OT - Craft beer sadness

I don't mind Oberon, but I prefer 312 because it's more beer-tasting and less citrusy. I don't like Leinie's Summer Shandy either... to citrus tasting for me

Trust me, I celebrate and partake in celebrating Oberon Day but I think it is hands down the most overrated beer out there.  I'll drink 4-5 per spring/summer and then move on to something else that is lighter -- like Hendrick's and club soda with a lime.  Or a lighter IPA.  Oberon just doesn't do it for me on a 90 degree, humid day.

I don't always drink beer (that's a lie), but when I do,  I prefer Blue Moon over 312 and Oberon.

The brewmaster Greg Hall is also stepping down.  Hopefully they're promoting from within and this doesn't change things much, because the last few years they really expanded their lineup and were doing a lot of interesting beers.

One upshot: I'd guess there's a good chance this could mean the return of the Nut Brown and Oatmeal Stout, which they had stopped brewing because it didn't sell as well as some of the others and they were trying to find more capacity anywhere they could, so they ended up cutting beers.  That should no longer be a problem with AB owning it.

It isn't that bad, but I would order a Sierra Nevada over it if I were craving a pale ale.

and I agree that Dragon's Milk is unbelievably good. One of my favorites. New Holland puts out some very, very good beer. Any IPA fans out there? I just tried Three Floyds IPA a few weeks back and was blown away. Very good stuff.

This has been my drink of choice all winter. Although I can't see it being too enjoyable on a hot summer day haha.

I tried the Dragon's Milk at Ashley's about a year and a half ago. Absolutely fantastic.

That's what happened when 7Up/Dr. Pepper bought Vernors.

Once upon a time, Dr. Vernor's Ginger Ale was barrel aged 3 years for that fantastic sneeze and cough effect.

In other beer news: The food town around the corner from here had a Frankenmuth Brewing Co 12 pack sampler in store, so I guess FBC is distributing now, which makes me a happy camper.

i agree. but what did you think about this year's hopslam? i thought it was real good. i think it actually got better this year. 

Okay, thank you- after reading your comment, I feel a little better in my opinion that Oberon just doesn't taste like it used to/as good as it used to back in, say, 2001 or so, or at least it didn't last year.

Oberon tweaked their recipe about four years ago, but there hasn't been any noticeable difference between batches the last few years.

There's nothing technically that prevents a mass-produced beer from being great. The brewers at A-B are technically extremely good brewers. The irony is that you have to be a damn good brewer to make something as flavorless as Budweiser. Beers with more flavor hide mistakes better than beers with less flavor, and when you're brewing something with as little flavor as Bud or its equivalent there isn't any room to hide your mistakes.

What does prevent mass-produced beer from being great is management. Management chooses to use crappy recipes, because that's their market wants. Management chooses to use lots of corn or rice and to wave a handful of hop cones in the general direction of the brewery to save costs. Management chooses to spend the money they save on marketing.

To show an example of the difference a recipe and some half-way decent ingredients can make, look at the history of Sam Adams. (Not my favorite beer, but if you can catch one in good shape it's a decent beer, and it was one of the first widely available decent American beers since Prohibition.) Originally Sam Adams (or at least a lot of it) was done through contract brewing. One of the places where they made it was at the old Hudepohl brewery in Cincinnati (which they eventually bought). Hudepohl made awful beer. Awful, awful beer. Yet Sam Adams, brewed at the same facility by the same brewmasters, was a decent beer.

Home-brewing is a wonderful hobby, and something I've been doing for a couple years now. It is very rewarding because it's such a tremendous investment. The sanitization methods you need to make successful beer are... cumbersome at best. Not to mention, the slightest fluxuation in temperature during fermentation, yeast strains, grain roasting, can have a significant effect on the final product.

This is where expanding breweries run into trouble. Making consistent tasting beers becomes very difficult as you increase manufacturing runs. Budweiser / Miller can do it because they make such shitty nonsense to begin with.

I've tried brewing a couple times, and concluded that I like certain beers too much to be able to enjoy my own mediocre overcarbinated concoxions.