Please Explain This Brewing Practice

Well, there are many more American beers that are good, than that are bad. But this is in terms of variety, not quantity produced. If you're drinking mass produced beer all the time, then you are missing out, my friend. I'm constantly finding a new offering that is absolutely wonderful. Sometimes they come and go in the good beer shops. For instance, I found a stout that blew everything away, called "Black Hart" made at Fort Bragg BrewCo, and it unfortunately disappeared very quickly. I hear some Trader Joes still have it, but they are usually sold out.

You make one good point, in that the best mass-produced beers are always obtained at the breweries. This always astounded me. I took the Miller tour in Milwaukee, and the samplers there were orders of magnitude better than the stuff you buy at the store. Same with a brewery tour at Sam Adams in S. Boston area, an Anheuser-Busch tour in St. Louis, Anchor tour in San Fran, etc..

Cheers! John

Malted barley, of course.

Right.

Right, there are taxes, tariffs, etc. that depend on alcohol content, so they have to alter the recipe.

Indeed.

I have been trying to track down the source of the cardboard taste of foreign beers produced for consumption in the US. I am now speculating that the source may actually be something called "caustic acid," which is extensively used in US mass-production to clean the equipment and keep bacteria out. This stuff is absolutely wonderful for destroying bacteria, or any other living things for that matter, but what about the residual taste it leaves? This might be a complicated effect, and have to do with long-term interaction of caustic acid with the metal surfaces in a way that is not well-understood. What do people use besides caustic acid? Well, at micro-breweries bleach is often used as an alternative. Certainly, bleach can taste awful too (I've experienced this at some brewcos), but perhaps it is more readily rinsed off, and has no detrimental long-term effect on the metal surfaces?

Hard to say...I'm interested in what other's might have to say on this issue. My thoughts are only speculative...but I would like to find the source of the cardboard aftertaste. For a great example of this, try Asahi dry brewed under constract at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in LA.

Cheers! John

Always nice to hear from a knowledgeable beer expert...

ITYM ricin. Das Reinheitsgebot. As it says on a can I am now holding, "nach dem Reinheitsgebot von 1516 gebraut".

Prinz Ludwig(?) of Bavaria decreed that only malt, barley and water could be used in brewing. There were laws going back even further. If you're able to converse with the Katzenjammer Kids, here's the German bier website:

BTB, this can I am holding has to be taken back to the original place of purchase, rinsed out and not crushed, with its receipt, in order to obtain a refund of its Pfand, or deposit, of 25 cents. The alternative is to schlep bottles back (rinsed), with a Pfand of about 10 cents. As the Authorities don't like us to have cars, and we're on the fourth floor with no lift - sorry, elevator - what can one do?

One _has_ to be a _good_ German, hasn't one? Turn a blind eye to the occasional intrusion by the state. It's for our own good.

Peter

BTW: The can cost (without Pfand) - 49 cents.

Very typical. For instance, Sam Adams is brewed and bottled at a contract brewery. They have to use the Sam Adams recipe, and adhere to the strict QA set down by Sam Adams (Boston Brewing Co., I think?)

Basically, they are just using someone else's manufacturing facility to make a product per specifications, just like your shoes or your XBox.

A cardboard taste is indicative of oxidation, at least according to Papazian and maybe I've read that in Jackson too. I experienced it once in a 6 year old bottle of Thomas Hardy's Ale...it was totally undrinkable, tasted like liquidized cardboard. I suppose its reasonable that these imports are just a tad oxidized by the time the hit the shelves in the US.

I'd say 30-35% of the grain bill definitely qualifies as "major." Imagine 30-35% black patent, or even light crystal malt. That much of the grain bill will have a great effect on the finished product.

-- Joel Plutchak Boneyard Union of Zymurgical Zealots

"Resorting to personal harassment is a tactic of desperation."

Yeah, you caught my error on that one. What I was trying to convey was that rice is not the "primary" or majority ingredient in Bud. I don't know how many times I've heard from my non-homebreiwng friends that claim that Bud is "all" rice.

Poor choice of words on my part. Thanks for clearing it up for the groups.

Chuck Bernard

Beer that is Oxydized tastes like cardboard. Imported beer takes quite a trip before you get to drink it. Then if they are in clear or green bottles they turn skunky and carboardy (A word?)