I usually assume when Europeans complain about American beers, they just are complaining about our “domestic” beers like Bud Light, Coors, PBR, etc. which makes sense, they are our bottom shelf beers.
I recently chatted with someone at a party who said “no, all American beers are bad” including microbrewery beers.
I’ve never been to Europe so I wouldn’t know, but I do like my Left Handed Milk Stout, NWPAs, and hell even the hipstered out IPAs.
Are these what y’all are referencing?
As a vetted german beer enthusiast, may I say that the big-brand beers are on average as good (or bad) as the american beers I know. Differences imho originate from drinking preferences (light beers) and allowed ingredients or additives, but that has a minor impact on sensory quality. Personally I often missed aroma and bitterness (hops) and gravity of most beers I tried in the USA, but that‘s just me.
Some are okay-ish. But there is nothing compared to european beer. German especially.
Germans make great lagers. But that’s it. There’s a lot more beer styles out there and the American microbreweries excel at a lot of them.
The best beers in the usa (said microbreweries) are mediocre at best compared to the low standard European ones. Sorry to say this, but there are very, very few acceptable beers in usa. Mexicans and Canadian are better.
No hate, but they all lack a flavourful taste.
German, belgium and czech beers are great, Irish stouts are wonderful, and so on. You can grab a random (best: local) beer and it will be a good one.
You have to really look out for an acceptable one in usa. If you are lucky, a microbrewery in your area will produce a good one, but you have to have a good portion of luck here. Most of those good ones are brewed by an „imported“ german brewer who got a formal education on this. You can actually study this in the city nearby me and some students think of opening a brewery in the usa. So naturally i got in touch with some of them. One factor is the hops you can get in the us. The quality and taste is very different to the one we produce. You almost cannot reproduce the conditions you have here in the holledau. Even if you get very good hops the malting and the grain is different (mexicans use corn, which actually tastes very good). Barley doesn’t equal barley, so you have the differences here.
Long story short: the ingrediens are different due to locally available products, the methods are slightly different, so you have a different product. Unfortunately the circumstances in the us are what they are, so you need very experienced personell to produce a good beer.
There’s over 400 distinct breweries in Washington State alone, you can’t possibly have enough personal experience to justify sweeping claims of trenda and quality. And we export most of the hops that we grow to countries like Germany, Belgium, and the UK so they’re using the same stuff. I don’t even like beer and it’s obvious you’re talking out of your ass to support preconceived anti-American notions.
Not a European, but a well traveled person who has drunk beers in Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Botswana, Senegal, UK, Poland, China, and the UK, as well as drunk beers from Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic etc, I stopped drinking beer when I drunk American beer. Sure, there are some good microbrews, but holy moly, there are some questionable things that pass for beer in America.
Long time American beer drinker here. The craft breweries here brew some strange stuff these days. There are soon many breweries now it’s hard to stand out brewing something as simple as a porter. Now it has to be chocolate pecan graham cracker infused porter.
American beer that is sold in Europe? All the ones I tried, yeah, absolutly.
And most of that microbrew shit doesn’t even count as beer under the Reinheitsgebot.
As a German beer drinker I can say: fuck the Reinheitsgebot. It’s just an old law to patronize the citizen. It’s not about protection against chemicals, just take look at Radler (Beer mixed with lemon soda) for example, plenty of artificial sweeteners and E additives are allowed.
Belgium has a wonderful selection of beers of different flavors. If somebody doesn’t want to taste a nice cherry beer, don’t do it. I don’t need an authority to watch over the beer I drink.
That why it’s called Alsterwasser (or Radler if you really must) and not beer. I actually like the law as it prevents the market from getting flooded with all kinds of shit that calls itself beer. We can still buy Lambic and whatnot here in Germany. It’s just not called beer, and rightly so.
To be fair the Bavarian Purity law is a shockingly awful standard to apply to what should be considered beer. Using that silly standard would eliminate a tremendous amount of great beer simply because it didn’t meet one aristocrat’s measure of what should be in beer.
Yes but have you been to Europe? It’s a giant ball of idiosyncrasies created by some old dudes four or five hundred years ago. And that’s why we love it 😁.
Do not question the sanity of this.
Your reluctance to purge monarchy from your ranks made it obvious that the European Way is letting old rich people dictate social norms.
Monarchs nowadays can’t do shit though. They’re just rich and represent the country somehow. Old rich people is very true for America though.
They’re a legally mandated, inherited upper class with distinct privileges and guaranteed wealth. Doesn’t matter what else is going on, that’s indefensible in the modern world.
Heresy! Burn the heathen!
Beer-drinking European living in 'Murica here. For certain styles, the US has fantastic beers available. In particular IPAs (which don’t always have to be mega hoppy!), pale ales, pilsners, amber ales, and stouts. Plenty of great choices to be found here, if you discover the right breweries. That’s key, because there are a lot breweries with imo questionable taste.
What’s harder to find are good beers of other styles, such as Belgian or German beers. US breweries try, sometimes, but they aren’t succeeding.
I’m particularly fond of Belgian beers and my partner is fond of German beers. They’re of course not as good in America as the real thing, but there are definitely some solid options. In fact that’s what I will say is nice about American beers: you can find something decent of any style of beer you can imagine, and some truly excellent ones in a handful of styles as you mentioned already.
This is the correct answer. Pacific Northwest microbrew is awesome for many styles. But not German/Belgian style beers - you guys haven’t figured them out yet. The big nationally distributed beers like coors and bud are basically horse urine.
The Belgian and German styles are largely ignored by the national breweries, but a lot of more local or regional microbreweries are crushing it when it comes to them.
That’s kinda the difference - local specialties mostly can’t be beaten on their own turf. Also, in America you’ve got to actually seek out the good stuff and go local, the InBev stuff is meticulously targeted at swine with no taste.
I’ll say that you’re generally right that American breweries don’t do Belgian beers perfectly always, but there are a handful that are great. The thing about craft brewing is you have to go around and try new things. There’s so many options, and most are mediocre at best. However, with there being so many options, a small few nail certain things, whatever that may be.
Idk who you talked to, but I think most European beer enthusiasts would agree that a lot of American beers are awesome. Especially what you mentioned: various IPAs and Stouts, you guys started the modern interpretation of those styles.
Maybe someone who thinks only lagers are legit beer and everything else is “hipster crap”. I’ve met some people with those opinions.
Yes. There are exceptions, but most American beer usually fall into two categories:
- Water.
- Infused with a bunch of stuff that shouldn’t be anywhere near beer, in an effort to have it nit taste like water.
At least these are the common denominators for most well known beers.
Exceptions, off the top of my head:
Blue Moon
Shiner Boch
Some weird local brew I stumbled across in Galveston
While it doesn’t hold a lot of flavor, I do enjoy Miller now and then.I’ve not tasted many American beers so I could not tell if they all taste like crap, and I also do not drink at all anymore. But being French, I can say that our Belgian neighbors have some exceptionally good beers, as well as Germans do. I loved a few of those, back then. But then they may also be a tad too… tasty for an uninitiated palate ;)
I’m pretty confident there must some local breweries in a few US places that can make quality beer too, the issue would then mostly be to find enough customers willing to drink it because it’s no use to make the best beer ever if most your customers prefer Budweiser or stuff like that.
You don’t even have to go as far as Europe. Canadians and Mexicans also think of American beer as water+.
There’s almost no good beer in Mexico
This may objectively be true, but I’ll take Mexican commercial beers over American ones any day.
Corporate wants you to find the differences between these two pictures
I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had Mexican beer. I just know my Mexican friends here in Canada love our beer and agree that American beer is just water with extra steps.
Then I would suggest actually trying American beer. Judging American beer by only trying BudMillerCoors would be like judging Canadian beer only trying Labatt’s or judging Canadian donuts by only trying Timbits AFTER the Burger King takeover.
Who says I haven’t tried American craft beer. I’m half American, dawg.
The opinion you previously gave is proof that it is an uninformed opinion.
I mean sure, you can disagree with my opinion. But me saying that I have had craft beer in the (specifically in Colorado and in the northeastern states) and didn’t find it better than the stuff I have in Canada isn’t really an uninformed opinion, unless you want me to do a full American brewery tour or something. I’m just some random person on Lemmy.
Kind of weird how personally people are taking it lol.
You called it “water with extra steps” which is how others know you aren’t being honest.
Yeah what the heck is this take? Lol Mexico has no good beers, decent sure. It is not a beer destination
I tried a Budweiser once. Once was enough.
I recently chatted with someone at a party who said “no, all American beers are bad” including microbrewery beers.
That person has not tried “all” American beers. So their view can be safely disregarded IMO.
American here: American Light Lagers, like those of the BMC brands, are both one of the hardest styles to brew well and one of the worst crimes ever committed against brewery. They’re hard to brew because there is so little flavor that the slightest off-taste can ruin a batch. That’s also the reason that they are so terrible; they are little more than ethanol delivery systems that have enough malt proteins to sometimes have a head.
Want to get fucked up without tasting much? They’re probably the next best choice after a very neutral vodka. If you have interest in anything beyond intoxication, like actually enjoying the beverage, then, pretty much any other American or European style is a better choice.
European here. Germans just think their beer is the best in the world and if you’re not doing it like them, you’re not doing it right.
Don’t get me wrong, the standards Germans apply to their beer production means that it’s rare to get a terrible beer there, but IMO it’s also not that innovative and the range of styles is fairly limited. There is a ton of choice in the US both in terms of breweries and styles. The variation means you get more duds but also more excellent beers.
Yeah no doubt German beer tends to be similar in taste. What is refreshing though is to be able to taste a remarkably distinct beer that still follows the rules. And there are a few breweries that are able to do that
American craft beers get pretty crazy and experimental! You also have styles like black IPA, hazy IPA, cream ale, pumpkin ale, steam beer, and bourbon barrel beer that are all very American
Oh come on. We do have the best beer. And a lot of breweries.
Or so they say about the former.
I wouldn’t know. I don’t even like beer 😁. So I really don’t care what is true regarding this.
I really liked the Red Stripe and Abita when I visited the US. Don’t come near me with a Bud or a Coors through
Isn’t Red Stripe Jamaican?
The big US and Canadian brands all taste like ass but there’s thousands of small breweries that make very yummy nectar. Personally I prefer German and Belgian brews.
Quebec has some pretty sweet crafed beers. We also have the generic crap but it’s not really popular. It wasnt always like that, the offer kept getting better and better over the past 15 years or so.
Yup, pretty much every province now has a good choice of local brews. It’s sad we have stupid interprovincial trade barriers because I wouldn’t mind a case of Boréale or Quidi Vidi once in a while, although we have choice too in Ontario. Beer is proof the universe loves us.
