Originally Posted by Folinskyinla

However, when in Quebec,I don't like what they do to chips and won't order it.

Originally Posted by Roland Hulme

But before we judge:

Carling Black Label.
Harp.
That 3.2% Heinekin crap (think they've ditched that now.)
Carlsburg.

Originally Posted by Folinskyinla

BTW, last year, I often drank Stella in the Czech Republic -- it was quite palatable since it tasted like -- US Budwieser.

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

In the Czech republic and wasn't drinking Budvar? No suprise you like US Budweiser then and Stella tastes nothing like US Budweiser..nothing at all. Poles apart.

Originally Posted by Folinskyinla

BTW, last year, I often drank Stella in the Czech Republic -- it was quite palatable since it tasted like -- US Budwieser.

Originally Posted by ugacrew

Who said Stella tasted like Bud???

Originally Posted by Folinskyinla

Hi:
BTW, last year, I often drank Stella in the Czech Republic -- it was quite palatable since it tasted like -- US Budwieser.

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

But to be fair...I think he was taking the piss.

Originally Posted by Folinskyinla

It is fairly well known that American tastes run more to lager than ale. And I think it relates to the other discussion on ice. Lagers taste a lot better when they are cold. I can still place the most wonderful beer I ever had [a peak experience] and it was a draft Budweiser after being out on a very hot day and the thing was ice cold.

Originally Posted by Duncan Roberts

Thats an interesting point. This maybe something people have noticed over the past few months but Budweiser is now being marketed as "The great American Lager" as opposed to "The king of beers"

Ask an American what type of beer Budweiser is and the majority will say "a light beer" as most don't know what a lager is. My father in law still has a hard time with things like bocks and schwartz beer as they are both dark and a lager.

"What are you having?" "A bock" "Is that a dark beer or a light beer?" "It's dark" "So it's like Guinness?" "No, it's a lager" "What's a larger?" "A bottom fermented beer" "Give me an example" "Budweiser is a lager" "So it's light?" "No, its dark" "But you said it wasn't like Guinness"....and so on.

Spot on US beer history above by the way. Kind of sad how they crippled an entire industry. Not so sad how the big boys are now worried and the craft beer industry is really starting to impact their market share.

Originally Posted by ugacrew

I seriously hope he was.


I must apologize in advance for any nasty comments I make today. I'm on three hours sleep courtesy of a wicked thunderstorm with quarter sized hail that kept me up. I thought my windows were going to break.

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

TRANSLATION: I got 3 hours of sleep after getting shitfaced in a bar last night and meeting some guy hung like a horse and I rode him all night

Originally Posted by ugacrew

Yeah. Some don't know much about the classes of beer. I'm more of a pale lager which is what Budweiser falls into. However I've been known to sip on a nice full bodied European lager like Heineken or St. Pauli Girl. They might not be the premium brands but they do have more flavor guaranteed. I've tasted Guinness and not really keen on something that THAT much flavor although it's got a a great chocolate flavor to it.

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

But to be fair...I think he was taking the piss.

Originally Posted by RoadWarriorFromLP

I briefly studied the beer industry (and not just at the bottom of a bottle.) This is what I learned:

-Before Prohibition, the US had a thriving craft beer industry. Lots of local producers and low-volume quality beers, with few large national brands.

-But Prohibition wiped most of them out. The largest concerns got into alternative businesses and waited for it to end (it seems that everyone at the time knew it was temporary), but the little guys folded and never returned.

-With the end of WWII, newfound prosperity and demographics allowed the large brewers to expand rapidly and consolidate. Demand for beer grew rapidly between the 40's and the 60's, as the US population exploded and people in post-Depression America were able to afford more beer.

-The large brewers took advantage of this by introducing mass production techniques to beer making. They focused on shortening brewing times and on producing products that could be shipped long distances (which increased their production capacity and expanded their markets.) They also cheapened the ingredients, and worked out distribution agreements to dominate the shelf space in the supermarkets that were emerging after WWII, which kept out new competitors from entering.

With all that, beer had been transformed from a fragment local concern to a national near-oligopoly that was difficult for outsiders to enter. (If you couldn't get shelf space, you couldn't sell it.)

Over time, this has changed as beer drinkers began to demand more variety, but the dominant brewers still own a lot of the market, and the microbrewers are just a small niche.

That explains why the large brewers were able to become dominant. It doesn't explain, though, why people actually keep buying it. I guess that if you grow up with it, it is what you know and it seems alright (although I grew up with it, and I never much liked it. When I figured out that beer didn't have to taste like that, I started drinking beer more regularly.)