Beer on tap

[Drewbot]

The best beers available right now are:

Short's Huma-Lupa-Liscious

and

Bell's Two Hearted Ale

Track it down wherever you are.

 

[Cainkane1]

Me too.

 

[Ririon]

My sole consideration for beer is alcohol content, which is why, for my money Black ice is the king of beers.

OK: Two words for you: Vodka. The second word is your favorite mixer. Everybody doesn't like beer. The same goes for bacon and chocolate. As much as I fail to understand such a bizarre and alternative world view, I just have to accept it.

Drink something you like. If you are just in it for the alcohol, don't drink things that have other contents that make the evening unpleasant and the next morning even more miserable (like beer, wine and whisky). Sure, it can be a useful social skill to be able to drink beer even if you don't like it, but for your poison of choice, find something else. It will make your life more enjoyable with a slightly higher chance of ending up as an alcoholic.

Drink responsibly! (As a recovering alcoholic I used to date said: "What's responsible about drinking?")

 

[Vic Vega]

There was a famous underground music bar/club in Boston known as the Ratskeller (The Rat Cellar). Rumor has it they never ever cleaned their lines in some 40+ years of business.
While I am sure this was an exaggeration, all the beer on tap there did have an odd salty flavor, which may mean the lines were rarely cleaned.

Ah... The Rat in Kenmore Square.

I remember it well.

 

[shadron]

fuggedit.

 

[shadron]

Coors gets their water from Clear Creek. The drainage of Clear Creek is riddled with abandoned gold and silver mines. However, since the Superfund cleanup of the Argo Mill in Idaho Springs, the metal content of Clear Creek has been reduced to the point that the creek now supports trout. It used to have very few trout, as trout do not tolerate much metal content in the water. However, the idea that Coors uses really good water to make their beer is laughable. I'm not claiming that their are any health hazards. Several cities also get their drinking water from the same creek, but there is definitely enough iron and other metals to affect the taste. Of course "Made with pure Rocky Mountain mine waste" wouldn't sell a lot of beer. I have also noticed that, in recent years, their ads say "pure Rocky Mountain water", whereas, they used to say "pure Rocky Mountain springwater". Of course, the water still tastes better than the beer.

Actually, Coors gets it's brewing water from several mile deep wells that tap deep aquifers. If you really want to get technical, that qualifies as springs "sorta", even if they aren't artesian. That was the word that I got from two independant sources, one of which was my brother who was their lead ad photographer about 20 years ago and the other a plant technician. Golden does use Clear Creek; it has senior water rights on it. So, Roger, how does it taste?

 

[luchog]

Real ale beer in bottles does not taste the same. It might be psychological thing. At home I tend to drink lager out of a can. Normally stella. I can't remember the last time I drank a lager in a pub. Must be over 10 years.

With real beer, ale or lager, it's all about the conditioning. Crap American macrobrews aren't going to vary much at all, regardless; but real beer, ale in particular, is definitely going to change over time. The effects of bottle conditioning are significantly different from the effects of keg conditioning (casks are not mentioned, because, being wood, they're a different animal entirely). The concentration and types of yeasts, sugars, and nutrients, as well as temperature fluctuations, CO2 saturation, etc.; all contribute to the effects from conditioning, and will be significantly different between bottles and kegs. Depending on the style of beer, the difference may be more or less noticible (ales moreso than lagers).

 

[luchog]

When I was making my own beer I noticed that there was evident leeching from the glass of the bottles after continued re-use. They would become increasingly cloudy or frosty looking.

I've wondered if perhaps it is the glass bottled beer whose flavor is affected by the vessel, as I think cans are generally coated with something to prevent corrosion to the metal, and an expectation of the flavor added by that leeching from the glass is what some people adamantly insist is "better" when it is actually the "real beer flavor" that they are complaining about.

Glass is inert and non-reactive. There is nothing in it that's capable of "leeching". That's one of the main reasons it's used.

If your bottles are cloudy looking, you're either scratching the hell out of them, or you're not cleaning them properly.

 

[luchog]

Cellar temperature. Room temperature fluctuates too much for the beer to stay in good nick.

The proper temperature for drinking beer depends greatly on the style of beer. The proper temperature for storing beer is essentially the same, "cellar temperature".

Pilsners, light lagers, pale ales, hefeweizens, lambics and similar are best served "chilled", which is approximately 40-45 degrees F.

Medium ales, IPAs, medium to dark lagers, fruit beers, wheat beers, sour ales, and saisons are best at "low cellar" temperature, 45 to 50 degrees F.

Dark ales, very dark lagers, scotch ales, abbey ales, old ales, strong ales, strong lagers, cask ales, hybrid beers, and abstract beers are best at "high cellar" temp, 50-60 degrees F.

Very dark and/or strong beers like stouts, porters, barleywine ales, eisbocks, and certain types of spiced ales are best at "room temperature ", which is roughly 65 degrees F.

tl;dr version: the ligher the beer, the colder it should be served; the darker the beer, the warmer it should be served.

 

[luchog]

However, a number of brewers are finding that the can does indeed protect the beer from UV and other degrading factors better...

Better than clear or green glass, not better than brown glass. And they don't protect better against other degrading factors. Worse, in fact.

I don't care for cans, since they are poor choices for long-term storage and long-distance transportation. They conduct heat far too well, and thus don't protect as well as glass against temperature fluctuations. I'd also be concerned about the long-term stability of the plastic lining used in the cans, and its effects on conditioning. In any case, they're certainly far inferior to glass for bottle-conditioning. They're also considerably more expensive, since they can't be re-used; and require more complex and costly machinery.

I really don't understand the current fad for cans among some trendy American microbrewers.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Anecdotally, I prefer beers on tap to beers in cans or bottles. Perhaps it also has something to do with the tap being very, very cold, while my fridge is only 4C.

Beer is not supposed to be cold!! Bloody Ozzies!

And to think, one of my favourite home brewed real ales is an Australian one (Cooper's Dark).

 

[valis]

My wife and I had a conversation over lunch yesterday when I mentioned that a particular beer I liked tasted better on tap than in bottles bought in the store. She said that she would expect the opposite to be true...since beer on tap is stored in aluminum, the beer should take on a metallic taste, while bottled beer would taste more pure because it's stored in glass.

She went on to theorize that perhaps the difference in taste is purely psychological...beer on tap is supposed to taste better, so it does.

I don't think this is true, but I can't think of any particular reason why beer on tap would taste better. Anyone have any ideas?

Sort of a total tangent, but on the subject of aluminum kegs....

When I delivered beer for a Miller distributor some of the kegs had an outer rubber coating, and some did not. The coating was only on the outside but I had one bar that would not accept rubber coated kegs. One of their regulars had convinced himself and several others that you could taste a rubber flavor in the beer from those kegs.

Something else I noticed; bars regularly run out of one beer and hook something else to the same tap because customers insist they only like a certain brand. I have never, ever heard of anyone calling a bar tender on the beer in the glass not matching what was indicated on the tap handle.

Or, as the saying goes, people drink advertising and packaging, not beer.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Sort of a total tangent, but on the subject of aluminum kegs....

When I delivered beer for a Miller distributor some of the kegs had an outer rubber coating, and some did not. The coating was only on the outside but I had one bar that would not accept rubber coated kegs. One of their regulars had convinced himself and several others that you could taste a rubber flavor in the beer from those kegs.

Something else I noticed; bars regularly run out of one beer and hook something else to the same tap because customers insist they only like a certain brand. I have never, ever heard of anyone calling a bar tender on the beer in the glass not matching what was indicated on the tap handle.

Or, as the saying goes, people drink advertising and packaging, not beer.

I have at times suspected that I have been served beer other than what I asked for, but I'm not such a regular beer drinker that I'm confident in my ability to differentiate accurately.

 

[luchog]

Or, as the saying goes, people drink advertising and packaging, not beer.

This is only true for crappy mass-produced macrobrews. I'd be hard pressed to tell all that watered down horse urine apart myself.

Very much not true for good beer, though.

 

[DC]

My preferences are:

1. Cans
2. Glass bottles
3. Fountain
4. Plastic bottles

same here, i always wondered why this is.

 

[valis]

same here, i always wondered why this is.

In the case of keg vs. 'other' there is an actual difference in the beer. Since keg beer is pushed out by CO2 it is not allowed to build up as much natural carbonation during the aging process.

 

[Michael Redman]

With real beer, ale or lager, it's all about the conditioning. Crap American macrobrews aren't going to vary much at all, regardless; but real beer, ale in particular, is definitely going to change over time.

Crappy beer is brewed the world over. Don't blame us for the phenomena.

 

[valis]

This is only true for crappy mass-produced macrobrews. I'd be hard pressed to tell all that watered down horse urine apart myself.

Very much not true for good beer, though.

Actually Budweiser should stand out since it is made using rice and other popular lagers are not. As for good vs. bad I guess it just depends what you like, I myself prefer Steel Reserve. I think their Sparks, combination beer and energy drink, was truly a work of twisted genius and a great breakfast pick me up.

 

[yomero]

Better than clear or green glass, not better than brown glass. And they don't protect better against other degrading factors. Worse, in fact.

I don't care for cans, since they are poor choices for long-term storage and long-distance transportation. They conduct heat far too well, and thus don't protect as well as glass against temperature fluctuations. I'd also be concerned about the long-term stability of the plastic lining used in the cans, and its effects on conditioning. In any case, they're certainly far inferior to glass for bottle-conditioning. They're also considerably more expensive, since they can't be re-used; and require more complex and costly machinery.

I really don't understand the current fad for cans among some trendy American microbrewers.

There's one other kind of beer snobbery that hasn't been mentioned. My wife's parents own a famous restaurant in a border city across from Texas. With 100F temperatures or over most days during the summer, beer has to be very cold. My father-in-law insisted that the only propper way to chill beer was to place the bottles in an ice box, under large pieces of ice. A refrigerator could not do it correctly. Some costumers demand that their beer has to come from the ice box.

Any logic to that?

 

[luchog]

Actually Budweiser should stand out since it is made using rice and other popular lagers are not. As for good vs. bad I guess it just depends what you like, I myself prefer Steel Reserve. I think their Sparks, combination beer and energy drink, was truly a work of twisted genius and a great breakfast pick me up.

The use of rice or corn doesn't matter, since both are ajduncts that add nothing but fermentable carbohydrates; and are used because they're cheaper than barley malt, while still contributing to alcohol content and creating a lighter body. They don't have a significant effect on the overall flavour (well, corn can, if it's overused). The majority of the flavour of Macrobrews comes from the minimal amount of barley used, the hops, and various preservatives and other additives. And Budweiser is not the only macrobrew that uses rice, by a long shot.

The only difference between the "beer", "ice beer" and "malt liquor" (like your Steel Reserve) versions is that "ice" is the same beer partially freeze-distilled to increase the alcohol content, and "malt liquor" uses a higher amount of fermentable adjuncts in order to increase the alcohol content. Other than that, they're all essentially the same ingredients and process.

There's one other kind of beer snobbery that hasn't been mentioned. My wife's parents own a famous restaurant in a border city across from Texas. With 100F temperatures or over most days during the summer, beer has to be very cold. My father-in-law insisted that the only propper way to chill beer was to place the bottles in an ice box, under large pieces of ice. A refrigerator could not do it correctly. Some costumers demand that their beer has to come from the ice box.

Any logic to that?

None whatsoever, and that's the first time I've ever heard of it. And serving beer ice cold is something that should only be done with crap macrobrews. Serving good beer that cold pretty much ruins one's ability to taste it.