The Truth about Craft Beers...

DainBramage

Reminds me of the Real Ale Twats from viz

http://viz.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/050_viz207_twats.jpg

Fratton Fred

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

I got the Bishops Finger too.

Me too, it made me spit fire,

Calibos

Anesthetize wrote: »

Lol @ someone referencing hipsters in 2015. It's not 2009 any more!

You are quite right. Hipsters have changed a lot since 2009. Now they wear skinny jeans, lumberjack shirts or waistcoats and sport beards and twirly moustaches.

mylefttesticle

All beer is disgusting! I often think if a restaurant sold beer in a soup bowl with a spoon the amount of complaints it would get would be unreal as it would be disgusting thing to serve, yet people spend up to 6 quid for a pint of it!

MadsL

Calibos wrote: »

As a bud drinker, the day I stop being asked how I can drink 'that piss-water' is the day I stop thinking all craft beer drinkers are pretentious hipster ****.

Yeah, Bud agree with you. Marketing want you to be proud of drinking their "brewed the hard way" pisswater sorry, the only "beechwood aged" beer (because everyone else knows its largely pointless as Bud soak the chips to remove any flavor and it is really just a shortcut to make fizzier beer) and continue mocking the 'hipster ****'. After all why actually learn anything about what you put in your body?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siHU_9ec94c

I guess I should just STFU and drink my Pumpkin Peach beer. Oh wait, what's that? Anheuser Busch own a craft brewery. And what? No! They make a Pumpkin Peach beer. Huh? Well. Budweiser, you pretentious hipster ****!!

Wang King

mylefttesticle wrote: »

All beer is disgusting! I often think if a restaurant sold beer in a soup bowl with a spoon the amount of complaints it would get would be unreal as it would be disgusting thing to serve, yet people spend up to 6 quid for a pint of it!

Sure go to your local and order a pint of oxtail, be grand!

Lakefrio

Most people don't like the taste of beer so craft beer just confuses them.

mylefttesticle

Wang King wrote: »

Sure go to your local and order a pint of oxtail, be grand!

The point is and wait for it, I wouldn't!

MadsL

mylefttesticle wrote: »

The point is and wait for it, I wouldn't!

So that's beer, soup...anything else you don't like?

mylefttesticle

MadsL wrote: »

So that's beer, soup...anything else you don't like?

Soup I like, it usually tastes good and is nutritious and as a food can be vital for living, beer on the other hand serves no purpose really.

El_Duderino 09

mylefttesticle wrote: »

Soup I like, it usually tastes good and is nutritious and as a food can be vital for living, beer on the other hand serves no purpose really.

Well that's an interesting point. Beer used to serve a purpose, but it wasn't necessarily for flavour. Beer used to be safer to drink than water. It was brewed to sanitise water so it was about 0.5% alcohol and was consumed throughout the day. In fact it was probably an advantage if it could be as plain as possible.

I have a mate who doesn't like any pints. His preference would be cider with blackcurrant but if he's in a big group he doesn't have the blackcurrant. He thinks it's masculine to drink pints so he does it. He is an example of a fella who would push the market towards bland neutral flavours like the household names. Plenty of them out there.

I don't see the household names disappearing so why do people feel bullied by people who like craft beers?

Wang King

mylefttesticle wrote: »

The point is and wait for it, I wouldn't!

Ah

mylefttesticle

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Well that's an interesting point. Beer used to serve a purpose, but it wasn't necessarily for flavour. Beer used to be safer to drink than water. It was brewed to sanitise water so it was about 0.5% alcohol and was consumed throughout the day. In fact it was probably an advantage if it could be as plain as possible.

I have a mate who doesn't like any pints. His preference would be cider with blackcurrant but if he's in a big group he doesn't have the blackcurrant. He thinks it's masculine to drink pints so he does it. He is an example of a fella who would push the market towards bland neutral flavours like the household names. Plenty of them out there.

I don't see the household names disappearing so why do people feel bullied by people who like craft beers?

Purely to hydrate your body but still not good for you! I drink Cider and only Bulmers which I quite like but that's about it.

mylefttesticle

Wang King wrote: »

Ah

Ive nothing against beer btw just don't think its flavoursome.

El_Duderino 09

mylefttesticle wrote: »

Purely to hydrate your body but still not good for you! I drink Cider and only Bulmers which I quite like but that's about it.

But it did serve a purpose. To hydrate without harmful parasites and bacteria. It was probably better to be bland and easy to drink. Most people prefer bland pints to this day.

Craft beers serve the purpose of providing different flavours of beer.

Besides that I think we underestimate the impact of image control when choosing a Drink. It's all tied up with masculinity and image so (even Bulmers) serves that purpose

ch750536

I see a green and gold dress.

Benny_Cake

A lot of people don't realise that at one point Ireland had hundreds of breweries. In a way the rise of craft beer is a return to that, rather than being an imported hipster thing.

Of course I've found some that I hated. That's part of the fun though.

The Backwards Man

Iranoutofideas wrote: »

Like most new "different" things that become popular it draws out the very worst part of the Irish character.

That being the opinion that anyone who does anything different and who dares to stray from the flock automatically has notions about themselves, is a snob and thinks they are better than everyone else.

It is a great way to spot the ignorant cretin mentality that is rife in this country.

anncoates wrote: »

Craft Beer is one of those amusing things whereby the mongos that get so worked up about what is essentially just different, more complex beers (very much like music, food, wine etc) look far more intolerant and idiotic than the supposed fart-smelling hipsters to whom they are taking offence.

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about lads. If you like your beer, drink it and enjoy it, there's no need for all the nastiness.

Shenshen

I'm very happy to see more and more craft breweries popping up. Of course I don't like all their beers, same as I don't like all wines. But it's fantastic to finally have some decent choices in pubs, and to be able to try new flavours.

I'm originally from a small town in the middle of nowhere in Germany - 70k inhabitants, but 10 breweries in the town alone, with every village in the area having at least one or two breweries each.
So when I first came to Ireland a little over a decade ago, I was taken aback that a country that so obviously likes its drink should have so few options on tab in its pubs. Couldn't get my head around that at all.

As someone pointed out, there used to be thousands of breweries here, same as in most other European countries, but they had become monopolised. So this return to a more diverse, open, interesting scene is something I find rather exciting to observe right now.

Eutow

MadsL wrote: »

Yeah, Bud agree with you. Marketing want you to be proud of drinking their "brewed the hard way" pisswater sorry, the only "beechwood aged" beer (because everyone else knows its largely pointless as Bud soak the chips to remove any flavor and it is really just a shortcut to make fizzier beer) and continue mocking the 'hipster ****'. After all why actually learn anything about what you put in your body?


I guess I should just STFU and drink my Pumpkin Peach beer. Oh wait, what's that? Anheuser Busch own a craft brewery. And what? No! They make a Pumpkin Peach beer. Huh? Well. Budweiser, you pretentious hipster ****!!

Funny how Budweiser goes to all that trouble of promoting the "beechwood aging" process, but if a so called craft beer did the same it would be considered hipster from a certain bunch of people, never mind the fact that this process is meaningless because all taste has been taken away from the wood anyway before the beer hits it.

In that ad you posted Bud claim to be proud to be a macro, yet AB-InBev who own Bud are buying up independent breweries, for example Goose Island. They also own Leffe, but buy any these beers the ownership is hidden. Something to hide maybe?

The macro's are getting scared, just look at Coors buying Rebel Red in Ireland, but hidding the ownership. Coors also try and produce their own "craft" beer such as Blue Moon but they are clever in hiding their true ownership to trick people into thinking they are drinking something independent.

The problem with macro's buying out small independent breweries is that it reduces choice, but it also means that the new ownership can change the receipe into a blander one to appeal to more drinkers.

bnt

Wang King wrote: »

Sure go to your local and order a pint of oxtail, be grand!

Actually, you're not far off. You can't beat a pint of Gazpacho when it's hot outside.

If you look at the history of beer, you'll note that there were long periods in medieval history when it was the only safe thing to drink. (This comes up at times in Game Of Thrones, too.) It's not a fad, quite the opposite.

I was in the USA over Christmas, where I did see many more small brewers on the shelves at Walmart and Publix than the last time. It's Americans that have been driving the craft beer trend, and I can't blame them - having suffered so many years of Budweiser. Anyone remember the film Smokey and the Bandit? All that expense (enough to buy a new truck), all the risks they took, all the car chases and damage done, and for what? To get one truckload of Coors (a mass market beer from Colorado) delivered from Texas to Georgia. Just how bad was the beer in Georgia, if some Coors was worth that much? Wikipedia has an explanation, that Coors was a fresh beer made without preservatives, which also explained why it was a race against time using a cooler truck. I had some Coors at a hockey game in Denver, and can confirm that it was indeed fresh, hardly tasting like a mass market beer at all.

So that is what Craft Beer means to me: local small scale brewing means that it's more likely to be fresh and free of presevatives and other gunk. Probably the worst beer I've had recently was Molson "Canadian", which reeked of glycerine. On the other hand, I saw "Craft Beers" in the store in Florida which had been made in California, which had me going "what?"

dashcamdanny

One for those who think craft is no good.

Creans Lager will surprise you.

Its just lovely . Fresh crisp and not overpowering in the hop department.

http://dinglebrewingcompany.com/?age-verified=8e782a26ee

hatrickpatrick

Leann Folain

Links234

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Leann Folain

Lovely stuff

Iranoutofideas

The Backwards Man wrote: »

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about lads. If you like your beer, drink it and enjoy it, there's no need for all the nastiness.

Yeah and you do realise that your point applies to everyone, regardless of what you're drinking?

It doesn't matter whether I'm having a Coors or some complex craft beer, I don't want or need another person sticking their beak in to offer their critical thought on my choice if beer. If I wanted it, I'd ****ing ask.

Rezident

Most of the craft beers I have tasted do taste pretty poor, they can be quite unbalanced, but there are a few lovely ones.

Firefox11

AndonHandon wrote: »

What does craft beer even mean?

Someone buys a cheap beer making kit down the local wine merchant and put in in a bottle with a fancy label and flogs it for twice the price.:pac:

Doctor Jimbob

Saying 'all craft beer is awesome/awful/whatever' is a bit like saying 'all fruit is awesome/awful/whatever'. The term covers such a vast range of products that the statement becomes utterly meaningless.

The whole labelling basically everything that isn't bud, heineken etc as 'craft beer' gets on my nerves a bit though. You know what the best beer is? Cheap beer that tastes nice.

jetsonx

dashcamdanny wrote: »

One for those who think craft is no good.

Creans Lager will surprise you.

Its just lovely . Fresh crisp and not overpowering in the hop department.

http://dinglebrewingcompany.com/?age-verified=8e782a26ee

Lovely brew alright. Perfectly balanced and as you mention a very crisp taste.

But, it's distribution seems to be scant. Aer Lingus serve it though.

Just a little Samba

Some "craft beer" is delicious, ie Galway Bays Buried at Sea stout or Black's Black IPA or White Hag's Imperial Stout or Trouble Brewing's Whistle Blower, Eight Degrees Amber.

Some "craft beer" is absolute swill, ie anything from McGargles, Carraig Amber Ale, Eight Degrees Red ale, Galway Bays Bay Ale...

On the other hand, pretty much all macro brewed beers are absolute piss, with the odd exception being decent.

dubscottie

What I find funny is that most of these so-called "craft" ales are nothing of the sort. They are made on an industrial scale by machine so there is no "craft" involved whatsoever..

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Ireland had the same trading standards laws as the UK.

If a shop is selling "homemade" soup for example, then they have to prove it is in fact made from scratch on the premises. Same with fresh sandwiches, Stuff that's made from "local" ingredients etc.

It would be the end of most of the hipster joints of Camden/Wexford Street..

Humans have been brewing beer for thousands of years so why are we only now starting to put chocolate and other weird stuff in beer??

Has nobody stopped to think that maybe someone tried before and discovered it tasted s**t so didn't bother?

Just a little Samba

dubscottie wrote: »

What I find funny is that most of these so-called "craft" ales are nothing of the sort. They are made on an industrial scale by machine so there is no "craft" involved whatsoever..

Any proof for that there, dubscottie?

Having visited a few of the "bigger" micro breweries in Ireland I can say there are far from "industrial". It's usually 2 or 3 lads in a small building lugging bags of grain around and mashing in by hand, bottling by hand (or semi automated) and labelling by hand.

Even O'Hara's, who have the largest output by a long way are still a small operation with only a few lads in the brew house.

By law in Ireland micro-breweries are only allowed to produce 20,000 hectolitres per annum before they lose their tax rebate. The only brewers on the Island exceeding that limit are Guinness and Heiniken.

I visited Kinnegar in the summer and it was typical of the other places I visited in style.

henryporter

Eutow wrote: »

Coors also try and produce their own "craft" beer such as Blue Moon

Ghastly muck altogether - I was wondering why it was labelled "craft"

MadsL

A point overlooked by thse who hate on the craft beer movement is the fact that craft brewing creates jobs. Compare that to the big macro automated plants, despite the size of Diageo only abut 65 people are actually involved in brewing at St James Gate, a number that seems to drop year on year.

Despite a small state of only 2 million people, my state has 33 breweries! Most of whom employ brewing, catering and serving staff.

Living in a smallish city in the US, breweries seem to be opening at the rate of one a week, aided by the fact they can easily open tap rooms (and sell guest beers) without jumping through hoops. If Ireland would deal with the monopoly of the licenced trade, then craft beer would grow as fast there. Diageo are probably lobbying like hell to make sure that doesn't happen.

Craft beer can be cheaper too, without the big marketing departments and multimillion dollar campaigns, and with some tax breaks, beers here can be sold at $3 a pint.

Eutow

henryporter wrote: »

Ghastly muck altogether - I was wondering why it was labelled "craft"

Another stupid term for you, "crafty", a beer that is made by a macro but tries to pass off as "craft". I hated it (Blue Moon) when I first tried it a couple of years ago and only found out who brewed it after looking it up. The ownership is kept hidden so you wouldn't know. Luckily, the barman only gave me a free small sample so I didn't waste any money.

Defiler Of The Coffin

Pay a visit to Wetherspoons and try some of the craft beers on offer. Then go to another pub and drink some of the mass-produced beers. You'll notice the difference straight away.

As a country it's about time we had more choice when in the pub. It would be fantastic if pubs in different regions had different choices of beer. It's depressing having to drink the same oul stuff no matter where you go.

Liamalone

So what's the story with Blue Moon then? I have a pal who loves it and never stops dinging on about how the dude who made it worked for budweiser and branched off on his own blah blah. Any truth in that yarn?

Burgo

Liamalone wrote: »

So what's the story with Blue Moon then? I have a pal who loves it and never stops dinging on about how the dude who made it worked for budweiser and branched off on his own blah blah. Any truth in that yarn?

It's brewed by coors.

evolving_doors

Each to their own, just because it is 'craft' doesn't mean it's going to be special either.

I think a lot of folk are getting caught up in the 'uber-cool-zeitgeist-latest-niche-craze' thing. Oooooo my brewery is more craftworthy than yours.

Just a little Samba

Liamalone wrote: »

So what's the story with Blue Moon then? I have a pal who loves it and never stops dinging on about how the dude who made it worked for budweiser and branched off on his own blah blah. Any truth in that yarn?

Total yarn. Brewed by MolsenCoors at their mega-brewery in Colorado, but the address for "blue moon" is a PO Box in Denver in an attempt to make it less obvious.
AbInbev (Budweiser) produce a similar beer called Shocktop for the US market in the same "crafty" style.

MadsL

Gebgbegb wrote: »

Each to their own, just because it is 'craft' doesn't mean it's going to be special either. .

Chances are however it is likely to taste better than the BUL big brands, Stella used to be relatively good - brewing to sell at a euro a pop in the UK has destroyed it. Legal additives like MSG, Propylene glycol, Calcium disodium EDTA, Colours like FD&C blue 1, red 40, and yellow 5, Insect-based dyes, and Glyceryl monostearate are all added to macro brews. No wonder that hangover hurts.

Great takedown of that Bud ad here...
http://www.thebeerbabe.com/2015/02/why-the-pro-macro-beer-budwesier-ad-is-so-dangerous/

Especially this "Contrasting the faux gastropub of the earlier bar scene, we’re now presented with a night-time scene at a busy bar filled with attractive, thirsty guys. A woman servers up Budweisers in the bottle, and it looks like a good time is going to be had by all. Here’s where you can start noticing the fact that only men are drinking in this scenario. What are the women doing? Serving beer."

One of the interesting features of the craft beer movement is the return to beer of women beer drinkers, the amount of times I have heard "I never used to think I liked beer, then I discovered real beer!!" Women do seem to gravitated to heavier flavours, not surpring that Tmave (dark) beers in the Czech Republic are seen as mostly women's beers...they have known that for 800 years or more.

conorh91

MadsL wrote: »

Chances are however it is likely to taste better than the BUL big brands, Stella used to be relatively good - brewing to sell at a euro a pop in the UK has destroyed it. Legal additives like MSG, Propylene glycol, Calcium disodium EDTA, Colours like FD&C blue 1, red 40, and yellow 5, Insect-based dyes, and Glyceryl monostearate are all added to macro brews. No wonder that hangover hurts.

Why?

Do those things cause hangovers? Why do I get hangovers when I drink craft beers or vodka or mass-produced beers, but no hangovers when I consume other foods and drinks that contain MSG and GMS or Calcium disodium EDTA -- things like ice-cream and salad dressing?

It seems to me that a lot the claims made by the craft-beer industry is not backed up by anything in scientific literature.

A bit like some fitness guy on newstalk radio who once told listeners that craft beers are healthier than mass-produced beers on an equal volume basis. Some of this stuff is openly anti-science.

Eutow

^^^^^

They are quite clever with their marketing. All the macro ads, especially, Heineken, Coors, Corona and Bud try and appeal to our sense of trying to belong to a crowd, and they play up to that. Drink this and you will be popular and get the beautiful sexy woman, and you will have lots of friends and be the alpha male.

Eutow

conorh91 wrote: »

Why?

Do those things cause hangovers? Why do I get hangovers when I drink craft beers or vodka or mass-produced beers, but no hangovers when I consume other foods and drinks that contain MSG and GMS or Calcium disodium EDTA -- things like ice-cream and salad dressing?

It seems to me that a lot the claims made by the craft-beer industry is not backed up by anything in scientific literature.

A bit like some fitness guy on newstalk radio who once told listeners that craft beers are healthier than mass-produced beers on an equal volume basis. Some of this stuff is openly anti-science.

Beer is really only supposed to have four natural ingredients. Why is Budweiser brewed with rice? Does it have any hops in it at all? The beer industry gets away with a lot of stuff that other industries can't get away with. Beer don't have to have a list of the ingredients on the cans / bottles, whereas other food stuff does. It should change.

conorh91

Eutow wrote: »

Beer is really only supposed to have four natural ingredients. Why is Budweiser brewed with rice?

This has nothing to do with what I just said about hangovers and health issues, but anyway, since you asked...

Plenty of craft beers are brewed with rice too. But maybe that's different because it's "wild rice"...

I'm not a Budweiser fan, so I'm not going to defend Budweiser. I just think this discussion has a problem with a lack of facts.

Rough Sleeper

MadsL wrote: »

Chances are however it is likely to taste better than the BUL big brands, Stella used to be relatively good - brewing to sell at a euro a pop in the UK has destroyed it. Legal additives like MSG, Propylene glycol, Calcium disodium EDTA, Colours like FD&C blue 1, red 40, and yellow 5, Insect-based dyes, and Glyceryl monostearate are all added to macro brews. No wonder that hangover hurts.

And here I was labouring under the impression that it was large quantities of ethanol that causes hangovers! I must be falling over and cracking my noggin off the ground every time I wake up with a splitting headache after drinking craft beers.

Eutow

conorh91 wrote: »

This has nothing to do with what I just said about hangovers and health issues, but anyway, since you asked...

Plenty of craft beers are brewed with rice too. But maybe that's different because it's "wild rice"...

I'm not a Budweiser fan, so I'm not going to defend Budweiser. I just think this discussion has a problem with a lack of facts.

The only beer I know that uses rice is Bud, whether other beers have it I don't know.

Beer usually has four basic ingredinets: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast. The fact you get hangover means you either drink too much, or you have a bad reaction to certain beers. I can drink lagers, ales, or whatever and I don't get any different reactions.

As for health, drink too much and it is bad for you, like most things.

MadsL

conorh91 wrote: »

Why?

Do those things cause hangovers? Why do I get hangovers when I drink craft beers or vodka or mass-produced beers, but no hangovers when I consume other foods and drinks that contain MSG and GMS or Calcium disodium EDTA -- things like ice-cream and salad dressing?.

The fact that you are comparing consuming several pints of beer with a tablespoon of salad dressing seems pretty anti-science to me.

Question I would ask is why are we not allowed to know what additives Diageo decide to put in Guinness this year?

MadsL

conorh91 wrote: »

Plenty of craft beers are brewed with rice too..

Which ones?

conorh91 wrote: »

this discussion has a problem with a lack of facts.

Yeah...yourself included. There have been a handful of craft brewers who have experimented with rice, but it is ludicrous to suggest this equates to "plenty".

Egginacup

jetsonx wrote: »

As we all know, there has been an explosion in the number of craft beers available on the market.

But very few of these are actually nice. (nicer than Bud, Coors etc but that would not be too hard) Most are too watery, too hoppy or just lack any sort of decent flavor.

There are of course exceptions. Five Lamps is a tasty brew as is Red Rebel but other ones which I've tasted have stood out for being totally unremarkable, forgettable or just insipid.

The fact of the matter is most, not all, craft beers su@k.

What do you think?

I've tried a load of them and all I've found to be sh1t. Yet some twonk with a goatee will say they're the best. Full of hops because it's nearly impossible to fcuk up an ale. They will die a death like thrash metal in the 80's.