Beer chauvinism!

No doubt there are many decent US beers, some in a vaguely Trappist style—and I confess to being very impressed by Goose Island’s “Marguerite” on a recent trip to Chicago—but I’m not convinced you guys are really at the races.

You’d be quite wrong there. There are American brewers (including Ommegang, which is actually owned by the Belgian proprietors of Duvel) which produce absolutely first-rate, authentic ales in a variety of classic Belgian styles anywhere from saisons to quadrupels.

P.S. Duvel isn’t a lager.

Actually I will stick up for Brains, albeit that I would certainly rather argue for it than drink it. It’s an aquired taste like Young’s (I can’t remember if it was me or Alex that noticed that every Northener in London can recall first going into a pub after arriving and going “but this is horrible!!”. You can’t call yourself a local until you like it).

I’d say that’s comparable to what’s at my local Kroger (and I’m in VA, which has notoriously poor distribution).

I’m not sure that a bar within 15 min walk is quite fair, as in many places in America there are no bars within a 15 minute walk. But I will say that good beer in bars is far more available, and cheaper, than it was 10 years ago.

You’ll get a decent variety at most grocery stores in the states. But there will be a handful of places within easy reach where you’ll get an enormous supply – and if you care about getting unusual beers that’s what actually matters.

This is part of a general broadening of food choices in the US. Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have had any decent variety in coffee, beer, or cheese outside of a couple of stores in the largest cities in the country. (New York, Chicago, and LA have always had a few places catering to gourmets.) Now numerous choices are widespread – it’s most recent for cheese. You could probably add chocolate to the list too. Forty years ago ethnic restaurants other than Chinese, Mexican, and pizza joints would have been uncommon – and the ones you found would not be very good.

That’s one area, at least, where now is a lot better than the past.

German beers definitely do. There’s a whole load of them that basically don’t travel.

In related news, bars with 100 types of beer are invariably shit. “We have dozens and dozens of beers to choose from” means “come and taste our two dozen stale, poorly kept beers, while looking at a rack of lots of bottles”.

Actually, bottle-conditioned ales (such as most Belgians) often improve with age much as wines do. So there should be no question of their being “stale”.

The US is too thinly spread to be the best place for beer: for the most part, you can’t walk home from the pub.

Now that’s a REAL problem. The idea of a bar that can only be reached by driving there and back is pretty insane on its face, but that’s the reality here outside the densest urban areas thanks to the piss-poor public transportation in most of the country.

In related news, bars with 100 types of beer are invariably shit

Mmm, my visit to the pub next to Sheffield station last Wednesday would argue otherwise, though if you found a more flexible adjective than “invariably” I wouldn’t differ.

I always found Brains perfectly likeable, as it goes.

It’s a little strange to talk about how many bars there are within walking distance in “the” US. Conditions on the Coasts will obviously vary enormously from the middle of the country, but there are also big differences based on just which town or neighborhood you are in and where people’s ancestors came from. Some neighborhoods and towns in the Cincinnati area have lots of descendants of Germans, and there are all kinds of bars with great beer selection. Other neighborhoods have nothing. I live in a little town in New Jersey with 0 bars, but my hometown in Ohio has about twenty bars, all with at least a few excellent beers on tap, and some of the bars have an amazing selection. Still, it might be better to generalize about regions in the US rather than the country as a whole. You might say that the Northeast US does well in the category of bars within a 15 minute walk, while the plains states will do poorly.

Availability of good beer in a supermarket in the US is too variable to comment on. You can’t buy beer at all in a supermarket in Pennsylvania, for example, but (if you want anything but a case) must go to a pizza restaurant or a “deli” (that is really a small beer store made to look like it sells food.) Some of those have selections better than that pictured above, though. In many parts of the US I’ve been to the beer selection is large but not that great- all the bad beer you could want. But, there are several supermarkets in, say, Manhattan that have excellent selections, as good or better than that pictured. I don’t know if any generalizations will be worth while, though.

Ommegang beer is excellent, and the people at the brewery are very nice, too. It’s worth a visit, though it’s pretty out of the way.

I was a big fan of the British ales I tried while visiting, and it is really hard to get things very much like that in the US. The average central London supermarket seemed worse than the average Philadelphia pizza place, though.

I think the “Availability in Bars” question is harder than you make it out to be.
Yes, there are more “beer deserts” in the US than in other places. But you don’t have to live there. On the other hand, I can get on my bike and get to 5 different bars who brew their own, high quality beer, in 15mins. Since microbrewers in the US, as opposed to many European brewers, usually brew between 6 and 8 different types, I can drink 30-40 different locally beers at brewpubs, all within 15mins from home (no car).
Most of them are quite good, too, some of them outstanding. I would challenge anyone to find something even close to this anywhere in Europe.

dsquared, the festival you deride is the largest craft beer festival in the country, and one of those loaded bottle-bars includes Monk’s, which is one of the most famous and highly regarded bars in the country.

picture me now, twiddling my index fingers in little circles to make the internationally recognised gesture for “whoopty-do”. (this joke orignated by Andrew Northrup).

Sebastian, what state are you in? I would assume, like the broader beer scene in the US, the proximity to brewpubs varies greatly by region. I do know that some states, like NJ, have liquor laws that make it fairly difficult for brewpubs to flourish.

American brewing has vasty improved. I don’t care whether it’s better than some other country or not. I care that nowadays I can find a wide variety of excellent beer at the store.

Do you buy Chimay bleu in a bouteille brune, or should that have been ‘blue’?

even Dsquared isn’t going to stick up for Brains or Double Dragon

Double Dragon is wonderful. It’s not quite up to the bitter brewed by the late lamented Buckley’s – or the very much alive Conwy – and the bottled stuff doesn’t keep its condition too well, but the taste is something else. (Very literally something else if what you’re used to is pale and light, or for that matter pale and aggressively hoppy.)

I don’t think it’s particularly useful to compare the US with Britain, let alone Belgium; the whole approach is different. Here in Manchester, in the mid-80s, a guy called Brendan Dobbin ran the West Coast Brewery. The real ale brewers I’d known up to then tended to emphasise tradition and continuity: if they brewed an old ale or a porter, alongside their range of different bitters, it was generally because they’d always brewed old ale or porter, or (at the more ambitious fringe) because they’d dug out an old recipe from the company archive. Brendan started from scratch and took a completely different approach: he brewed whatever style he felt like brewing, from a Guinness-alike stout (called Guiltless) to a ‘Chinese pale ale’ with a strong resemblance to Tsingtao. (Then, a week or two later, he brewed something else.) It seems to me that one big difference (not the only one) between British ‘real ale’ and the American craft beer scene is that the Dobbin approach is absolutely normal over there; it’s a lot more widespread among British brewers now than it was 25 years ago, but I think the majority still keep one eye on traditional approaches.

dsquared: ‘(I can’t remember if it was me or Alex that noticed that every Northener in London can recall first going into a pub after arriving and going “but this is horrible!!”. You can’t call yourself a local until you like it).’

Not me, I can’t remember the first pint of real ale I had in London but I’m sure I liked it. Though when I started drinking I didn’t really like bitter and the real ale was only revival was just starting so I stuck mainly to generic lagers. So by the time I had a pint in London I would have just appreciated that it was something a bit different and I never really had an idea of what a typical northern beer should be like. Also I agree with my Granddad’s reported view on beer ‘beers are like women; there’s none bad but some are better than others.’

that’s what I love about American craft beer bores, their sense of humour. You can tell they’re having fun, fun, fun down at the brew-pub, and that the only reason their lips are puckered up like cat’s arses is because of the horrific bitterness of the swill they drink.

Lovers of stout probably should avoid Dublin, as it happens. Much more interesting stouts are to be found in British beer festivals, and occasionally even pubs.

Around 1982, when I was about 10, I went with my primary school on a schooltrip to visit the Hoegaerden Brewery (which was then still family owned). THAT’s how you instill brewpatriotism in your schoolkids!

I never drink beer. I think it doesn’t taste nice. If one can choose between wine or beer, why would one consider beer? I guess this disqualifies me for Belgian citizenship…

The “beer festival” in Munich would be more accurately described as the “hot waitresses in peasant dresses making out with amusement park rides” festival. Beer serves roughly the same role there as it does at Mardi Gras.

You can find more “interesting” sparkling wines than Krug in all sorts of places, but nonetheless you don’t find many people from Epernay taking the cellar tour of cava producers.

No doubt, but it is also no doubt true that you never hear people saying “we must go down the Dog and Pheasant, they’ve got Guinness on”.

Yes, those terrible fools in Munich, what do they know about beer? All that enjoyment, and singing and (ugh!!) drunkenness! What does that have to do with beer? If they had any sense, they would be sitting down with a notebook, and seven 330ml bottles of the same sweet, over-hopped “IPA”, with seven different puns on the labels, saying to each other “gosh we know a lot about beer, we drink a different kind every night”. And no smiling, please. This is Art.

All of which goes to show that the biggest beer event in the world is the Super Bowl. I mean all those happy drunk people celebrating! Truly a tribute to beer and nothing else!

#45 But if you subsititute for the Dog & Pheasant “the country of Ireland”, yes they do, as anyone at the tourist board there will tell you. For what it’s worth, I’ve taken a five hour train ride once, basically to drink Robinsons Bitter – I’ve also hopped the ferry several times to drink Guinness in Dublin when I lived in North Wales. I increasingly am prepared to argue that the measure of a country should.not be what you can find on your doorstep, but how much trouble you are prepared to go to get that country’s beer.

Bevmo does not actually sell much “more” than beverages; it isn’t the kind of store only a devotee would know about, but it’s not a “supermarket” as that is ordinarily understood.

Waitrose is a pretty bad example of a typical British grocery store. You won’t find nearly the same selection at your local Tesco, Morrison’s or even a nicer Sainsburys. In contrast, chains such as Safeway and Kroger in the US typically have a fairly strong selection of local microbrews (and good macros depending on the state) beyond the bud/miller type options.

Non-beer related, but where the UK really has a leg up is in the cider department. A good scrumpy cider from Somerset or Devon is a very special beverage.

No come on “Guinness tastes better in Ireland” is practically the national slogan (or at least it was until replaced by “our financial services industry is the envy of all Europe)

Which was scarecely more inaccurate, though more dangerous to the public health.

Whoah, double vision.

Who says we’re not trolling him?

I’m not saying that watching hot waitresses making out is not a higher calling for the connoisseur. I’ve spent more time in London in pubs than I have in the National Gallery, which I think is an objectively utility-maximizing position, but that doesn’t mean I can now claim to be an expert on art.

If your theory is right that the fellows in Irish pubs putting away the Guiness don’t like beer, I have to say they’re not doing a very good job of avoiding it.

Nor the lager drinkers on any British High Street on any given Saturday night, but there you go.

Watching DD yanking the chains of the colonials is certainly a hoot.

Mind you, the guy admits that his favorite beer is Bud. That’s sort of like a wine expert proudly announcing that Mad Dog is, in sober fact, the Wine of the Century. Although we all can agree that Boone’s Farm “gets the job done.”

The best beer is a free beer. The next best beer is a cold beer. After that it’s all subjective.

Yes the Doric Arch is still going and it’s pretty good.

I never said that Budweiser was my favourite beer, by the way. I said (as did the head brewer at Orval when interviewed by the New Yorker, but what does he know, he probably doesn’t make more than six styles of beer) that it’s a good beer. The closest I ever came was saying that it’s the ideal beer to drink with breakfast.

A philosopher friend of mine was at a conference in Germany talking with the organiser. He was asked to which temperature one should heat ones beer to make authentic English Ale. He thought it was a recipe rather than an insult.

Yeah, the Doric. It was closed last time I tried to go there, for whatever reason. Glad it’s still open.

I don’t like fizzy beers, which a lot of brewpubs around Boston, though not all, seem to specialize in. They also tried to make their cider, when English-style cider was fashionable for a while, too beer-like (dry and very fizzy). Don’t know anything about hops but what’s wrong with an IPA? Generally ales are better, I think, and not all that easy to find around here.

Gosh, you’ve set off quite the deabte, Chris.

I feel the need to point out that your local supermarket does serve a particular demographic – as befits the area it’s in (in the same postcode/zip code area as me for anyone thinking I’m being mean). Also, you’re right that from your doorstep (and from mine) we’re almost embarrassed by the number of half-decent pubs with good, if not stunningly interesting beer.
However, were you to head in a southerly direction you’d find it much harder to find a really good pub….and I don’t know but I bet the main supermarket there will have a much more modest “real ale” selection. My guess would be that bottled real ale, given its price tag might be more attractive to more affluent folk and therefore make its appearance in supermarkets there.

I’m with you that “better” isn’t a very helpful term. Me? I favour lightish, very hoppy ‘real ales’ – served without a tight-head sparkler for preference. But in order to allay my assertion that I don’t like Belgian beers I was taken on a beer-drinking weekend in Brussels…where my mind was completely changed.
The trick was that my guide (and regular drinking partner) knew what sorts of beers I usually enjoy; knows and remembers the styles and tastes of a dazzling variety of beers and could marry this knowledge in order to recommend beers for me – but not just beer that is similar to my usual types of choice but those that pushed at the edges of my taste, and eased me into whole new styles.
Mind you, I’m not sure I could ever get used to gueuze, thanks.
We’re all tempted to say that our favourite thing is the best (in beer, in football teams, chocolate bar taste and author) but what we mean is that it’s the best thing to our taste.

Can our taste change? Yes, definitely. Should it change? Not necessarily, and fan loyalty is nice but it’s not everything.

I notice that no one mentioned the vertical integration of distribution that occurs in the US, more than in other countries in the world. For example Anheuser-Busch InBev is the largest brewing company in the world, and controls more than 60% of all beer distribution in the US (indeed Cindy McCain is CEO of one of the largest distributors in the US). Thusly, most of those crafted and micro brewed beverages, that make their way to retail outlets, are carried by A-B InBev companies. In my neck of the woods, it is Odom Corporation that covers the distribution of the vast majortiy of fine and poor beers, though they interestingly do not distribute any A-B InBev products (that is controlled by King Beverages).
http://www.odomcorp.com/store/category/beer-/page-all

Duvel isn’t a lager.

Hmm:

as the Duvel website makes clear, the brewery uses top-fermenting yeast all right, but at a fermentation temperature of up to 26C/79F, rather higher than British ale brewers would like, and then they lager it for 90 days at -2C. Which is not what anybody did with any ale, ever.

I’m never likely to adapt to Fuller’s or Young’s; my memory of Brains Dark was blurred by being part of a blurry night in Cardiff. I did discover my Moon Under Water in Edinburgh, with three kegs and two casks: Deuchars IPA and Tim Taylor’s Landlord. That’ll do me.

“There was a corner store near where I lived in SF that had a beer selection to rival Chris’s pictures, and an exceptionally good bar (and there were others with less wide-ranging but quite respectable options as well). Sadly I am now far removed from such things.”

I used to live two blocks from the Toronado from 1991 to 2003. I never went there because beer is beer. When did they invent beer snobbery?

I used to live two blocks from the Toronado from 1991 to 2003. I never went there because beer is beer.

I don’t follow. They have beer there, and beer is beer, so you could have gotten beer there.

When did they invent beer snobbery?

Time once again to link to this denunciation of the excesses of the ‘craft beer’ crowd (but also this clarification and this plea for mercy).

Oh, and I’ve found that definition.

When I lived within smelling distance of the Brains brewery, I believed the best beers were brewed on water from the Trent. Currently, I live in Yorkshire, and I’m spoilt for choice – within that 10-15 minute walking distance there are 3 bars serving a mix of micro-brewery real ales (3 of the draft beers being within 5 miles) and imported Belgian and German beers (including 3 varieties of Kölsch, as well as draft Weisßeir).

On the other hand, within 10-15 minutes, I could also find places that only sell Fosters / Tetleys / etc. I suspect the choice is more the product of a large urban population.

And I would be hard pressed to say where I’ve enjoyed drinking beer the most – Britain, Belgium, Germany and Czechosolvakia all have their merits, especially through a glass of beer. I can only recommend further study . . .

I met, and liked, Young’s Special long before I knew Daniel Davies.

Also, my dad was given a sparkler as a gift to carry around in his briefcase.

In the very early seventies, Strohs used to be brewed in Detroit, downriver from any number of automobile plants. (We’d hoist our glasses and say, “It’s the water!”) When I saw Buddy Guy in a club for the first time (I think it was the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor), Strohs was the best beer in the world. I don’t think anything has ever matched it.

Well, okay, Big Rock Traditional Ale, but that must be drunk outdoors in the Canadian Rockies.

The three best beers I have ever had were from Canada, Germany and Scotland, in that order, so I think the US vs Europe question is kinda off.
Top of the list was Molson Special Dry, as it was on import only in ’80s. The stuff they call that name now is pants.
Next up, Furstenburg. I’ve tried other bavarians and wider german stuff but this is still what I most like. That is the same high quality as it ever was, so tradition does sometimes work for good. I can’t stand weissbier.
And third there’s Orkney Dark Island. From a small but not a micro-brewer and made with all the skill and care that gets CAMRA awards.
I’ve always been of the opinion, from tasting many beers, that the ones that are most fizzy, and the ones they insist must be cold are the ones that need your tastebuds shocked into not noticing how bad they are. The favourites I mentioned here can all be drunk at room temperature as they taste good.
Lastly, your remark above about heavy really hurt. Much of anything is ordinary, but even some of the most mass produced stuff is verey good. I’d particularly recommend the MacEwans Export. A brown ale that’s at least as good as the one from Newcastle.

My favourite beers are: Kwak, Okocim Mocne. Forgive my interrupting.

Availability in bars in USA is going to depend, inter alia, on the local laws. If the law requires that food be a significant portion of total sales of a bar, it’s probably going to cut into the beer selection.

Also, the Belgian tag can risk being interpreted as cranking up the ABV. What’s the point of 9 percent ABV? Have a gin and tonic instead.

In re availability in supermarkets, in the US regulation of alcohol sales is a state-by-state matter, and the regulations range from the blessedly hands-off (such as here in California, where any Safeway or Whole Foods will have a beer section easily the equal or better of any of the pictures above) to the stupid (Pennsylvania, where beer may only be sold in state stores, and the buy lists are the same in every store), to the insane (Utah, no comment).

I won’t bother taking a swing at “best”, but I feel like I can make an excellent case for “most underrated”, that being: China. No, not Tsing Tao (which is awful in both export and local varieties), but the hundreds of little breweries all around Shanghai and Nanjing (and I expect many other places) which all turn out quite respectable and tasty lagers that are never seen on the export market. Apparently there was a burgeoning population of expat German brewers hanging around China’s major port cities pre-Mao, and the trade passed on quite happily into the locals’ hands and somehow made it through the cultural revolution mostly unscathed.

Belle le Triste,

I’m going to conjecture, based solely on my vast store of only vaguely relevant knowledge, and without consulting the Google on the least particular, that your riddled year has something to do with Henry VIII marrying Anne of Cleves.

Turkeys are New World, so 1492 is our earliest possible date. Yet beer has been around forever, and must certainly have got to Englland long before 1492 (1492 BCE, at that). I’m going to assume that the solution to that sub-riddle is that beer and hops go together for purposes of the main riddle , and a fermented grain beverage is not “really” beer without hops, according to the thinking behind the riddle.

The heresy thing presents the same difficulty as imagining beer only getting t0 England after 1492. You can’t have orthodoxy without heresy, and vice versa, and surely orthodoxy came to England much before 1492 (again, even before 1492 BCE). This has to be heresy as perceived only by some very narrow and particular idea of what’s orthodox and what’s heretical. Since this sounds like a rhyme taught to children, presumably English children, I would have to guess the take on heresy would be mainstream CofE, rather than, say, Catholic. Henry’s break with the Pope would not, then, be the heresy in question.

You can tie all of it together by imagining that Henry’s marriage to a German princess involved bringing in beer from Germany to cater to her entourage, plus some compromise on a doctrinal point important only to German religious politics of the time, but that later CofE orthodoxy thought heretical.

So, marriage to Anne of Cleves is what ties together turkey, hops, beer and heresy coming to England, QED. I’m not even remotely British, so if I bollixed this horribly, at least I can’t be accused of not paying attention in grade school.

The US is too thinly spread to be the best place for beer: for the most part, you can’t walk home from the pub.

The sensible American chooses his domicile strategically to avoid this problem. I’m within a 1o minute stumble of a half dozen bars with an excellent beer selection. This isn’t by accident.

Plato, Republic, 363c:

“Once [the gods] have transported them [the moral]… to Hades and got them reclining on couches for the party they’ve layed on for the just people, they next have them spending eternity weraring chaplets on their heads and drinking, on the assumption that the best possible reward for goodness is perpetual intoxication.”

I love this thread! We ALL love beer (as defined however…) so much that it’s worth fighting for. As for me, an American who spent alot of time in Europe and came back home (in the eighties) and stated home-brewing, beer is near and dear to my heart, yet I’m no expert.
I love Kolsch and Alt, and Pils…frankly, while I should be able to appreciate Belgians just for the variety, I’ll almost always pass them up for something else (and nearly loathe all fruit beers) and as a country of brewing (which, frankly is meaningless to me. I mean, why impose political or geographic boundaries on somehting far more important), I find it over-rated. Yet there is nothing better, IMHO than being in a nice, cozy british pub and being able to drink a pint of Bitter. Though I absolutely lament the chainification of British pubs. For me, it’s difficult to separate the drink from the environment, and I’d rather have Bud in a Englich country (oldy-worldy) pub, than a Beck’s, or Bass, or a Stella at nearly any par in the US.
But above all, I’m so grateful for the beer revolution (the Great Rebeerth!) over the past 20 years, particularly in the US (because it had the furthest to go), but also in the UK (I spent a year there in 90-91, and while I may be mistaken, it was damn hard to find anything except beers from the largest brewers, and most were very samey).

Just to weigh in from an Asian angle… Japan also has a craft beer indsutry, but in addition to that they also have a bespoke brewing system, which I’ve never heard of anywhere else (but I haven’t asked, so who knows). And here in Kichijoji, where I live, there are 3 supermarkets that sell craft beers from around the world; two Okinawan restaurants selling Hawaiian beer; two or three specialist shops that sell a selection from around the world; about 3 Irish pubs and 2 British pubs serving their own choices (though the Irish pubs tend to head for the whiskey angle more than the ale); and a couple of devoted beer bars. There’s also the famous Bloomoon Cafe that serves a couple of local and foreign beers, as well as a wide range of unique cocktails at prices that would make Londoners weep sadly into their cups.

There’s an excellent foreign-beer shop near the love hotels in Shinjuku as well, in case you’re ever looking to pair your shag with a decent ale.

And from the PoV of someone who lived in Britain … ale is one of the few things that Britain does really really well. And the above-mentioned supermarkets carry an excellent selection, as does every market worth its salt, every rural pub, and a great many of the small corner stores. The British High Street may be groaning under the weight of the same 4 stores in every town from Penzance to Newcastle, but such homogenization has definitely not reached the ale industry. Even the chain pubs do a decent range, considering what they are.

Actually, at the risk of being trollish, I’m going to suggest that a proper history of the British pub would show that it was the chain pubs that rescued real ale…

“When did they invent beer snobbery?”

The question is “where” not when. It’s England, of course. The English have an ‘arguing-about-beer’ culture. They enjoy debating beer, and it’s hilarious, but it’s not really about beer. How could it be?

At the risk of being even handed, both the US and the UK have their advantages for the beer lover. The UK has reliably good beer everywhere, which is far more than can be said for the US (the yanks even have “dry” counties in some of the more godforsaken/god bothering regions and you can’t get worse than that!). The UK also has depth of tradition in their beer culture and the associated benefit of having the cosiest drinking venues.

However, if I were able to teleport to anywhere in the world for a night of drinking beer, it would be the Pacific North West, specifically the Eastside Tavern, Olympia, WA. There are bigger, fancier PNW watering holes in Seattle and Portland, but the Eastside’s 20 or so beer taps provide plenty of variety without the wanky atmosphere of places like The Taphouse in Seattle. There’s a fine selection of PNW microbrews and a good few beers from the rest of the world. Drinking in the PNW beats anywhere in the UK on price, which is quite an important advantage. It’s four dollars a pint at the Eastside. With exchange rates as they are, an Australian like me feels like he’s being paid to drink their excellent beer. Also, it’s a fun crowd – yanks are welcoming towards Australian strangers, whereas the pommes tend to be as icy as their beer is not and there’s always the danger of being glassed as the evening wears on. Beer is available everywhere in the State of Washington – supermarkets (whole aisles of ales, ridiculously cheap), cafes, even petrol stations. I’ve seen individual beers in an ice bin next to the cash register of a petrol station, just in case you fancied one for the road!

Dsquared makes the analogy between beer and wine to show the disjunct between variety and quality. I think the analogy works in another sense – wine is bound up with tradition in the Old World. The appellation system of France, along with hallowed traditions that guide the production process, produce classic, wonderful wines that are a little…unsurprising. New World wine makers have an exuberance and a willingness to experiment with unusual growing conditions and production techniques that leads to fresh and exciting styles of wine (along with a lot of undrinkable rubbish). I think a similar Old vs. New dynamic carries over into beer making.

I just want to pop up to defend Jackie Brown against ejh, and yes I damn well do like Tarantino

I like Jackie Brown too, but it’s no Pulp Fiction. Similarly, I’ve very often drunk Guinness in pubs where there’s not a decent beer on.

I live in California, where I think we enjoy a pretty good selection of beers. I must admit that the UK has the advantage in terms of being able to walk to the pub. The closest pub that I could walk to and enjoy a good selection of draft beers would be about a half hour walk from here. Of course it is only a few minutes by car. But that is due to historical settlement patterns more than anything else, I think. On the other hand, I can get a pretty good selection of beers to take home from all over the world at BevMo, Trader Joe’s or even Safeway.

I have travelled up and down the West Coast frequently over the past few decades, and the availability of good beer has never been a problem. California, Oregon and Washington all are well-stocked with quality micro-breweries.

In the past couple of years I have been obliged for family reasons to start driving cross-country, and I have been rather impressed with the changes in the middle part of the continent as far as beer is concerned, since I lived there some time ago.

It may be a chain, but Old Chicago (http://www.oldchicago.com/) has brought a wide beer selection into some pretty remote places.

And it seems that even in relatively small towns there may be that one bar with a good draft selection, or failing that at least a liquor store with some microbrews for sale. Last year we ended up one night in a motel at a truckstop in Nebraska–it didn’t even seem to be located in a town, just somewhere out on the interstate. I went in to the convenience store that was attached to the truckstop, and there was a choice of four or five different bottled microbrews. OK, that is not much compared to what is available some other places, but it is better than nothing.

The majority of Americans may still be drinking Coors and Budweiser, but the concept of good beer has pervaded the heartland to the extent that I think a visitor should be able to find something reasonable wherever you go.

@dsquared, re comment 54. I live near the same Waitrose, and I can tell you that the cereal actually section is about the same size as the beer section. Which, given how much more shelf space a bottle takes than a cereal box, is pretty damn impressive for a small local shop. It even stocks my own personal favourite, Bluebird bitter http://www.conistonbrewery.com/coniston-ales.htm

Only in Crooked Timber will the left-wing elitists flame each other over the quality and quantity of beer.

Egads. It’s time to drive to the local supermarket for another 12-pack of Stroh’s.

On availability, the US also has, at least in my home state of OH (not, alas, in my current residence), drive-through liquor stores, some of which have a decent selection of good beers. For the uninitiated, these stores look more like drive-through car-washes than like drive-through restaurants. It makes the beer run quite convenient. As for how large an increase in drunk driving this convenience is worth, that is certainly up for debate.

I’ll concede that a good bitter may not exist outside of the occasional brewpub, and certainly is hard to find in bottled form, but I did have a good one three last night at a brewpub. It is part of their regular rotation, so it’s available something like fifty per cent of the times I go in there.

Short list:
@Tim #126: A lot of the brewers in The States have chosen Cold Filtering over Pasteurisation.
@Jonth #129: Waitrose is great for specialty foods, especially prepared dishes, but their selection of everything else is sparse. The Sainsbury down the street from my local Waitrose always had a better selection of beers. And I once. tried a Bluebird when I couldn’t get a Bombardier. Once.
@josh #124: Beer is available in almost every supermarket in CT & RI, so your point about New England liquor laws is a bit off the mark (or is this an example of a classic ‘Masshole” comment? They think “New England” is about 50 miles tall and 150 miles wide). Many corner Package stores in Mass and Connecticut have a great range of beers to choose from. The ‘puritan” laws create a market that rewards and protects eclectic inventories. Amstel Light is an “exotic” at the Stop & Shop.

“But as far as pubs/bars go, I think the main difference is in the default situation. Walk into a random bar in the US and you’re likely to get Budweiser and Miller, and maybe something like Heineken thrown in for the fancy-pants customers. ”

I dunno – maybe if that random bar is in Missouri, but all over the West Coast, most of the North East, the Northern Midwest States (IL, WI, MI) and obviously in Colorado that’s simply not the case (anymore, I figure). All bars I’ve been to had at least some local microbrew.

Bert: For ESB, Farmington River Mahogany is one I like. Since you’re here in CT, you should be able to find that no problem. Maybe more to your taste than Fullers?

Willibrew is one of those places I’m glad is around and I occasionally go there, but their beer is often beyond me. It’s hit ‘n miss. I get growlers there sometimes.

As Doctor Memory pointed out, the availability of varieties of beers is a function of the state laws on alcohol. I’m reminded of when I used to live in Florida, the allowable sizes of beer bottles that were legal to sell (7 and 12 ounce at that time) were driven by the large US distributors. This meant that many microbrews could not be sold nor shipped to FL. In addition, imports in metric bottles were also forbidden.

As for my contribution to the “what beer is good” list, I like Denver Pale Ale. A local (for me) brew.

As for:

Question 1. Who brews the best beer?

I think Malcolm Gladwell’s talk on the rise in number of spaghetti sauces would say that such a question isn’t really a good question. There are a lot of good beers, and what beer I like, might not be a beer you like. If my brother visits, he’ll only drink Bud Lite.

Oops. Left Reach @120 is partially correct: the state store system in PA is only for wine and spirits, although beer is not allowed to be sold in supermarkets there. Instead, it can be sold only by corner stores and dedicated beer distributorships (which can do retail sales). I stand by my description of the PA system as “stupid”: it may keep a handful of unionized state employees occupied, but the practical upshot is a massive subsidy delivered on a daily if not hourly basis into the pockets of the owners of all of the massive private liquor stores immediately across the borders into New Jersey and Ohio. (Also, the hours on the state stores are ridiculously circumscribed.)

My excuse for forgetting the fine details of PA’s stupidity is that it’s been about a decade since I lived there, and the ability to walk into my local Safeway here in CA and buy a six-pack (or a bottle of vodka) at 2am on a Sunday if I desire has clearly rotted my brain (and liver).

“But as far as pubs/bars go, I think the main difference is in the default situation. Walk into a random bar in the US and you’re likely to get Budweiser and Miller, and maybe something like Heineken thrown in for the fancy-pants customers. ”

I’d like to point out that, in my experience, Australia is also cr*p as far as beer selection goes outside of the brewpubs.

123: (the yanks even have “dry” counties in some of the more godforsaken/god bothering regions and you can’t get worse than that!)

This is a bit like going to the Orkney Islands and complaining that there’s no good pizza. It is entirely possible to travel widely in the US, as indeed, I have, and never find yourself in a “dry” county.

I count 140 kinds of beer in my American supermarket.

What on earth is the point of discussing “which country has the best beer”?

It’s not a war.

We should be glad there’s so much great beer being brewed around the world.

whether a bear would beat a shark in a fight

I think this is a much more interesting question than who makes the best beer, and I suggest that this sequence from the BBC’s Blue Planet documentary series, showing a polar bear attacking a pod of beluga whales, is evidence that the shark might not have things all its own way.

Piglet @ 148

In my observation, beer in bars is a little more expensive in Germany, but beer in supermarkets is a lot more expensive than in the US.

But where are you that a beer is $5 for a small? I can find plenty of good beer for $3-$4 a pint here. (Yes, the last beer I bought was $7 for a .25L, but that was St Bernardus Quadruple on draft.)

“But where are you that a beer is $5 for a small?”

I am not in the best place, that’s for sure. To be fair something like Boulevard costs about $4 in a bar but anything more exotic will be more expensive. Where I am, beer is not served in pints.

“beer in supermarkets is a lot more expensive than in the US”

you mean apart from Budweiser and Miller? That surprises me. But I have no good data points to compare.

Twenty years ago, Tesco in the UK used to serve about 20-30 different lagers and bitters in its supermarkets. This number is now in the 500s, I believe. Obviously, you can’t find them all in one store, so it’s across the UK, but even so.

My sister lives in Belgium and I keep hearing great things about their beer and then being dissapointed when I get there. As someone above said, lots of fruity, gimmicky crap. I’ve had one or two that I’d consider buying again, but, in general their beers are over-rated.

My taste varies over the year. In the summer Czech lagers and the odd pale ale and then in autumn/winter heavier bitters and stouts for which the UK is second to none.

yep, piglet is right – a case of beer – i.e. 20 half liter bottles – in Germany is between 8 Euros (for the really cheap stuff) and 15 Euros – for expensive beers not on sale. Most beers are between 10 and 13 Euros, including pretty much all the brands exported to the US .
Even with the current exchange rate that’s much cheaper than what you can typically get in the US for any beer, let alone a decent one.

It would appear that beer is cheap in Germany because Germany taxes beer at a low rate. The following figures for EU countries are from 2009 (and the objectivity of the source, a British trade journal, is not above suspicion.)

Pence per pint, April 2009

Finland 61.74
Ireland 51.99
UK 45.89
Sweden 43.15
Denmark 19.42
Slovenia 17.95
Netherlands 17.08
Italy 14.76
Estonia 12.88
Austria 12.56
Cyprus 12.51
Hungary 11.12
Belgium 10.74
Slovakia 10.36
Poland 9.46
Portugal 9.05
Greece 8.54
France 6.91
Lithuania 6.44
Spain 5.71
Czech 5.55
Latvia 5.35
Luxembourg 4.98
Germany 4.94
Bulgaria 4.82
Malta 4.71
Romania 4.15

I was always told that a very high proportion of the cost of beer in the US — perhaps more than all the costs of manufacture, marketing and distribution — represents tax.

Roac’s figures look like the price a pub pays for beer, not the selling price.

I think the whole England vs. the US is apples to oranges. Not to be rude, but the States are almost the size of all of Europe, so it’s not really a fair comparison. Yes, we have more beer deserts, but we have wonderful beer cities as well. (I live near Portland, Ore, which has a world class beer scene.) However, if you were to compare England to a state, there are a couple states that could hold their own or even beat England.

Not surprising given economies of scale, and cheaper ingredients.

Picking up on a couple of John’s comments: our local Morrison’s – the supermarket we walk to when we’re not doing a big shop – has an excellent beer aisle: lots of different (small to medium-sized) brewers, lots of styles, and cheap as you like. Most ales are currently selling at 4 (500 ml) bottles for £5.50. They’re also doing an own-brand “green hopped” beer, brewed for them by Titanic. It’s a big yellow hoppy bastard – a style of beer which has always been big around here and is currently quite fashionable – and costs £1.50.

As for Wetherspoon’s, all the Spoons pubs I know are CAMRA-friendly and have a wide & interesting range of beer; it’s generally very well kept, and on the few occasions I have taken beer back it’s been replaced without a murmur. I really don’t like them as pubs – I’m not convinced they are pubs – but as places to buy good, varied, affordable beer they’re unparallelled.

Our government is quite small-brewery-friendly, but distinctly hostile to stronger beers – not wine, not pre-mixed drinks, just strong beer. Personally I would hate to see the 10-12% Double IPAs and Imperial Stouts that dominate the RateBeer charts becoming the norm over here, and if tax prevents an ABV arms race that will be all to the good. The idea of punitive taxation on any form of beer is depressing, though, and I can’t help seeing it as the thin end of one of a number of neo-prohibitionist wedges.

Contra commenter #23, Pennsylvania now allows beer sales in certain large supermarkets that also have “cafes” selling food. My local Wegmans supermarket has a far better selection of beers, including dozens of Belgians of all styles, than are shown in the photos included in this post. There are some decent beer bars in my small city, but they aren’t quite as convenient or reliable as a standard English pub would be. My neighborhood bar really favors very hoppy IPAs and high-alcohol, malty ales. I’d be happier with more variety, but I can’t complain too much in the end.

Velky Al @156
If I had mentioned just one more beer in my comment it would have been Galway Hooker!

The problem with beer is the problem with wine, to ship you have to be able to at least fill a container (like the ones that go on container ships) which means that Euro beers in the US and US beers in Europe can only come from the largest breweries. Specialty shops are an expensive exception.

No wonder economics is called the dismal science.

Re Sam Adams. Contract brewers in any case, from the start.

I have the impression that JDW’s business strategy changed quite dramatically in the mid-2000s. Up to that point, they bought a lot of pubs that were undeniably such and served good beer, cheap. As a result they basically covered the overheads for the whole real ale industry. Great. But I think that since about 2005 they shifted to trying to expand their base of property by creating outlets (rather than pubs) all over the place.