Know someone who doesn't like beer? They only "think" they don't like beer. Here are some tips for enjoyment.
All beer lovers no doubt have at least one friend who does not share their passion for fermented grain beverages. There are many reasons for this. Some do not drink (and while I can’t condone this reckless behavior, people are certainly free to choose), while others drink, but claim they “don’t like” beer. This is the group can be a tough nut to crack, and it is they who are the subject of this article.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - zingzing
"That's right Zing, we have a good snigger at Americans' accents here. The general concesnsus is that most sound like two cats being strangled at the same time."
good god. well, that explains why you like midnight oil so much.
27 - ken
like your enthusiasam on the subject,over here in england where we make real beer and not fizzy watwer(colt45)if you were to take a usa lager to a party.you would probly be asked if you could put it down by the kitchen door as they have lost the door stop,before being directed to the good beer in the fridge.
28 - zingzing
colt 45? oh boy. you ever drink that? it's not something you want to taste, but it will FUCK YOU UP. that's what that's for.
every country that makes beer makes good beer and bad beer. english beer, for the most part, is nothing to crow about compared to continental beers anyway...
29 - sr
Great beer is meaty. It's a dinner. What do you think and would recommend. You make me hungry. A dark thick beer with suds and a fine salad with blue cheese.
30 - Dr Dreadful
zing, comparing British to mainland European beers is a bit like comparing elephants and telephones. British beers (bitters, porters, light ales and stouts) are brewed in a specifically British way which results in something quite different from what you'd find on the continent. Home-grown lagers and European-style beers are available, but they're for the most part poor imitations and no-one knows why they exist.
Dunno if you have BevMo up there in the PNW, but if you do, stop by one day and pick up one or two of those British beers with the delightfully knobbly names like Fiddler's Elbow or Hobgoblin. They're tasty, fun, and you can put the bottles on your mantelpiece afterwards.
31 - zingzing
no, no, dd... no putting beer bottles anywhere but in the trash (recycling!). i must admit i'm not much for the dark dark beers... they're good with food now and again, but mostly just make me want to poop. that's not always a good experience. sometimes, they can be quite useful as a laxative.
bah. i was just being a bit defensive/offensive with my statement anyway. ken is, of course, in folly when he tries to compare colt 45 (which is a malt liquor) to english beer as much as i am comparing english beer to continental beers. colt 45 is a rather brilliant creation (much like crack cocaine) in that it is designed to knock you out in one shot. put one of them fuckers back and either your brain will tell you that you are dead or your body will act like it.
british beers (not particularily english beers, but who's saying anything about that) are generally quite different, as they never learned how to make a good lager or pilsner, which are the only things worth drinking in large quantities.
i actually lived in canterbury for a year when i was 20ish. so, needless to say, i encountered your english culture, which is basically centered around booze and football with a dash of womanizing and getting into fights. i spent much quality time (and beyond) in plenty of english pubs and sampled every different kind of english beer i could find... for a while i was quite pleased with carlsburg, but then i found out that that wasn't english... so i tried carling (which is, i believe, although i may be getting the two confused) and i had your hobgoblins and your fiddler's and many more beyond. never did find an english beer to drink in quantity.
then i went to belgium. and amsterdam. and prague. munich. that's some good beer. just personal taste, i imagine.
so... i guess i was trying to point out that you can't take america's worst and put it against england's best and smile about it. it's like beating up a 4 year old girl.
32 - Dr Dreadful
zing, I don't think America's (or anyone else's) worst beers are even worth numbing our fingertips over. There is good American beer if you look for it - it's just that to me it all seems much of a muchness.
The best beers of France, Holland, Spain, Italy (ehh, actually not so much), the Czech Republic etc all have much to commend them, and they are all different.
Belgium may be a front runner for the title of World's Most Boring Country*, but it does redeem itself by making the world's best chocolate and some of the world's best beer.
Germany also has fantastic beer - it damn well better because they sure as hell don't know how to make wine. Liebfraumilch... God help us. My Dad swore by the stuff - goodness knows why, as to me it tastes like gasoline.
Foraying randomly outside Europe**, India produces a lager called Cobra, which I suspect is spectacularly mediocre in the cold light of day. However, since I've never consumed it except late at night in conjunction with a good curry, I must recommend it highly with that caveat.
Colt 45 and its ilk aren't even beer.
*As well as a strong contender for the breakaway World's Most Boring Country Not Excluding Moldova trophy.
**Although I suspect that secretly it's actually brewed in Birmingham.
33 - STM
Pom beer is good beer, but it's just different because it's a different style (ales) to what I'm used to at least.
Most Aussie beers are lagers or pilseners, with the odd pale ale thrown in for good measure.
All are consumed CHILLED, which most Pom beers aren't.
And in regard to Colt 45 - in Australia, it would just be a standard strength beer.
I know because I've been to the US, where no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get uproariously pissed (drunk) on American beer.
The other side of the coin is that my American mate here ended up on his head on his first night out here because he was drinking beer, and didn't realise how strong it was.
Same goes for Pom beer. Drink too much, get conned by the idea that it's just warm lolly water, and your knees will buckle after three quickly downed pints.
34 - STM
Also, I think we are all missing the point here.
There is actually no such thing as a bad beer.
Just different scales of good.
35 - Dr Dreadful
Not sure how long since you've been to the Old Country, Stan, but most British pubs now chill the beer they serve from the pumps - not much, but enough to take the edge off, improve the palatability and cut down on the bouncers' wage bill.
Just realized that in my last missive I didn't even get started on Irish beers, which is a huge disservice because those boys really know their stuff. Guinness is OK but tastes different everywhere because it's brewed in different places with ingredients and water from different sources. (The stuff from the original Dublin brewery isn't even necessarily the best.) Harp is a good clean chug with a typically Irish kick. By far the best beer I found in Ireland is Kilkenny cream ale, one sip of which is enough to make you 'accidentally' sit on a bar stool covered in superglue. It's not available in the US, and a bugger to find even in the UK, and I went six years without tasting a drop until I finally found some in (of all places) Buenos Aires. Aaahhh!
36 - STM
And I'll throw in a few tips on Asian beers:
My favourites.
1) Tiger (Singapore, bloody excellent)
2) Singha (Thailand, more of a German-style but super nice)
3) Bintang (Indo, a couple of styles but much like Heineken, surprise, surprise ... a little different though and perfect in such a hot climate)
4) Sapporo/Kirin (both from Japan, similar in style, refreshing)
5) I'll throw this in. Don't rate Tsingtao much, as you might as well just get yourself a Heiny, but it's OK.
Favourite Aussie beers: Cascade draught and Cooper's Pale Ale. Don't mind a XXXX (Four X) Draught off the wood either (wooden barrell), but it's only available off the wood at The Breakfast Creek pub in Brisbane, and in the days when I did love a good beer, I'd be be buggered if I'd be travelling 1000 miles to Queensland just for a beer.
Then again ... it's worth it if you're up that way. Or DOWN that way for Poms and Yanks.
37 - STM
Ah yes, to be sure, Doc. I have tried the Kilkenny, and a fine thing it is too.
On the Pom beers, it's been a while. I went to The Punch and Judy (not far from Fleet St) one evening just after an afternoon power blackout and ordered a lager. It was summer, and the beer was almost hot despite them leaving it for half an hour on a "cold shelf".
I took a sip, then spat it out, thus forever cementing in the crowd's mind stereotypes about Australians.
I think I said something like, "Fuck me, this is hot. Lager's supposed to be chilled, you silly pommy bastards."
The barman said: "It's not our fault mate, there was a power outage", and walked off.
38 - Dr Dreadful
All the Asian beers you mention I think are available here. Sapporo and Kirin are to be had at any teppanyaki place... and you need a few to wash down the vast quantities of food they throw your way. Tsingtao to my recollection is piss weak, like Bud. Sorry, comrades.
As to your earlier contention that there's no such thing as a bad beer: that's true only if you don't consider abominations like Bud/Miller/Coors Light to be beer...
39 - Dr Dreadful
I went to The Punch and Judy (not far from Fleet St)...
Seeing as how you're a journalist, that statement shows how long it's been since you've been in a British pub. Fleet Street? All the major dailies (thanks in no small measure to your compadre Rupert) moved to Docklands a decade or more ago... :-(
40 - STM
Yes, and ruined a whole industry tradition in the process (getting on the squart as much as possible).
My favourite fair-dinkum Fleet St pub name: The Stab in the Back - the old Daily Mirror pub.
Highly appropriate too. Pommy journos ... sharks in cheap suits.
41 - STM
DD: The old Fleet St name, the Street of Ink, also highly appropriate given that printer's ink (and therefore just ink ... I bet the Yanks are losing me here) is rhyming slang for "drink".
A stab, BTW, as in the pub name, apparently is some kind of printer's tool, according to those I encountered there (although I don't remember much).
However, I rather fancy it had more to do with the knives that were wielded around the place when people were trying to snare other people's jobs.
42 - STM
Here you go Doc, an ode to the fallen (over). Nice to see the name Holborn on a map, too :)
43 - Christopher Rose
Whilst we're talking great beers, I've got to give a shout out to Stella Artois, which is one of the world's greatest mass produced lagers.
You can't get it in Spain and one of the things I intend to do as soon as possible next time I set foot in England is go to a pub and down a pint of it in one go.
44 - Christopher Rose
There is at least one pretty good nominally English lager, Carlsberg Premier, although it a bit more creamy and thus a tad less refreshing than Stella Artois.
45 - bliffle
The essential purpose of beer is refreshment, and to that end it requires hops. With reduced hops or none, it is no longer beer. Hops are the most expensive ingredient in a beer, and that's why the cheapass US beer companies (and mexican too) cut down on this essential ingredient to save money. Hops are a soporific, which helps you sleep well, so have one before you go to bed rather than wine or a (gasp!) cocktail. Naive people mistake the soporific quality of hops for high alcohol content, thus the apparent paradox of famously drunkifying euro beers having lower alcohol content than famous US pissbeers. Alcohol is way cheaper than hops.
Beer without hops is something else. One would be better off drinking something like wine, which has a different purpose. Aside from wine, there are other alternatives that are good, and none of them are called 'soda', 'coke', 'pepsi', etc. Even non-alcohol beers are pretty good because they have hops but no alcohol. The only thing wrong with them is that you feel weirdly alert after consuming a couple.
A refreshing alternative to beer is a glass of plain tap water with Roses Lime Juice added, or even better, the juice of half a lemon from the Meyer lemon tree in front of the house. It's tasty, bitter and refreshing. Add a dash of Splenda to sweeten, and a couple ice cubes. Put it in your canteen for a long strenuous hike thru the mountains: nothing more refreshing.
The best US beer is Anchor Steam Beer. In fact, Anchor is better than most European beers because of it's high content of excellent hops. It's basically a high quality lager that is not lagered, i.e., fermented at reduced temps for a longer time. The late Charles McCabe (the "Fearless Spectator" of the SF Chronicle) called it "heroically bad", but he was, for once, wrong. Amateur brewers, and many pros, admire Anchor for it's ultra clean taste, free of unwanted 'skunky' tastes, difficult to achieve in non-lagered non-top-fermenting brews.
Guiness is an excellent refreshment, but not technically a beer, but a 'milk stout', so called for the use of lactose which survives the fermentation process to very slightly sweeten the end result.
Bubbly fruit drinks are not beer. Ignore them in favor of the tap water plus lime or lemon juice refreshment. If you need alcohol add a drop of Evercleer, or it's over-priced equivalent, vodka. A little gin is nice.
46 - REMF
Come on, everybody knows the best beer ever made was Burgie.
47 - Nick Jurkowski
Biffle -
I respect your opinion about what is or is not good beer, but as far as the technical aspects, you're pretty far off base. Beer was made for thousands of years without hops - hops have only been widespread in beer for the last 500. You may not like it, but beer without hops is still "technically" beer. Some beer, like certain light lagers, are not hoppy styles, and use only small amounts of certain hops (saaz or hallertauer, ofter) to subtly give hop flavors. Belgian beers often use similarly small amounts.
You may be thinking of the Reinheitsgebot (Bavarian Purity Law) of 1516 which stipulates the ingredients in beer can only be barley, water, and hops. This is, however, only one German province's view of what beer is, and many other countries have been brewing great beer (i.e. Belgium, England, Ireland, America) without the use of this standard.
American macrobrews wouldn't be able to claim they brewed under this criteria, but it wouldn't be because of hops (which they add, even though it's in small amounts) - it would be because they use rice and corn in their mashes.
Also, Guinness (at least the Guinness that everyone thinks of) is not a sweet stout, but a dry irish stout. Any sweetness is the result of malt-hop balance. Guinness also makes a foreign export stout, but I do not believe they make a milk stout.
Even if it were a sweet (milk) stout, it would still be beer.
Good call on the Anchor Steam, though.
48 - bliffle
"Come on, everybody knows the best beer ever made was Burgie."
Not a good beer, but the Burgie Girl was gorgeous. And I dated her for a month. 25 years ago.
49 - bliffle
I do believe that archeologists have traced beer recipes back to the ancient Sumerians, something like 10,000 years ago. Beer recipes have been found in almost all cultures. Basically, that's fermented silage (which explains why the cows were so happy in the spring when they got to the bottom of the silo, then rebelled with sour milk when put out to pasture on new green grass).
Nevertheless, IMHO, fermented silage became beer when hops were added to combat spoilage and beerheads discovered that made it even more tasty.
Thus was a great idea born.
50 - bliffle
When I was brewing for home consumption many years ago we exchanged recipes around the world (by snail mail; imagine! Now, I suppose, they use the lightning quick internet.) and duped various famous and tasty beers, sometimes even raising a yeast culture from an incompletely filtered sample. One of our targets was Guinness, which was like the Mt. Everest of home brewing. Usually we used a milk stout brew as base because a tiny amount of lactose was just right for properly subduing a too-bitter taste from all the bitters. YMMV.
Have you ever duped a Guinness at home? Tell us the recipe, please.
51 - zingzing
stm, puffing himself up a bit: "And in regard to Colt 45 - in Australia, it would just be a standard strength beer."
ha! oh my. colt 45 isn't beer. it's malt liquor. if you tasted it, and got through a whole bottle, you were either completely wasted or you're a total alcoholic.
"The other side of the coin is that my American mate here ended up on his head on his first night out here because he was drinking beer, and didn't realise how strong it was... Same goes for Pom beer."
funny. i went to england and drank plenty of english (and aussies) under the table. of course, i was right down there with them a little bit later, but meh.
doc: "Tsingtao to my recollection is piss weak, like Bud."
that's because it's brewed by... anheiser busch! or however you spell that.
"The old Fleet St name, the Street of Ink, also highly appropriate given that printer's ink (and therefore just ink ... I bet the Yanks are losing me here)"
where? at the point where printers use ink? yes... america was founded after the invention of the computer... yes... what?
chris: "Whilst we're talking great beers, I've got to give a shout out to Stella Artois, which is one of the world's greatest mass produced lagers."
seconded! wow. chris and i agree on something other than religion and ruvy-bashing. (ahem--anyone notice that u.s. beat brazil in the u-20? i'm sure you british subjects can find a way to turn that around.)
bliffle: "The best US beer is Anchor Steam Beer."
they do make some fine beers. and they avoid the skunk AND the fruity shit that many u.s. microbrews pass off.
52 - REMF
"ha! oh my. colt 45 isn't beer. it's malt liquor. if you tasted it, and got through a whole bottle, you were either completely wasted or you're a total alcoholic."
Yep, 30-years ago Colt .45 was my beer of choice when I could afford it (if not, Burgie, Great Falls Select or Buckhorn). A six-pack at the minimum, sometimes a twelver. And yes, I was an alcohlic.
53 - zingzing
i don't know that it even comes in 6-packs anymore, just 24 or 40 oz bottles. deadly things.
54 - Nick Jurkowski
You're certainly free to categorize beer as anything you want, Biffle, but it is important to note that for most of the world, beer is defined as a beverage made of fermented sugars derived primarily from starches. Other adjuncts, such as fruit, honey, or cane sugar can be used, and as long as they aren't the dominant source of fermentable sugars, the beverage produced is still beer.
You can't simply take silage and expect to ferment it and get beer (you might get something fit for cows, but I wouldn't call it beer). Malted grain is really the key, and to get that, you need an experienced maltster. Once you have the malted grain, you still have to put a lot of effort to converting the starches to fermentable sugars during the mashing process.
For me, it is this malting and mashing process that really defines beer. Hops are certainly an important part of today's beer, but it's where the body of the beverage comes from that defines it, and for beer, that is the malted grain.
As far as a Guinness clone, I've never formulated a recipe, but I've made a few dry Irish Stouts. The key is to get the right balance between the pale malt you use and the roasted barley that is at the heart of the style. Try maybe 8 lbs pale malt to 1 lb roasted barley. Throw in maybe a half pound or so of flaked barley, and use sparing hops (maybe Goldings, but don't overhop it). This is off the top of my head, so I haven't calculated the OG for this, but it should be pretty low.
It's also important to note that Dublin's water is very hard, so if you have soft water, add some calcium carbonate to the mash. You can reculture yeast from bottles of Guinness, which I've never done, but supposedly gives good results. If you don't want the effort, one of Wyeast's Irish Ale or British Ale strains does a fine job, but it wouldn't be as authentic as actual Guinness yeast.
55 - sr
THANKS ALL. WILL TRY MANY OF THEM. IT MAKES ME HUNGRY FOR VARIOUS BEERS AND RAW OYSTERS. ANYONE HAVE THOUGHTS ON WHAT THE BEST RAW OYSTER IS? I EAT RAW OYSTERS FROM FLORIDA. THINK THE BEST COME FROM THE PACIFIC. ALSO LIKE BELONS AND CHESAPEAKE BAY OYSTERS. ANYONE LIKE CRAWDADS, IF SO WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST?
56 - Christopher Rose
I used to drink Colt 45 for fun once in a while back in the day but, if you really wanted to get slaughtered, Carlsberg Special, at around 7 or 8% alcohol was better! Two or three of them and then party on, dudes!! Happy days - if only I could remember them!!!
57 - Dr Dreadful
Anybody know where I can get a good Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
58 - sr
DONT FORGET RAW OYSTERS AND CRAWDADS.
59 - STM
Rosey: "Whilst we're talking great beers, I've got to give a shout out to Stella Artois".
Seconded, again. There are Belgian Beer Bars here in Sydney where you get Stella and Oysters. Yum.
Also, seconded on the Anchor Steam. That is a good US beer, and would hold its own stacked up against plenty of top beers from around the world.
My beer of choice when I was in the US (well, at least until I'd had 10 and didn't know any better).
60 - Dr Dreadful
I must dissent on the Stella (or is it just 'Artois' now?). There's just something wrong about the way it tastes to me - never have been able to put my finger on it.
I do give them kudos, though, for being one of the few companies to advertise on TV without insulting the consumer's intelligence. They put out a series of French-language commercials a few years ago for the British market. I recall one particularly featuring two Wallonian soldiers returning from the Great War with tales of great heroism deserving of a Stella - jealously guarded by the patron, who is one of the soldiers' fathers. Because I speak the language quite well, it took me a while to realize that the whole thing was in French, with no subtitles, dubbing or re-shooting in English. It was assumed that the viewer understood what was going on, either through the dialogue or from the way the story was shot and acted.
Clever stuff.
61 - Dr Dreadful
And re #42:
Damn you, Stan! You sure do know how to make a bloke homesick...
[dials]
"Hello, Virgin Atlantic? Get me on your next flight out of San Fran..."
62 - sr
Where are my oysters and crawdads?
63 - bliffle
All the times I've heard the name, all the times I've seen their name on umbrellas at French cafes, all the times I've seen the bottles at a store, and I've never had a Stella Artois. But you guys have made me curious, so I'm going over RIGHT THIS MINUTE to get some and try it out!
I'll report later.
64 - STM
Bliff ... you won't be disappointed. It's a nice beer.
65 - bliffle
"Nice" is the operative term, so far. Had two and it doesn't seem distinguished, so far.
66 - STM
I reckon it's a nice beer to have on a hot day, sitting outside, eating oysters or seafood.
Hopefully, blif, if you're anything like me, after the fifth one you won't give a shit anyway.
67 - sr
Oysters are seafood. Crawdads are freshwater. Nothing like a bunch of fresh boiled crawdads or live oysters on the half-shell with some lemon and hot sauce. Thats a real food orgasium. Of course a fine beer helps.
68 - Christopher Rose
Bliffle, I don't know how they serve Stella where you are but it is best drunk from a pint glass so you can have a nice long chug.
Stan, do you mean pints? If so indeed true nowadays, although in my beer drinking prime five pints was just getting started!
Man, I'm gagging for one now!!
69 - STM
Pint glasses aren't popular here Rosey, and there's a reason: it's a bloody hot place, and as the beer goes down it starts to get warm. (Not when I was drinking it, though, 'cause it never 'ad a bloody chance).
However, we do have large glasses known as schooners, which is a good way to drink Stella if you're in an airconditioned bar.
I do think it's a good beer, but I'm not sure I'd drink it all the time. Cooper's Ale is the go here for a special beer, especially at 6.8% alcohol volume, and it's a bit cloudy as well. Yum ...
70 - STM
BTW, Rosey ... I will be on the Iberian Peninsula in late August/early September - Lisbon and Porto. Looking forward to it but, geez - the flying time: 30 hours all up. I'll be totally rooted by the time I get there. That's one of the few drawbacks of living on this continent: it's just so far away from everything.
Still, that can be good too. It discourages a lot of people from coming here :)
71 - Christopher Rose
Hey Stan,
Yeah, I'd noticed you were off to Portugal. We've been there a couple of times and it's great. Haven't done Lisbon but Porto was brilliant; it's all kind of run down but friendly enough. The language is well weird though, sounds like a delirious mixture of Spanish and Russian!
72 - sr
What do we have. Men that lack the balls to eat live oysters with beer or boil some live crawdads. Maybe you should shuck your women before you shuck the oyster.
73 - Dr Dreadful
sr, you sure do like your crawdads. Maybe you should vote for one for President next time up. As a write-in. You could be on the local news.
74 - STM
Yup, sr sure loves his vittles. It's not all crawdads though ... I believe possum's on the menu as well.
75 - Dr Dreadful
Every time sr mentions crawdads, I hear accordion music and someone singing in Louisiana French...