Oh boy! Beer ignorance to fight! My favorite pasttime.
First thing, a corrolary to what viking said. Be aware that alcohol percentage is measured two ways: percentage by volume, or percentage by weight. Since alcohol is less dense than water, the percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV) is a larger number than the percentage by weight (ABW).
Convert thusly:
To get ABV from ABW, multiply by 1.25.
To get ABW from ABV, multiply by 0.8.
The old three-two standard was by weight, 3.2% ABW, which translates to 4% ABV. ABV is the more common standard these days, in America anyway. I don’t know what the standard is in Canada, so that may be part of what the OP is looking at.
Secondly, friend Geoduck said
That’s a common perception, but it’s mistaken. Ale differs from lager in the kind of yeast used, not alcohol content. Generally speaking, ales use top-fermenting yeast (most of the action takes place at the top of the fermenter), and lagers use a bottom-fermenting variety. But ales have the same range of alcohol content as lagers.
And finally, anyone who dismisses American beer based on the sorry quality of the Big Three mass market pisswater crap beers and their imitators is missing out on a world of fantastic beers. America has hundreds, probably thousands, of wonderful local and regional breweries that produce beers that rival those of any country in the world.
The rambling incoherence of this post is brought to you by a big bottle of Moylander Double IPA (8.5% ABV).
The strongest American beer I ever had was Samuel Adams Triple Bock a few years back. I don’t know if they make it anymore. It was 17% or so, I believe. It really didn’t taste like beer at all; more like a liqueur.
I’m pretty sure the Triple Bock is still available, but the Millennium has it beat - a whopping 19.5% ABV (15.6% ABW for those playing along at home). It was, AFAIK, a one-off brew for the turn of the calendar three years ago.
percypercy, would that 14% you mentioned be Samichlaus, by any chance?
Waddle - does your dad distribute at all or is it all for personal consumption? I’m always open to trying homebrews.
Yes, I am a beer drinking lightweight. On Easter I drank a Molson and 2 Sam Adams in about 1 hour. I wasn’t falling down drunk but I had a serious buzz. I was able to explain my stumbling around on the fact I am using crutches to help me get around after my recent knee surgery. Those 3 beers will also make up about 25% of the beer I will drink this year too.
Oh, but that’s not the BC plan. No, what we’ve got in store is only allowing current liquor licensees to open private stores. And they still won’t be allowed on Sundays, probably. And all the current BC Liquor stores will be shut down. And the city of Vancouver is bringing in a bylaw so that new stores will be able to sell beer or wine, but not both. And the government has already admitted that prices will go up, because it’s going to be less efficient than the current system, and it may decide to not let private stores sell for less than the current prices.
In short, it’s a complete cock-up. I contrast this with my home province of Quebec, where beer and wine are available in depanneurs everywhere until 11 at night <weep>
I’d recommend anything from Victory Brewing, Stone, or Sierra Nevada.
Unfortunately, however, the fact is that most beer just doesn’t travel that well. Despite what people will tell you, Guinness is, at best, the third or 4th best stout you can get in America. Domestic stouts are fresher and tastier because of that. I’d imagine it would work in reverse for you. American beer would be older, and thus not as good.
Just please, as I’ve said in other threads, don’t judge american beer by the crimes against brewing that have been commited through the beechwood aging of St. Louis and the glass-lined tanks of Old Latrobe. American beer is as good as, or better, than any that I’ve had in Bavaria. I think you’ll find that most people who rant and rave about how American beer is crap, and don’t listen to the microbrew argument against the Anti-american-beer lie, tend to list Heineken among their favorite beers. Take that for what it’s worth.
I’m off to buy some Victory HopDevil IPA for tonight.
I agree with that last statement, Flymaster: the shipping is what really kills good taste. I’ve had “fine” German beers in the U.S. that tasted terrible. Yet, if I had the same brew while being in Germany, I’d love it. The same is true for Canadian beer, in my experience.
And I never cared much for the attitude that the American lagers (the lighter beers most people mean when they bad-mouth American beer) are crap. There’s nothing at all bad about your Buds, Millers, and Coors. There merely a different style from a stout, porter, or ale. In fact, next to the darker beers in my beer fridge is always a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon. They’re what we call a “lawnmower beer”–refreshing and light when that’s what the occasion calls for. If you’re more in the mood for savoring something with more complex flavor, go for something darker. But don’t say that all American lager is crap. It’s not.
I honestly have no idea which microbrews, if any, are exported to Europe. Most of them are regional, serving a few states only. Deschutes Brewing Co., one of the biggest and most popular in Oregon, doesn’t even ship outside the Pacific Northwest. (A fact my brother discovered, to his dismay, when he moved back east.)
Some great California beers which are sent at least as far as the east coast include Sierra Nevada, Mendocino, and Boonville. You can’t go wrong with anything by them, if they make it across the pond.
As others have mentioned though, beer quality can deteriorate fast if it’s shipped long distances, and kept to long in the wrong conditions. Heat, light, and time are the enemies of beer.
However, the worst effects of this happen to beer in clear or green glass bottles. Light causes the hop essences to deteriorate, causing the famed “skunkiness” of imports like Heineken. Many European brewers use these bottles, so their beer doesn’t travel well at all. OTOH, most decent American beers (and the better European ones too) are bottled in brown glass, which protects the beer a bit better.
Still, it’ll always be better closer to the source.
Well, I was once surprised (and utterly delighted) to find Anchor Liberty Ale for sale in an English pub, so it’s been known to happen. Your best bet might be to find a bar that specializes in beers from around the world and rotates their selection fairly often.
It’s funny I saw this thread, b/c I work at a tourist-type bar, and people from out of state are always a bit surprised to find that Our Big Three Beers (Miller Lite, Bud Light, and Coors Light) are all 5.5%. It’s a state-to-state variance, depending on the laws, but the only reason some states have 3.5% beer is b/c of their state law. Trust me, they’d greatly prefer our beer.
They also like taking the bottles home, b/c the Big Three have breweries in Texas and they put big Lone Stars on the labels; Miller Lite also puts “True To Texas” on the neck. For some reason, people trip out that we have “our own” beer labels on national brands. We drink a lot of beer!
Real Texans avoid all that mass-produced crap and drink Shiner Bock, though. On draft. sluuuuuuurp
It may also be the storage and shelf life. I well remember seeing a display of Canadian beer in a US liquor store once. It was in clear glass bottles and “within range” of a bright, sunshiny window. I had a look at the date code on the bottles (this was before best-before dates appeared and you had to know how to read that line of numbers) and was surprised to see that this beer was 11 months old!
Eleven months old, clear glass, poor storage–it would have been undrinkable.
That being said, I have to say that I agree with everybody who said that there are some truly outstanding American regional and/or craft beers. There are plenty here in Canada too. While I’d love to be able to get some faraway favourites at my local beer store, I’d almost rather leave them where they are. That way, I’m not disappointed by a well-remembered or much-anticipated beer that has gone off while in transit or storage.
