Random Beer Thoughts

[user 306926]

Oh if we're gonna do this list I demand that, "drinking ________ly" be added. Every time I see a post or hear, "yeah man, this 2013 Arthur is drinking beautifully" it makes my skin crawl.

While I also detest it I will be using it from now on.
"drinking shittedly"
"drinking Trady-ly"
"drinking toshedly"
"drinking Julian,plsedly "

I'm surprised no one is (admitting) to just adding terpenes to their beer yet.

I'm older than my age and very out of touch. Dafuq is a terpenes?

 

[PHBoiler]

it would seem the number probably shrinks with each passing day

there's far less respect for people exploring and trying baseline beers.

random joe at the store browsing the "import" section and considering, say, a Guinness gets accosted by a beer nerd who threatens his livelihood for even considering such a "****" beer. so random joe wanders over to the "micro" section and grabs something with lots of words on the bottle that looks "crafty".

people, like us, who are a niche in the wider beer drinking community are the ones setting the tone for what less..... driven?.... drinkers are going to seek out.

we are to beer what the guy designing this kind of ******** is to fashion........................ roughly

you go to a fashion show wearing carpenter jeans, some 15 year old Doc Martens, a Packers jersey and some sunglasses on the back of your neck asking questions about fabrics and stitching, you're going to get savaged and then someone is going to suggest you buy an $11,000 sewing machine and 30 yards of rare material sourced from a bat cave in Madagascar.


i don't read/hear people recommending to "friends that aren't in to craft beer" that they try Leinie's Red, or Spotted Cow, or whatever as an intro. instead i read/hear "i saw this ******* newb new money loser at Binny's browsing Modelo, so i spit on his shoes, smacked his iPhone from his hand and claimed a victory for the CCBE. Respect beer!"

Yeah that's tough too because last night a bunch of us that have been getting together for bottle shares at a local restaurant for 4 years were together sharing bottles and a group of three newer guys got thrust into drinking some beyond ordinary beers. I have no clue what their drinking experiences are. They brought hazy IPAs to share. Ones that are hard to get around here so that was nice of them to bring to share. All of a sudden we're handing them Clare's, Backyard Rye, Bourbon Zhukov, Sump Adola, Last Buffalo in the Park, Schramm's Blackberry, a peach De Garde beer, and so on. Talk about a palate assault. Say those guys are relatively new to those types of beer, well that can shape your tastes in a fairly weird way out of the gate. It's not like you need a certain level of experience to try those beers though. In the end it's about what tastes good to you. If you get so used to over the top flavors though it's tough to dial that back and pick up nuances from a certain yeast or certain malt.

 

[furley]

I want to rub beards with you.


And I dont mean going out and taking turns randomly touching strangers but more in a sword fight kinda way.

 

[Snarf1]

I'm older than my age and very out of touch. Dafuq is a terpenes?

Flavor/aroma oils.

 

[furley]

Yeah that's tough too because last night a bunch of us that have been getting together for bottle shares at a local restaurant for 4 years were together sharing bottles and a group of three newer guys got thrust into drinking some beyond ordinary beers. I have no clue what their drinking experiences are. They brought hazy IPAs to share. Ones that are hard to get around here so that was nice of them to bring to share. All of a sudden we're handing them Clare's, Backyard Rye, Bourbon Zhukov, Sump Adola, Last Buffalo in the Park, Schramm's Blackberry, a peach De Garde beer, and so on. Talk about a palate assault. Say those guys are relatively new to those types of beer, well that can shape your tastes in a fairly weird way out of the gate. It's not like you need a certain level of experience to try those beers though. In the end it's about what tastes good to you. If you get so used to over the top flavors though it's tough to dial that back and pick up nuances from a certain yeast or certain malt.

yeah, i think it's not unlike any new experience.

if your first exposure to music is Jimi Hendrix, you're probably not going to be all that thrilled by the musical stylings of something more foundational to rock music that isn't so adventurous and advanced. normally serious rock fans would say "but you have to listen to X in order to appreciate Hendrix completely and understand what a departure he was from what was happening at the time."

seems like in beer people that are new to it are getting recommendations from friends, like us, who say "you've gotta hear this chopped and screwed version of Hendrix, while tripping with a lightbulb in your ass and you're being chased by wolves..." it used to be in the "i'm really excited and want my friends to experience how awesome this is!" way but now it's more "everything else except this is **** and if you think otherwise, you're ****" way.

if your first time getting laid is a 6-way scat fest with alligators, you're probably not whacking it to the Sears catalog any time soon. when you grew up jerking it to women in nude colored bras on page 672, you learned to appreciate what it was like to see a real nipple in the flesh for the first time.

 

[Stubs]

That one bothers me mostly because the beer isn't drinking. Why can't people just say "This tastes ____?" That has the upside of being coherent and not making you sound like a pretentious moron.

Preach on!

 

[Stubs]

We should change the name of this thread to...

 

[reverseapachemaster1]

seems like in beer people that are new to it are getting recommendations from friends, like us, who say "you've gotta hear this chopped and screwed version of Hendrix, while tripping with a lightbulb in your ass and you're being chased by wolves..."

I bet that is drinking progressively right now.

 

[JulianB1]

Sometimes I legitimately wonder if folks that really started diving into craft beer in the past year or so have had a straight up regular stout without flavors added. I think you'd truly have to seek one out at this point. Last night at a bottle share a buddy of mine was talking about the Assassin release over at TG and numerous folks weren't that impressed by Assassin he said. Now that's a barrel aged stout, but there are no additional flavors added. I truly think flavored stouts are the stout baseline for a lot of folks at this point. I'm not really sure it's their fault either. I don't really have a larger point. Just one of those random thoughts floating around in my head. Carry on.

It goes well beyond just the past year or 2 but I get what you are saying. With market saturation, it takes something different for a beer/brewery to get noticed. The concept of making beers that taste less like "beer" and more like other things we enjoy has been around for awhile but maybe just becoming more popular now as new breweries gotta do something crazy to get noticed. The haze craze is a real thing right now. Sours/wilds was before that...imperializing everything was before that and so on and so on.

8 years ago, I only knew of a single beer made with something as ludacris as peanut butter. Today, we dont even bat an eyelash at it because its old news.

Couple years ago I witnessed a very similar thing as you described. Some folks just getting into beer were asking me about my favorite easily acquired beers that they can go out and buy/try right now. I told them about Brooklyn black chocolate stout (it was like $28 a case at that time and I almost always had at least a sixpack in the fridge.) I shared some with them and they all disliked it because there wasnt enough chocolate in it. They couldnt understand the concept of using "normal" beer ingredients to mimic other flavors. "Well, why dont they just use real chocolate?" I guess plenty of others felt the same way and now thats the more popular option.

Great posts and great points. A very standard trope that's used by beer blog writers (and often in the comments section) when bagging on styles like IPAs or barrel-aged/flavored stouts tends to be something like "you can't hide the flaws in a pilsner under a bunch of hops or ingredients", but I actually find that, at least for a lot of US breweries, producing a really good stout or porter is harder than making a decent lager/pilsner, kolsch, red ale, or some other "basic" style. Maybe it's because I find myself really sensitive to metallic off-flavors, but I am constantly picking up flaws (that one, and otherwise) in a lot of base stouts I try. For this reason the good ones (Expedition, Founders RIS, Black Chocolate Stout, New Holland Poet, etc.) are some of the shelf beers I value access to the most highly.

 

[Beerontwowheels]

if your first time getting laid is a 6-way scat fest with alligators,

that'smyfetish.gif

too lazy to search it up

 

[JCastle1]

"you can't hide the flaws in a pilsner under a bunch of hops or ingredients".

This is so true, I've had so many **** beers in Germany. A lot of local people really dig the sulphur/diacetyl present in some Helles or Pilsners though.

 

[danbanana]

too lazy to search it up

that'smyfetish.gif

 

[drgarage1]

I'm surprised no one is (admitting) to just adding terpenes to their beer yet.

Isn't that basically the whole premise of Hop Stoopid?

 

[Lutter]

The haze craze is a real thing right now. Sours/wilds was before that

Then how about.... .... sour haze?!

 

[FTowne1]

The how about.... .... sour haze?!

I'm pretty sure that's unfermented. (runnings).

 

[JulianB1]

I'm pretty sure that's unfermented. (runnings).

 

[CornAndBeer]

You suck, McBain!

 

[Snarf1]

Isn't that basically the whole premise of Hop Stoopid?

I thought the whole premise of Hop Stoopid was spending the least amount of money for the most alcohol in an IPA cause I'm a classy drunk.

 

[degardebrewing]

Flavor/aroma oils.

Your post seems skeptical.
'How do they make this taste and smell more Mapley than drinking actual syrup?!'
'Oh ****, this tastes like a fruit thing but with none of that fruit color. Magicians, these folk!'
Makes sense. Nobody actually likes beer.

Edit: I'm now guessing that you're aware stuff like this is happening, and perhaps more/most often with more beer geek and mother approved beers. Of course, we can always go home to any number of flavored wheat beer variations from the big guys too. They just use less.

 

[FTowne1]

I thought the whole premise of Hop Stoopid was spending the least amount of money for the most alcohol in an IPA cause I'm a classy drunk.

Now in 6 packs!

 

[Previously]

"drinking sublimely"

 

[jmarce]

You guys better step off or I'm going to start busting out "drinking sublimely" (if I haven't already) for maximum pretentiousness.

I think it's hard to beat "too young/hot, going to lay the rest down in the cellar for a few years and revisit" for anything limited or rare because in addition to sounding pretentious you're informing everyone you have multiples and a cellar.

 

[JonathanAmes]

"Shitshow" is absolutely my least favorite part of beer lexicon.

 

[JulianB1]

 

[stakem1]

was in a beer distributor for the first time in years tonight
saw a case of black xantus that was so old, the cardboard hardly held the bottles together in the box. i immediately thought of Arbitrator and how this case likely predated his story of yesteryear

for $99 i seriously might go back tomorrow and buy that case. anyone want to split it?

 

[regularjohn]

Founders RIS and Bells Expedition Stout with 2-3 years of age on them are better than probably 95% of the newest hype-whale stouts that people are losing their **** over.

hesrightyouknow.jpg

This Black Note is still one of the best stouts I ever had...anyone that still has these 750's i highly suggest drinking it now. It's so damn good.

 

[stupac2]

"Shitshow" is absolutely my least favorite part of beer lexicon.

That is definitely not a beer word.

 

[JulianB1]

That is definitely not a beer word.

I use it 10 times as often for politics as for beer.

 

[Josh2]

hesrightyouknow.jpg

This Black Note is still one of the best stouts I ever had...anyone that still has these 750's i highly suggest drinking it now. It's so damn good.

Is it drinking beautifully?

 

[regularjohn]

Is it drinking beautifully?

I'm drinking beautifully, want a sample?