Tonight's Libation

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,768

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,108
That last statement says something about the dismal quality of mainstream commercial beer.
Hmmm.... I'm not so sure about that. I like hops but I wouldn't equate hops level to quality. It's used in craft brews as a flavoring agent (not as an antimicrobial as in the original IPA) and is arguably completely optional. A beer purist might even view it as an adulterant used to cover up other imperfections.

If you define quality as consistency, the old Anheuser Busch was the leader. You wouldn't believe the lengths they went to, to ensure the consistency of their flagship Budweiser. I doubt that attention to details continues under InBev.
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
30,672
Maybe because many traditional wheat beers use a yeast strain called HefeWeizen, It produces a slight banana and clove flavour and the usual cloudy appearance.
It is usually conditioned in the bottle hence the cloudiness.
Max.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,108
I'd love to say that Guinness has them beat on the consistency argument...but the current Extra Stout recipe has only been around since the '70s.
Well, I was referring to can-to-can consistency rather than brand longevity but that is surely part of it also. I was devastated when they ruined Schlitz. What idiot did that, anyway?
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,108
For me, it isn't beer without hops.
I have tried beer sans hops, it was terrible, tasted more like a soda.
Max.
Yup, I shouldn't have used the term "completely optional". As the Germans established no later than 1516, some level of hops is required, just not the high levels that are popular in today's craft beers.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,108
I thought you were referring to consistency vs. time.

Yes, can-to-can, each Budweiser consistently makes me wish I didn't drink it. Winner.
I once had formal beer tasting training in England. There's a company there that makes a clever product line - a series of capsules that add imperfections to beer so that tasters can be trained to detect them. Tasters might first be exposed to 3 capsules in a pitcher, then two and finally just one, until they can accurately detect about a dozen of the most common flaws.

Anyway, the flavorless control beer was always Budweiser. They knew it would never have flaws of its own and certainly wouldn't have enough flavor to hide the added ones.
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
30,672
Y As the Germans established no later than 1516, some level of hops is required, .
A little history Hopping!

Hops in beer didn’t make their first appearance in written human history until Pliny the Elder’s “Naturalis Historia,” first published between 77–79 AD.
Even then, Pliny the Elder considered the hop plant only as a botanist would, noting hops as a naturally growing plant, and spoke nothing of beer.
It wasn’t until 736 AD that there was any mention of human cultivation of hops (instead of it just growing in the wild),
and the first recorded history of hops in brewing doesn’t show up until 822 AD. That distinction goes to France — Picardy in Northern France, to be exact — where Abbot Adalhard of the Benedictine monastery of Corbie wrote down a set of rules determining how the abbey was to be run.
Part of the rules addresses the porter’s collection of wild hops for making beer (and what to do if he failed at his task).
Germany waited another 300 years to get in to the game — somewhere between 1150 and 1160 AD.
Max.
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
836
Crown Royal again tonight, but I purchased a gift type with 2 Whiskey glasses it was all I could do to remove them from the plastic packaging, holy shizen using sharp instruments you could cut your arm off. If you buy one make sure you use a razor to remove it, I think it will be much easier than my experience, anyhow putting some steak on with salad before the wife gets home from her second job.

Cheers,
kv:)
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,768
Please say it ain't so... of all brands, why does Budweiser want to be the first... give Sam Adams a shot first, for God's sake!

http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2...-hopes-learning-how-to-brew-beer-on-mars.html

“Budweiser is always pushing the boundaries of innovation and we are inspired by the collective American Dream to get to Mars,” said Budweiser Vice President Ricardo Marques in a statement. “We are excited to begin our research to brew beer for the red planet.”
 
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