitterness that you down after mowing the lawn. A lifelong BMC drinker might look at a cloudy hefeweizen and decide that it won't taste good, because beer shouldn't be cloudy, or beer served above 35F is probably going to suck because it isn't ice cold.
At least that's been my experience...
I get the feeling that if if Billy Klubb was pushing, you'd know you'd been pushed.
I've shared my own experiences with "regular" beer for my non-craft friends. The easiest thing to say is that my kegs float at the annual superbowl party before the BMC cooler even gets low.
All you've done is make an argument that your beer is preferred over BMC. Maybe because it has more flavor; maybe because of "marketing."
That doesn't mean it's consistent or that consistency is easy.
Personally, I prefer variations from batch to batch.
It's my art, my craft. I love being able to use an ever shifting canvas to reflect, in a multidimensional media, all the stability, chaos, love, anger, joy, abstract imagination through sight, aroma, and taste. to me, it's liquid marble. a painting that's always changing a little at a time. an endless song that just knows exactly what you want to hear.
The point isn't that they are always exactly the same, only that a good amount of consistency isn't that difficult to achieve.
I've had Bud that was sweet, some skunked, some "tinny" with a weird metallic taste.
So they're not 100% consistent either.
And more flavor isn't always better. "Cleaner" but less flavorful beer is less satisfying to the pallet and generally gets drunk up faster, at least in my experience.
I definitely agree about the less-than-100% consistency of BMC.
Thing is, the flavor is so minimal that it's kind like listening to your stereo with the volume dial turned up just past the threshold of audibility--at that level you can make pretty significant tweaks to your EQ dials before you even hear much of a change. In other words, big variation in small flavor can amount to a very small flavor variation overall.
The other night I was at an open-bar reception and the only beer choices were four different common BMC offerings. I had one of each and could hardly tell them apart, if at all. It struck me as kind of funny how, in broadening my beer horizons to homebrew and craft, I've actually lost my ability to tell any appreciable difference between the types of beers I used to drink exclusively, and have strong preferences for one over the other.
I also don't understand the allure of chasing the consistency dragon at the homebrew/hobbyist level. As long as the "variation" comes from small changes in recipe and process (i.e., not from flaws or off flavors), who cares? For me, if a beer is good enough that I can be bothered repeating it, then a tiny noticeable difference isn't going to make it or break it.
I think he was talking about variation from batch to batch, not "imperfections".
Off flavors are never good and would be very obvious in a low-flavor beer for sure.
But as an example, if it's a 2 out of 10 for "Malty" and the next batch is a 3/10 that's a 50% variation, but still low-flavored enough most people wouldn't notice, or notice but not care since it's still low.
So, basically, you are saying that you don't like AB/Inbev because they operate a business? They are doing what ANY business with a significant share of the market would do regardless if the product is beer, clothes, cars, pharma, etc...
As far I was able to research when those allegations came out, it was just a crappy third party rumor...
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