How Hard Do You Find It To Convert Megaswillers

[mikec]

If I fed my beer to mates I'd have to spend too much time brewing.
Bugger that.

 

[Edak]

Got a mate with the blandest tastebuds in the world...

That is my dad, who ONLY drinks Corona or Sol. His wife had only ever tasted that boring crap until I offered her a taste of a nice IPA. She initially said...

"I won't like it because I don't like beer"

Surely enough, as it hit her lips, *BOOM* convert!

"Oh my god! I never knew beer could taste like that, it's really nice, I could drink that! Why *to my father* don't you ever drink anything like that?"

My dad however is still not convinced and will always drink the same boring dishwater (IMHO).

My mates will taste anything, sometimes they want more sometimes they don't. They are generally lager drinkers but the biggest hit so far was surprisingly a K&K Leffe Blonde, which only slightly resembled the real thing. The problem was that the whole batch went so fast because my mates gave their mates a taste at a party then everyone decided they would take one.

 

[fergi]

My Euro Lager (Wey Pils and Noble hop combo to 25 IBUs, S189) put into a carlsberg stubbie with a CPBF served at 4C has never not had a convert.

It's about presentation.

i think you have got it right nick,

they probably dont so much not like my beer its the ingrained stigma in their head that its "HOME BREW"

i think when we mention ,do you want a home brew, they instantly remember the supermarket can of goo with a kilo of sugar and fermented for 3 days at 30 deg taste.

fergi

 

[Nick JD]

i think you have got it right nick,

they probably dont so much not like my beer its the ingrained stigma in their head that its "HOME BREW"

i think when we mention ,do you want a home brew, they instantly remember the supermarket can of goo with a kilo of sugar and fermented for 3 days at 30 deg taste.

fergi

Works even better when you hand it to them opened (carlsberg bottles have bugger all label) and say nothing. Then five minutes later you hear from the BBQ, "What? This is homebrew?" The punter studies the lacing in the bottle, swigs again, but it's too late, they are already converted.

Very same BBQ, my mate asks his Sth African buddy if he'd like one of Nick's HOMEBREWS ... "No thanks [begin story about how aweful homebrew is and will always be]

I've seen it happen a lot. The other bad one is handing a Megaswill drinker a Belgian or an IPA or a hefe - that won't work - give them what 90% of the world drinks: 25 IBU lagers.

There's a difference between serving someone a lager they'll find inoffensive and delicious, and trying to push a beer that tastes like bananas or grapefruit-flavoured battery acid. Let's face it - most people aren't bored shitless by beer they need to brew stuff that tastes like horseblankets.

 

[tricache]

i think you have got it right nick,

they probably dont so much not like my beer its the ingrained stigma in their head that its "HOME BREW"

i think when we mention ,do you want a home brew, they instantly remember the supermarket can of goo with a kilo of sugar and fermented for 3 days at 30 deg taste.

fergi

That's right on the money...I saw a photo on Facebook of a friend in Europe with (what looked like) a nice cloudy looking wheat beer or something similar and most of the comments were "Looks like some cloudy as sh*t homebrew"

 

[Bribie G]

Beer is no different to other products. The best selling coffee in Australia is Nescafe Blend 43 and the best selling bread is Tip Top white sliced. I'd expect that the best selling spread is supermarket brand marge.

I'm sure the vast majority of Australians have, by now, sampled a good espresso and a crusty sourdough fresh from the oven at a "craft bread" bakery with lashings of cultured butter etc, but just can't be arsed.

 

[Midnight Brew]

I find the best way is to introduce them to a style like blonde ale. Not offensive at all to the meg swill drink and has enough flavour and aroma for yourself to drink it too. It's up to them if they want to convert or not but its not loss to us because we brew to our taste buds. :icon_cheers:

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Brew to my taste buds, if they like it - great, if they don't - great.

Either you convert someone to craft beer (my CD drinking mate has at least moved to Fat Yak as a result of homebrew), or you save money because prejudice stops them from drinking it.

I brew for my tastes - and I've had my brothers go "why don't you brew more pils?", and I just say "I don't want to drink keg after keg of pils - I like hoppy beers". They'll still take it on offer and attempt to understand what it is they're tasting, even if they then whinge how much they like pilsners.

 

[tricache]

Brew to my taste buds, if they like it - great, if they don't - great.

Well said...Home Brewing is a journey, and matching the perfect beer to our taste buds is the destination that we all keep trying to get to.

 

[dicko]

Yes I agree with most if not all comments of how hard it is to convert.
Like most I don't even try any more.

My favourite beers are apa's, dark ales, altbier, or a good pils.

When served to some most comments are along the lines of "this beer (meaning homebrew) is too strong.
What I have found they really mean is "this beer has more flavour than I am used to"

I used to feel like I had to make something that most would like and by doing this the very results were discouraging
and at the same time I was depriving myself of the beers I liked.

After a while my attitude became "**** this" and I got back into brewing what I like myself.

To go on a bit of a tangent, every boxing day we have a get together of mates and partners and we call it "leftover day"
because we throw together the food that is left from the Christmas day family do.
Over time I have brewed a 23 litre keg for that day and it generally goes down with great acceptance.
I get comments of "that beer is as good as any we get in the pub" etc etc.

What I do is about a month before the day I go and by a tin of Coopers draught and I mash around 2.2 kgs of pilsener malt
I boil the result for 20 mins and then cool it and add wort plus the can of goo to the fermenter. I use the yeast under the lid and ferment it till done.
I keg it gas it and serve it.
Too easy!

Cheers

 

[mattyra]

I only have one that didn't convert to my home brew (XXXX drinker and father in law). The others say, I don't like that one you made, but they are normally the ones with high IBUs. I make a couple of decent beers that I enjoy and I have the others coming over without me being there to drink it. Good thing about those mates is they also come over on brew day every now and then to help.

I once bought a 6 pack of XXXX and de-labelled it so it looked like one of my beers. My brother in law and I popped the lid and poured it into a glass just to see his reaction and it still wasn't as good as XXXX. We laughed a fair bit, just concluded that he doesn't like the idea of it.

 

[squirt in the turns]

i think you have got it right nick,

they probably dont so much not like my beer its the ingrained stigma in their head that its "HOME BREW"

i think when we mention ,do you want a home brew, they instantly remember the supermarket can of goo with a kilo of sugar and fermented for 3 days at 30 deg taste.

fergi

Definitely the perception is that HB is inherently inferior. A mate who's an occasional K&K brewer tried my HB for the first time yesterday, a basic AG APA I've got on tap. He approached the experience enthusiastically and was stoked to be pouring his own draught beer, but he must've been expecting some murky, twangy piss to dribble out. He sniffed it and said "it smells good", held it up to the light (it was crystal clear as I finally figured out how to work my filter properly) and said "it doesn't look like homebrew", tasted it and was pouring a second glass within 2 minutes. Later he said to my girlfriend, "it doesn't taste like homebrew at all. It tastes like real beer!", to which she responded "it is real beer."

I think a lot of the negative perceptions come about because many people have tried (or know someone who's tried) K&K with the bare minimum of effort (bad sanitation, no attempt at temperature control) and been predictably dissatisfied with the result. That said, I think the growing homebrew community is definitely contributing to the increasing number of "craft" beers appearing on bottle shop shelves, CBD bars and even surf clubs, which in turn helps alter mainstream attitudes to beer.

I have a mate who now gets excited when she sees Fat Yak on tap. That said, she still drinks bottles of skunked Heineken and likes it (I've never had Heineken from the bottle, either BUL or imported, that wasn't skunked). I've tried to inform her that this is a (major) flaw in beer. She just waves the skunky bottle around in my face now. In some cases, a partial conversion of the megaswillers is the best we can hope for.