Gordon Ramsay Clone Jon Taffer Says a Beer Should be Half Foam

[mac_1103]

Like somebody said, always drama. But thats the show

Right. Reality TV isn't actually real.

 

[ArielSchwatrz]

One of my friends sent me this, and my first thought was, "Wow, this guy took a full minute to explain why he doesn't pour full glasses of beer to customers."

But, jokes aside, this is fascinating advice.

 

[bwible]

Right. Reality TV isn't actually real.

Right. You know much of it is hyped or made up. They also follow a formula, for sure.

 

[Bobby_M]

Imagine how much money breweries could save in CO2 if they just left the fizz out in the first place.

 

[bracconiere]

Imagine how much money breweries could save in CO2 if they just left the fizz out in the first place.

isn't that what beer engines are for? and imagine if you just kept it in the cellar how much you'd save on refrigeration!

 

[MicroMickey]

The problem with serving beer at near freezing temps is that you can't really taste the beer. Taffer recommends low temps so that the bar can serve a higher percentage of the keg . . . less waste. It will certainly do that but it's at the customers expense. On the other hand, it might be a good thing when you consider the "popular" pedestrian beers being served in most bars.

 

[odie]

well, each culture has it's own ways...

While in the Netherlands, I was at first dismayed when I was served a glass of Hienekin that was half foam. Ripped of I was...so I thought.

It only cost me a guilder. Cheap it was...good it was...

That's just how the Dutch like their beer. The foam accentuates the hop aroma. Even the Heineken brewery served it this way.

As long as they ain't charging for the foam I guess it's ok.

 

[bwible]

Is this why Germans use those giant mugs?

 

[bwible]

So he is talking about bottled beer, not draft. Assuming you get the rest of the bottle along with the pour - and I don’t see why you wouldn’t - then I guess its not really a short pour and no one is being shorted.

It is a different way thats all. I guess when I said nobody pours a beer that way I should have said most places in the USA don’t pour a beer that way

 

[Bobby_M]

So he is talking about bottled beer, not draft. Assuming you get the rest of the bottle along with the pour - and I don’t see why you wouldn’t - then I guess its not really a short pour and no one is being shorted.

It is a different way thats all. I guess when I said nobody pours a beer that way I should have said most places in the USA don’t pour a beer that way

In that case, give the customer the whole bottle and an empty glass and let them pour it like they want it.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The problem with serving beer at near freezing temps is that you can't really taste the beer. Taffer recommends low temps so that the bar can serve a higher percentage of the keg . . . less waste. It will certainly do that but it's at the customers expense. On the other hand, it might be a good thing when you consider the "popular" pedestrian beers being served in most bars.

Seriously. In the interest of appearing open-minded, some people claim industrial beer is actually good and that people who don't like it are imposing their peculiar tastes on others, but...come on. I guess McDonald's is just as good as Smith & Wollensky.

There are differences no one can deny.

1. No one "graduates" from craft beer to industrial beer. No one ever drank Dogfish Head for 20 years and then realized Coor's was better. It's always the other way around.

2. No one ever complains about not being able to taste industrial beer because it's too cold, but people do complain about craft beer being too cold to taste. You have to serve industrial beer cold enough to kill what little flavor it has, or even people who love it will turn it down. This is why there are signs that say, "Ice Cold Beer." I think over-chilling is a substitute for hops, which industrial beer lacks.

3. Industrial beer uses cheaper ingredients and less of them. No one ever said, "I know this beer will taste better if I use cheaper ingredients and water it down."

I had an alcoholic buddy who drank Bud all day. He would open a bottle, drink half, and put it down. If it had warmed up much when he picked it back up, he poured it out and opened another one. He praised Bud all the time, but in reality, he couldn't stand it when he could actually taste it. Bud is proof that good advertising means a great deal more than a good product.

 

[MicroMickey]

Budweiser lager, at least since its return at the end of Prohibition, has maintained its gravity but the hop rate has fallen over the years. Fred Eckhart’s book lists the IBUs at 15 in 1981 and 10.5 in 1987. Today, the IBUs are estimated at 6 or 7. A-B is probably using one hop pellet per gallon (purely a guess) to produce their flagship offering to Joe Six-pack.

I have it on good authority that the brewers of many American “light” pilsner style beers have entirely eliminated hops in their formulation and now use old socks for bittering and flavor. And you thought that the term “Sock-Hop” referred to a High School dance held in a gymnasium!

 

[mac_1103]

I had an alcoholic buddy who drank Bud all day. He would open a bottle, drink half, and put it down.

None of my alcoholic buddies ever put a beer down before it was empty.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

You hang around with a better class of alcoholic.

 

[camonick]

Seriously. In the interest of appearing open-minded, some people claim industrial beer is actually good and that people who don't like it are imposing their peculiar tastes on others, but...come on. I guess McDonald's is just as good as Smith & Wollensky.

There are differences no one can deny.

1. No one "graduates" from craft beer to industrial beer. No one ever drank Dogfish Head for 20 years and then realized Coor's was better. It's always the other way around.

2. No one ever complains about not being able to taste industrial beer because it's too cold, but people do complain about craft beer being too cold to taste. You have to serve industrial beer cold enough to kill what little flavor it has, or even people who love it will turn it down. This is why there are signs that say, "Ice Cold Beer." I think over-chilling is a substitute for hops, which industrial beer lacks.

3. Industrial beer uses cheaper ingredients and less of them. No one ever said, "I know this beer will taste better if I use cheaper ingredients and water it down."

I had an alcoholic buddy who drank Bud all day. He would open a bottle, drink half, and put it down. If it had warmed up much when he picked it back up, he poured it out and opened another one. He praised Bud all the time, but in reality, he couldn't stand it when he could actually taste it. Bud is proof that good advertising means a great deal more than a good product.

You sure bash on the large American breweries and the people who enjoy their products like they’re too stupid to know better and they’re some kind of social reject because they “haven’t seen the light of craft/ micro/ homebrew”. That’s their thing and there are tens of millions of people who would disagree that BMC aren’t good products… to each their own.
Sláinte

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Lots of assumptions there. Lots of words you're trying to put in my mouth.

 

[camonick]

Lots of assumptions there. Lots of words you're trying to put in my mouth.

In the interest of appearing open-minded, some people claim industrial beer is actually good and that people who don't like it are imposing their peculiar tastes on others, but...come on.

 

[T Murph]

"Long neck ice cold beer never broke my heart" . They even had a hit country song. Doesn't matter who you are, where you are from or what blood line you come from, you either have good taste or you don't. Too bad if it offends some folks but prior to prohibition there were small breweries and pubs everywhere that produced good fresh beer. No days the average mega beer drinkers have no idea what beer is meant to taste like. So when someone offers them a good beer with actual malt and hop flavors, it taste bad to them. Some simply have such limited taste buds they miss out on a world of flavors from beer to many foods, etc.

 

[bwible]

In that case, give the customer the whole bottle and an empty glass and let them pour it like they want it.

That would be my preference, yes

 

[bwible]

1. No one "graduates" from craft beer to industrial beer. No one ever drank Dogfish Head for 20 years and then realized Coor's was better. It's always the other way around.

But then cloudy ipa that looks like orange juice, beers made sour on purpose and other such stuff turns people off of “craft beer” and drives them to other things. People are sick of every bar having 7 taps full of cloudy ipas and not much else. So no, its not always “the other way around”.

 

[bwible]

You sure bash on the large American breweries and the people who enjoy their products like they’re too stupid to know better and they’re some kind of social reject because they “haven’t seen the light of craft/ micro/ homebrew”. That’s their thing and there are tens of millions of people who would disagree that BMC aren’t good products… to each their own.
Sláinte

And yet AB is a $650 billion company with worldwide presence. Yeah I guess they made a living out of crap beer and having no quality control or standards. They need to be making some crap cloudy ipas.

 

[camonick]

Yeah I guess they made a living out of crap beer and having no quality control or standards

I’m by no means a BMC fanboy and will almost always choose something else first, but I can say that I’ve given them all a lot of my money. I can’t speak on their standards as a company, but I’d say their quality control probably can’t be beat. When EVERY Budweiser leaves their facility, it tastes EXACTLY (whether you like the flavor or not) like the millionth one before it and the millionth one that will come after it. It also tastes EXACTLY like any other Budweiser produced at a different location. What happens to it afterwards as far as the way it’s handled isn’t totally up to them. I can’t say that for some of the craft beers I’ve had.
Anyway… this thread was about foam so carry on about that.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

But then cloudy ipa that looks like orange juice, beers made sour on purpose and other such stuff turns people off of “craft beer” and drives them to other things. People are sick of every bar having 7 taps full of cloudy ipas and not much else. So no, its not always “the other way around”.

I believe it is. ALMOST always. There may be a freak out there who went the other way. I mean, at least two Americans were stupid enough to move to North Korea. Crazy things happen.

First of all, I wasn't talking about a lateral move from one bad beer to another. There are craft beers that are considerably worse than Bud. I've been discovering them this year. Moving from sweetened beer with bizarre additions to industrial beer doesn't really count as a decision based on a maturing palate. Second, no one, or virtually no one, spends years drinking excellent beer--not Cap'n Crunch and Coconut-flavored blonde craft ale--and then turns to Bud.

Seems like there are way too many IPA's on the market, but there are plenty of craft alternatives and good factory alternatives to cloudy IPA.

And yet AB is a $650 billion company with worldwide presence. Yeah I guess they made a living out of crap beer and having no quality control or standards.

They made money selling bad beer with good quality control. Good quality control can't fix a bad recipe. Manischewitz probably has better quality control than some vineyards in France.

I don't call people who drink bad beer stupid, but I do criticize industrial beer manufacturers who make awful beer and try to fool people. The product isn't the cheaply-made beer. It's the cynicism and dishonesty. They promote this stuff to people who don't know anything about brewing as though it were comparable to things made with better ingredients.

I think people drink Bud and Miller not because they're stupid but because they don't care about beer. The vast majority of beer drinkers are thinking primarily about the buzz. I used to drink Miller myself. I was president of the Miller Club at my high school. We used to skip class, drink a bunch of Millers, and come back. Miller was okay with me because I was young, I only cared about getting drunk, the beer was very cold, and I always chugged it so I didn't taste much. Before I left high school, I was drinking a lot of European beer, and by college, I was done with American industrial beer for the most part. I found a couple of things that were acceptable in a pinch, but the more I learned about beer, the more unpleasant the big brands became.

I remember drinking a cheap beer called Red Cap that was not bad. The web says it's Canadian. I discovered it in college. I thought it was a bargain.

Incidentally, I had a beer labeled "Budweiser" overseas, and it was pretty good. It was canned. I don't know if it was some kind of illegal knockoff or it came from Czechoslovakia or what. It was not like Urquell. I know that much. The label didn't look or try to look like a Bud label.

 

[mac_1103]

I do criticize industrial beer manufacturers who make awful beer and try to fool people

Are they trying to fool people, or just giving them what they want? Do you think the big industrial brewers keep reducing the bitterness of their product to save $0.00000001 per can, or do you think they keep reducing the bitterness because they're in the business of selling lots of beer to people who don't actually like the taste of beer?

 

[NSMikeD]

I know Bud gets a bad rap, but how many home brewers can brew pilsners with any degree of consistency with near zero flaws. Not many I would guess. It’s not an easy beer to make and they do it well. It’s a business and it’s hard to find fault with them from a business perspective and they’ve been able to scale up some darn good craft brews giving those original owners nice paydays.

Tapper is a TV personality, but he does his homework on market demographics and he’s spot on with owners who suck at food safety, personnel matters and bad menus. Keep in mind he does bring in a bar and a food expert and he’s just repeating what they say. I can live without the drama yelling at the owners, but when you see how they poorly manage their establishments I guess it works. Just not my style. And I suppose it draws ratings. And ratings is his business.

 

[MaxStout]

Is he adding Tide pods to the beer? Nyquil and chicken? Megadoses of Benadryl? He's not going to become a big-time TikTok influencer unless he steps up his game.

 

[RM-MN]

Miss Manners might say that you should drink tea from a teacup only and that you need to have your pinkie finger extended while doing so. That doesn't mean she would be right.

 

[bwible]

 

[bwible]

Incidentally, I had a beer labeled "Budweiser" overseas, and it was pretty good. It was canned. I don't know if it was some kind of illegal knockoff or it came from Czechoslovakia or what. It was not like Urquell. I know that much. The label didn't look or try to look like a Bud label.

The Budweiser in the Czech Republic is definitely not a knock off. Its the original. AB is prohibited from calling their beer Budweiser there.

 

[bracconiere]

No one ever drank Dogfish Head for 20 years and then realized Coor's was better

no, but coors will start charging the same! i just had to spend $18 on a 12 pack of coors!