OT: Grolsch Beer

[PSUSignore]

I don't usually buy beer at the grocery store, but I've heard good things about this:

As someone that loves big malty dark beers including porters, stouts and their coffee and barrel-aged varieties, that looks delicious. I've had the regular Victory at Sea and it was fantastic, I'm sure this will also be quite good.

 

[auxgym]

It’s all a matter of taste when it comes to beverages and food too. No one is right or wrong. Eat or drink whatever you like. When I was younger I drank and ate more but thinking back I wouldn’t like watery beers, sweet wines or cocktails, or even cola drinks that were part of my 20s. I won’t consume any of that stuff now. Big portions were more important than fine flavors. My tastes have matured.

I’ll drink a well mixed old fashioned, or a manhattan straight up, or a French 75 in summer, followed by a pistachio encrusted fois gras flamed in apple brandy as a start to a perfect meal, or maybe some raw oysters instead. Perhaps a rack of lamb entre with roasted fingerling potatoes and sautéed broccoli rabe accompanied by a good Cote du Rhône, with a chocolate mousse dessert, or a cheese course with a glass of port.

We have a tradition that once or twice a month instead of having a normal dinner at home, we will do wine and cheese instead. We will buy 3 European aged cheeses with different characters, usually one is a goat or sheep’s milk cheese, or a baked Brie, and serve with breadsticks, crackers, a sliced apple, and some almonds. And we will open a good red wine to go with it, whatever our best one is at that moment in our home. The thing that makes these dinners enjoyable is to go for a splurge with the wine and cheeses. It makes for a pretty relaxed evening. When food is rich and full of flavor, I find you eat and drink less, but enjoy it more. Some people never grow up, just as sometimes people’s taste buds don’t grow up either. They eat what they liked in 10th grade all their lives.

So I know some people like Budweiser, put syrup on their scrapple, and ketchup on everything. If that’s what you enjoy, well that’s what you should do. I’m not going to criticize people for their tastes, but I do think that sometimes people don’t fully experience a life well lived if they don’t progress in their culinary adventures.

Sorry to get too far off topic from the Grolsch beer thread. Again, it’s an OK beer in a cool bottle.

Interesting that you associate Budweiser.......which dominated an industry for over 100 years with the uncivilized,less educated simpletons which you have graduated from.......now that you prefer only the finest meats and cheeses.

 

[The Stan]

meats and cheeses:

 

[Nitwit]

Interesting that you associate Budweiser.......which dominated an industry for over 100 years with the uncivilized,less educated simpletons which you have graduated from.......now that you prefer only the finest meats and cheeses.

I didn’t say that people with other tastes were simpletons or less well educated. Where did you get that idea? There are good business reasons to produce products that the most number of customers will consume or purchase but it doesn’t make them the best ones. Budweiser sells a lot of beer and makes a lot of money so obviously they are very successful at what they do. Chevrolet dominated too. McDonalds dominated. Disney dominated. I’ve moved on, that’s all.

 

[pandaczar12]

I have a friend that's a beer snob. He's always busting my nutts about how I still drink cheap beer. Why do I still drink cheap beer? Because I grew up on the stuff, just because I have money now doesn't mean I have to pay 50 bucks a case for beer I don't like.

My kids love happy meals, I'm kinda hoping they stick with those and never develop a taste for steak!

 

[FHSPSU67]

I can only speak for myself but dark beers make me ill literally. The few times I drank one it would just sit in my stomach like cement. I remember going to a party during my senior year in HS and someone bought two six packs of Elephant Beer. If my memory serves me right I drank three beers. What a stomach ache. On occasion I've seen my girlfriend drink a Guinness Original without a problem. Go figure?

That sounds like it may have been
Delirium Tremens with the pink elephants on the bottle - delicious, but 8.5%

 

[Pocono Lion]

t sounds like Delirium Tremens with the pink elephants on the bottle -
That sound like it may habeen Delirium Tremens with the pink elephants on the bottle - delicious, but 8.5%

Most likely Carlsberg Elephant. I had a few bad experiences with it in my younger days as well. 7.2 ABV, which when you’re used to milder stuff really kicks your ass. I’ve had some of my worst hangovers from the stuff.

 

[SoParkLion]

I'm brewing my first kombucha batch right now. How do you plan to flavor yours?

 

[kgilbert78]

Got a fun coaster at Gordon Biersch tonight:

Give a man a beer, waste an hour. Teach a man to brew, and waste a lifetime.

 

[mrtailgate]

Can't comment on Grolsch much, but since Stella's been mentioned frequently in this thread..

I was an expat in Belgium earlier this decade. Belgium had two mainstream beer brands, Jupiler and Maes. Red bottle or Blue bottle. If you weren't drinking a strong Belgian ale, you drank either a Jupiler or Maes (they laughed at the "light" beer concept). However, Jupiler made a cheaper beer that very few of the locals drank but they exported as a luxury beer...Stella Artois. I always chuckled that Americans believing that Stella was premium was like Europeans believing that Miller High Life was truly the "Champagne of Beers".

Random observation: In the beer capital of the world, the most expensive beer at the store was Corona. I assume due to import duties/taxes.

Another random observation: Beer prices were generally consistent across purchasing locations. Yes, you could get cheaper prices when buying in bulk, but a single Duvel at the grocery store, corner shop, restaurant, bar, was always in the 1.5 to 2.5 euro range. No insane bar/restaurant markup like we have in the states. I miss drinking singles in public alongside a canal.

Related to above: I took a day trip to Westvleteren Abbey to drink the supposed best beer in the world, Westvleteren 12. It was as amazing as advertised. It was also only 2.5 euros for a bottle, despite the limited availability.

Random Belgian beer joke:
The owners of Heineken, Jupiler, and Duvel walk into a bar. The Heineken owner orders a Heineken. The Jupiler owner orders a Jupiler. The Duvel owner orders a water. The Heineken and Jupiler owners laugh at him and say "Is your beer so bad that you won't even drink it in public?" Duvel owner responds with, "Well since you both ordered water, I thought I should as well."

This concludes my trip down Beer Heaven memory lane.

Not nearly as sought after, but the green cap Westy is my favorite of the three. I have Westy 12 bottles up to ten years old now. Had a blue cap a couple of months back with about 8 years on it and it was divine. I'm going to drink up the 10 year old gold caps. No sense in keeping these any longer.

 

[Lion84]

Did you have to give up your shoe until you returned the Kwaak glass to the bar? That's how you know it's an old original one...

Dulle Griet pub in Ghent will raise your shoe to the ceiling in a basket on a rope. The old glasses are valuable and impossible to replace. Great traditions.

I didn't - good thing for them I didn't take it off might have had a foot odor problem.

 

[auxgym]

I didn’t say that people with other tastes were simpletons or less well educated. Where did you get that idea? There are good business reasons to produce products that the most number of customers will consume or purchase but it doesn’t make them the best ones. Budweiser sells a lot of beer and makes a lot of money so obviously they are very successful at what they do. Chevrolet dominated too. McDonalds dominated. Disney dominated. I’ve moved on, that’s all.

Your tone makes it sound like people that drink Budweiser don't know any better. However, I'm not surprised in any way that you don't acknowledge that.

 

[The Stan]

I'm brewing my first kombucha batch right now. How do you plan to flavor yours?

Ive been making kombucja for about 2 months, scaling up from a bottle from a store. I have used sushi ginger, strawberries, strawberry jam, blueberries, Apples, mixed berries, and lemon. The flavors have been good but I have struggled to get any carbonation. I recently used a flip top bottle, and that was the first that had any more than just a trace of carbonation, so I want to get more flip top bottles. My go to flavor so far is ginger or lemon ginger.

 

[PSUSignore]

FWIW, I’m not a big fan of the big guys, InBev/Bud/Stella being the biggest. The biggest reason why I don’t care for them is illustrated in this documentary.

View embedded media

If you don’t want to drink craft beer or Euros that’s fine but the big guys are locked in a death match to dominate the beer world and deny consumers choice. They use every dirty trick in the book.

In a battle between Davids and Goliath I choose the Davids.

While that's a good documentary, it's quite dated. That said, the 3 tier system for alcohol sucks. It hurts consumers in terms of options and prices. Some retailers like Walmart also want to get rid of it because it would allow for lower prices. But that system definitely favors the big guys and they lobby politicians heavily to keep the 3 tier system in place. But things have improved a lot in recent years, as evidenced by the amount of shelf space allocated to craft beers now vs. a few years ago.

 

[mrtailgate]

FWIW, I’m not a big fan of the big guys, InBev/Bud/Stella being the biggest. The biggest reason why I don’t care for them is illustrated in this documentary.

View embedded media

If you don’t want to drink craft beer or Euros that’s fine but the big guys are locked in a death match to dominate the beer world and deny consumers choice. They use every dirty trick in the book.

In a battle between Davids and Goliath I choose the Davids.

I understand the feelings that regular Joes have towards craft. They were raised with a simple beer and they are fine with that, it's cool. They don't need people busting on them, etc. But then you have sanctimonious people like Jim who thinks he still is leading the craft flag pumping out humongous volumes of Sam. If you ever talk with him, he will tell you how great he is bank that. On the other hand, you have guys who brew great beer but don't know how to run a biz. It's a difficult balancing act for sure.

Drink what you like, it's all good.

Best beer dudes I have met over a long relationship. The dude from Voodoo and the dude from Selinsgrove. Both of them are the epitome of what people think craft should be. Jean Roy and Armand from Cantillon and 3 Fontainen are great to sit down with if you ever have the opportunity.

 

[ClarkstonMark]

I understand the feelings that regular Joes have towards craft. They were raised with a simple beer and they are fine with that, it's cool. They don't need people busting on them, etc. But then you have sanctimonious people like Jim who thinks he still is leading the craft flag pumping out humongous volumes of Sam. If you ever talk with him, he will tell you how great he is bank that. On the other hand, you have guys who brew great beer but don't know how to run a biz. It's a difficult balancing act for sure.

Drink what you like, it's all good.

Best beer dudes I have met over a long relationship. The dude from Voodoo and the dude from Selinsgrove. Both of them are the epitome of what people think craft should be. Jean Roy and Armand from Cantillon and 3 Fontainen are great to sit down with if you ever have the opportunity.

Jim used to tell people how great he was back in the late 80’s as well, when he was personally giving tours of the old brewery in a sketchy area of Boston. Fun tour back in the day!

 

[mrtailgate]

I am totally aware of Jim and Sam still insisting that they are still craft. I would put Yeungling, New Belgium and Stone in the same league. Like many food commodities, beer is still a game of economies of scale.

I was raised on “Iron” and i still have a soft spot for it but I really enjoy the creativity, the art and the flavors of craft brews.

At least Dogfish brews with different ingredients. Sam is macro micro. They don't do anything inspiring regardless of what Jim says he does. He is not pleasant to talk to.

 

[Nitwit]

Your tone makes it sound like people that drink Budweiser don't know any better. However, I'm not surprised in any way that you don't acknowledge that.

I think they haven’t learned to like better beers, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. They should drink what they like. It’s not a personal insult. A lot of tastes are acquired, and those people haven’t acquired a taste for what many would consider better beer. Personally I don’t think Bud has much of a beer taste. To me it tastes watery and lacks character. I prefer others.