BWS's Idea Of Beer Categories

[tricache]

I had a laugh at this when I got there usual newsletter...had to share this.

http://www.beerwinespirits.com.au/beer-categories.html

Has anyone found "Clear Beer" in there judging guidelines?

 

[sponge]

I am assuming you cannot have a clear beer in a green/brown bottle then..?

Don't often hear of beers classed by their packaging as opposed to their contents.

Would make for a good comp, having beer in the clearest glass possible.

 

[sp0rk]

Also, apparently ales only go with red meat dishes and lagers are hop driven...

 

[lukiferj]

Clear beers. Awesome.

 

[hsb]

My local Dan's rearranged the wine, we're talking ten thousand bottles here, in alphabetical order by the label.
Ahead of their time as it all got moved back a month later.

But then they have the Chinese beers next to the Belgians and the Beers containing Banana.

PMSL @ Flavoured Beer - Beers with added taste of lemon, lime or ginger - the three classic 'flavours' of flavoured beer, we have ze lemon, ze lime und ze ginger.


Nice use of the comma there too
Clear Beer - Clear, glass packaged beers

Clear beers, now available in glass!

 

[Bribie G]

I think the Dans layout is pretty good: an aisle of megaswill, half an aisle of local craft beer and half an aisle of imports - although that often includes some BULs of course. Then they have a cold section which has a good range of individual bottles, and often a deal like buy six assorted and get a couple of dollars off, usually buy my Zywiec that way.

 

[stux]

Anyone else regard 4% as Full Strength?

 

[Bribie G]

The breweries would like us to think that, most new brands seem to be around 4.4%. However VB learned their lesson.

 

[slash22000]

It's a ******* shame, the state of beer in Australia. Or everywhere, I guess?

Go into a bottle shop, they'll have 80% of the floor covered in racks of wine bottles. Hundreds of them. Every variety under the sun. Now don't get me wrong, I drink wine, I enjoy wine, I'd like to think I know something about wine, I can tell most varieties apart, but take the average Australian and they'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between any grape juice aside from being "red", "pink" (lol) or "white". Why do they need 500 bottles of Shiraz?

Yet with beer it's absolutely obvious the difference between various styles. Much like wine, some people might not be able to tell two similar beers apart, but the difference between styles of beer is blindingly obvious. It's not a subtle difference. Where wine has "red/pink/white", there are dozens and dozens of completely unique beer styles.

So why do we have thousands of bottles of wine and then a few hundred bottles of virtually identical Australian piss-lager? The mind boggles. Seriously.

 

[SergeMarx]

It's a ******* shame, the state of beer in Australia. Or everywhere, I guess?

Go into a bottle shop, they'll have 80% of the floor covered in racks of wine bottles. Hundreds of them. Every variety under the sun. Now don't get me wrong, I drink wine, I enjoy wine, I'd like to think I know something about wine, I can tell most varieties apart, but take the average Australian and they'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between any grape juice aside from being "red", "pink" (lol) or "white". Why do they need 500 bottles of Shiraz?

Yet with beer it's absolutely obvious the difference between various styles. Much like wine, some people might not be able to tell two similar beers apart, but the difference between styles of beer is blindingly obvious. It's not a subtle difference. Where wine has "red/pink/white", there are dozens and dozens of completely unique beer styles.

So why do we have thousands of bottles of wine and then a few hundred bottles of virtually identical Australian piss-lager? The mind boggles. Seriously.

Damn straight

 

[edschache]

@slash22000 - but there is only one flavour "beer" right? it's that thing bogans that can't afford wine drink

My local first choice has two categories - flavourless mainstream lager or lightstruck/tainted/mishandled beer. Even 28 Pale Ale from Burleigh tastes like it's been on a month long tour of Uluru in summer despite being 100k from the brewery.

Big thumbs up to the guys/gals at Archive in West End for their cold room of indecision and temptation.

What annoys me more than bottleshops is restaurants. You'll go to some with a 5 page wine list with bottles up to $200 a pop and then you ask for a beer and they say "hahn premium light, XXXX gold or crown lager?" to which you reply "water please". Seriously wtf?

 

[slash22000]

What annoys me more than bottleshops is restaurants. You'll go to some with a 5 page wine list with bottles up to $200 a pop and then you ask for a beer and they say "hahn premium light, XXXX gold or crown lager?" to which you reply "water please". Seriously wtf?

Funny you mention that, because I have a good example. There's a restaurant here in Darwin that has a specially designed humidity controlled walk-in wine cooler with about a hundred bottles of wine, some cost >$1000 each locked in glass cases. You can walk in and choose your own bottle, it has little labels on every one of them describing the flavour, where it's grown, the winery, etc. Then they'll make a big fuss about coming out and decanting it etc for you.

On their beer taps is XXXX Gold, Tooheys and a few miscellaneous light/mid beers. It's a ******* disgrace. Is it so hard to keep a six pack or two of worthwhile beer in the fridge? Maybe see how fast they fly off the shelves?

 

[tricache]

If you like over priced & "better" wine it makes you a connoisseur but if you like better craft beer you are a snob/weirdo....makes sense to me NOT :angry:

 

[joshuahardie]

If you like over priced & "better" wine it makes you a connoisseur but if you like better craft beer you are a snob/weirdo....makes sense to me NOT :angry:

Could not agree more. Why do people look at me funny at a BBQ when I insist I drink my beer out of a glass, instead of the bottle.
If I was slugging wine out of a bottle id be called a drunk....

 

[Dave70]

Low Carb - Beer that is low in carbohydrates

 

[Spiesy]

What annoys me more than bottleshops is restaurants. You'll go to some with a 5 page wine list with bottles up to $200 a pop and then you ask for a beer and they say "hahn premium light, XXXX gold or crown lager?" to which you reply "water please". Seriously wtf?

Yep.

I get why bottle shops have a majority choice in wine, compared to beer - it's what the market demands... but the amount of good quality restaurants that have virtually NO choice in the beer department, just 3-4 "international lagers" (Stella, Heine, Peroni, Crown) drives me insane!

Seriously.... if you drank Stella, Heineken, Peroni or Becks, etc - you wouldn't overly mind if you're preferred beer wasn't there, but another "international lager" was in it's place. But if you don't fancy a bland, tasteless, lager, there's nothing for you.

 

[bum]

But if you don't fancy a bland, tasteless, lager, there's nothing for you.

And you're also probably in the wrong country. Let's face it - the average person thinks those beers are the fancy option and those restaurants are trying - ****** though those options may be.

Regardless, if I ran a kitchen I wouldn't want to be serving palate-wrecking, hoppy beers and the like anyway.

 

[Bribie G]

Wine is a total **** - time and time again someone does a blind testing on general members of the public and they choose the cask over the $70 of boutique Hunter Valley stuff.
Rellies on the N Shore in Sydney love their wine as long as it's over $20 a bottle. Last time I bought three of Vino Gusto Coles plonk for $13 - they didn't know the brand as they never go to that end of the bottlo - and they loved it "Ah Grange North Slope 98 with a fair hint of cranberry in the finish and .....". I actually think I whipped the veil from their eyes because a couple of days later they were raving over a $8 end of bin thing they'd picked up.

I've no doubt that the genuine conoisseurs who know what they are talking about can distinguish between "value ranges" of wine just as a very small proportion of the population can tell you the difference between an APA and a Dusseldorf Alt. And we are talking really a minute proportion.

 

[slash22000]

Regardless, if I ran a kitchen I wouldn't want to be serving palate-wrecking, hoppy beers and the like anyway.

I don't think anybody is suggesting restaurants go out of their way to serve 100+ IBU IPA's. Would it kill them to have a few Little Creature ales around, at least? Something other than alcoholic fizzy piss water?

 

[bum]

Would it kill them to have a few Little Creature ales around, at least? Something other than alcoholic fizzy piss water?

Make your mind up!

Flavourful beers are very hard to pair with a broad range of foods.

Plus no one would buy it because they want a fancy Crownie when they're out or they want the beer they usually drink. How many people do you think want a beer even as adventurous as White Rabbit dark ale?