The Beer Thread

[33anda3rd]

33rd what say you? who gets one of these?

Same guy with little to no concern for quality that owns a Keurig.

[JL21]

I'm bored and feel like creating a dumb listicle. So here are, IMO, ten essential beers of the St. Louis Craft Beer Movement. Presented in no particular order.

1. 4 Hands Chocolate Milk Stout
2. Civil Life Brown
3. Perennial Abraxas
4. Perennial Sump Coffee Stout
5. Perennial Vermillion
6. Urban Chestnut Oachkatzlschwoaf (pronounced "Oh Sh*ts A Loaf")
7. Urban Chestnut Zwickel
8. 4 Hands Madagascar
9. 4 Hands Smoked Pigasus
10. Perennial Stefon

Some of these aren't great beers but I think they work well as representatives of the movement. The Zwickel and Civil Life Brown, specifically, are nothing special, but they're decent options and readily available.

[Freed Roger]

33rd what say you? who gets one of these?

Same guy with little to no concern for quality that owns a Keurig.

Yessss!!!... I don't own a Keurig.

[33anda3rd]

10. Perennial Stefon

That beer has EVERYTHING.

[jim]

33rd what say you? who gets one of these?

Same guy with little to no concern for quality that owns a Keurig.

So Keurig's are out? You have a lot of god damned rules in your life. How do you keep them straight?

[Jocephus]

yeah, f those rules.

[Arthur Dent]

33rd what say you? who gets one of these?

Same guy with little to no concern for quality that owns a Keurig.

I don't agree at all.

It looks like they are making some compromises to keep the system small e.g. "boiling" at 208F, but in terms of quality that may well be swamped by the tight process control of a contained automated system. I don't see any reason why such a system couldn't produce a high quality beer.

Most of the complaints seem to be that too much automation takes away the joy and artistry of home brewing, but you could just as well argue that this sort of system allows a home brewer to focus more on the actual craft parameters rather than the "art" of trying to do tight temperature control with a thermometer and water infusions.

[Freed Roger]

drink your inferior beer/coffee/bourbon and live your less fulfilling lives

[33anda3rd]

There's one rule, really: I go for quality.

Keurig? Come on. That's convenience, period. There's no other benefit to it. Not to mention it's ridiculously irresponsible environmentally, all those plastic pods with aluminum tops filling up landfills. Keurig says their plastic pods will be recyclable by 2020, that's five more years of all those little pods going in dumps. The machine isn't recyclable either so when it breaks after a few years it's in a dump as well. It's a disposable modern convenience of a disposable society.

This beer thing, you are not brewing beer. Brewing beer is the same thing as cooking, like in the smoked meats thread. People have ideas, they learn from experience, they put their own twist on it. Someone using this, who looks up a recipe, puts the grain and hops in and hits a couple buttons is not "brewing" beer, (s)he is doing the same as, say, gassing up their car. They're just putting the stuff in that makes an otherwise automated system run. Brewing is part craft and part art, and removing one part isn't virtuous, or as good as the process that involves both.

Freed, I'm not saying people who use these lead less fulfilling lives. I've had plenty of fulfilling times recently knocking back a half-dozen PBRs and eating cheap pizza. If anything, I think these automated machines give people the false impression--an impression they don't deserve--that they are crafting something on the same scale as someone doing it manually. ie they're the snobs, perhaps.

[Jocephus]

now thats some logic.

i agree they are bad for the environment and its a convenience.

let me guess, you still use a blacksmith?