Hogarthe
Well-Known Member
if I read that correctly, that is a recipe for underwear beer??! and the best part is it calls for "ripe" underwear, lol.
when is it not beer?
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I'd never do this to my cock.
Actually we DO know...It's the EXACT SAME THING WE PUT IN OUR BEER and that the brewers who you APPROVE of put in THEIR BEER.
It's ignorant snobbism to think otherwise. THE ONLY difference is that some folks judge BMC as "less than" any other beer, and the drinkers LESS THAN the people who drink beers that the snobs deem, "COOL."
And come up with a bunch of other BS to justify and make them think they're better than those who brew or drink or like "brand x"
sounds like you're another zealot/beersnob. Just because you don't like it, or think you have better tastes than the average beer drinker, BMC is exactly what people seem to want.
Or ELSE they wouldn't be doing it, would they?
America like most of the world had quite an extensive array of beers available prior to the German Invasion of brewer's which later introduced the light lager. They pretty much had the "brewing culture" of all the countries that people immigrated from...Most English beer styles..you know Porters, Stouts, Partigyles, stuff like that. As well as mostly heavy German Styles of beer. Not to mention people from Scotland, Ireland, Russia and other places where beer was drank.
Remember up until then, beer was food.
In fact thew whole history of the light lager is the American populace's (not the brewer's) desire to have a lighter beer to drink, which forced the German brewers to look at adding adjuncts like corn and rice...not as the popular homebrewer's myth has been to make money by peddling and "inferior commercial product" by adding adjuncts, but in order to come up with a style of beer that the American people wanted.
Maureen Ogle proved that in Ambitious Brew it actually made the cost of a bottle of Budweiser cost around 17.00/bottle in today's dollars. Gee I've paid 17 dollars for a bomber of beer before...not too much difference there, eh?
Ambitious brew is much more historically accurate than that silly beer wars beersnob propaganda. I encourage folks to read it and learn a little more about the truth.
When AH released Budweiser with it's corn and rice adjuncts in the 1860's it was the most expensive beer out there; a single bottle retailed for $1.00 (what would equal in today's Dollars for $17.00) this was quite difference when a schooner of beer usually cost a nickel.
This is the part that blows the "cost cutting" argument out of the water. In order to use those adjuncts you have to process them separately from the rest of the mash, and then add it to the mash. You either have to do a cereal mash to pr-gelatinize them or you have to roll them with heat to make them flaked...either way, besides the labor and energy involved to grow and harvest those plants, you expend labor and energy to make them usuable. You have to boil them in a cereal mash. That's another couple hours of labor and energy involved in the cost of the product. Same with making the HFCS ad rice syrup solids they use today....It still has to be processed before it makes it to the beer.
It wasn't done to save money, it was done because heavy beers (both english style Ales and the heavier Bavarian malty beers) were not being drunk by American consumers any more. Beer initally was seen around the world as food (some even called it liquid bread), but since America, even in the 1800's was a prosperous nation compared to the rest of the world, and americans ate meat with nearly every meal, heavy beers had fallen out of favor...
And American 6-row Barley just made for heavy, hazy beer.
The American populace ate it up!
The market WAS in a sense, craving light lagers...The German brewers didn't want to make the switch. They were perfectly happy with their bocks and all those other great heavy German Beers. But the rest of us weren't into it.
So, what, they were just supposed to claim superiority by sticking to those styles until they went out of business? It wasn't until after the second world war, when GI had returned from eating the foods of the world that "gourmet culture" as we know it began......There wasn't really a "craft anything" market yet.
Bush and other German Brewers started looking at other styles of Beers, and came upon Karl Balling and Anton Schwartz's work at the Prague Polytechnic Institute with the Brewers in Bohemia who when faced with a grain shortage started using adjuncts, which produced the pils which was light, sparkly and fruity tasting...just the thing for American tastebuds.
So the brewers brought Schwartz to America where he went to work for American Brewer Magazine writing articles and technical monographs, teaching American brewers how to use Rice and Corn...
The sad moral of the story is....The big corporate brewers did not foist tasteless adjunct laced fizzy water on us, like the popular mythology all of us beersnobs like to take to bed with us to feel all warm and elitist....it was done because our American ancestors wanted it.
Blame your grandfather for having "lousy" taste in beer, NOT the brewers themselves. Like everything in business, they had to change or die.
Maureen Ogle's book Ambitious Brew is the best and most historically accurate of American Beer History books out there. I can't recommend it enough.
It a dose of reality. I used to believe the same stuff you all did until I read it. It's kinda humbling to realize we're NOT "the pawns of an evil corporate empire" after all.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0151010129/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
Her blog archive has a lot of material covering the imbev takeover or Anheiseur Bush as well as stuff that didin't make it into here original book, so I encourage you to dig through that as well.
http://maureenogle.com/blog/
It clears up a lot of stuff like this, and busts a ton of myths like this one.
Listen to this from Basic Brewing;
That's why I find the arguments the "bud basher's" like to use so amusing...It's so historically inaccurate. It really is our ancestor's "fault" that BL is the most popular beer in the world.
Go ask your grampa why he didn't choose a nice Stout or an IPA. (But if stouts, or IPAs were the biggest sellers on the planet today, you bet your bippie that beersnobs would be railing against those beers instead.
)And they had choices back then as well. They didn't HAVE to drink that style, they chose too.
I came from a craft beer background. I didn't like that style beer when I started drinking, and when I turned beer drinking age it was at the start of the craft beer craze in the early 80's so pretty much I've grown up drinking only craft beers, and snubbing BMC. And buying into all the idiotic and historically inaccurate beersnob lies about how BMC added adjunct to cut costs, and all that other stuff that had me looking down at BMC, and those who drank them.
Then I read Maureen Ogle's book Ambitious Brew, and learned the truth about how the style developed, and was created because of consumer demand since people in the 1800's could afford meat with every meal and therefore heavy beers (liquid bread) was falling out of favors. So I started to give those beers, and the American Lager/Light Lager a different look...and developed more respect for them.
And I realized what I didn't like about Budweiser and Bud light in particular, was not that they were BMC or made by the supposed "evil empire" but that they were rice adjuncted lagers. And I didn't like other Rice adjuncted lagers, like Sapporo...but I did like corn adjuncted lagers, regardless of whether they were made by craft breweries or by the mega ones. And I quite enjoy corn adjuncted lagers, like Labatts.
In fact the more and more lagers, and lager like ales I've discovered the more I've loved. Maibocs, Vienna Lagers, Bohemian Pilsners, Dopplebocks all wonderful and amazing beers that I virtually ignored or looked down at because they were "lagers" and I thought I was too good for them. And even Kolsh, which is an ale, but in a lot of ways lager like. I looked down and passed all these amazing beers by because I had a "beersnob" stick up my ass and thought those beers and those who drank them were "less than" I was.
As I homebrewer I came to appreciate just how difficult it is to brew a light american lager, especially consistantly, batch after batch, and just because I didn't enjoy a certain beer, didn't mean that the brewery didn't deserve my respect for turning out such a difficult product to brew. And that the breweries themselves like AHB-inbev contributed so much historically to the culture and the technology of brewing beer.
And I also learned that all beer has it's place, EVEN light beers, especially in the summer. And that beer is the most egalitarian of drinks, and we shouldn't have an "us vs them" mentality about it. And open ourselves up to trying ALL beers.
And quit judging or wasting bandwidth worrying about what other's choose to drink.
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cageybee
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this is excellent....the thread was a smashing success, as we are all better off (at least more informed) because of this exchange. I would like to make a small case for "snobbishness", but would rather call it discernment. We might be able to agree that the American populous is prone to "settle" for what is sold to them in many cases. we bought pintos and chevettes, pet rocks, tennis shoes that hurt our feet when we ran, cereal made mostly of sugar, etc. I would heartily agree that people are entitled to what they like, and try really hard not to judge them for it. Sometimes, people just need more information, they need to know that there is something else that provides better value. As long as everyone they know is doing what their doing, buying what they're buying, consuming what they're consuming - access to this information, and the impetus to use it may not be there. But along comes the new guy snob down the street, who is in every other way respectable and he says "I can't do that....it's not good". He represents a change-agent for those around him that may very well be badly needed. In this way, if he is able to influence others so that they can perceive value differently, he can help them enrich their lives with choices they never knew they had. If he can do this non-judgementally, hail to the snob......
Another rationalization to think one better than the other......arrogant pompous snobbism.....
It's not our job to be zealots for the world of beer, we're not out to "convert the masses."
There are three types of people on this planet, those who care about beer passionately, so much so, that they live and breathe it, and know a lot about it. Some who just drink beer, and those who don't like beer.
And noone likes someone who comes off as superior about something that they find inconsequential. Some people just like to drink beer, not analyze it's tiny minutiae.
It's not your job....or anyone's job....Like what you like, brew what you like, and quit thinking you're a god of taste or whatever it is you think you are...
No one really cares...
Don't just "try really hard not to judge them.."
Just don't judge them...You come off looking like what we call on here a brewdouche beersnob....
cageybee
Well-Known Member
we will have to just disagree on this, and I'm sure by your logic and apparent values Revvy, that you will not judge people as being brewdouches or add insult here. I think that we need our discerners, but I agree they don't have to be jerks. but we probably need our jerks in society too....we learn from contrast.
The problem with your logic is that you are simply assuming that people only drink BMC because they don't know any better. The fact is that if you want a light lager, BMC is a "better value" than a craft brew. Sure, these folks would probably like Blue Paddle, but it costs what 3 times as much. If the purpose is just to have a nice easy drinking light lager to enjoy, BMC makes sense.
To point to the car example, if all you want is a car that will get you from point A to point B, buying a $100,000 car is a waste. It would be better to buy an inexpensive, reliable car without the bells and whistles that you don't care about.
I'm not sure what Revvy would say, but my response is:
I don't judge people because they like different beer than me. I do, however, judge people for judging others based upon their taste in beer.
cageybee
Well-Known Member
no...I don't think that people drink a brand of beer because they don't know any better....was speaking about discernment in general for all consumers everywhere.
cageybee
Well-Known Member
rclink he just said "don't judge" at all. you either do or you don't judge people.
cageybee
Well-Known Member
by judging others for judging...you are just being discerning in who you judge....that would make you a judging snob?....and then...good for you!!!
Discerner, another word for "I'm better than you..."
What is it in your psyche, or about your self- esteem that you need to justify your existence by putting yourself for some reason on some hierarchy above other people? Is it so low that you have to find inconsequential things like what people put in coffee or beer that makes you feel better about yourself?
Because you may be in a minority about something, be it your choice of coffee or beer, rather than just appreciate the VAST array of choices out there , and the fact that people are happy with what they choose, and you just happen to derive pleasure from something that less people do...because you're in the minority, you feel the need to marginalize the majority to make yourself feel superior?
You can't just derive pleasure from them simply because you like them, without making an "us vs them" or a "rank order" about them? You can't just enjoy how you like your coffee, or what you like in your beer without adding the other part of it, that you're somehow "better" than those who like something different?
I'll ask it again, why not just like what you like and be done with it. Get pleasure in whatever it is, itself, without setting yourself up as a tinpot arbitrator of taste as well....Because in the reality of things...noone ultimately cares.
Debate goes on da hook an da beer goes in da cooler next to da cheese-n-sausage. wit dat said wine is higher %abv.
cheers
cluckk
Well-Known Member
I laugh when someone brings up the Reinheitsgebot to claim that real beer must only have barley, hops, water and yeast. They fail to realize the law was not meant to define beer but to keep down the price of bread by keeping wheat and rye from going into the mash tun.
Why would modern brewers limit themselves by an outdated German price control scheme?
Why would modern brewers limit themselves by an outdated German price control scheme?
cageybee
Well-Known Member
revvy, it's not "being better" than other people to be interested in something enough to learn and be discerning. it is simply the desire to get more out of life. if one can share ones knowledge with others to enrich their lives too...why is that bad....who are our teachers? in order to help others, we have to make contrasts and therefore expose ourselves to being called snobs.
False logic my friend. We all "judge" people in some way or another. The question is what are the appropriate things to base these judgments on. For example, I certainly judge people who are racist or sexist. I think you would agree that it is appropriate to judge people on these bases. I also judge people who are rude or mean. The common thread among these categories is that I am judging a person based upon the way he/she treats or views other people.
I personally think it is inappropriate to cast aspersions on others based on their personal taste in consumables (e.g., beer, food, entertainment) because these tastes have nothing to do with how people view or treat other people. Why do I have a right to judge someone based on things that are all about that person?
I judge people who "judge" others based on their taste because again, this is about how those people treat or act towards others. It is not about their own taste.
The craft beer industry has existed since right around the time I turned 21, about 24 years ago...at least that's when I first noticed there were OTHER beers around besides BMC....there was snpa, and bell's and sam adams starting to pop up in a few stores in Metro Detroit at that time, as well as imports like Guiness, Bredore's and Double Diamond (from England- the first non bmc bottled beer I ever bought)...This stuff was first in my awareness in the mid to late 80's....
In fact when I was underaged I had my first taste of bud, spat it out and made my decision that beer sucked...and drank other things in the interum, mostly wine, and bourbon...in fact the first legal drink I ever bought was a bottle of calvados. Yet, since I loved to read, I always heard about beers like guiness, and other things...so I kept hearing that there was "good beer" out there.
Then I turned 21 and shortly after, like I said above, I began to see these OTHER beers around in bars and better beer/wine stores around my college campus. Plus the first micro brewery was in a resteraunt near campus as well.
I think my first non BMC beer I tried in a bar, was a guiness....And, as much as I think little of it NOW, it was a soul changing moment...I truly found out that there was something better than a budlight out there.
The point being..There has been alternative to BMC somewhat readily available since probably 1985...and more and more everyday.
Heck I was drinking in THIS BAR when I was 21 that even then had 400 different bottle beers available.
And that was technically even BEFORE the birth of the craft industry.
Despite bmc's control over distribution craft, or imported beer has managed to be available to one degree or another for a lond time.
And now with commercials for Sam Adams, and even a show about dogfish head on one of the most popular cable channels...it really is NOT invisible anymore...if it ever was...And I don't believe it ever was.
Just like it was my choice to explore the world of beer for 24 years, it has been other folks choice to make Budlight the best selling beer on the planet, despite the fact that personally it makes me want to puke. Craft beers make other folks want to puke...It's just the way it is.
It's not AHB's "fault" that their product is the top seller...Nor is it totally a vast conspiracy to manipulate the marketplace as some of us beer snobs want to convince ourselves (though it does go on to a greater or lesser extent) But it's NOT the main...
And despite a 10% loss of sales over time...it's still going to be the top seller in the market place...But, most people are afraid to try new things...so their horizens or limited...but there's also going to be folks, who DO try craft beers....and go back to BMC...because that's what they prefer....there's nothing wrong with them...it's just their choice....
People like what they like. If they like Bud Light, that's their ****ing perogative. Just like it is our choice to like the alternatives...that's just the way it is.
I no longer care who brews what or who drinks what. I think beer is beer, and this is the best time to drink/brew beer. There's plenty for everyone...those who like light lagers and those who like ales...we have plenty to choose from. Hell even in my chain grocery store, there's now more craft beer on the shelves than BMCs.
I can buy more craft beers, and attend beer tastings everyweek in my local pharmacy I find those "beerwars" arguments about how much power the "evil empire" has over beer distribution anymore about as believable as most 9-11 conspiracies.
This is a DRUGSTORE.....They have three "Beer experts" on staff.
Here's a list....
And those people who choose Bud Light go into the same stores, walk past the same aisles, and buy the beer that THEY LIKE....they're not blind to the alternative...They CHOOSE what they want, just like we do.
You should check Brauereisterben;
Germany's beer culture is in decline from Slate on the state of brewing in Germany.
This is one interesting gem from it.
I thought it was going to get into how American BMC envy had cut into the regional marketplace, like it is in places like Ireland, choking away great traditional beers in favor of being like the Americans.
I was surprised to see how much it's own Reinheitsgebot has choked off much of the innovation and creativity, while we in America are truly becomming the beer mecca of both innovation and honoring an maintaining more traditional german styles.
It seems that if the trend continues in Germany, it will be the American craft and home breweing which may be keeping these styles alive over here, while they dissapear in their home country.
But at the same time, if the Reinheitsgebot starts to loose favor over there, and some of the trad styles fall by the wayside, we could see a whole slew of innovation coming from over there, as those brewers have the creative shackles removed and are allowed to go crazy...hopefully they won't be making just american style over the top IPAs and stuff like that, but will evolve some of their traditional beers with non Reinheitsgebot approved ingredients. You could be getting creative even with standard trad styles like Bocks....you could get fruit bocks or spice bocks, or even I guess hoppy bocks even.
And then after a period of time of going crazy with experimentation there will be a backswing to and an interest in the trad styles again.....then there will be a balance like there is here in the US theses day.
But right now we're mecca....
cageybee
Well-Known Member
rklinck, I'm not the one that said "don't judge", therefore it's not my false logic. but I agree that it's excellent advice when applied to people.
Let's take this out of the beer context to make the point. In my life, I have been exposed to all kinds of entertainment. I have read some of the "great" books, I have been to some of the finest museums, I have been to Broadway shows, I have been to the ballet. I have been exposed to all of this, but I would still prefer to sit in front of my TV or go to a movie. That is my personal taste. I know that other people would prefer any one of the other alternatives, and I don't begrudge them or judge them for their taste. But the second that one of those idiots judges me and tells me that I need to enjoy these other things to be a well rounded person, I tell them to go to hell.
It's only teaching if the student is willing.....then it's a partnership between teacher and student.
If there's not willingness, then it's shoving things down people's throats....and nobody likes a D!CKtator.
+1,000,000
Two likes and a +1,000,000 from Revvy on a single thread for me. I think I should pull a George Costanza and leave on a high note. . .
cageybee
Well-Known Member
we agree on teaching. the art then is to create an environment of willingness and desire to learn....to know what was not known.....and in learning, one is better off hopefully in some way than one was before..
And let's be honest, many people who claim to have "discerning taste" in beer and say they want to educate others simply assume that when I say I don't like something it is because my palate is simply not refined enough.
cageybee
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't dispute that even if I could rklinck...I, for one only started drinking beer a few months ago when my boss gave me one of his home brews..... if it wasn't for his wanting to brew and consume a product more to his taste, I would not have been exposed to the joys of home brewing (and getting my a$$ kicked repeatedly by Revvy for examining the phenomena)
PackerfaninSanDiego
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BobbiLynn
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Dang, I thought this topic was going to be about "when is it not beer", so disappointed.
I made a batch of pale ale, not sure what went wrong but it soured. So I added strawberries, corn sugar and wine yeast to it, the yeast to get things going again. Now I'm not sure what it is. Do I age it like wine or bottle it like beer? It's just this strange concoction now and I don't know if it's wine or beer or something else entirely. Carb and bottle it or age it like wine? It is tasting very good, but not sure what it is. Started with 2-row, hops, and beer yeast, so it's beer?
I made a batch of pale ale, not sure what went wrong but it soured. So I added strawberries, corn sugar and wine yeast to it, the yeast to get things going again. Now I'm not sure what it is. Do I age it like wine or bottle it like beer? It's just this strange concoction now and I don't know if it's wine or beer or something else entirely. Carb and bottle it or age it like wine? It is tasting very good, but not sure what it is. Started with 2-row, hops, and beer yeast, so it's beer?
cageybee
Well-Known Member
sorry bobbilynn, it's my fault I didnt ask the right question. m_c_zero asked the right question "what is beer?". my question had negative aspects to it that have moved this thread to interesting but off topic places.
This is it in a nutshell, you have the typical overzealous, us verses them mentality of the newly converted. You're on the "pink cloud." It exists in everything, religion, working out, the recovery movement, self-help, quitting smoking, whatever.
You now feel like you need to "proselytize" to the world, or like the ex smoker, or recent convert to vegetarianism tell everyone who still smokes or eats meat that their choices are "wrong."
You've now discovered this seemingly "secret" club, and world, and you think it's somehow "better" than the old club.....
They think the "other people" are dumb, or sheep or whatever, instead of folks who just like that kind of beer.
They also feel the need to evangelize; spread the word of "good beer" to the unenlightened masses. (In other words shove their superiority down the throats of folks who don't care...)
They give the rest of us a bad name.
What's funny on places like this is that they expect that everyone on here believes exactly the same thing, exactly like you do i.e. Bmc=bad/evil empire/the beer of dumb folks, etc.
And they get damn indignant when we don't play along.
Actually if you get down to it, it's a higher probabilty that someone coming into homebrewing is coming from a bmc drinking background than a craft beer background, since quite simply more folks on this planet consume mass market brew than craft beer. If you look at markets like Canada (look at Craig of Craigtube) New Zealand and Australia, the reasons people homebrew are not because they're necessarily craft beer drinkers, but for economic ones. That's why I think it's rude to denigrate someone coming on here wanting to make a BMC type one beer, because not everyone came from a craft beer background like I did.
And assuming that everyone who homebrews is a craft brew drinker. I learned a long time ago not to assume anything.
In fact I bet if you look at the most sold beginner kits by Mr Beer, Cooper's, BB and all the other kit manufacturers they top sellers are those kits which are going to be in the closest approximation to a BMC beer, like the "Pseudo lager."
I think half the people I've taught brewing to were basic BMC drinkers. They gravitated to other styles later, but the first brews I help many folks with were of the above mentioned bmc-esque beers.
When you come off you're cloud, you'll realize that it's just beer. An no one's choices are any better or worse than anybody else's even if it is BMC. And that even BMC has a place in the pantheon of beer.
What's the gravity? And what would you say the majority of fermentables are from, the grain or the fruit?
Who cares what you call it. If you like, drink it. If it seems like it needs to be aged, age it. If you think it needs to be carbed up now, carb it up.
Now, I have to go brew some beer!
BobbiLynn
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Well, I don't do gravity readings, but the ABV I am sure is over 10%, probably closer to 15%. A small glass and got a good buzz from it. I would probably say half and half, when I added the strawberries and sugar, I tried to match 1:1 what I already had in there. Thanks.
There's no wrong answer here. You could treat half like beer, and carb it, then treat half as wine, still and age it. And see what you like best.
BobbiLynn
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True, but the question was when is it not beer. I don't know, I guess I just enjoy words and their meanings. Also, hard to say whether I should age it or bottle it. I'll probably end up doing half and half, half aged, half bottled and carbed now, it's tasting good.
BobbiLynn
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cageybee
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thanks for the FABULOUS information Revvy. I will try to temper my pink cloud induced over-zealousness too. (did i show some?) I think if I speak with others about home brewing I will begin with an appropriate disclaimer like "The surgeon general has determined the following information may be tainted with arrogant proselytizations...consume at your own risk"
BobbiLynn
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No, don't do that!!! Jump in with both feet! It'll be fun! People often tell me that I see the world through rose tinted glasses, so I bought some rose tinted glasses. Be yourself, people are just giving you a hard time, that's all. Remember that show "different strokes" and the theme song?
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