Why do Americans like their beer cold?

I'm proud of Georgias micro breweries. When microbrews became legal every marginally employed brewmaster in europe came here. When we say we have a belgian lager on tap it was a belgian who brewed it. At the Five Seasons Brew Pub we have a German and an Irish brewmaster. One thing I like about this restaurant is their irish Reds. They follow the original recipe. We're not talking about the so called irish red that was bought out by Anheuser Busch. We're talking about the original recipe.

The Terrapin Brewery in Athens Ga does a lot of experimenting. They can come up withh vry unusual concoctions most of which never make it to the beer store but to go to the brewery and taste these beers is a pleasure I can't adequately describe. I mean have you ever had a local beer made from corn? They call it "Maise beer". Ok I don't like it but I drank the whole pint just to say that I had.

This brewery makes good beer. They use good barley and hops and wheat and sometimes a mixture of both. Beer lovers adore this brewery..
 
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Heck... forget beer. Most people I know keep their hard liquors in the freezer.

This thread reminds me of a thread I read on a Japanese skeptics board... "なぜアメリカ人は彼らの肉が調理されたかのような？何が室温と悪いのでしょうか？?"
 
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NoScotsman said:
Heck... forget beer. Most people I know keep their hard liquors in the freezer.

This thread reminds me of a thread I read on a Japanese skeptics board... "なぜアメリカ人は彼らの肉が調理されたかのような？何が室温と悪いのでしょうか？?"
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Geez...

Vodka can be kept in the freezer, but I can't see sticking The Glenlivet in there.
 
So does anyone else remember when Budweiser ran attack ads against Sam Adams beer?

Not a good move.
 
For crappy beer: after mowing the lawn, doing yard work, working on the car, working on the house, any type of physical labor, there's nothing like a cold crappy beer to kick back and relax to after the work is done. Warm beer just doesn't complement it.

Cold beer is also great when I wake up in the morning from sweating my butt off in the hot summers. I've only had the craving a few times and it was very satisfying.

Heavy beers like stouts and IPAs I actually like slightly warm because I savor them and they get warm anyway so I'm used to it.

If I'm going to drink something alcoholic that is warm, I'll drink hard liquor or red wine. Which is what I usually drink in fall and winter.
 
When I was younger and in the Navy I used to drink alot of beer. I prefered the tall white cans of Budweiser. When I'd get home from work I'd put one in the sink for about a half hour and then drink it, delicious. When I took one out of the sink I would put another one in to replace it.
Tastewise I always prefered St.Pauli Girl, again set out for a few minutes. I always thought Rainier Ale was pretty good. And Sierra Nevada is supposed to make a pretty dangerous Bigfoot beer.

My father and most of his friends here in Hawaii and Washington used to drink really warm beer. Either Olympia or Primo.

Alot of people here drink Heineken right out of the ice chest, the prefered way. I think that is the current trend now. Ice cold.
 
Cainkane1 said:
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Budweiser is feeling the pinch of microbreweries and they are making better quality beer themselves. One of the best brew pubs I have ever been too has a retired Budweiser brewmaster and her exact words when she retired was this. Now I can make the good stuff and she proceded to do that very thing. Her beer is cold and served in cold glasses.
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Interestingly, one microbrew owner I met (Stoudt's) somewhat disputed that proposition. As he put it, outfits like Bud produce millions and millions of bottles in multiple plants and you can't tell when or where it was produced. As he put it: "you can't do that without excellent quality control".

He went on to describe the real difference between his products and the mass market beers was the specialized variety of recipes which don't really appeal to a mass market, or recipes that are slow to produce or only suited to small batches.
 
jayh said:
Interestingly, one microbrew owner I met (Stoudt's) somewhat disputed that proposition. As he put it, outfits like Bud produce millions and millions of bottles in multiple plants and you can't tell when or where it was produced. As he put it: "you can't do that without excellent quality control".

He went on to describe the real difference between his products and the mass market beers was the specialized variety of recipes which don't really appeal to a mass market, or recipes that are slow to produce or only suited to small batches.
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Excellent quality control does not equal excellent quality.
 
Bikewer said:
I started this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188002

On much the same subject just a few days ago. Consensus of beer-related sites is that most "popular" beers are devoid of flavor, or just taste bad, and the extreme cold numbs the old taste-buds so you don't notice.
I refer to these as watery beer-like beverages.

The consensus is also that lighter beers in general should be served somewhat colder than heavier, darker brews, but that the optimum temperature is still considerably above the "coldest beer in town" level.
Even our local giant brewer, Anheuser-Busch, specifies that it's premium Michelob be served at between 45-50 degrees.
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I think I know (part of) the explanation. I came of age in the Pacific Northwest; Seattle Metro area. Beer is taken as seriously as coffee here and there are many small and micro brewers in this area (and in areas close by like Oregon) that produce some very, very good brews. I remember an uncle visiting from Texas who didn't like the micro brews I had him sample; he wanted Bud Light. I couldn't understand it....

Then I went to Texas, in summer, to visit family. It was 100+ degrees and I suddenly realised that a porter or a stout just wouldn't do at all. That ice cold Bud Light really, really hit the spot, whereas in Seattle I wouldn't have touched the stuff. I drank much more beer while in Texas than normally do at home (which might be one or two beers with a meal, at most), but in Texas I was drinking because I was hot and thirsty.

I really think climate plays a big role in what types of beer we become accustomed to.
 
Cainkane1 said:
I don't remember that but you're right it was a stupid thing to do. Sam Adams is so much better than Budweiser that there is no comparison. Sam Adams is nectar compared to Budweiser.
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Yeah, it was not smart. What happened is that SA was advertising almost exclusively on the radio in the early 90's. Jim Koch, sounding a lot more like Mr. Rodgers than he does on the more modern TV ads, would talk about how great his beer was and the awards it won.

Anhauser -Busch (not budweiser - got my cheap evil smelling beers mixed up) put out radio ads where a booming god-like voice yelled at a Jim Koch imitator and stated how SA was being made in large contract breweries - the implication being that it therefore couldn't be as good as SA claimed since it wasn't all made in New England. They did this in radio ads, as well as print.

SA countered with a new ad where Cook talked about using the big breweries and comparing it to 'bringing my own ingredients, my own recipes, and my own cooking style to you kitchen but using some of your pots and pans'.

Bud dropped ads soon afterwards, not so much because the coutnerattack was so devastating but they probably realized that the ads made them look like bullies. A fact held up by National Ad Division of the BBB asking them to knock it off. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-19456036.html

But a lot of damage had been done, accord to Koch.
 
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kookbreaker said:
Yeah, it was not smart. What happened is that SA was advertising almost exclusively on the radio in the early 90's. Jim Koch, sounding a lot more like Mr. Rodgers than he does on the more modern TV ads, would talk about how great his beer was and the awards it won.

Anhauser -Busch (not budweiser - got my cheap evil smelling beers mixed up) put out radio ads where a booming god-like voice yelled at a Jim Koch imitator and stated how SA was being made in large contract breweries - the implication being that it therefore couldn't be as good as SA claimed since it wasn't all made in New England. They did this in radio ads, as well as print.

SA countered with a new ad where Cook talked about using the big breweries and comparing it to 'bringing my own ingredients, my own recipes, and my own cooking style to you kitchen but using some of your pots and pans'.

Bud dropped ads soon afterwards, not so much because the coutnerattack was so devastating but they probably realized that the ads made them look like bullies. A fact held up by National Ad Division of the BBB asking them to knock it off. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-19456036.html

But a lot of damage had been done, accord to Koch.
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Good. Budweiser and company also got a black eye in germany a few years back as I recall. The brewers of the swill shouldn't be arrogant because the only reason europeans would drink that crap is to get a cheap high. If you're into a well crafted good tasting brew you wouldn't wash your dog in budweiser.
 
John Jones said:
Cold masks the taste of Horse Pee American Beer.

PBS had a program a few years back about American Beer. At the turn of the 20th century, America was known as a producer of some of the world's best beer. Miller, Strohs, Pabst, Coors, Anheuser-Busch, Schlitz - all of these were German Brewmasters.

Then came Prohibition. Of course this had a devastating effect.

According to PBS, what finished-off the American beers was WWII. Shortages of barley led beer makers to use rice to make beer.
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The US arguably makes some of the best beer on Earth. Most great beer drinking countries are going the opposite direction, they are dumbing their beer down. I lived in Germany in the early 80's and was shocked when I visited there last year at how generic their beer is becoming.

Among beer connoisseurs world-wide, American craft beer is hugely respected.
 
Cainkane1 said:
Good. Budweiser and company also got a black eye in germany a few years back as I recall. The brewers of the swill shouldn't be arrogant because the only reason europeans would drink that crap is to get a cheap high. If you're into a well crafted good tasting brew you wouldn't wash your dog in budweiser.
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They tried to stop the brewers of the original Budweiser-Budwar from using thje brand name they'd enjoyed for over a 100 years. They predictably lost in court, the judge pointing out that there wasn't much chance of the two getting confused.

Incidentally, we have our own cheap crap lager too.
 
Damien Evans said:
Excellent quality control does not equal excellent quality.
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Budweisers problem is that they demand that their beer tastes mediocre. It won't make you vomit and it won't make you gag. It just doesn't have the flavor better beers have. They use too much rice and corn. I mean white rice with gravy may be good but it doesn't make a good tasting brew. Neither does corn although a microbrewery in Athens Georgia experimented with a beer made of pure corn malt. They tried to make an ale out of it but it just didn't go over. I drank it and the word mediocre came to mind. It tasted like a Bud too much despite the use of hops and a darker corn roast. Overall it was better than a Bud but still not up to par with a wheat or barley brew.
 
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