For those Americans curious about “real” “European” beers, and too quickly jump to the conclusion that “real” “European” beers automatically equals German, let me put in a plug for some of the outstanding Belgian beers. If you have a Fresh Fields or another one of those yuppie upscale food markets near you, they generally have a good selection - I particularly recommend La Chouffe, Duvel, or, if you’re willing to drop some cash, a Rochfort 10. (The latter goes for like $6 a bottle… grumble… so much cheaper in country of origin… grumble…) Each of those three will knock you on your ass. And taste damn good.
I certainly can buy real German, Czech, Danish, Belgian, English, Scottish, and other nationalities’ beers in the USA. You just can’t find most of them at a 7-11.
hmmm…I should have been clearer with that post. I know Heineken is Dutch. My question about it got unintentionally mixed up with the German references…
I wasn’t aware that Heineken was brewed all over the world. Re: their claim, I could make out a distinct difference in the Heineken I drank in England and what I drank in Germany.
Going by my amateur tasting session, maybe there is some truth to the story of Czech-brewed Heineken being the best of the lot?
My recollection of Sam Adams was that it was darker - not quite an ale, but closer than anything else we ale drinkers could get our hands on at the time. So yes, I guess it would be a little sweeter, but certainly not syrupy, and I assure you I was able to down several pints in a session.
I’ve only visited a few places in the states, but was generally able to find a micro brewery with decent real ales. Can’t remember the names of any of them, though. Sorry.
I’ll keep that in mind if I’m ever in TX again, but for now I’m trapped in Washington, DC, and pretty much limited to where public transportation can get me. (Especially if I find some real ale!) Hmmm…Google didn’t find it (at least right away), but a little searching and sniffing around the web revealed this. I might have to try it out…
Once again, I’m not talking about regular Sam Adams, which is usually a lager (although they have plenty of variations, including a porter, several ales, a stout, and then some)… It’s the 20% Sam Adams Triple Bock, which you certainly cannot down by the pint. Click on Telemark’s link and all y’all will know what we’re talking about.
You can find imports at liquor stores and bars, but they don’t taste the same as the beer you buy in the country of origin. it may be the pasteurization that was discussed earlier.
Belgian beers are hard to find in many states, because many states prohibit beers of greater than 6% alcohol and the Belgian ales often exceed this. My favorites are Chimay Cing Cents and and Orval Blue. One reason they don’t taste as good as in the country of origin is that beer is perishable and these smaller brewed beers typically are brewed in the home country, put on a ship to the U.S. and then sit on a shelf until someone is ready to shell out 2X or 3X what other beers sell for.
Gee when I read the title, I thought it was going to be about ‘Real Ale’ … the stuff that is cask conditioned, handpumped, a little cloudy with yeast, and actually considered to be living. In Ottawa, when pubs and brewpubs advertise ‘real ale’, that is what is meant!
And as an aside, once when I was at a regatta in Florida, I went to some of the Busch owned resorts where they have a building that talks about the ‘great’ Busch beers and proudly advertisings the adjuncts ie rice that they add to the beer. They had a little room off to the back where they had set up a display of their attempt at micro-brewery/craft brewery products or at least the products they were marketing that way (since they sure didn’t seem to be making them that way). I ask the guy at the counter who was providing the samples about adherence to the Bavarian Purity Laws … and he didn’t appear to know what I was talking about (which reinforced that this was just a marketing ploy rather than making real craft beer). His answer to me was that in America, they had their own checks and balances when making beer!
I am surprised to read this - are you sure it is not psycological and there is really very different tastes? I only ask as one of my best friends was, a while ago, the boss of one of their two breweries in the UK (not really breweries frankly, beer factories IMHO). Anyway he told that they have, I think he called it, “reference tastes” to match up to. Essentially trained palettes taste the different production around Europe and decide which brewery is going to be the reference taste - ie the one that all the others have to try and match.
Now this does not say anything about which one was better, only which one tasted most like some collective memory of what Heineken should taste like. But whilst I guess it does confirm that the taste could vary distinctly if not monitored but I got the impression it was barely noticeable to untrained tastebuds and “caught” and corrected before it became an issue.
I remember all this as he was cock-a-hoop that **his ** brewery became the European reference standard before he left.
He is now MD of Allied Distiller - the arm which produces all their Scotch whisky - and so is a **very ** useful chap to know!!!
I’m a warm brown beer man myself…
I was going to ask about this. Doesn’t this tend to limit the possibilities for variety? Is an all-barley base impossibe to improve upon? Is it illegal to add flavorings such as honey or fruit?
Yes, it is illegal. There are mixed beverages with beer as one ingredient (like the “Radler”, half beer, half lemonade) but those a never beer themselves.
And, yes, it limits possibilities. Proponents of the law argue that only undesirable “impurities” are prevented. A disadvantage is that completely new developments like beers from different crops are impossible but the advantage is that beer can’t include artificial ingredients or fake anything. This doesn’t matter much for true quality beers but it creates an effective lower boundary for quality even of cheap beers. When beer is so tightly regulated it gets harder to produce truly undrinkable beer.
The barley-only rule does traditionally not refer to “Weizen” beer which may include wheat malt (and barley, but no others.)
Your derision reveals your ignorance. There are extremely strict controls on what can be in beer commercially brewed in the USA. The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) maintains a list of acceptable ingredients. Any deviation from this list must be reported and approved by the BATF. No chemical preservatives or other synthetics are permitted.
There is no legal requirement in the USA that beer must be pasteurized. There is no legal requirement that beer must be filtered. Conditioned-in-bottle (live yeast) beers can be purchased quite easily in much of the USA. There are two reasons that imports do not taste the same:
1: Dimwitted marketers in the producing countries think that they must cater to the Budmilloors drinker instead of emphasizing how they are not Budmilloors. So they make a different version for the US. They invariably lose this fight, since nobody can beat Budmilloors at being Budmilloors.
2: Most beer does not travel well. That’s why Britain developed the IPA, after all.
That’s not to say that German beers are all the same, though. You’ve touched on the exception for Weizen production. But just staying with the letter of the Bavarian Purity Law, among brewers there is also considerable variation in the level of roasting of the malt, the type of yeast used, and the mineral content of the local water.
There’s definitely a difference in taste between the green-bottled Heineken sold in America and the brown-bottled Heineken sold in the Netherlands. I used to think of Heineken as a fairly unremarkable lager, but when I tasted the stuff domestically (I was somewhere where there wasn’t any choice), I was quite surprised to actually like it. Perhaps the freshness and color of the glass (lets less light in) has something to do with it?
While I have no doubt that the US has strict laws on ingredients in most things … my derision was because I was rather surprised that someone representing the attempted micro beer variants at Busch wasn’t aware of some ‘laws’ that often guide many (not all microbreweries) as well as home brewers (even in America) (I know the books by Charlie Papazian reference those laws).
Who says beer tastes better in Germany?
Taste is a matter of opinion. When I was in Germany, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a Bud Lite.
:eek:
Heathen!
