My Beer Manifesto

[PaulO]

There seem to be more brands of beer available than ever.  That in itself should be a good thing.  The devil is in the details.  Not all choices are good.

  Any store nowadays has all kinds of odd ball flavored beers.  (I'm not talking about the traditional Belgian styles.)  I feel the same way about flavored beers as I do about flavored whiskey.  If the unadulterated base product was any good, would they need to add all the flavoring junk?  Maybe people that don't like the taste of beer shouldn't be drinking beer.

  We have a proliferation of "IPAs".  A real IPA must have extra hops and a higher alcohol content than a regular pale ale.  If it's not 6%+, maybe just call it a PA, and drop all the qualifier words from the label. 

  Then we have smaller breweries charging $10 a six pack (or even a four pack) for a clone of average mass produced beer.  People say "they're great guys" or "it's local".  How about say this is exceptional beer?  Maybe then I'll get out my wallet.

  I don't know if this all goes back to Charlie Papazian's home brew books.  What's with all the dumb names?  The name of the brewery and style should be enough.

  The art work on cans and bottles is as bad or worse.  If it's not referencing the occult; it looks like some one had one bong hit too many, or is just plain vulgar. 

  I'm not a beer snob, but things have gotten rather ridiculous.

[firerat]

That's why I make my own.

[PaulO]

I've done that before too.  Everything I made was 100% barley malt (except for wheat beer).  It always turned out great.  With different varieties of malts, hops, and yeasts; all kinds of different flavors can be created.