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Tips for Avoiding Bland Beer

2009 November 1
by Mike VanDelinder

This post comes as an excerpt from a menu I may or may not have “borrowed” from The Porterhouse in Dublin. Read, enjoy, and comment:

To compensate for flavour and to appeal to the “mass market” advertising executives have dreamed up an exciting range of words to hide their bland reality. Don’t be fooled and follow these tips to avoid bland beer:

  • Avoid “LITE”
  • Avoid “DRY”
  • Avoid “COLD-FILTERED”
  • Avoid “ICE”
  • Avoid “SMOOTH”
  • Avoid “CREAM/CREAMY”
  • Avoid “CLEAN”
  • Avoid beer advertised with words ending in “FLOW”
  • Avoid beer advertised on TV
  • Avoid beer with sports tournaments named after them.
  • Avoid beer with “RICE” in the ingredients.
  • Avoid beer “BREWED UNDER LICENSE”  it’s usually a different strength, a different taste and no resemblance to the original. Often just brewed down the road but they hint that it’s an exotic import.

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  • Martha

    Two points of disagreement on the question of rice without actually knowing exactly what I’m talking about. 1. There are probably a lot of really good imported rice beers AND the rice question seems to be a lot like other silly rules that some countries put up around what defines beer or good beer. 2. As I understand it, most beers aren’t required to tell us what the ingredients are at all… so how do we know there’s rice “filler” in there in the first place?

  • http://michaelwrites.tumblr.com Mike VanDelinder

    I have to agree Martha – there are plenty of quality beers that rely on rice as an ingredient. The point of no rice, or for that matter corn, as an adjunct ingredient seems to be a point of pride for craft brewers. These adjuncts are typically used as a cheaper replacement for malt than say barley. As a result, one could argue that using true malts will result in a richer, fuller taste but it’s certainly not always true. Everyone likes to make an enemy of the big guys, and in this case, the lagers of America and the rest of the world are using rice as a substitute in what craft brewers feel can be better reproduced in a smaller operation with other malts.