Category: beer

Some friends of mine think of me as a loony beer purist. And, I’m ok with that ;). Labels aside, I figure that if I’m going to invest the calories in a beverage, it may as well taste good (after all, there isn’t yet Splenda Beer — nor do I hope that one ever exists). Fortunately, if you’re looking into broadening your beer palette, there're many drinkable beers available these days.

One of the sites that I often visit for beer ratings & reviews is RateBeer.com. While the site may seem overwhelming at first, the most pertinent section for most people is probably the beer ratings part of the site. If you’re ready to dive in, you could select a Beer Style or Country (from along the left side of the page) to see the best beers in that style or from that country, respectively. Or, for a healthy dose of schadenfreude, their list of the worst beers is usually good for a laugh. (Apparently, Bud Light scored even lower than Beast Light. Who knew? )

In any case, for a quick list of beers that taste good which you actually have a chance of finding in your local store, I’d recommend RateBeer’s list of Top Widely Distributed Beers (which also sometimes refer to as their list of “Top Accessible” beers). As I understand it, a given beer needs several hundred ratings to make it onto the list — that conveniently excludes, say, beers from Tom’s Nanobrewery in Somecity USA which you wouldn’t have a chance of finding locally.

Having said that, there’s no inherent downside to a beer just because it’s widely available. For instance, my favorite porter, Fullers London Porter, is there at #14 and it’s “only” among the 99th percentile of beers reviewed on the site ;). Porters are good — you could think of them as a notch down from a stout, if you haven’t tried one — but they’re less than ideal for patio-sipping. They’re generally hearty enough that they need a food accompaniment to balance out their oomph.

Probably my favorite style of beer, though, are abbey tripels. The style is classically Belgian, but that’s not to say that only Belgians make a good tripel. And, sure enough, some respectable tripels make the list as well. Chimay Blanche (White) pulls in at #33 and La Fin Du Monde is shortly after that at #37. And, while stouts aren’t personally my cup of tea, they make a strong showing on the list as well (just after a duo of two abt/quadrupel beers in 1st & 2nd place, stouts take on 3rd, 4th and 5th place).

If all these beer styles are greek to you, don’t worry — just try printing out their list of Top Widely Distributed Beers the next time you need beer and you’re headed to the store. Then just glance over what’s on the shelf and see if some of them are on the list. To be sure, even the “lowest rated” beer among their Widely-Distributed list, Sierra Nevada Porter is in the 90th percentile among beers — not too shabby. Any of the beers on the list would make for a formidable alternative to garden-variety American-macrobrews (which is to say, Budweiser, Coors and Miller).

I went to buy some beer Friday evening and, after selecting a brew, I took it to the register to pay. The clerk was a man in his 40s with a double chin:

Clerk: How old are you?

Me: 27.

Clerk: Oh, ok… That’ll be $7.13.

I then proceeded to pay for the beer. But, it left me wondering whether this was the clerk’s attempt at age verification or whether he was just curious how old I was ;).

I’m back in Pittsburgh to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. And, as my dad isn’t a beer drinker (he prefers wine), we didn’t have much beer in the house when my brother and I arrived. So, it was time for a beer run :). And, in case you're not aware of Pennsylvania’s silly beer laws, beer can only be sold by the case here — the logic is that people would drink less that way (or something).

So, my brother and I headed off to a beer store (yeah, a beer-only store, since beer can’t be sold in supermarkets here). As we perused the aisles, we came across St. Nikolaus Bock from Pennsylvania Brewing. There were a couple other tempting beers, such as Sam Adams Octoberfest, but we decided to go for a case of the St. Nikolaus Bock as we’d probably have a hard time finding Penn Brewing beers elsewhere.

After chilling a few bottles in the fridge, Adrian and I popped open a few later that evening. I took a few sips and realized that this was undeniably a bock — there was plenty of malt flavor without much of a hops presence. And, it reminded me a bit of Paulaner Salvator (a dopplebock) as both had overtones of caramel and raisins.

Both of them are good beers but they’re not really sipping-beers. As sweet as they are, they’re almost unpleasant when drank on their own; but they can be rather enjoyable with the right food to accompany them. And, just to assuage my curiosity, I decided to check on which foods would be suitable for a bock. BeerTown has a section on food/beer pairings where they suggested barbecued salmon with a dry bock (that and limburger cheese, but I’m not sure when I’ll next run across some limburger).

And, RealBeer offers the interesting suggestion that sweeter bocks could be paired well with “heartier, spicier desserts, such as pumpkin pie or spice cake.” Now, are you thinking what I’m thinking? Considering that we’re in the Thanksgiving season, my family had both pecan and pumpkin pies yesterday; and, we had some leftover as well. So, perhaps around 10pm one evening, I may have to partake in a snack of some pumpkin pie along with St Nikolaus Bock :).

I went to see Bryan’s band (Bulletproof Lincoln) play last night. I got there after they had already started playing, but I still wanted to get a drink at the bar. I walked up to the bar and I glanced around for a line-up of bottled beers but I didn’t see one right away. And since I wanted to get back to the listening area, I figured that I should consider my draught options instead. They had, of course, all the usual Bad American Beers: Coors, Budweiser and so on. But, they also had Killian’s Irish Red.

And, contrary to its name, it’s not from Ireland at all — rather, it’s completely American and made by Coors. I was aware of the Coors connection but I recalled that Killian’s had at least somewhat-dark in color and I thought to myself, “Well, how bad could it be?”. So, ordered one and walked back to listen to the band. I took a few sips and soon discovered that it was not what I was hoping for. [Note to amateur copy editors: “not for what I was hoping”?]

The dark color (well, reddish, anyway) belied its true flavor — or lack thereof. If I was blindfolded, someone could have told me that I was drinking Just Another American Beer and I would have believed him. There wasn’t much flavor at all, other than the distinct wateriness. And there was an odd degree of carbonation — not a creamy effervescence like a good porter but a sharp sparkle more closely resembling a club soda.

A visit to RateBeer.com later that evening confirmed my suspicions. I looked up Killian’s and discovered that it has a score of 2.82/5.0 which puts it in the 28th percentile. To put that in perspective, I checked on RateBeer’s list of Top Accessible Beers. They define an “accessible beer” as those with over 500 ratings — in other words, beers that you'd have a pretty good chance of finding in a store.

And just because a beer is “accessible” doesn’t mean that it’s a bad beer, either. I mean, the top rated Accessible Beer is Ayinger’s Celebrator Doppelbock which is in the 100th percentile (obviously rounded to 100, but still). And even the 17th best Accessible Beer, Guinness Stout, is in the 77th percentile.

But I suppose that there are relatively few beers with that many ratings since the scores tend to trail off towards the bottom of the list. For instance, Sam’s Adams Boston Lager — an otherwise decent beer — clocks in at the 53rd percentile for the #22 spot. In fairness to Sam Adams, I don’t think it a bad beer at all, but in the spectrum of all beers produced worldwide, I can understand that it might be only slightly above average.

There’re 25 entries in RateBeer’s Top Accessible Beers list and Killian’s Irish Red squeaks in at the end. A few of the posted comments mirror my own feelings of this brew:

• “Damn you rate beer, i used to honestly enjoy this, then you came into my life. I can no longer be content in my beer darkness now that you�ve shined your glorious light down upon my palate and shown me what beer can be. Pours a light ruby red with a thin clingy head. dead nose, smells blank. has a bitter tree bark flavor. overly bitter and got bad quick. […] ”

• “This is what I would consider a middle of the road beer in everyway. The color a very nice red, but it cant hide its mass produced roots. […] ”

• “Clear amber colour, the head quickly disappears, butter and grapefruit aroma, some malts, tart and sweet with a bubblegum-like finish — artificial and very forgettable.”

• “Finish is lightly sweet, moderately bitter, slightly metallic. Light to medium body, watery texture, fizzy carbonation. I am amused by the fact that the label says "Manufactured", rather than brewed. […] ”

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the band, but the Killian’s was a bit lacking. After a few subsequent sips I realized that the mildly non-badness of the beer wasn't outweighing the calories that came with it. So, after making it halfway through the glass, I just set it aside.