Did you look for them in bottles? The Dutch pubs I was looking at earlier all seemed to have Becks on the bottle list, but not on draft.
FWIW, in 5 years living in Central and Eastern Europe (mostly Hungary), I don’t ever recall seeing Beck’s around. The typical German draft beers were HB, Warsteiner, and Bitburger, for the most part. I’m sure it must have been around somewhere in bottles, but I don’t recall seeing it. (Perhaps surprisingly, Corona was everywhere, though.) Then again, I didn’t notice it in Germany the dozen times or so I’ve been there, so I may just have a blind spot for it.
There are plenty of places in Brussels which sell Stella Artois. Perhaps it isn’t sold quite as much in the pure tourist areas around the Grand Place.
There is also a definite push to sell expensive high strength tourist beers around the tourist areas too.
I lived in Brussels for three months, and there were plenty of places which sold Stella, as well as Jupiler, Maes and Primus.
Also note, that Stella is brewed differently in different countries. In Belgium it is far less gassy than the horrible stuff they sell in the UK, a country which is very fond of overgassing their lagers. Stella is called “wifebeater” in the UK.
That’s the other thing I was wondering. If you go to the hip (and even some not-so-hip) bars in Chicago, you might not even notice the existence of Bud or Miller if you don’t ask for it. They certainly won’t be on tap, but they generally (or something similar like PBR) will be available in bottles. Of the bars I regularly frequent, I can only think of one that has an American macro on tap, but they all have bottles of something. (Of course, I self-select the bars I go to, and they tend to be bars with good beer and/or whiskey selections.) That said, you can usually see spot someone drinking an MGD, unless you’re specifically at a brewpub.
Because of Marlon Brando?
Because of it’s relatively high alcohol content. :o
I’d be very surprised if Brando doesn’t have something to do with it —
It has to do with Chav culture. They would know nothing of an old b&w film.
Offtopic, but the Scots have a tradition of naming alcohol, especially of an overstrong nature.
Eldorado, a fortified wine favoured by hobo’s/tramps/bum’s in Scotland has a number of names:
A bottle of “Batterthewife” or “Electricsoup” or “Whothef**kyoulookingat?”
My favourite name is for monk brewed caffinated fortified wine, Buckfast, which I’ve known as simply:
A bottle of “goodmorningyourhonor”.
[quote=“Smid, post:43, topic:795220”]
There is also a definite push to sell expensive high strength tourist beers around the tourist areas too.
I did notice that a lot of the beers offered in Brussels restaurants/bars/stores had ABV’s far in excess of 6%. Many being over 8%.
2 years ago I noticed in Rio that most of the Brazilian beers were way over carbonated. I never thought about it being a cultural thing.
I have over 950 ratings on Ratebeer.com if anyone actually gives a hoot what I think.
They could have picked it up from someone who did know.
I’ve noticed this also with IPA’s in the United States. More worryingly, the ABV is often not on the pump, or the menu, so you don’t know you’re drinking a 8.9% beer.
When I’ve mentioned this before on here, people have insisted that the beer ABV is usually publicised clearly in bars. Yet, as someone who doesn’t want a drink over 5.5%, I’ve had trouble with this in: San Diego, Vegas, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Reno, Stateline Tahoe, Phoenix, Page, Denver, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, yes, pretty much everywhere I’ve been in the states. I guess I must be unlucky.
And an African swallow could carry a coconut by its husk.
That is odd. At bars here that are likely to sell high abv beer on tap, the typically mention not only the ABV, but also what size glass (and sometimes what type) they’re served in. I’m pretty sure even places like Buffalo Wild Wings will have ABVs on the menu. I quite often want to keep the ABV down, so I look out for these things.
A regular IPA should not be 8% or over. Those are almost all invariably imperial or double IPA, and they are NOT served in pint glasses. You can make a reasonable guess as to your ABV by the glass you’re served beer in.
Sounds like you want to focus on “session” IPAs. Traditionally sub 4%, now as high as maybe 6%. Much of the IPA flavor, I also find that the aren’t hop bombs.
I haven’t noticed this problem in those cities that I’ve been to. Breweries put their ABV front and center. Other places might require you to check a paper menu. But any place that only serves macrobrews might not know the ABV.
For examples, here’s the menu of a local watering hole in Cicero, Illinois, that I frequent. It’s not exactly a hipster bar (it’s in Cicero, for one), but it is a bar that takes pride in beer and barbecue. All their beers have the ABV listed, and all the drafts served in pint glasses are under 8% ABV. The only one that is higher (well, at 8%, and is labeled as a double IPA) is served in a 13 oz snifter. Their cheap beer of choice happens to be Hamm’s. While most of their draft beers do reside in the 5.5%-7% territory, they do have a 3.5% beer on tap (!).
Now, your average macrobrew bar that has one or two taps of something more crafty on tap will not have ABVs on their menu (if they even have a menu.) With those, you can generally assume the macros are around 5% abv, with the light beers 4.2%-ish. And the crafts are probably going to be not much higher than 6 or 7%. Places like that tend to have something like a Sierra Nevada or a Lagunitas IPA or just plain old Goose Island beers on tap around here, as a gratuitous tap for those who don’t like macros. I tend not to drink craft beers at places like this, but rather go for the macros, as those crafts (at least in my experience) do tend to sit around for awhile.
But any bar that is a “beer bar,” at least around here, will have ABVs listed. And even places like Hooters will have it on their menu, so it’s not just esoteric beer bars everywhere.
Pretty much this. There’s just no great need to serve foreign beer in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany, because what’s typically served is GOOD local beer. And the lease/what’s on tap relationship in a pub is the same in Germany. I live in Southern Westphalia, and almost all the pubs have either Krombacher, Veltins or Warsteiner on tap, because that’s all brewed in a 50 km radius from here, most have an Altbier as well and some Weißbiers from a bottle, but travel 50 km south to the Rhineland, and it’s all Kölsch or Alt, respectively, and that’s true for all of Germany. When I first visited Belgium after having hit the drinking age, I marveled at their pubs with often 10-15 local brews on tap, which all were delicious. The Netherlands too have great beer brands (not as good and variable as Belgian or German, but still good), so neither of these countries have the need to offer much foreign beer because the local stuff is good enough.
It’s somewhat of a newer thing to have the ABV published on the menu, and then that only happens in some fancier or hipster places. You’re average corner bar usually isn’t publishing the ABV even when they have an IPA on a tapper.
I think this is the case. It is perhaps my assumption that everywhere should do this, in the uk it’s always on the pump nowadays, and of course a lot of times in the US the pump is too decorated with gooses or whatever thing, and hasn’t got space for it on there. Plus it’s on the far wall of the bar. The menu, well, it just lists the beer names a lot of times.
Terminology doesn’t help too. We don’t have double IPAs, or session IPAs in the uk. Indeed, IPA is a term which had long since gone out of fashion until the US Craft beer fashion started up. The Uk has had a reasonably solid “real ale” industry for forever (with some shakey periods in the 80-90’s when nine different lagers seemed to be knocking out even a single ale).
Also habit might help, knowing that Goose Island IPA is 5.9% (definitely on the high end for me), and Lagunita’s is also high at 6.2% is remembered over time, but I’m only over in the US occasionally. Traditionally, an ale would be 3.5-5% in the UK, higher than that and it would be syrupy. Recent technological improvements meant that higher percentages are much more drinkable. However, the US did suffer from lower percentage ales which also happened to taste like crap (Bud and it’s mass produced competitors), so seems to have went the other way in the sense that ABV is more of a sign of authenticity than taste.
Another thing to note, is that the high strength Belgian beers became popular around the late 90s too, and the Belgians and many europeans typically are ok with this because they don’t drink them very fast, and could easily only drink one every two hours. This doesn’t work for us UK people and I’ve seen proper destruction with a brit starting the evening with a few Belgian beers (8.5% for Duvel).
Becks is crap. Avoid.
Word to the wise: the best German breweries don’t advertise. I have never once seen an ad anywhere for Augustiner, Tegernseer, Andechser, or any of the other really good ones. Weihenstephan does some advertisement, but less for beer and more for its milk products. The only beers that really advertise are the ones that people in the know wouldn’t freely choose - Becks, Wahrsteiner, Mixxery, Desperados… Shit like that. Hell, even if you go to the budget, sub-50-cent-can category, the good one is “5,0”, which also doesn’t advertise (in fact, that’s kind of their gimmick - no ads, no flashy label, just decent, extremely cheap beer in an unassuming single-color can).
Please note that the inverse is no guarantee of quality. Nobody is advertising for Perlenbacher, and that’s a good thing. Fuck Perlenbacher.