# finally a decent pils.. probably



## Yob (28/7/16)

http://www.craftkulture.com/stone-announces-arrogant-brewing/


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## Mardoo (28/7/16)

Man, the time stamps on the triple post are interesting. Oh, and Stone.


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## TheWiggman (28/7/16)

Would be an interesting one to try, given Stone's creds with highly hopped, strong ales. 'True' pilsners are a subtle style and my limited experience with the so-called craft brewers trying to do a pils ends up not hitting the mark because there's too much hop flavour or not enough focus on bitterness and grainy malt bite. 
I find it one that brewers try to reinvent and in the process do a hoppy lager that doesn't hit the spot. Watching with interest.


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## Adr_0 (28/7/16)

TheWiggman said:


> Would be an interesting one to try, given Stone's creds with highly hopped, strong ales. 'True' pilsners are a subtle style and my limited experience with the so-called craft brewers trying to do a pils ends up not hitting the mark because there's too much hop flavour or not enough focus on bitterness and grainy malt bite.
> I find it one that brewers try to reinvent and in the process do a hoppy lager that doesn't hit the spot. Watching with interest.


Indeed... Nail hit firmly on head.


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (28/7/16)

TheWiggman said:


> I find it one that brewers try to reinvent and in the process do a hoppy lager that doesn't hit the spot. Watching with interest.


Couldn't agree more: whoever invented the idea of IPL is at the top of my "against the wall" list.

You're in Corowa, do you work for UTC by any chance?


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## Rocker1986 (28/7/16)

I agree with the above as well. I have tried a few pilsners that just don't meet my expectations of what they should be, especially these bloody "new world" ones. They present like pale ales, and although I love hoppy pale ales, when I drink a pilsner I expect it to taste like one, not a bloody west coast IPA or something.

That said, I hope to be able to try this at some stage, because it can't really be judged until it has been tried. Will be interesting for sure.


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## good4whatAlesU (28/7/16)

http://mobile.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Drinks/Beer/Why-I-m-hopping-mad-over-ever-more-extreme-beers


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## sp0rk (28/7/16)

Rocker1986 said:


> I agree with the above as well. I have tried a few pilsners that just don't meet my expectations of what they should be, especially these bloody "new world" ones. They present like pale ales, and although I love hoppy pale ales, when I drink a pilsner I expect it to taste like one, not a bloody west coast IPA or something.
> 
> That said, I hope to be able to try this at some stage, because it can't really be judged until it has been tried. Will be interesting for sure.


I was chatting with the brewers at Little Brewing Co once and they mentioned they'd gotten a lot of bad reviews on one of the beer rating apps for their Kolsch
Almost every single one was "should be much hoppier"
This is a good example of my thought that the hop craze has gone full retard
Can the next craze please be RIS/Export Stouts?


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## paulyman (28/7/16)

sp0rk said:


> Can the next craze please be RIS/Export Stouts?


But won't this just lead to nothing but 10%+ ABV beers hogging the taps like IPA's and their derivatives are now? Don't get me wrong, I love an IPA and I love a RIS, but the first overloads my palate after a couple and the second overloads my balance after a couple. Bring on the mild craze, so I can actually have more than a few without being done for the night.


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## sp0rk (28/7/16)

paulyman said:


> Bring on the mild craze, so I can actually have more than a few without being done for the night.


That is actually a far better idea


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## good4whatAlesU (28/7/16)

Plenty of good Stouts around 5% and under. Myth that they need to be super high %.


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## good4whatAlesU (28/7/16)

The definitive flavour comes from the roasted grains, not so much the high alcohol content.


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## yankinoz (28/7/16)

sp0rk said:


> I was chatting with the brewers at Little Brewing Co once and they mentioned they'd gotten a lot of bad reviews on one of the beer rating apps for their Kolsch
> Almost every single one was "should be much hoppier"
> This is a good example of my thought that the hop craze has gone full retard
> Can the next craze please be RIS/Export Stouts?


Hopheads dominate Ratebeer and Beer Advocate, but give a misleading picture of what appeals to the general public. If you look at the beers that are craft in style but sell really well, the flagship brews that made some craft brewers grow big, they range from malty and mildly hopped to fairly strongly hopped, but not extreme. S & W Pacific and Little Creatures Pale are good examples of moderately hop forward ales. In the US, where most of the raters live, there's SN Pale on the hoppy side, Doggy Style a bit more so, Anchor Steam less so, and well-balanced brews like Sam Adams Boston Lager, Anchor Steam, Goose Island Honkers Ale (regrettably now owned by Anheuser-InBev), Red Hook ESB, Alaska Amber and New Belgium Fat Tire. Milwaukee's top seller is an excellent Vienna lager. In the UK the leading quality brewers like T & T, Fuller's and Sam Smith put out a variety of brews, little of it highly hopped. Of course there's also Brewdog's IPAs in the UK, Dogfish Head IPAs in the US along with Stone's IPAs and Mendocino's Old Rasputin, big sellers, but not as much as the beers noted above.

What brewers seem to be picking up is that a few percent of beer drinkers everywhere are hopheads, which is why even some German and Belgian brewers are broadening out into those styles. Hop breeders have created a market. Yet I've been to very few pubs specializing in craft beers anywhere where all the choices were hop bombs. Malty ales are usually there too. I do agree that good pilsners are harder to find from the newer craft brewers, but they exist.

The one trend I see in the US that could squeeze out traditional styles is high-alcohol, not high hops. I do see brewers listing 30 or 40 beers, some malty, some hoppy, some sour and some sweet, but only one or two under 5% abv. That won't happen in Australia because of the tax penalty on strong beers.


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## good4whatAlesU (28/7/16)

Agreed won't happen in Aus or NZ due to the excise. 

Some of the big players control distribution of even what many punters think are 'craft'. So domestically we don't see all beers that should be available (or rather the market is not driving the available selection (it's being selected for us)).

On an aside I tried an Argentinian beer in Sydney this week (apparently the countries biggest seller) and it was super smooth mild lager - almost no trace of hop at all... must do some googling and see who owns / brews it.


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## good4whatAlesU (29/7/16)

On the American style question: have you seen what those guys call 'coffee' do you know how much sugar they eat? ... I'm not sure the American palate is what we should be aspiring too.... Just saying.


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## sp0rk (29/7/16)

good4whatAlesU said:


> The definitive flavour comes from the roasted grains, not so much the high alcohol content


It's all about balance between the 2


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (29/7/16)

yankinoz said:


> That won't happen in Australia because of the tax penalty on strong beers.


We have a tax* reduction for light beers rather than a penalty on strong beers. Same effect, but Treasury** has published a white paper calling for rationalisation of all alcohol taxes which would presumably mean moving them all to the spirits rate. That's currently roughly $1.00 / standard drink, almost double the beer rate.

They have support from the wowser lobby: one of the big drivers of this is that wine pays no excise, just a higher level of ad valorem tax ( WET + GST) so cheap (bad) wine is the cheapest drunk available. The health lobby would really like to get rid of this, trouble is it will send a bunch of people in the irrigation areas broke.

One way the whole thing could be managed is to move the excise threshold from 1.15 (% ABV) to say 2.5 which would minimise the impact on the big brewers who wouldn't let it through otherwise. The 1.15 is an anachronism anyway. The idea is to encourage the production of low alcohol wine and it's usually pretty bad so it doesn't matter much if you make it from cheap grapes.

* it's an excise rather than a tax, not that it matters for this discussion)
** The government department, not the wine co.


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## Randai (29/7/16)

Lyrebird_Cycles said:


> We have a tax* reduction for light beers rather than a penalty on strong beers. Same effect, but Treasury** has published a white paper calling for rationalisation of all alcohol taxes which would presumably mean moving them all to the spirits rate. That's currently roughly $1.00 / standard drink, almost double the beer rate.
> 
> They have support from the wowser lobby: one of the big drivers of this is that wine pays no excise, just a higher level of ad valorem tax ( WET + GST) so cheap (bad) wine is the cheapest drunk available. The health lobby would really like to get rid of this, trouble is it will send a bunch of people in the irrigation areas broke.
> 
> ...


Would it just be a flat rate per drink or per percentage of alcohol? Because if flat rate then everyone would make higher alcohol percentage, if per percentage maybe we'd end up like the UK with a bunch of < 4% beers.


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (29/7/16)

I don't get your point: the standard drink content logically scales with the ABV.

Standard drinks = ABV * V * 0.789 with V in litres and ABV as a percentage number (eg 5% ABV = 5, not .05)

The excise is calculated on alcohol content and production volume: stating the costs as per standard drink just makes it easier for the average punter to grasp.


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## good4whatAlesU (29/7/16)

Also calculated on the size of container it's sold in (just to make it complicated). Kegs are cheaper.


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (29/7/16)

Lyrebird_Cycles said:


> The excise is calculated on alcohol content and production volume: stating the costs as per standard drink just makes it easier for the average punter to grasp.


_ Production_ volume should have been _product_ volume.

The story goes that the excise difference for large containers exists because when asked in a pub whether GST would increase the cost of draught beer Little Johnny said "no" so the Treasury mandarins had to make it so.

Anyway, they're all going up on Monday: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Excise-and-excise-equivalent-goods/Alcohol-excise/Excise-rates-for-alcohol/


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## good4whatAlesU (29/7/16)

Thank God for home brew.


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