The BEER thread

[kbasa]

I don't drink local beer or beer readily available on this continent. I am sure there are some good ones out there, but like I said, beers that are readily available in most stores.

Having toured Europe for 27 years, I have had my favorites there, but locally I buy cases of 20 x half-liter beers in glass bottles from Poland at Walmart. I do not drink beer out of cans.

View attachment 93384

If you're not exploring any of the new brewing here in North America, you're missing out, IMHO. I say that as a beer enthusiast and lapsed brewer for the last 30 years.

I'm not sure where you live, but here in the US, just about any decent local liquor store will have some locally brewed stuff. Even better, if your town is of any size at all, it probably has a local brewery these days. If you're lucky, you might even have a distillery.

I don't get the can thing. I can't taste them. If you poured a beer out of a glass bottle (light pollution is no bueno) and a can and were presented with them in a blind test, I doubt you could tell them apart. And again, I brewed at home for a decade plus, put up my stuff in bottles, etc.

 

[globalrider]

If you're not exploring any of the new brewing here in North America, you're missing out, IMHO.

I don't get the can thing. I can't taste them.

Maybe, but I am not buying a case of it to try it out. If sold by the bottle, great. If I don't like it, I can water the plants.

There are a few so-called private breweries in town and also some out of town that I have tried. You'd think they can't all be bad, but working on percentages, no thanks. I am also not into this "new" inventions of beer of various tastes.

As for canned beer, I get those when I am next door and drink out of the can. I still do not buy it.

Have you tried Augustiner Edelstoff? You'd have to be in Munich or Bavaria to try it as they do not export it. I tried talking to them about that and that will never happen.

 

[kbasa]

Maybe, but I am not buying a case of it to try it out. If sold by the bottle, great. If I don't like it, I can water the plants.

There are a few so-called private breweries in town and also some out of town that I have tried. You'd think they can't all be bad, but working on percentages, no thanks. I am also not into this "new" inventions of beer of various tastes.

As for canned beer, I get those when I am next door and drink out of the can. I still do not buy it.

Have you tried Augustiner Edelstoff? You'd have to be in Munich or Bavaria to try it as they do not export it. I tried talking to them about that and that will never happen.

I've had various Augustiners and they're decent. I like the Bavarian stuff, especially hefewiezen and helles, but I struggle to find the difference between those and other lagers or similar styles using similar recipes.

You're in Canada, so do you have to buy a case? Here, we often have beer stores where we can buy singles and try them out before committing to a case. I can't even remember the last time I bought an entire case of beer. It'd take me two months to drink it.

 

[globalrider]

I've had various Augustiners and they're decent.

I first had Augustiner Edelstoff when I was invited to a Porsche get-together just east of München in the town of Kirchseeon where other Porsche 993 owners came from as far as Frankfurt to meet me. This on my 2011 motorcycle Alps tour. We ate and drank well, but I had to be in shape the next morning to head off while also waiting for a friend who rented a motorcycle in Landshut to meet me there. The rest of the guys at the party were still going at it at 6 AM. Yeah well...OK.

You're in Canada, so do you have to buy a case?

Unfortunately yes, and no to having to buy a case as long as I go to Walmart or the liquor store where I can buy singles (we live in a nanny state). I just do not waste my time with the regular mass produced stuff. Moosehead is OK.

I go through a case of the Polish beer every couple of weeks. Damn good stuff.

 

[kbasa]

I first had Augustiner Edelstoff when I was invited to a Porsche get-together just east of München in the town of Kirchseeon where other Porsche 993 owners came from as far as Frankfurt to meet me. This on my 2011 motorcycle Alps tour. We ate and drank well, but I had to be in shape the next morning to head off while also waiting for a friend who rented a motorcycle in Landshut to meet me there. The rest of the guys at the party were still going at it at 6 AM. Yeah well...OK.




Unfortunately yes, and no to having to buy a case as long as I go to Walmart or the liquor store where I can buy singles (we live in a nanny state). I just do not waste my time with the regular mass produced stuff. Moosehead is OK.

I go through a case of the Polish beer every couple of weeks. Damn good stuff.

I still have a thing for Budweis, the OG Euro version, or Budvar.

 

[barryg]

Generally when I go to my local bar; I drink Bud, can or bottle. Lately when I get a 12 pack to go, I’ll get a 6 pack of another brand. This time I got Yuengling.

Drank it for a time back in the day. Next time I get a 6 pack/12 pack of Bud I’ll get a 6 pack of another brand. After over 50 years of beer drinking, I’ve drank a lot of varieties. To each his own.

 

[globalrider]

This time I got Yuengling.

I had some of that many years ago.

By the way, the Bud you show has absolutely nothing to do with the real Bud from the Czech Republic.

The real Budweiss comes for Ceske Budejovice and Pilsner from Pilsen in the Czech Republic.

 

[Omega Man]

A companion thread from the same OP-

https://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?21599-What-are-you-drinking-tonight

OM

 

[lee]

Does Canada still consider a 12 pack a case?

 

[globalrider]

Does Canada still consider a 12 pack a case?

6, 12, 18 and 24 depends on the beer. I only buy a 24 pack of our smaller bottles or 20 of the 0.5 liter European bottles. Forgot about the 30 packs for those that are really thirsty. Costco will have 55 or 60 packs of cans as well.

I remember being in Oshkosh, WI for the EAA Convention and I could buy Canadian beer (Labatts Blue) for next to nothing. It is all taxes up here.

 

[skibum69]

In Canada Budweiss is sold as Czechvar. which directly relates back to why I do not buy AB InBev products. Budweiser beat up the town of Budweiss in the courts for ownership of their own name until the town ran out of money fighting it which is now why they cannot sell under their own name in North America. AB InBev is a nasty company. They have also done plenty of underhanded things against the craft beer movement over the years. That was AB.

As for In Bev back in the day Pierre Celis opened a new brewery in Hoegaarden to save the wit beer style the local brewery made. He is often credited as being the man who saved the style. Anyway in 1985 he had a fire and went looking for help to rebuild. Interbrew helped out and got him going but then they started pressuring him to change the recipe etc as the big guys do. Celis sold out and moved his brewing to Austin, Texas where he opened Celis brewery. Interbrew merged with AmBev to become InBev so them buying AB in a hostile takeover makes 2 nasty companies together.

I do buy Molson Coors products as that's what I can get at my local corner store where I buy a Newfoundland only brand of beer called India which is still an industrial lager but at least it has some flavour. They've done nasty things to craft brewers too but not as bad as AB InBev.

And there is the fact that Budweiser has no flavour, why would you bother?

 

[kbasa]

View attachment 93385
Generally when I go to my local bar; I drink Bud, can or bottle. Lately when I get a 12 pack to go, I’ll get a 6 pack of another brand. This time I got Yuengling.
View attachment 93386
Drank it for a time back in the day. Next time I get a 6 pack/12 pack of Bud I’ll get a 6 pack of another brand. After over 50 years of beer drinking, I’ve drank a lot of varieties. To each his own.

I'm on the west coast, so the "Bud" of the region is usually Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or "snappa". I usually have some "backyard beer" around from one of the American brewers. Coors, Bud, High Life; it doesn't matter. Alongside it, I'll have something local that's interesting. Right now, I have Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest, which is true to style and excellent.

Some days, when it's like 100F, I'll get home and I just want something cold and beer flavored with lowish alcohol to pour down my neck. Some days, I'm looking for a hop fistfight in my mouth. Most days, I'm somewhere in between.

Along those lines, since I've moved to wine country here in NorCal, I like to keep a bottle of rose around. It's just the thing for making dinner when I'm not up for a beer. It's cheap wine, but I like it. I buy the local stuff so my money stays here in my county. Same for most of my local beer selections. We have a great assortment here in Sonoma and I'm looking for stuff by these guys: https://www.cuverbrewing.com/our-brews

A Belgian landed here in Sonoma and set about brewing the beers of his homeland right here. They have a decent assortment of sours, so I feel like maybe I oughta drag my butt up there this weekend and have a beer on their patio before the rains come.

 

[globalrider]

AB InBev products. AB InBev is a nasty company. They have also done plenty of underhanded things against the craft beer movement over the years. That was AB.

OK, I do not have the CIA code book. What do those acronyms mean?

 

[kbasa]

OK, I do not have the CIA code book. What do those acronyms mean?

Anheuser Busch and InBev, who bought AB.

https://www.ab-inbev.com/our-brands/

 

[skibum69]

Lucky bastard! Looks like your local guy is brewing Belgian examples from home. I'm super jealous he seems to be brewing traditional sour styles which are my favourite! Put one of those Flemish Reds next to some crappy kettle sour and you'll quick see the difference. I liken it to the original pilsner and what it evolved to as Bud Light. Modern kettle sours are a dim reference to the historical sours they came from.

I hate acronyms too but AB is Anheuser Busch. InBev is a company made up from Interbrew in Belgium and AmBev in Brazil. Massive corporate entities that got big enough to buy AB and are now the largest brewing company in the world.

You can find out a lot of the sad details by looking them up in Wikipedia. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InBev

Mostly it all just makes me not want to drink any industrial lagers but the reality of where I lives that I need to have them in the fridge if I want anything to drink.

 

[kbasa]

Lucky bastard! Looks like your local guy is brewing Belgian examples from home. I'm super jealous he seems to be brewing traditional sour styles which are my favourite! Put one of those Flemish Reds next to some crappy kettle sour and you'll quick see the difference. I liken it to the original pilsner and what it evolved to as Bud Light. Modern kettle sours are a dim reference to the historical sours they came from.

I hate acronyms too but AB is Anheuser Busch. InBev is a company made up from Interbrew in Belgium and AmBev in Brazil. Massive corporate entities that got big enough to buy AB and are now the largest brewing company in the world.

You can find out a lot of the sad details by looking them up in Wikipedia. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InBev

Mostly it all just makes me not want to drink any industrial lagers but the reality of where I lives that I need to have them in the fridge if I want anything to drink.

Thanks. If you get out here to the Bay Area, the brewing scene is really diverse and robust. I think there are 13 breweries within a few miles of my house, which feels like an embarrassment of riches when you add in that it's in wine country, of all places.

https://www.visitsantarosa.com/breweries-pubs/

Henhouse, Barrel Brothers and Russian River are probably my most frequently consumed. Barrel Brothers brews a terrific lager with some actual taste and the STS Pils from RR is pretty great, too. Of course, we have a seemingly unlimited number of IPAs out here from session capable with lower alcohol, to big ripping DIPAs and hazies.

When I used to visit eastern Canada, I was always a fan of Sleeman's stuff.

 

[skibum69]

I am well familiar with your neck of the woods brewing. I was so sad to hear Russian River is getting rid of their whole barrel program due to market influence. Sigh...

 

[kbasa]

I am well familiar with your neck of the woods brewing. I was so sad to hear Russian River is getting rid of their whole barrel program due to market influence. Sigh...

They were tasty, but the price drove a lot of folks away. I traded a stack of airhead seat pans for a half dozen of them, a half dozen Pliny the Elders and $50. Selling parts here can yield unexpected surprises sometimes. 3

 

[skibum69]

Good trade! I have a few RR's in the cellar. Another one I was sad to hear go was Hair of the Dog up in Portland. I still have a few of those too.

 

[globalrider]

Well I lucked in and picked up the following beer book at a free drop-off & pick-up book booth along our walking path to the community mailbox.

The Comic Book Story Of BEER from the year 7000 BC to today - I'd love to see the record keeping back then. The artwork is impressive.