I was wondering what this Blue Moon is all about. Turns out it’s marketed in Canada as Belgian Moon, which I drink every Friday (without the orange) at the pub.
“In other words, Blue Moon is Belgian Moon in Canada because a Canadian company trademarked “Blue Moon” before Coors did. Now, even though MillerCoors had gained ownership of the Blue Moon trademark in the U.S. and Canada by 2013, because of internal conflict between Miller and Molson, the beer was released as Belgian Moon, and remains as such.”
A long time ago a wise man told me that the two best kinds of beer were cold and other people’s.
About 15 years ago, I was invited to be part of a 10-person tour of this facility prior to a game. And by tour they meant going to the lower level of the brewhouse and drinking from any one of the 3 available taps for an hour before the game started.
That’s exactly the same thing I noticed with that beer. When I lived in Budapest, Pilsner Urquell definitely had a much maltier flavor to it; when I visited the Czech Republic, even more so. For some reason, the word “chewiness” comes to mind. Like there was a deep grain flavor to it–not so much sweet malt, but your got that barley character in the beer. It was quite a revelation, as (I thought) I did not care for PU. Whenever I’ve had the beer here in the US or in Western Europe, it seemed like all that malt/grain character was gone to it, and all that was left was the hops.
By the point we got to London it wasn’t materially different from what you get here, except that it was more common to find on draught.
Believe it or not, the same thing applies to Mexican beer. Draught Corona in Puerto Vallarta (there’s a nearby brewery) is something of a revelation when compared to the skunked stuff that we get in bottles here in the US.
I like it well enough. I don’t order it very often, but it has the same role as Guinness where if you are traveling and don’t want to gamble on a local beer, but want more flavor than a macro lager.
Going out to do manly things with a friend this Sunday, and a roadhouse stop is definitely in the cards. I now have an excuse to try Blue Moon. Actually, I’ve had one or two, it never registered as anything particularly good or bad.
I’ve become a cynical old man. Any product that advertises itself as much as Blue Moon is a product of today’s corporate drive to minimize costs while producing a thing that is juuuuust acceptable enough to not be roundly considered “bad”. See also: Coors Light, Budweiser, Papa John’s, Nike, Imagine Dragons, Quicken, State Farm, and Chevrolet/Ford/Dodge. I’ve come to like things nobody’s heard of not because I’m a hipster, but because they aren’t spending all their money to advertise a product that ought to be able to speak for itself. What you get might still be trash but 1) it’s reasonably priced trash, 2) it’s an honest if frequently misdirected effort, and 3) (you know).
I was in San Francisco, maybe 15 years ago or more, and there was a beer served with an orange slice in it. I had never seen or heard of such a thing. IIRC, it was pretty good. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t Blue Moon and think it may have been a local brew. Any ideas?
Yeah, the Belgian wit beers are often served with the orange slice, at least here in the US; the German/Bavarian weizens are often served with the lemon. (To me it seemed more prevalent to see the lemon here in the US as opposed to Germany; my German girlfriend from 20 years ago was completely perplexed when she saw weizens being served with lemon in them here at a bar in Chicago/Evanston.) It’s been awhile – but the last time I had a weizen in Germany – oh, wait, I guess that was only two years ago at the airport, if that counts – it was served without any lemon. From what I can tell, that seems to be an American custom, but I could be wrong. I don’t know whether Belgians typically serve their wits with orange slices or not. I’d guess not, but I don’t know and haven’t spent more than a couple hours in Belgium to observe the way of the Belgians.
I have spent considerable time in Germany (I was last there a couple of weeks back, in both Munich and Nuremberg) and I can’t recall EVER seeing lemon (or any other fruit garnish) served with bier, yet I know it de rigueur in the Western US with hefeweizen, just like lime is in a Pacifico, Tecate or Corona.
I find that some, if not many, microbrews are nasty, some are really good. However I would not agree that the large scale ones are ‘surprisingly good’, the few that may at first fall into that category quickly wear themselves out and taste not a rich. With that said some are solidly decent.