Beer in the new era

And I drank more Parabola, which I will do anytime it is there.

I don't like the Farmhouse Hatter -- I've had better saisons -- but the Rye Hatter and Black Hatter are indeed both pretty good.

mikkeller nelson sauvin brut is an incredibly good beer (though expensive), and it almost makes up for all their dusty ipas clogging bottle shop shelves until the end of time

Hmm, must try this. Love other nelson sauvin beers that I've had.

this expensive beer talk is cool and all, but who wants to list their top 3 commercially available lagers?

1. Stella
2. Kroney
3. Birra Moretti

"commercially available" = macro? (I've never heard of 2 or 3, but I presume you're in the UK...)

Oh wait, Kroney = Kronenbourg?

I guess PBR and Stella would be my top 2. Schlitz and Red Stripe aren't bad, either. I don't drink enough Mexican lagers to have a preference, but those are often better than the American varieties.

they don' thave moretti in chicago? moretti is good. like it much more than stella.

faves for me:
bud bottle
yuengling bottle
pbr is fine, tied for third w a lot of cheap lagers tho -- 'gansett, tecate, coors, miler high life -- all very drinkable for me. tbh i only want to drink lager when it is really hot out and i need something refreshing & crisp.

Maybe they do? It doesn't sound familiar. Peroni seems to be the most common Italian brand I've seen.

it's not everywhere but i def see it in some grocery stores & bars here. shrug.

They're all largely the same IMO. V v little difference.

1. Black label
2. Pbr
3. Miller high life

I got nothing. I never have a need to drink lagers when I always have styles I like better available.

1. Moretti dark (which i don't see very often)
2. Tecate
3. Pilsner Urquell

i think these count but i don't quaff them often

Does cost factor into these rankings? Pilsner Urquell is good but won't ever be my default hot weather beer because of the expense.

I used to have Miller Genuine Draft as my go-to cheap lager, but eventually realized they all taste so similar it doesn't really matter. Bud lite and Coors lite are now my hot weather cheap beers - refreshing with no off flavors (I sometimes get a whiff of formaldehyde from PBR), and I can kid myself that drinking them won't make me fatter.

wasn't factoring cost, but honestly Lagunitas Czech Pils makes Urquell redundant for me (but it's a micro i guess)

1. Leinenkugel
2. Old Milwaukee
3. Stroh's

urquell (i won't count jever as "available" enough)
red stripe
modelo especial
hon. mention for coors heavy

black label is totally good--good call. local bar has a can of that & a shot of evan williams for $4.

also worth grabbing if you can find them before they vanish - the Lagunitas undercover investigation shut down ale and the new holland rye hatter ryePA and the black hatter black ipa. the black hatter is the first black ipa i have actually really liked.

what did you think of the summit black ale (which is local to you iirc)? i agree with you that there are a bunch of bad black ipas out there, but i was very impressed by it when i was in wisconsin last fall

favorite macros = natty boh, modelo, high life and bud in bottles - i usually pay the extra dollar to sub out boh for stroh's (yuck) in my local bar's shot-and-a-beer combo

I think that the summit black was a seasonal/temp brew, so I never tried it - summit EPA is a solid go to beer, but most of their one-offs seem to fall into the mediocre to dreadful category, so I tend to steer clear of them. I'll keep an eye out for it in the future though.

Bud can
Bud can
Bud can

Lot's of them being drunk in the Magill household lately, what with the weather. Thank god for the 36 pack.

this expensive beer talk is cool and all, but who wants to list their top 3 commercially available lagers?

1. Stella
2. Kroney
3. Birra Moretti

― Blue Collar Retail Assistant (Dwight Yorke), Sunday, July 8, 2012 11:18 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I find all three of these strangely gross and would rather just drink cheap american beer tbh.

italian beer is pissy and the green bottle skunks it something awful in the summer sun

otm

in fact I think all three of those come in green bottles, and all are pissy. Maybe Kronenbourg is in a brown, I don't remember.

The thing is, euro pissy lager is usually just as expensive as a lot of craft beer, at least in Chicago. So what's the point? If I want a pilsner, which I often do in the summer, I can get a lagunitas or a victory for the same price as a peroni or whatever.

yup

reckon most people would fail a pepsi challenge with one piss euro beer v another.

japanese and thai lagers are better, but still things I'd only order in a restaurant.

I swear there was some blind taste-test experiment on the web where someone determined people rank grolsch and a couple others as the "cheapest" if they're given a bunch of beers to sample and try to blindly rank them.

Probably bc of the brown bottles. Maybe Kronenbourg is actually good when you get it in France? Then again, it's made by Carlsberg, purveyors of some of the worst imaginable euro piss.

There's a little French-themed bar close to me and Askance Johnson, and they have Kronenbourg on tap for $4/pint. It's not bad.

As for Stella, I don't go out of my way to drink it, but I'll order it if I want a little flavor and the only other choices are watery domestics or malty low-hopped ales. PBR is best for when I want to keep it light -- as the last beer of the night, or as something to drink while I'm sweating.

I'd like to see a favorite beer styles poll. But there are too many options.

That's a good idea! There's fifty poll options allowed, right? I'm sure you could whittle all the beer styles down to that? Maybe?

Though picking one beer style as a favorite would perhaps be impossible.

Beer Advocate lists 105. I could definitely pick a favorite style.

Yeah I can't stand Stella, Heiniken, or Pilsner Urquell when I've had them, they all taste terribly skunky to me and I'd rather not have any beer than one of these.

I used to not like lagers or pilsners at all - or maybe I just didn't see the point in bothering - but I've started to dig them with certain foods, especially sushi. I'll get micros in bottles sometimes but honestly they aren't THAT different than canned macros.

If I have a can of cheap beer, my favorites are:

1) Old Mil
2) PBR
3) Miller High Life

Though honestly they're all sort of interchangeable to me. Except Rainier and Kokanee which I don't really like.

Styles for me are easy: IPAs and Belgian style trippels. Everything else comes much further down the line.

goddamit, jeff, I think you're right. Too many styles, just too many.

xpost

I think you could probably consolidate styles and eliminate some outliers? E.g. there are a lot of lager styles that are similar.

I'm glad you volunteered! Here's the BA list:

Altbier
American Adjunct Lager
American Amber / Red Ale
American Amber / Red Lager
American Barleywine
American Black Ale
American Blonde Ale
American Brown Ale
American Dark Wheat Ale
American Double / Imperial IPA
American Double / Imperial Pilsner
American Double / Imperial Stout
American IPA
American Malt Liquor
American Pale Ale (APA)
American Pale Lager
American Pale Wheat Ale
American Porter
American Stout
American Strong Ale
American Wild Ale
Baltic Porter
Belgian Dark Ale
Belgian IPA
Belgian Pale Ale
Belgian Strong Dark Ale
Belgian Strong Pale Ale
Berliner Weissbier
Bière de Champagne / Bière Brut
Bière de Garde
Black & Tan
Bock
Braggot
California Common / Steam Beer
Chile Beer
Cream Ale
Czech Pilsener
Doppelbock
Dortmunder / Export Lager
Dubbel
Dunkelweizen
Eisbock
English Barleywine
English Bitter
English Brown Ale
English Dark Mild Ale
English India Pale Ale (IPA)
English Pale Ale
English Pale Mild Ale
English Porter
English Stout
English Strong Ale
Euro Dark Lager
Euro Pale Lager
Euro Strong Lager
Extra Special / Strong Bitter (ESB)
Faro
Flanders Oud Bruin
Flanders Red Ale
Foreign / Export Stout
Fruit / Vegetable Beer
German Pilsener
Gose
Gueuze
Happoshu
Hefeweizen
Herbed / Spiced Beer
Irish Dry Stout
Irish Red Ale
Japanese Rice Lager
Keller Bier / Zwickel Bier
Kölsch
Kristalweizen
Kvass
Lambic - Fruit
Lambic - Unblended
Light Lager
Low Alcohol Beer
Maibock / Helles Bock
Märzen / Oktoberfest
Milk / Sweet Stout
Munich Dunkel Lager
Munich Helles Lager
Oatmeal Stout
Old Ale
Pumpkin Ale
Quadrupel (Quad)
Rauchbier
Roggenbier
Russian Imperial Stout
Rye Beer
Sahti
Saison / Farmhouse Ale
Schwarzbier
Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy
Scottish Ale
Scottish Gruit / Ancient Herbed Ale
Smoked Beer
Tripel
Vienna Lager
Weizenbock
Wheatwine
Winter Warmer
Witbier

Why do I feel like we've done this already?

let's be real, no one is going to vote winter warmer or pumpkin ale.

everybody nominate yer top 10 styles then we vote?!?!

idk.

We may have done it, but I could find nothing via search. But that's not saying much, it could be buried in there somewhere.

eh, who knows? I like pumpkin ale and winter warmers just fine, though, yeah, I wouldn't ever vote them as my favorite. I would have a hard time removing more than a few styles from that list. x-post to ian

Also, despite the fact that I drink beer constantly, I still feel like there are a lot of styles I'm not familiar enough with.

has there been a simple ale v lager poll? that's about as much as you need to know, imo