A new day!

One bourbon, one scotch, one beer! Talk about brews you've liked or disliked here.

Moderator: Squire

A new day!

Unread postby Bucc58 » Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:58 pm

Before you get offended, please read on.
I HATE BEER! I don't drink beer. Not even for free. Might you have a warm cup of piss or stagnated gold fish water?
Now that I have told you what I tell everyone who offers me a beer let me get to the point. I went to a biker rally this weekend and my friend got a miller chill. I said the above and told him that if he wanted a good drink I would let him have some of the Evan Williams I had in my flask. But I said that I had seen the add for them on TV and something told me to try it despite my contempt for the drink. Well, he let me have a sip of his and to my surprize I liked the taste. It didn't taste like a beer at all. Well kind of like a beer except none of the taste I didn't like. So I bought one for myself and for the first time in my life, I drank a whole beer. When I left the rally I went to the store and bought a 6 pack and took it home. The next day (yesterday) I took one of these beers out of the fridge and started to drink it. YUCK! What happened? I liked it 2 days ago at the rally, why not now? What is different? I was not drinking EW at home as I was at the rally. So I turned up some EW and chased it with the miller chill. AAHHHH! Excellent once more! I guess bourbon does make everything better. Even beer! Give me a break beer drinkers/lovers, it a start! :40oz: :drink:
Joe Young
User avatar
Bucc58
Registered User
 
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:45 pm
Location: Fort Smith, AR

Unread postby Brewer » Wed Aug 01, 2007 11:33 am

Joe,

I'm just wondering what kinds of beer have you had the displeasure of drinking? Is it the basic American lagers (Bud, Miller, Coors)? Have you ever tried any of the many micro-brewed beers from the US? Have you ever tasted British or German brews, whether they be ales or lagers? Even my wife, who doesn't like beer, has tasted a number of beers that I try and occassionaly she'll say "That's pretty good", and maybe have more than her ususal tiny sip.

There's just such a HUGE variety out there, that its hard to believe that you can't find some type of beer that you would really enjoy. But, if at the end of the day, you still hate beer, that's OK. We all have our own personal likes/dislikes.
Bob
User avatar
Brewer
Moderator
Moderator
 
Posts: 1481
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2004 11:44 am
Location: LI, NY

Unread postby Bourbon HQ » Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:21 pm

I don't like Bud, Coors. We have a couple microbrewereys here in town and one of them has a beer I really like called "Helles".

Gayle
User avatar
Bourbon HQ
Registered User
 
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:21 am
Location: Louisville, KY

Unread postby gillmang » Wed Aug 01, 2007 5:01 pm

It's an interesting discussion, I started to consume beer a few years before I found my first book on it (i.e., when I first read how it was made and what it was "supposed" to taste like).

At first, I didn't like beer. The taste struck me as bizarre, I couldn't "place" it. Up until then, the oddest thing I drank was Quebec spruce beer (a pop flavored with spruce extract) and beverage beer struck me as similarly oddly flavored.

However, within a couple of years of starting to drink beer, I learned to like it. I could see that beers differed in taste (I didn't know why), and I acquired a taste for the golden ales popular in Canada then like Molson Export, Labatt 50 and Dow Ale (lightly fruity, mildly hopped with a nice cereal taste).

When I bought my first book on beer (this in the mid-70's, I believe it was called a Book of Beer by John Porter who was a professor at a New England college) everything became clear. I learned what was in beer and most important, that the taste was a combination of cereal flavors from the malted grains, flowery and sometimes bitter flavors from the hops (a plant whose flowers contain a resinous extract), and differing flavors from yeasts, depending on their type.

Once I read this, I found it easier to understand what I was drinking. It would have been interesting had I read that book before I began. I don't know if I would have liked beer sooner, I am not sure (you can know what something tastes like and still not like it, e.g., I don't really like green tea even though I know how the tea is processed - I prefer the cured type like Orange Pekoe).

Still, overall I feel that first book and the many that followed helped me to appreciate the different kinds of beer. It is true that many people don't like commercial beer but like micro-brewed beers. Some however will never come to terms with craft beers because these just have more of what they don't like in commercial beers. I guess it is different for everyone.

It is hard now to analyse it after being accustomed to the taste and knowing so much (if I may say) about the different beers and how they are made.

There are some beers I don't like. I don't like commercial beers that are too bland from insufficient malt and hops. (Sometimes too they have a corny, "adjunct" taste I find off-putting). At the other end of the scale, although I can appreciate the craft in it, I do not like most micro ales that have a very strong taste of West Coast-grown C hops (Cascades, Centennial and similar tasting beers) - yet as always there are exceptions, I like Sierra Nevada's beers a lot, for example. But I like most everything else in the beer world, provided the beer is served in good condition for its type which generally means, as fresh as possible and not light struck.

Gary
User avatar
gillmang
Vatman
 
Posts: 2173
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:44 pm

Unread postby Bucc58 » Wed Aug 01, 2007 6:27 pm

I have actualy tried many different types: domestic, import & micro. There is a store here that carries what I think is an impressive assortment of beers and they will let you build a 6 pack with different beers to try. I have done that several times and have found nothing I remotely like. I know very little about beer and how it is made. I think I will try and find the book vatman suggested by Prof. Porter and try to learn something.

:lecture: :idea1: :read2: :cheers:
Joe Young
User avatar
Bucc58
Registered User
 
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:45 pm
Location: Fort Smith, AR

Unread postby Bourbon HQ » Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:57 pm



You guys come to Louisville and I will buy all you a Helles and I think you won't be disappointed.

Gayle
User avatar
Bourbon HQ
Registered User
 
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:21 am
Location: Louisville, KY

Unread postby gillmang » Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:17 pm

Well, Gayle's solution may be just as good, :), but I would recommend the works of beer writer Michael Jackson, who wrote a series of highly influential books between 1977 and the late 1990's and is still active. These are carried in major bookstores, e.g. his Beer Companion. He gives historical and stylistic information that is (IMO) without peer in his field, and apart from all that is an entertaining and worldly writer. Pick up one of his books, you won't be disappointed.

Gary
User avatar
gillmang
Vatman
 
Posts: 2173
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:44 pm

Unread postby Bourbon Joe » Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:42 pm

Gayle,
"Helles" is a German term that means "Bright". In Germany a Helles is the style really close to a typical American beer (only much better). It is a golden colored light styled brew. There are many forms of beer brewed by the same breweries in Germany. If you wanted a glass of the light style you simply asked for a "Helles". That way you didn't wind up with an Oktoberfest, Pilsner or Dark beer.
Joe
Colonel Joseph B. "Bourbon Joe" Koch

Bourbon, It's cheaper than therapy!
User avatar
Bourbon Joe
Erudite Bourbonite
Erudite Bourbonite
 
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:02 pm
Location: Eastern Pennsylvania

Unread postby Bourbon HQ » Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:43 am

Thanks Joe, I wondered where they got the name.
User avatar
Bourbon HQ
Registered User
 
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:21 am
Location: Louisville, KY

Unread postby gillmang » Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:01 am

I find it of interest (this according again to the esteemed British beer author Michael Jackson) that the helles style only emerged in Munich in the 1920's.

Before that, the great lager beers of Munich (and I presume Bavaria in general) were all dark - "dunkel", in other words. That style is still made and is the origin of the generic American "dark" beer although as Joe says the originals generally were much better, at least before the microbrew era began some 30 years ago. Not that there weren't some good darks in the U.S. then, I recall e.g. Prior Double Dark - Joe you probably remember it - made in Pennsylvania, I think around Philly by Schmidt although later other companies apparently brewed it. There were some other other good darks. Today, that category is much diminished but on the other hand we have the microbrew and import beers which can supply that style "in style" and much more.

I would think that helles beers emerged under the influence of the bright, pale pilseners from Czechoslovakia which emerged in the 1840's. It took in other words two generations for this influence to penentrate the Bavarian brewing tradition.

Gary
User avatar
gillmang
Vatman
 
Posts: 2173
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:44 pm

Unread postby Bucc58 » Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:48 am

Gayle, I may just take you up on your offer someday. I am planning a bike trip across TN and up through KY & then back through southern MO.
Joe Young
User avatar
Bucc58
Registered User
 
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:45 pm
Location: Fort Smith, AR

Unread postby Bourbon HQ » Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:02 am



Wow! A bike trip. You'll be real thirsty when you get here. Let me know when, and we'll do it!.

Gayle
User avatar
Bourbon HQ
Registered User
 
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:21 am
Location: Louisville, KY

Unread postby Bucc58 » Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:09 am

Great, it will probably be next summer early. June maybe. I will let you know. maybe we could talk about what my route needs to be to maximize my trip potential. I want to see everything bourbon related that I can and also try that beer.
Joe Young
User avatar
Bucc58
Registered User
 
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:45 pm
Location: Fort Smith, AR

Unread postby Bourbon HQ » Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:26 am

OK Joe. I send you a private message with my e-mail and number

Gayle
User avatar
Bourbon HQ
Registered User
 
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:21 am
Location: Louisville, KY

Unread postby Mike » Thu Aug 02, 2007 6:36 pm

I recommend Michael Jackson too. He probably knows more about beers than anyone else. His books offer all the information you would ever want, including what beers go well with what food (it is my opinion that any strong food calls for beer to go with it). His books on Whiskey are also quite good.

Although I don't drink beer like I once did, I bet I keep about 8 or 10 different kinds around most of the time and often have one with my lunch.

If you look back through this forum, you will see that I make my own beer every now and then and have made a few that have turned out quite well.

I am athinning that when I go to heaven, upon entrance there will be a sign that says, 'Bourbon, Beer, and Oysters This Way!'

BEER? YOU BETCHA!!
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. - Dylan Thomas
Mike
Registered User
 
Posts: 2231
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:36 pm
Location: Savannah, GA

Next

Return to What Ales You

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests