Overrated beers

[micklupulo]

I was given a pint of this in a pub a couple of years ago and asked to comment. “I could drink half a dozen home brews and **** a better pint.” wasn’t the feedback my company expected.

It has always struck me that GK IPA is the result of company bean counters sitting down one day and costing out ingredients then deciding on what they could get away with in producing something that could be passed off as beer. The sad thing is that this contempt at the top for creating a quality product inevitably trickles down to many of their managed pubs where there is scant evidence of any pride or understanding of the stuff they squirt out of the pumps. Over the last few years on visits to our daughter and family in Glasgow we have witnessed GK taking over a lovely local in Bearsden and replacing quality Scottish beers with badly kept Britain-wide bland rubbish.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

come to think of it Greene King so called IPA seemed a bit nothing too.

I have lost count of how many negative posts i have read hear about that particular beer.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Cripes Chippy you should live round here! About every Pubco pub had it behind the bar not so long ago. Apparently it was a case of take Doombar and we will subsidise your TV sports package. It seems now to be in decline and a couple of pubs have replaced it with TT Landlord (praise be to God)
It was drinkable in early days but a new brewery has made it an insipid mouth wash!
The bottled version is actually brewed by Marstons - presumably because they use their large bottling plant.
Please don't call me opinionated!

If TT Landlord and Doombar were on the same bar the DB wouldn't get a second glance.

Its been quite a while since i have had a pint of Doombar in a pub so it may have been before the takeover.

 

[trummy]

You make some valid points but from the consensus on here it seems beyond doubt that Deuchars Bass and Pedigree are pale imitations of what they were having been wrecked by big businesses decisions involving such philistinic lunacy such as casually losing an ancient yeast strain as I believe the case was with Bass or was it Pedigree.

It was Bass - according to a mate that ran the Bass museum for several years the reason the Union system came into being was because the yeast was part top working and also bottom working. If true makes you wonder if the yeast had a common source back in the mist of time.
Marstons yeast is still going strong I believe

 

[Djweeble]

I don't know if anyone remembers the stuff, but we used to get lots of Wards Bitter in Yorkshire....... oh my god that stuff was awful, with a nasty yeasty sulphur smell...... it didn't get nicknamed Wards Washing Up Water for nothing !

Closely followed by Kimberly Ale from Hardy and Hanson's....... was like drinking slops !

 

[Jim Brewster]

I tend to like most beers, even even the no-so-good commercial ones.

I would say the very heavily hopped ales are overrated, although they are enjoyable, a) they get "samey" once you've had a few different ones and b) they are quite easy to do.

I'm not an experienced brewer by any means but I can easily recreate something hoppy that you'd get from a craft brewery just by dry hopping the crap out of whatever happens to be on the fermentation vessel, whereas I find it much more difficult to recreate the maltiness that I like in certain styles like a dunkel or Belgian ales.

The expense of hops will inevitably inflate the price but with some of these beers it almost seems like you're literally paying for the bag of hops rather than the expertise.

I also don't see the attraction of the cloying sweet stouts, a few exceptions aside.

 

[samale]

I tend to like most beers, even even the no-so-good commercial ones.

I would say the very heavily hopped ales are overrated, although they are enjoyable, a) they get "samey" once you've had a few different ones and b) they are quite easy to do.

I'm not an experienced brewer by any means but I can easily recreate something hoppy that you'd get from a craft brewery just by dry hopping the crap out of whatever happens to be on the fermentation vessel, whereas I find it much more difficult to recreate the maltiness that I like in certain styles like a dunkel or Belgian ales.

The expense of hops will inevitably inflate the price but with some of these beers it almost seems like you're literally paying for the bag of hops rather than the expertise.

I also don't see the attraction of the cloying sweet stouts, a few exceptions aside.

Funny I would be the complete opposite. I struggle to replicate the smooth hazy hoppy beers like Neipa or hazy IPA. They seem to lack that big juicy aroma and mouth feel. My darker beer all seem to do better

 

[takeabiteopeach]

i'm really over NEIPA now. in fact i've become the quintessential disillusioned beer nerd and concentrate mainly on pils and the ilk now.

 

[MickDundee]

Funny I would be the complete opposite. I struggle to replicate the smooth hazy hoppy beers like Neipa or hazy IPA. They seem to lack that big juicy aroma and mouth feel. My darker beer all seem to do better

I managed to get the mouthfeel on my most recent NEIPA (combination of water treatment and using flaked wheat from MM instead of the torrified wheat from GEB that Comes as kernels) but I really struggle with aroma. I had 275g in the dry hop on my last one and still only get a whiff of stone fruits in the aroma, unlike some of the commercial ones that knock you out with the aroma when you open the can.

 

[Scottyburto]

Just playing Devils advocate- do you not think there is a lot of rose tinted glasses going on with some not all of the comments "We look back and think the winters were warmer, the grass was greener and the skies were bluer".
I also think that we are just getting used to the especially hoppy beers that are just mimicking each other and the initial wow has now dulled.
I know some beers have changed their recipes possibly for commercial reasons and it was the first that wowed us so nothing will beat that or will it?
Unless somebody grows some new Hi-profile new hops are we stuck with just the same hops being over used in beers that are very similar, I really don't know.

I think there is some past romance of beers but the unequivocal fact is all business is a race to the bottom.

Big businesses use taxes and government for excuses too. I honestly believe coca cola lobbied for the sugar tax and breweries likewise with ABV match tax. Sugar was coca cola biggest cost and with big breweries using more and more "maize" an ABV linked tax would benefit them in persuading people to buy beer that is cheaper to produce.

My personal opinion is that all canned bitters are thinner than they used to be. Guinness is just more obvious with past opinions linking it to being like have a "roast dinner" Etc etc.

 

[Stevieboy]

Carlsberg. Budweiser. Heineken. Fosters. And sadly these days Newcastle Brown.

 

[DJDave]

Not on topic - apologies. People have mentioned that Coors lost Bass's yeast. This interests me not least because I used to live in Alton not far from what was the Courage Brewery which became Bass which became Coors which closed and once worked for Watney's, in pycp (pure yeast culture plant), providing Carlsberg, Budweiser, Fosters, Holsten and ale yeasts in sufficient quantities to pitch production length brews, amongst other things.

How did they lose the strain?

Does the NCYC (National Collection of Yeast Cultures) not have the Bass strain?

 

[Cwrex]

"Craft" beers or anything with a stupid name that come in a tin and costs £8. Not that I have ever tried one.

Some great artwork on them though! I've tried a few - nothing to write home about. But it was certainly exciting around 2014 when the new 'craft beer' craze started in the Boston and Chicago areas. Maybe we should start a competition to see who can come-up with the silliest but most evocative name for a new beer?