I agree with others who say you might just not be a beer person. I can’t remember not liking beer. Mom would let me have sips of beer once in a while when I was little and I always liked the taste. I’m another one who drinks beer for the taste and not the alcohol. I know several people who really don’t like beer (including my best friend). At least she likes chocolate.
There aren’t any widely-available American beers that I really like. I’ll drink a Sam Adams in a pinch, but I prefer micros if I have to drink American beers. I like Stella Artois, Beck’s dark, Bohemia, Warsteiner, Bitburger… I’m sure I’m missing some. And I guess I need to look for some of the beers recommended in this thread. (I like trying different beers…)
Wow … I figured I’d get a few responses (beer seems to be a popular discussion around here), but … just wow! I don’t have a lot of time right now, but wanted to answer a few questions (I promise to answer more thoroughly later)
I’m in Vermont; of course, all Vermonters have suggested Long Trail (tried it, didn’t care for it). Oh, I tried Rolling Rock too.
Interesting comment (and good pickup) from Don’t Ask: yes, I do generally put sugar in my tea. And I’ve found as I get older, I’m really not that fond of regular coffee, unless it’s a sweet one like Kenya AA. But always with sweetener of some sort.
I am a huge fan of dark chocolate. I also like me some wine (although, not a fan of big cabernet savignons or haut-medoc).
And (just for the cringe factor), I used to like Zima. Especially with a shot of Midori
Nothing wrong with not liking it, I like them because they are not sweet but they have good flavor. Sweet drinks don’t seem as refreshing to me, and water just doens’t have any flavor.
If they had a drink with a true beer taste with zero alcohol (as opposed to non-alcohol drinks which really have 0.5% alcohol and only one actually tasted true beer like* to me) I would drink that all the time instead of sweetened drinks.
I haven’t see it in years but IIRC it was somethign like Blucklers
Home with some Stone IPA along with bombers of Stone Ruination IPA and this year’s Verticle Epic. The latter to be stashed away in the wine “cellar” for a few years until it matures, right there next to the Thomas Hardy’s and Traquair.
I deliberately acquired a taste for beer while I was in college, for simple reason: jealousy. I could see all these folks around me deriving such great pleasure from different beers, from their subtle tastes, and I hated that I couldn’t appreciate it. So I would buy a sixpack and drink it over the course of a couple of weeks, nursing a single ber all night long, until finally I started to be able to taste something past the intense bitterness. It was Widmer’s Hefeweizen that finally got me to the good stuff.
And I’m really glad I did, because these days the first sip of a cold, freshly-brewed IPA is one of the great pleasures of life. I almost never drink more than two beers at once; I’m more of a sipper than a chugger still. But man oh man, that first sip is so incredible.
I’m not much of a drinker at all. I’m lucky if I have a few drinks a year. Usually at the company Christmas party. When I do though I’ll usually order Corona. I used to like Molson Dry, too. Some beers I’ve tried were pretty horrible though. Coors Light was the worst of 'em – that swill was just about undrinkable to me.
Mainstream Australian beers tend towards the sweet side. As much as I never thought I’d recommend the swill, the OP might like to start off on Foster’s. It’s a sweetish lager, and isn’t too highly hopped (actually, it isn’t highly anything much at all). If Toohey’s New is available as an import, then that might be worth a try too. Even sweeter than Foster’s, but also a bit more hops to balance it out. The sweetest two mainstream Australian beers would be Swan and KB, but they can be hard enough to find here sometimes, let alone overseas.
LeftHand, I think you’ve hit on the reason I would like to find a beer I *do * like. I get the feeling I’m missing out on something (and we can’t have that, can we?)
I’ve made lots of notes … I really appreciate everyone’s input into my hunt. It’s not been made easier by living in the middle of Vermont, where it’s not as easy to find a wide selection.
Oh, and Quartz? I did try hard cider once, come to think of it, and while I can’t tell you much else, I don’t think I got the “yuck” face. I might need to hunt some down.
I find Corona a lot smoother and easy drinking than most other beers. There’s little bitterness about it, and it goes down well. Coors Light on the other hand tasted like some kind of malted barley distillate marinated in sea brine.
I may have to amend that statement though, as I think I might still prefer drinking that to Lone Star.
I can’t say that I’d opt to drink either, but I have to agree with Mindfield to the point that Corona takes an edge over Coors Light, which is, next to Schafers, perhaps the weakest, most useless excuse for beer ever. (“The beer to have when you’re having more than one,” indeed! You could drink a case and never know it until the bloat kicks in. Louis Armstrong, you should be ashamed.)
You know, I have a certain fondness in my heart for Lone Star, as it was my grandfather’s cheap (i.e. non-import) beer of choice. It’s gawd-awful stuff (at least the modern incarnation is–I don’t know who makes it now that Stroh is defunct) but I spent many an hour fishing and tossing the fillets in a Lone Star cooler.
Heh. It’s one of my most common spelling errors. I usually catch it in time to correct it, but not always. I think it’s because “ile” is a common series of letters in English, whereas “iel” is not, and my fingers just naturally move in the more common pattern. (That doesn’t explain “teh,” though).
Just teasing of course, if it makes you feel better, I mistype File as Fiel almost without fail. Apparently I would do better with your name then you do. Problem is as a programmer; I have to write the word File a lot.
It’s very possible you are a supertaster, which could explain why beer tastes so bitter to you. It is possible you will never like it.
I love it, and while Sierra Nevada is probably my favorite everyday beer, my all time favorite is definitely the local brewpub’s, which does indeed make Sierra mildy hoppy when compared to its whopping 100 IBU’s. If you hopheads out there haven’t had a chance to try this beer yet, you are missing out. Look for it!
Apparently it’s now brewed by Pabst. (Caution: you must be over 21 to enter the site, and it features an endless loop of a song praising the beer in question.)
That should not be difficult. There is an imaginary line somewhere East of Syracuse that indicates “cider country.” We get hard cider around here at one end of the beer cooler with the specialty drinks, but there were places in New York, New England, and the Maritimes where it was easier to find cider than beer.
Yeah, but Pabst is pretty much now just a holding/branding company and contracts out to other independent brewers for their beers, including PBR. Who knows who actually brews the stuff.
I managed to wean my wife off of BudLight onto real beers by feeding her the Blonde Bock served at BJs Pizza and BrewPub. Then I got her onto wheat beers and the occasional red ale. Then she tried my Pilsner Urquell. <sigh> So much for having a great pils just for my own enjoyment. Now the only beer in the fridge that is safe is the Sierra Nevada, Stone IPA and the odd bottle of Arrogant Bastard, which she says proves the brewers have met me.
