Say you want to give a brief beer tutorial to somebody who is interested in beer but only knows whatever style is most popular in your country/region (e.g., for the USA, light lager). Assuming you have access to any beers you like, and picking a semi-arbitrary number, what five beers would you use to help demonstrate the range of styles and flavors beer can have? I have my own idea, but would be interested in seeing what others have to say.
This almost sounds like naming BJCP commercial examples for given styles. And there's the rub: there are so dang many styles, I'd find it hard to do what you propose with just five. You'd do well with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Guinness Stout, Victory Prima Pils, Schneider Weisse, and Westmalle Dubbel, but you'd still wind up leaving out so much. Tough call, hmm? You still have abbey triple, a whole range of lambic-based beers, one-offs like Orval, German Bock and Doppelbock, amber lagers, porter, and on and on...
True, but this would just be an introduction. Obviously five tastes of beer won't run the full gamut, but it's a start. The kind of thing that sparks my interest in giving people a gentle push down the road of beer education is hearing people say things like "I don't like beer; I tried it once and it was awful."
I'd certainly start with a fine pilsner and explain to him that this is where it all started. What he usually drinks, light style lagers I presume, are a very poor commercial representation of what started out to be very fine lagers. Pilsner Urquell comes to mind. I can get it quite fresh by the case load here in Aus, but I hear of so many on this group who can only get out of date skunked bottles (don't go there!) Steve W (in Aus)
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