What are your contrarian/"unpopular" beer opinions?

[GPP33]

People need to walk up escalators. Your lazy ass needs the excrcise anyway. Not really beer related but I'm sitting in the airport drinking my $10 freaking pint so I'm gonna bitch. Don't run from the train to the escalator just to stand there! Valuable preflight beer drinking time lost forever......

 

[jcav]

I don't know, sometimes I think we take ourselves to seriously and we just need to lighten up a little. I mean I like what I like to drink, and I like my brewing process and system and it really works well for me. Who am I to tell you what you should like, what brewing process is the best, or this way is the only way to get the best whatever.....

Offering advise is great and this forum is an excellent resource for that. I myself have gained so much knowledge from all of you over the years. I take what I think is good advise here and what works for me and I leave out what doesn't work as sometimes there is bad info here, but you can weed out the bad info if you read enough. So we should keep up the good advise and chime in when we can without offending anyone, or getting uppity and snobbish about it. We are better than that. That's my two cents, now I am going to have a pint of some home brew and tweak my next awesome recipe!

John

 

[TANSTAAFB]

People need to walk up escalators. Your lazy ass needs the excrcise anyway. Not really beer related but I'm sitting in the airport drinking my $10 freaking pint so I'm gonna bitch. Don't run from the train to the escalator just to stand there! Valuable preflight beer drinking time lost forever......

+1000, one of my pet peeves! Living in a small town, there are no escalators so that particular peeve is rarely aggravated 🍻

 

[grrickar]

I think pilsners are generic beers - I have had quite a few and not a one ever impressed me. That and brown ales are my least favorite styles. Both leave a lot of be desired IMO. How is that for contrarian?

Oh, and I never had a DogFishHead beer that lived up to the hype. I find their beers too malty. If I wanted malt I'd order one instead of a beer.

 

[Bilsch]

If their food is good and the prices are OK brewpubs can survive just fine on very mediocre beer.

My unpopular opinion is that ^this^ is bringing down the overall quality of beer in the world.

 

[Bosh]

My unpopular opinion is that ^this^ is bringing down the overall quality of beer in the world.

My opinion is that I'd be wonderful if brewpub cared more about their food and less about their beer. It's damn hard getting my wife into a brewpub when the food is limited or sucks.

My standards aren't too high, if there's an APA with some citrus flavor and no glaring off flavors I'm happy. I can make the weird **** at home.

But then I care about commercial beer a lot less than most people. This week I bought one bottle of Stone Delicious IPA and last week it was one bottle of Big Eye IPA. If every commercial beer disappeared off the face of the earth but my homebrew store stayed nicely stocked it'd be just a minor inconvenience.

 

[FatDragon]

My unpopular opinion is that ^this^ is bringing down the overall quality of beer in the world.

One more place selling mediocre IPAs is better than one more place selling BMC.

 

[Redlantern]

I agree with some stuff earlier - the brew pub does not need to be a mecca for beer. It is very hard work to create and consistently deliver a top notch product. Then again, I do not really like to have food with my beer - it gets in the way of the flavor. If I am going for good stuff, it is always on a clean palate. If a brew pub does decent beer and has good food, I am in.

 

[Mainer]

Oh, one more contrarian idea:
"Extract twang" is a hoax. You're making **** up so you can feel superior about being all-grain.

 

[Murphys_Law]

I don't care if InBev bought NB and if they walked in and bought my LHBS I would say, "good for them...hope they made some coin and buy something shiny and expensive for the wife!"

And I don't care if somebody likes BMC and all they drink is Bud Light, Miller Lite, or the Silver Bullet!

 

[JonM]

I don't care if InBev bought NB and if they walked in and bought my LHBS I would say, "good for them...hope they made some coin and buy something shiny and expensive for the wife!"

And I don't care if somebody likes BMC and all they drink is Bud Light, Miller Lite, or the Silver Bullet!

All those folks calling for a boycott are doing a bang-up job. What a ghost town.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1486139159.598231.jpg

 

[brewcat]

I'm not convinced that kegging is better than bottling.

Yes, washing and filling bottles is a bigger pain. However, the cost of getting in to kegging in any sort of reasonable way is pretty damn steep. Bottling only requires empties, caps, and some way to close up the caps. Heck, if you use flip-tops, you don't even need caps (although you sometimes need replacement seals).

Spoken like a guy that has never pulled a pint.

Kegging limits oxygen, gives balanced carbonation, bulk aging, dry hopping in the keg, drinking fresher IPAs. I also keg with a few beers which I wouldn't try for a bottling session. And kegging got me brewing more.

 

[Barley_Bob]

Cold crashing is a complete waste of time!

 

[theowlman16]

Real beer comes from a bottle, not a scuba tank.

 

[TheMadKing]

Spoken like a guy that has never pulled a pint.

Kegging limits oxygen, gives balanced carbonation, bulk aging, dry hopping in the keg, drinking fresher IPAs. I also keg with a few beers which I wouldn't try for a bottling session. And kegging got me brewing more.

Same here, I almost quit brewing because I hated the 2+ hour ordeal of sanitizing bottles, making a priming solution, siphoning to a bottling bucket, capping each bottle, and then cleaning up all of the drips and spills from bottling... AND then you have to wait two weeks before even knowing if all the effort was worth it.

Not to mention the hundreds of bottles lying around.

Now I keg in 10 minutes, virtually no mess, carbonated and ready to drink within 24 hours. I've used a pinlock setup with party taps for years and I'm in the process of building my keezer finally. Total cost of the initial setup = $250. That was 2 kegs, a taprite regulator, a used CO2 tank, QD's and gas and serving lines.

It has paid for itself 10000 times over in the cost of my time, effort, and bottles.

 

[TheMadKing]

Real beer comes from a bottle, not a scuba tank.

Challenge: triangle test the same beer, 2 pours from a keg, 1 pour from a bottle. I'll give you $1 if you can tell the difference in 3/5 tests.

 

[brewskiez]

My dish washer has a sanitize option... I don't hand wash bottles I rinse them when I'm done drinking it and sanitize in washer before use... 15+ batches not a bad bottle yet.

 

[TheMadKing]

My dish washer has a sanitize option... I don't hand wash bottles I rinse them when I'm done drinking it and sanitize in washer before use... 15+ batches not a bad bottle yet.

I did the same thing.. Still takes an hour for the dishwasher to run

 

[brewskiez]

ya and I can make another 6 empty bottles in that hour of automatic washing vs me having to scrub and not having a free hand to make empties with.

 

[TheMadKing]

ya and I can make another 6 empty bottles in that hour of automatic washing vs me having to scrub and not having a free hand to make empties with.

I can keg in 10 minutes while drinking beer from my other keg.

 

[brewskiez]

I've got about an extra thousand dollars in my bank account

 

[BassElement]

Not really contrarian but most of the joy I get from homebrewing is actually because it does take a long time... spending 5 hours on Saturday cooking up 2.5 gallons of wort using grains and hops makes feel connected to history and humanity. Waiting for a few weeks and bottling it up gives me a chance to consider the value of patience and discipline. Then 2-3 weeks later I find out how things went... I've made great beers and not-so-great beers but I've completely enjoyed the process of making every single one.

I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist

 

[brewskiez]

My point was not that kegging is better or bottling is better but that bottling doesn't suck as much if you just put the bottles in the dish washer. I wish I would have figured this out from day one. As others said I almost quit because brush cleaning 50 bottles sucked so bad.

 

[spittybug]

Founders is highly overrated
$10 snifters are bull$()t
I don't want coffee in my beer
If my IPA makes my eyes bleed there is a problem
Left Hand's Milk Stout is nectar from Heaven
Brett, when done right, makes a beer worship worthy
Any brewery that doesn't welcome dogs isn't worth squat
People who take this too seriously aren't worth wasting time on
Man-buns need to go
Making my brewing rig/equipment is nearly as much fun as drinking my beer
Brewing alone isn't as good as brewing with your crew
Less than 5 taps on your home keezer is for *******
I meant to sour that
Trust me
Yeah baby, it's sticky sweet
Give me a well made "style" beer over your PBJ pumpkin cafe latte crap
Maris Otter rocks
German Pilsner rocks
Noble hops...are
Subtle flavors are much better than overt. Like flirtations
Asparagus beer isn't as bad as it sounds. Actually can be quite good
Sanitation laws in the North suck. Too much government. Too few dogs
Brewery Vivant is pretty cool
Twobrewdogs.com is worth following

I could go on forever.

 

[schematix]

I bought 2 kegs and a CO2 tank when i bought my first kettle. I knew i was all-in before i ever made the first batch.

My 13th keg just came on Thursday (brand new AEB - i don't fiddle with that used non-sense anymore).

 

[55x11]

Founders is highly overrated
$10 snifters are bull$()t
I don't want coffee in my beer
If my IPA makes my eyes bleed there is a problem
Left Hand's Milk Stout is nectar from Heaven
Brett, when done right, makes a beer worship worthy
Any brewery that doesn't welcome dogs isn't worth squat
People who take this too seriously aren't worth wasting time on
Man-buns need to go
Making my brewing rig/equipment is nearly as much fun as drinking my beer
Brewing alone isn't as good as brewing with your crew
Less than 5 taps on your home keezer is for *******
I meant to sour that
Trust me
Yeah baby, it's sticky sweet
Give me a well made "style" beer over your PBJ pumpkin cafe latte crap
Maris Otter rocks
German Pilsner rocks
Noble hops...are
Subtle flavors are much better than overt. Like flirtations
Asparagus beer isn't as bad as it sounds. Actually can be quite good
Sanitation laws in the North suck. Too much government. Too few dogs
Brewery Vivant is pretty cool
Twobrewdogs.com is worth following

I could go on forever.

Ummm... This thread about contrarian opinions. Not "List all the stuff we all agree on".

(I have no idea about Vivant and twobrewdogs.com but the rest I agree with, except maybe having some coffee in my beer. Oh wait, you said you don't want coffee in *your* beer. I have no problem with that. Carry on!).

 

[55x11]

Not really contrarian but most of the joy I get from homebrewing is actually because it does take a long time... spending 5 hours on Saturday cooking up 2.5 gallons of wort using grains and hops makes feel connected to history and humanity. Waiting for a few weeks and bottling it up gives me a chance to consider the value of patience and discipline. Then 2-3 weeks later I find out how things went... I've made great beers and not-so-great beers but I've completely enjoyed the process of making every single one.

I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist

it is somewhat contrarian but I agree with you. spending some time alone (mostly not doing anything really), and then having patience to see/taste the product of your labor many weeks later is a very appealing, very "Zen" part of brewing.

 

[55x11]

I've got about an extra thousand dollars in my bank account

a couple of kegs and CO2 tank and a regulator are not really worth a thousand dollars, but I agree with you - kegging is definitely more expensive than bottling (if you don't take into account your time, which is money). If you asked me 2 years ago, I would have said bottling is great. Don't fix what's not broken. I actually enjoy bottling and I still do it sometimes. Very relaxing (albeit time consuming).

But while almost everyone who is kegging has started with bottling, virtually nobody I ever heard of who went to kegging has sold their equipment and went back to bottling. I know more people who went from all-grain back to extract or people who went from 5G batches to 1G batches, and I mean it.

There are many reasons for that. Yes, a 5G keg at $30-50 or so is a big one-time cost for many, but it saves hours in labor (not just bottling but also cleaning and storing bottles) for every single batch, every single time. If you brew once a year, stick to bottling, but if you enjoy brewing and want to scale up to brewing more often, it's a great investment.

If you ever want to brew a great IPA, kegging is the only way to go, no way you can get even close with bottle-conditioning.

Separating sediment from the beer, force-carbonating with CO2 (over just a few days) and being able to dial it up or down, conditioning the beer while being able to drink/taste it (and fill bottles as needed) is ideal.

You can make secondary additions of various ingredients to entire keg (hopping, wood, lactose, coffee, cocoa nibs, peppers, fruit, etc.), in other words keep experimenting with the beer, while drinking it.

You can do beers on nitro, mix beers from different kegs, pour as much or as little as you like, fill growlers or bottles, etc.

I enjoyed my bottling days, they were great, but there is no way I abandon my kegs now. Not even if you paid me twice what I paid for them.

 

[Bosh]

Not really contrarian but most of the joy I get from homebrewing is actually because it does take a long time... spending 5 hours on Saturday cooking up 2.5 gallons of wort using grains and hops makes feel connected to history and humanity. Waiting for a few weeks and bottling it up gives me a chance to consider the value of patience and discipline. Then 2-3 weeks later I find out how things went... I've made great beers and not-so-great beers but I've completely enjoyed the process of making every single one.

I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist

I agree heartily with all of that but 2.5 gallons? That's madness. I'm willing to put in the time but I want 10 gallons when I'm done. That also lets me do split batches.

For bottling I don't see what the big deal is. I use one liter bottles and wash em out after I drink. Not too much time and having big bottles keeps me from saying "just one more bottle..." and getting drunk when I don't plan on getting drunk.

Then just throw them in thecloset until brew day. Used to sanitize them right before bottling but I don't bother anymore.

And I don't use a bottling bucket or a siphon. I just funnel some sugar into each bottle and fill them up at the spigot of the fermentor. Works fine.

 

[Bosh]

Cold crashing is a complete waste of time!

For some beers. If I'm using a strain that doesn't flocc well and have a bunch of hop trub it's great, otherwise meh.