Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Why do macrobrews suck?

Here's a question/thought that just invaded my studying. . . I am not a beer snob, yet, and I don't really have a great beer palate, yet. I'd say I'm somewhere in no man's land right now between the valleys of Natie Light and the mountains (further up and further in) of Belgian ales. However, I know that I can no longer identify with the part of people who choose American macrobrewed beverages.

This thought came about as I was thinking, "would it be possible to brew a good beer that appealed to the macrobrewed/frat boy crowd?"

Answer:
Top excuses for not drinking good beer:
1) "I don't like dark beers" (what in fact most people are saying is that they don't like beers with lots of dark specialty grains but more importantly lot of I.B.U.'s)
2) "Why spend four bucks on a beer?" (I don't understand why beer is marked up so much either)
3) "I don't want to drink beer that makes me fat." (Then, don't drink beer. Alcohol is calorie laden. Light beers simply use crazy enzymes to degrade some of the left over carbs then water the beer down a bit as evidenced by the lower alcohol percentages of all major beers. Thus, what you get is a water downed version of a crappy beer to start with, that someone has added a few enzymes that probably cause cancer anyway. Let's be honest, is there a big difference between 140 and 110 calories?)

So, the beer would have to be light colored, cheap, and not hoppy. I think this is the reason that the hefeweizen is growing in popularity (though let's all make an effort to educate people of the truth behind Blue Moon). Part of the problem is that most people's first exposure to non-American macrobrewed stuff is Guinness or a Pale Ale, both formidable beers for a non-drinker's palate. I don't see any microbreweries really going after the people who fear dark beers. I don't see anybody making good beers aimed at macrobrewed junkies. Perhaps it's impossible, but I think there's a market for this and as soon as someone decides to stop being pretentious about brewing only beer that hurts your throat when you burp the I.B.U.'s back up, they could be successful and dismantling a piece of America's addiction to macrobrewed, waterd0wned, dextrose laced, corn mashed, pee in a bottle. Thoughts?

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