I have question to all beer lovers out there.
How come US made “beer” is so awfull,Budweiser,Coors etc?. I stopped drinking American beer years ago and don"t even touch that stuff.Only time I drank was when I was realy poor.From my knowledge Canadian made beer is little bit better
but still is comparable with US beer.I prefer European beer ofcourse ,all of them are much ,much better than that watery,alcohol doped stuff you call it beer.
I love Newcastle just as much as the next guy but when I’m at the pool or just finished cutting the grass, the last thing I want is a dark heavy beer. And although I’m sure there are lighter beers from abroad, when I think import I think dark and heavy. (Corona doesn’t count :p)
I am an evil American because I’m drinking a Busch right now.
Hey, you can get a case for less than $10!!!
I don’t know much about American beer, but I can tell you that there is some very good Canadian beer. The trick is to avoid the Big Name beers (Labbatt and Molson). Big Rock breweries out of Alberta and Fort Garry Breweries out of Manitoba make some excellent beer.
Generally we don’t export the good stuff.
Let us not besmirch the guys at BudMillerCoors. They do a very consistant job of turning out barley-flavored water. 
The trend towards lighter and lighter beers happened in the years after WW2. Women didn’t particularly like the taste of beer, so when a young couple would go out for a night on the town, they would tend to order a lighter brew. This was noted by the big brewers, and they made their beers lighter in response. Fast-forward 40 years, and you have piss-water beerworks dominating the market. That, and women did most of the shopping, so they would buy a beer they liked. Factor in the economics of brewing, and it is little wonder that the small regional brewery went by the boards.
Then, the Lord had mercy on those parched beer-drinkers who cried out for flavor, and New Albion Brewery was opened. The Age of Micro-brew was born. And it was Good. Thanks to people like Fritz Maytag, and Jim Koch, good beer was available to the masses once again.
Canada went through the same process. Molson is nothing more than Busch-North. This is not to say it is bad. I like a Busch every now and then. But it isn’t head-and-shoulders above American brews. A forehead maybe. But definately not the neck!
I had some budweisers the other day (as an experiemnt). The were ok, but seemed sweeter than other beers I’d had.
But like the ‘german’ and ‘austrian’ and whatever beers I’d also had, it was brewed in britain.
American beer has its place. Really, someone will come by and joke about how it’s
“fucking close to water,” and it is, but you have to root for the hometeam sometimes. I think Bud Light and Coors Light are both damn fine beers.
It’s the same here. If anyone honestly believes Budweiser is the pinnacle of American beer, they’re seriously deluded. It’s no more our best beer than McDonald’s is our best food. And I say that as someone who’s not a fan of beer at all.
I’m by no means a beer lover, but I think you’re not exactly giving American beer a fair shake. Bud, Miller, Coors, etc. are cheap crappy beers and NOT a representative sample of the overall quality of American beer. Judging something by the crappiest examples isn’t exactly going to give you the most accurate opinion on something. I mean, c’mon, nobody takes that gossip rag that’s always got alleged dirt on the royal familyand uses it to deplore the quality of British journalism, right?
There’s lots of good American beer out there, if you’re willing to spend an extra couple of bucks per six-pack. (See the “What beers should I be drinking” thread in IMHO for several suggestions.) The thing is, a lot of people aren’t willing to spend an extra couple of bucks per six-pack. I have actually heard people say that Purple Haze is the best beer they’ve ever had, but it’s just too expensive, so they’re sticking with Bud. 
They’re apparently happy to go out and spend $2/bottle on piss-water, but they won’t spend $1.15/bottle on the best stuff they’ve ever tasted. I don’t even pretend to understand.
duff!
what’s duff like?!
There’s a restaurant called Rock Bottom that brews some pretty damn good beers in-house. Very close in quality to anything I’ve had in Europe. I don’t know how widespread it is but there was one in uptown Charlotte and there are at least two that I know of here in Phoenix.
I do have to say though that I think it is fair to judge our beer on Bud, Coors…etc. I mean, those are, by orders of magnitude, our most popular and widespread beers. To say one shouldn’t judge American beer on Bud, but on microbrews is to say one shouldn’t judge the Simpsons on Homer, but on Disco Stu.
So American cuisine should be judged on McDonald’s then? Or American cinema by Shrek 2? Just because something’s popular does not mean it’s good.
…or indicative of the overall quality of something it supposedly represents.
Hit enter too soon.
Right. American beer should be judged on the best that it creates, that is an ideal, but unfortunately everything and everyone gets judged on what comes out. (exports)
No, the ideal would be for people to realize that no one product line, no matter how great or horrible, is going to be indicative of something that has tens of thousands of different varieties.
Did anyone of you ate swiss german or belgian chocolate?It is even more obvious than beer how good the stuuf from old europe is.
McDonalds [representing Bud, Miller, Coors] is not so dominating that the average American Joe hasn’t heard of or tasted Burger King [representing “Purple Haze” beer, mentioned above.]
Most Americans who wants to “try other things” drink liquor. When they drink beer it’s either BMC or [more and more these days] Corona.
One of my teachers mentioned Guiness awhile back and half the class didn’t know what Guiness was.
I don’t think anyone was using one beer to Judge American beer. They are using the ones that are exported. And my point was that being judged by what is exported is a fact of life, not a good one, because ideally it should be judged on the overall average quality of all the beer it makes.
P.S. Are there any good English branded beers? (I know most ‘foreign’ beer in my supermarket is brewed here, but is any who’s identity is English any good Uk dopers?)
And note that we’re not talking about one product. When people say “American Beer” they mean Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Strohs (or whatever else)…etc. I would bet that those three or four companies have something on the order of a 95% market share in the US.
That’s why American beer can fairly be judged on Budweiser…etc.
Okay, so there’s good chocolate from Europe. There’s also good chocolate from America. What’s your point?
His point was that stuff from old europe is good.
If you read between the lines his point was that stuff from old europe is the best.