Eccentric Flower talk:200908/Beer As Metaphor

Peebles:

That's not fair; not all Americans drink just to get drunk. Some drink because the movie Sideways told them to. So there's that.

-- 20:56, 26 August 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Actually what Sideways did is set back Merlot fifty years in this country. For this month's wine choices in Gourmet they feel the need to say, "Well, yes, a lot of what the movie said about domestic Merlot is true, but here are some good ones, trust us on this" - in effect.

-- 21:19, 26 August 2009 (BST)

Joy:

I actually enjoy the taste of tasteless beers. Why do you care?

For whatever reason, my taste in beer has waned from wanting Guiness and whatever double bock I could get my hands on to the lighter the better, and honestly, sometimes I want a Genny Ice (my wife is cringing in horror at the moment). I dislike very hoppy beers, which seem to dominate, and heavier beers make me feel kind of bloated, and I'm not sure there is a Sam Adams I can stand.

My usual used to be Corona. My wife recently ruined it for me by telling me it tasted like dirt to her. All of a sudden it did to me too.

Anyway, this is why aside from the occasional Hefeweizen, I stick to mixed drinks, scotch, or wine.

-- 21:25, 26 August 2009 (BST)

Joy:

Every single Merlot I've ever tried tastes like dust to me.

It is not dissimilar to the way in which Evian tastes dry to me.

-- 21:26, 26 August 2009 (BST)

Harmony:

I'm that person who will order a Merlot (or a Cab or what have you, but not a Pinot Noir, because I don't like it, Sideways be damned) at a brewpub. We have a local brewpub chain that also makes their own wine (and gin and whiskey), so I'll usually order the house. It's not bad, even if it's not amazing. (Or I'll get a gin and tonic, but that's another story).

Most beer makes me bloated and feel terrible. I like the flavor, but beer overall does not like me. So I have a sip of whatever my husband is drinking (usually something so hoppy I can hardly stand it, but I like trying new things), and then go back to wine.

And I have to admit a fondness for a Coors in a can, because that's what my dad used to drink after work and we'd get to sneak sips of it; it's a nostalgia beer, if you will. A Coors Light when you are hungover is just the thing, *because* you can't really taste it and it helps take the edge off. And a Corona with lime on a really hot day is a beautiful thing indeed (I hope it won't taste like dirt to me now).

-- 21:34, 26 August 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Oh, don't get me wrong - I have no problem with light fluffy beers, especially as a refresher on a hot day. It's just that I want them to have some taste, and Bud or Corona have no taste to me other than slighly brackish. On a hot day I am likely to go for something like Blue Moon or a similar beer in the hefeweisen style - light, easy to drink, refreshing, not in the least challenging - but still having some flavor. So you see, Joy, we are not far off after all - nor do I consider a hefeweisen to be a "tasteless" beer. I also don't consider Stella Artois or Pilsner Urquell to be tasteless, and the latter is what Budweiser is supposed to be. It's not style, it's rendition. Even among what a friend of mine calls "yellow beers" there's plenty of range of good and bad. But "the taste of tasteless beer" is a statement which does not compute to me.

Also - I don't pick on other people's beers, honest. If you like Corona and want to drink it, more power to you! But if you walked into a brewpub and asked for a Corona, that's a little different. It's like walking into the Coca-Cola plant and asking for a Pepsi.

(In recent weeks John Harvard's has had a summer saison that I think you would have liked very much, actually.)

-- 22:51, 26 August 2009 (BST)

Mel:

I had to go look to see what the stuff I've been drinking lately was, exactly: it's Michelob Ultra Pomegranate Raspberry. Which I would never have thought I would like, but if you go in our grocery store on Saturday afternoons, they usually have somebody pouring out beer or wine samples, and one day that was one of them. I sort of feel like fruit-flavored beer is heresy, but I liked it, so I'm getting over it.

-- 00:38, 27 August 2009 (BST)

Ursula:

What's wrong with drinking purely to get drunk? Every beer I've ever sipped tastes like diluted rat pee. I went through a period of drinking regularly, but while I learned to tolerate the taste of beer I never really enjoyed it. It tastes... spoiled.

But then you don't smoke pot for the taste, either. (Well, you don't unless you're one of those High Times types who is way, way too into pot.) I think of beer, like pot, as an intoxication delivery system.

I could cultivate a taste for beer, but it sounds like a bad idea. I mean, the stuff is not good for you, and if it tastes bad to start with, why FORCE yourself to learn to like it? Just hold your nose, gulp the stuff down and enjoy the resulting high.

I'll confess to a certain annoyance with serious beer people, wine people and pot people. Addiction runs in my family, so that's part of it. But it also just seems like being a fanatic for running shoes or something. It's something that should just be a means to an end, and people get way too fussy about the whole thing. A movie like Sideways would've driven me crazy. Imagine two hours of people rhapsodizing about how model airplane glue is ALIVE, how it BREATHES and SPARKLES and shut the heck up already.

(I'm not trying to saying you're coming across as a beer bore. This topic just got me rambly.)

-- 01:12, 27 August 2009 (BST)

Joy:

Well, I do like Blue Moon and Pilsner Urquell, so I guess I don't have to hate you after all, heh.

You can get that Coca-cola Pepsi thing here. Our campus Does Not Do Coke due to labor or investment or something or other practices, so you get looked at askance if you ask for a diet coke. Alas, for Pepsi is terrible.

-- 21:11, 27 August 2009 (BST)