The More You Know...(Contains Important Beer Info)

This is what my neighborhood bar in DC does. The owner was explaining this to one of the customers who wanted to set up his own tap for Guinness at home, and even gave the guy the name of his supplier.

Duffy's in DC is awesome.

 

I don't know about keg lines harboring worms, but a couple summers back I was working as a barback at a local watering hole and once a month we would disconnect the tap system and blow CO2 through the lines. I've been in and out of bars and restaurants since I was old enough to work and the shit that came out of those lines was some of the foulest smelling shit I've ever encountered. Like a decomposing body clothed in soiled diapers. It came out in slimey sections of about 12 inches and had a pale pink hue to it. I was told it was just partially fermented yeast that accumulated. Still hasn't stopped me from enjoying a nice, cold pint though.

 

In short, yes, it is that good. But I think it's also more widely-palatable, which pushes its popularity that extra mile, or to borrow a phrase by someone smarter than me, makes it reach it's "tipping point."

I can rant and rave all night long about Langunitas' IPA, but most people won't give two shits because they can't stand IPAs. Stone's smoked porter, another example, but half the population (and most of them stereotypically Americans) won't listen because they "don't like dark beer."

But Fat Tire (actually, basically anything by New Belgium) tastes fantastic to 95% of those who enjoy other "regular" beers (e.g. non-light). So everyone talks about it. Hell, I love it, so I talk about it. But that's because basically everyone else can relate to my enjoyment of it; they don't give two shits about what else I enjoy, sometimes more than it.

As for other non-shitty macrobrews, here's an excerpt of mine from a PM conversation with another poster:

 

Like one of the posters above said, different countries (and different companies) measure the alcohol in their beers using different methods. You can measure the alcohol percent by weight, or by volume. Because alcohol isn't the same density as the rest of the beer, the two percentages aren't the same. Also, because different styles of beer have different densities, if the alcohol is given as percent alcohol by weight (%ABW) you could have a beer with a lower specific gravity that is 4%, and a beer with a higher specific gravity that is a 4%, and the beer with the higher specific gravity will have more alcohol in it, even though the %abw is the same. In the US, I'm pretty sure that all alcohol percentages are measured as percent by volume by law.

In traditional brewing, different style beers have different amounts of alcohol because they have different recipes. Some contain more sugar (contained in the grains, or malt used) to begin with, which is what the yeast turns into alcohol. Different beers also use different types of yeast, which all have different "efficiencies" when it comes to turning that sugar into alcohol. They produce other compounds from that sugar, which help to give different beer styles their different flavors. Brewers that don't limit themselves to strict traditional brewing practices can add extra alcohol to the beer right before it's bottled, just to give more alcohol without changing the flavor too much, or can use other methods to decrease the amount of alcohol in the beer, either to appease states like Oklahoma that limit beer to 3.2% unless you buy it at a liquor store, or can take it all the way to the point of producing "non-alcoholic" beers (which still do have a little alcohol in them).



Oh, and Bloochies, that slime that you blew out of the lines wasn't yeast. It's a layer of bacteria, similar to the bacteria that grows in the gravel of an aquarium. It lives off of the un-fermented sugars and other compounds in the beer, and produces waste which is probably toxic to people. That's why it's recommended that tap lines be refrigerated, to slow the growth of those bacteria. Like the original poster said, using compressed air to pressurize the system makes it even worse, because it introduces new bacteria, plus provides additional oxygen (it dissolves into the beer) that allows them to grow even faster. If you were blowing out the amount of bacteria you claim, it's because blowing the lines out with CO2 doesn't do a very good job of removing all the bacteria, the lines were too warm, and they weren't being cleaned often enough. The reason it smelled so bad? The waste from the bacteria is foul. It's the same kind of bacteria that breaks down other foods, which is why rotten food smells so bad. You wouldn't drink beer that's been poured over rotten fruit, would you? Then why would you drink beer that's been run through lines coated in that stuff?

I only drink tap beer from bars I'm familiar with, where the lines are refrigerated, and ideally as short as possible. My favorite places are the ones back home where the kegs sit in a cooler directly under the tap head.

 

Can someone explain to me exactly why my beloved IPA's make my headache way worse in the morning? Obviously a lot of IPA's have a higher alcohol content than your average domestic, as well as more hops. But what about the hops/sweet sweet awesome IPA flavor makes me feel sick?

 

It could be as simple as one of the components specific to IPAs (malt, yeast, or hops) contains or produces in the beer a compound that your body reacts to. Does it happen with all different IPAs, just certain ones, any other beers, any other liquors, etc? If it was just the higher alcohol content, you'd have the same problem if you took a shot of liquor while you're drinking.

 

Obviously the winters in the Great White North have frostbitten your tastebuds. To complain about how light American beers are and then list Rolling Rock and MGD as your favorites is just sheer nonsense. You do know that those beers are among the lightest brewed here, don't you? And to lump Sammy Adams in with Michelob is just . . . . let's just say that it's like lumping MadDog 20/20 in with Opus One, and a McDonalds hamburger with filet mignon. Do you know that Sammy makes more than a dozen varieties? I fully accept that everyone's tastes are different, but your post is just tomfoolery.

Educate your Molson-swilling palate. Drink deeply of beer from Alaskan Brewing Company, Stone, Dogfish Head, River Horse, or Red Hook, then talk to us about our beer.

 

HOW DARE YOU attack my nature by saying I drink Molson, dear sir. I use that cheaply brewed shit to gargle (and did you know it's owned by Coors now?). I've tried at least half a dozen Sam Adams and they all suck. Like I said:

OPINION. NOTHING ELSE

I was afraid my comments were going to cause a pink panty meltdown, and I was right. Look, I haven't tried any of those beer you mentioned, including this Fat Tire beer you people keep yammering on about like it's tasting blood from the Holy Grail. Next time I'm in the States, a country which I do not live in or visit more than once every 2 months, I'll be sure to try some if I'm near a bar at some point. In the meantime, promise next time you're up here try Mill Street Stock Ale, Sleeman's, Alexander Keith's or Moosehead (I KNOW it's foamy, but it's good). There is more to us than Molson and Labbatt (Labatt I will not badmouth).

 

Trying to cut calories by drinking MDG Light 64 calorie, or Budweiser Select 55 calorie?

Don't bother, as you'll have to drink a truckload to get drunk. ABV on these watery creations are 2.8% and 2.4% respectively.

 

I'm amazed at the amount of people that will be tricked into buying these beers, or Molson 67 up here in Canada. They don't realize that alcohol itself is caloric. I've heard people say that vodka or white rum and Coke Zero has no calories, since the lighter the alcohol, the lesser the calorie count.

I'm sure most of you here realize this, but this is the breakdown of the amount of kcals in each macronutrient:

Fat - 9 kcal/g
Carbohydrates - 4 kcal/g
Protein - 4 kcal/g
Alcohol - 7 kcal/g

See that? Besides fat, alcohol is the most calorie-dense food component that we consume. So I'm sure you can cut out some calories out of beer by using different ingredients, but the only way to really cut out calories is to cut out the alcohol itself.

 

I look at low carb beer the same way I look at vegetarians: Why?

Honestly I thought the campaign for Michelob Ultra was an April Fool's joke, it had to be to make me laugh that hard. They can't be serious with that shit, could they? Showing Sears undies models on their billboard ads as if this shit is going to rip you up like Ryan Reynolds? Fuck off.

 

There's a reason that the MGD 64 six pack containers are colored/printed the way that they are. They have to put something that looks like beer behind the bottles, so that when you see the six pack sitting on the shelf you think it actually looks like beer. Pull one of those bottles out and hold it up to a light, and it looks like a well-hydrated person peed in the bottle. The shit's almost clear.

 

A kcal is a calorie, as far as food goes. You see that [insert shitty Burger King sandwich] with 1500 calories in it? If you put that POS in a calorimeter, you'll find it contains 1500 kcal of energy. So it does contain 1,500,000 calories in the true scientific sense of the term. But as far as diet goes, we just consider it 1500 calories. It's just a nomenclature thing. Calorie just rolls off the tongue easier than kilocalorie.

 

Capital 'C' Calorie = one thousand calories

 

Speaking of good beers, if you can get your hands on some in the US, try pretty much anything produced by the Wychwood Brewery.

Hobgoblin is a delicious beer, and Wychcraft is nice if you prefer pale ale (like me)

 

I like "good" beers but to get drunk and stupid there is only one beer for me. 5.5% and terrific when served cold, Molson Dry.

 

I asked google if it was possible to find Fat Tire in Australia. This was the first review:

Spoiler

Fat Tire beer is hands down my favorite beer. It is an amber ale from the New Belgium Brewing Company.

I usually drink it out of the bottle, so I'm not entirely sure how to describe the color. I think it is a dark golden color.

It has the perfect amount of beer taste to it. I'm not a fan of those lighter beers without much beer flavor, nor am I a fan of really "beery" beers, so that is why Fat Tire is my favorite.

It has an alcohol percentage of 5% abv, so it isn't too strong and won't leave you with too bad of a hangover.

I realize this is a silly reason to like a beer, but I really like the label and the name! The price is right, too. Fat Tire is a popular beer, so you can find it almost anywhere you go.

My first Fat Tire experience is a good one. A friend and I were studying for a chemistry test and decided a six pack of beer would help make it a more enjoyable experience, so we got us some Fat Tire. We didn't end up doing much studying, but nobody cared much!

Yeah. Now, I'm not going to knock it till I try it (which I will attempt to do on my way home from work), but my preliminary hypothesis is that Americans don't know shit about beer.