WHAT MAKES A CRAP BEER?

WHAT MAKES A CRAP BEER?

A couple of weeks ago I posted about beer.  Stupid post because I don’t even like beer that much.  I posted how when I do buy beer I buy Miller High Life.  I also made fun of Mexican beer because it is brewed with (I assume) Mexican water, something everyone who visits Mexico is warned not to drink.

Several readers came to the defense of Mexican beer, and truth be told I often drink Corona.  

One reader actually had to inform me that Miller High Life is crap!  Wow, my personal preference in beer is crap...who knew?  I wasn’t told that true connoisseurs would not rank Miller as one of the finer beers, but I was told straight out that Miller, my preferred beer is CRAP!

This got me to thinking, what makes a beer good and what makes a beer crap.  I decided on three criteria:

Taste/ Does it make you sick?/ Cost

Taste, regardless of what any reader or connoisseur may tell you, is personal.  If you think it tastes good then gosh darn it, it tastes good.

If it tastes good, but you have a miserable hangover in the morning, or it makes you barf, it is crap.  Regardless of what any reader or connoisseur may tell you, if the beer gives you a miserable hangover and or makes you barf, it is crap beer.

If you like the taste, and it does not give you a hangover or make you barf, I say it is a good beer.  If it costs $20 a six pack, it is crap.

In my life I have probably sampled about 200 different beers.  Only two have made me barf or given me a worse hangover than consumption would have dictated.  I have never sampled any beer that cost $20 a six pack.

In my mind, beer is either good, or crap.  There is no great beer, just the beer that you happen to prefer taste wise that doesn’t make you sick and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

I remember when Coors was not available in the east, and it was featured predominantly in a book and later a movie “North Dallas Forty.”  Coors became “THE” beer.  When it became available in limited supplies back east, it was in great demand and overpriced.  If you scored a case it was a big deal.  Everyone gushed about how good Coors was.  Coors is now readily available all over and it is a good beer, but nothing special, and it is sold at the same price as most other good beers.

Corona was all the rage for a while.  People liked the lime in the bottle thing, very cool and sophisticated.  Turns out the lime thing was because in Mexico it kept the flies out of the bottle…not so cool and sophisticated.  Still, people will not drink a Corona without the lime garnish.  Any other beer, a lime is not requested.

There is a new beer advertised lately, “Blue Moon” that is served with an orange slice as garnish, because it complements the beer which is brewed with orange zest or something.  What bull shit! But it has made drinking Blue Moon with an orange garnish very popular.

We went to a sports bar for dinner tonight, and they served 78 different beers.  There were four different Samuel Adams brands, because apparently the brewers of Samuel Adams take extra pride and care in brewing their beer.  There were three different varieties of Blue Moon, served I’m sure with the bull shit orange garnish.  They did not offer Miller High Life, the Champagne of bottled beer.

I had water.

All the other beers are crap!