Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater lighting and speaker enclosures

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I heard alot of subjective claims from you guys about one beer being better than another. What was your methodology? Was it a blind test? Were they the same temperature?

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Will, don't you play innocent with me; anybody who knows La Trappe and 6-row knows better than to try to sucker somebody into a "quality" discussion

My comments (and I think most other folks in this particular venue) obviously stem from the good old subjective personal satisfaction index. However, as with most enjoyable things, a person can take beer drinking to its clinical extreme and suck the joy right out of it. Check out the Beer Judge Certification Program Beer Style Guidelines.

I passed my BJCP exam about ten years ago and have judged in dozens of homebrew competitions. It's grueling, but somebody's got to do it. It represents a surprisingly rigorous field of study if you have the time. Blind tastings can be fun, but mostly I just drink what I like, which tends to American dark beers. Support your local brewmaster.

I've got to agree with Dave - New Belgium makes some spectacular beers, of which Fat Tire is the cash cow. But that's great, because it allows them to indulge the collective brewery muse and make some boutique beers with more limited commercial viability for the beergeeks. Best thing about Fat Tire is that it is widely available in draught, so you can get a really good beer at places (like Safeco Field) where you might otherwise be reduced to lesser beer just for the sake of having one.

But pmbuko, while I'd agree that Fat Tire and Black Butte are excellent examples of flavorful, consistent, bottled beers, I can't agree that they are better than the draught versions. Maybe your local pub needs to clean their lines or sell more of that product. Bottled beer is dead. Draught beer is alive. The vast majority of bottled beer is either pasteurized or has the yumminess filtered out of it so that it does not degrade due to the unpredictability of handling. Those beers that are on the lees (include live yeast in the bottle) are still subject to being light struck, nonrefrigerated or other horrors before you get them. Finally, I find that draught beer is healthier for me (many fewer headaches), which I attribute to the B vitamins in the yeast.

Bottles are great for portability and flexibility. Other than that, it's a fresh-food-vs.-canned-food issue to me.

My wife just shakes her head that I've hijacked a speaker thread into a beer thread. Obviously, I can't help myself.

I suspected you were a home brewer. Can't seem to find the time to brew anymore, but I was doing all grain beers in 10-12 gallon batches for many years.

I suppose I was trying to sucker you into a discussion about quality in beer. IMHO, if it's an all malt beer (or fitting for the beer style), balanced (or fitting for the beer style), and free from defects, the argument about quality is specious. Though Becks is mass produced, it would be difficult to say it is of inferior quality to an expensive Belgian ale. Liquor is another story, however.

I thought being a brewmaster at a microbrewery would be a dream job, but maybe that of beer judge would be better. How's it pay?

Isn't a keg just a bigger bottle?

Most of the time draft beer is filtered product with C02 for carbonation. When my friend went form bottling to kegging his homebrews I didn't notice any difference in taste. The bubbles were a little bigger, maybe. Granted, his beer was still unfiltered - "alive".

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The vast majority of bottled beer is either pasteurized or has the yumminess filtered out of it

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There is a microbrewery in southern Ontario called Creemore Springs. They make a bottled, unpasteurized, lager which comes in half litre, screw top bottles although they recently introduced the usual 341mL twist offs.
The water comes from an actual groundwater spring and is trucked to the brewery every hour.
It is truly a fresh tasting beer.

You know, hyping the new bottle's "French curve neck" won't win it any fans in the US...

Yes and French's mustard 'obviously' coming from France also received the wrath of misguided individuals.
What are people thinking these days?

Sacrificing quality product over a name or title. That's just terrible torture to the tastebuds.

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What are people thinking these days?

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Thinking isn't permitted anymore than atheists can be considered patriots.

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Sacrificing quality product over a name or title. That's just terrible torture to the tastebuds.

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It will however be a convenient means by which I'll be able to identify those worthy of my death camps once I attain power.