Which goes back to the comic strip

Why would I want to drink something that tastes terrible? I personally don't do things I find unenjoyable. If I feel the need to have an alcoholic beverage, there are those that don't taste terrible.

I often hear from beer aficionados that they like beer because it gives they can drink a few without getting drunk often on the cheap. There are plenty of cheap drinks that don't taste bad to me, and if I mix a bit of spirit with one of them I can add alcohol if I so wish as well with it still not tasting terrible.


I didn't say "I don't even drink", I said I rarely drink I don't feel the need to unwind with an alcoholic beverage. Alcohol for me doesn't relax me (which is good at times when I think it's needed).

Just because something is complex doesn't mean it's good. In fact in an item very much related to beverages: when it comes to food I greatly prefer simple dishes to complex multi-course dishes from expensive restaurants. I prefer the comfort of a simple attire or a simple suit to a complex seven-piece suit.

Loads of people in the UK swear by 6X. I like my ales, but that stuff tastes and smells like rotten eggs to me. Beers are a vey personal thing. As for Samuel Adams, I know wiki is poor evidence at the best of times, but seriously: "they optimized the recipe with the help of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Owades, the man credited with the invention of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_beer in the 1970s." I might not be hardcoe CAMRA, but that line fills me with dread.

No one drinks things that they think taste bad, and they should avoid things they find gross. Simple as that.
But saying that beer is terrible is inaccurate. Otherwise it wouldn't exist.

My point was... Many people who love beer will say that they hated it at first. They have one and it's gross. Six months later they have another and it's gross. But eventually, if you find the right beer that connects with you, it can open the door to realizing how good all beer can be.
That is almost always the normal pattern, because beer has a strange taste. (especially when there are hundreds of different tastes to find in your first glass)

6000 years of human history proves that beer is good. 6000 years of people developing thousands of varieties proves that it is important to have as many complex tastes as possible. That has nothing to do with one persons individual preference. Beer is very tasty and amazing to almost every culture.... But it's obviously not for everyone (setting the alcohol content aside, as we're just talking about taste and substance.)

I understand why some people have no interest in beer, just as I understand that I think white wine is revolting. But it's just your personal taste. It's not beer's fault!
But like I said, if you have no interest (or limited interest) in drinking beer, then calling beer terrible is kind-of a moot point.

Anyways, I'm just rambling .

“Ah, beer. The cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems.”

I'll do it for you, don't worry - I've got your back. OP, what did you expect, you're drinking American beer!

I never once said that beer is universally terrible. All I said is I find it tastes terrible and its not at all unusual for supertasters to find it tastes terrible. If you like beer good for you and feel free to have mine for me but the reason I originally posted is because morrowind fan thought he was alone in finding beer terrible, which is far from the Truth. The Truth is many find beer terrible, even many who regularly drink beer will tell you they don't find the taste all that good.

Beer = monkey armpit sweat

Just my thoughts, of course...

I never really drink American beer. I'm sure some of it is good, but what's available here in Canada is pretty terrible. My favourite beer currently is Pilsner Urquell lager. Sapporo is also something I'll buy often. Besides that I'll have Gosser, Dab, and Kaiser. I miss Ursus and Csiki Sor which are Romanian and Hungarian beers respectively, brewed in Transylvania, so I suppose I'm nostalgic. Occasionally I can get them here, but it's rare.

I've never seen an (Eastern) European drink his beer warm, and as an (Eastern) European myself, the thought is appalling lol. I've read that Brits drink warm beer, but I also read somewhere else that's a myth. I certainly hope so, for their sake.

Agreed, but it tends to be served chilled, not ice cold. That's good because you often can't properly taste the flavor if it's too cold. Of course, beer being beer, the flavor is always different shades of disgusting, but to each their own.

It's within reason to think that Amercian beer is watery and terrible if Budweiser and Pabst Blue Ribbon are what you are exposed to, I think both are fairly disgusting, bud Light is drinkable, but so is water lol.

I honestly love going around and trying local beers in the states. Had this one Stout called the Stone Boat. It was near Copper Harbor in Michigan. Deliciously bitter.

I think that may be it. In fact in pretty certain of it. Thank you!

To be fair, I've never witnessed it myself but have been told that Europeans drink their beer warm. If they don't then my next visit to Europe will be better than I thought. Last time I went I was 16.

Hahaha, what? Where did you hear that? Speaking as a citizen of the country known as arguably the primary beer country in the entire world, and at the heart of Europe, I can tell you "Europeans" (you do know we have different nationalities, right?) drink their beer chilled. As in, from the refrigerator. The only nation that still serves "warm" (i.e. room temperature) beer is the UK, and if I remember correctly, even they mostly chill their beer now. I have no idea where you heard that ridiculousness, but it's, well, ridiculous.

What you said would be the same as me saying, "All Americans drink beer luke-warm and flat, out of pitchers".

Okay Mr. Overreaction.

Look at the comment above you.

Serving temperature is largely dependant on flavour source/dominance.

There are basically three sources of flavour in beer: hops, malt, and yeast. They work together to form a (hopefully) cohesive whole, usually with two supporting the other (sometimes by stepping aside and getting out of the way).

Most beers, and especially American ones, tend to avoid yeast flavours, with lagers being especially clean on this front, and ales picking up a little more -how much depends on the style- and a few styles, such as saisons, being unlike either lagers or ales in that their primary flavours are from the yeast, with hops and malt playing second fiddle (track down some Saison Dupont if you're curious).

Malts play a larger role in ales than lagers, though they do play an important part in some of the latter (dopplebocks spring to mind). It is essential for barleywines, porters, stouts, Scotch ales, and milds, among others -- a barleywine without a huge body and a big malt hit simply would not be a barleywine. There is a wide variety that one can add to a beer, offering anything from a nearly tasteless pilsner malt to the flavourful Maris Otter, with specialty malts supplementing them with the sweetness of crystal malts, the, err, roastiness of roast malts, and more. British beers are generally on the malty side of the spectrum.

Hops provide bitterness (and act as a preservative), but can also give spicy, flowery, or fruity tastes, depending on the variety and brewing techniques (for a given quantity of hops, there's a tradeoff between bitterness and flavour, with the only way to get lots of both being the use of lots and lots of hops, which can be expensive). Lagers tend to get a lot of their flavour from hops, and some ales, such as India pale ale (originally made to be shipped to India, highly hopped to help it last the long journey), are also hop-dominant. American breweries, including microbreweries, are mostly quite hop-focused, with their takes on styles being noticeably more bitter than their European counterparts.

Now for the actual point of this post: The lower the temperature, the less you taste the malt, and the more the hops comes to the fore (although after a point you start to dull the entire taste). Colder beers can also be more refreshing -- if they're designed for it. A barleywine will be served relatively warm (ten degrees is a ballpark number; its comparable to port wine) so that you can get a full bite of the complex maltiness and to suit the freezing winters night, while a pilsner will be served relatively cool (four degrees or so) to bring out the hops and be perfect for that sweaty summer day, and crud like Corona will be taken down as low as possible so that you don't realise what you're putting in your mouth. This is why there is some difference in average serving temperatures between your continents, but there are so many varieties of beer that stating 'English beer is warm' or 'American beer is freezing cold' is like generalising the serving temperature of food -- from soup to icecream.

I find correcting utterly unfounded misinformation hardly an overreaction.

Correcting it wasn't the overreacrion. The way you condescended in the middle of it was. Thanks.

Forgive my ignorance, but I was actually told the information by Europeans when I visited Europe. I couldn't drink at the time, so I didn't really have anything else to go on. In hindsight, they were probably just messing with me or exaggerating. I'd lean towards the former considering I was a 16 year old Amercian boy and the people I spent time around on that trip were predominantly in the late twenties to early forties range. If European countries are anything like America, that means the young boy (eg. me at the time) is amusing the older men unwittingly and at his own expense btw. I was told that in Britain, and it was mentioned in France, Italy and Austria from different groups of people. Is it customary to tell Americans you like warm beer to mess with them? I could have just misunderstood. Some of the communications were a bit broken as my German, Italian and French are really bad and other than the Brits, their English was pretty bad as well.

The thing is we're not used to being clumped together as a unified homogeneous group, no matter what the EU parliament says.

I mean, how can you put (for instance) Swedes and Italians in the same basket? They're not even in the same produce department. The Italians would be in the pasta isle hording all the tomato sauce and the Swedes would be all the way across the parking lot in a flat pack furniture store with a name that sounds like "I'll-kill-ya" or something.

Ya gotta differentiate buddy.

Funnily enough, in any of those countries you could have bought some and found out for yourself.

You answered your own question.

They have many many different styles, most distributors have at least 3-4 always on stock, plus the seasonals and any specials.

Just depends on your taste for beer. Their Boston Lager is their flagship brew because it's a basic American lager that compares well with the other big lagers out there (Bud, Miller, Yuengling). The difference between them and the other big guys is that they have a huge variety of beer, several of them globally recognized and award winning.