Franconian Beer Message Board
Well-balanced |
| Posted by Nick B. on 2012-08-08 23:11:08 |
| I used to name names here when I found beers that were badly brewed. I've decided I don't like to do that in this forum any more, because I don't want to put someone off the idea of visiting a place because some bloke said the beer's crap. With exceptions, however, when the beer is consistently and inexcusably bad. Those who want to know what I find inexcusably bad can copy & paste the following in a rot-13 machine such as at rot-13.com: Yvxr gur vasnzbhf Oneavxry, Jvaxyre va Zryxraqbes, gur orre ng gur Yöjraoeäh Xryyre va Ohggraurvz (gur bgure orre va gur Tnfgfgäggr'f orggre, gubhtu zber oynaq), naq Trlre va Boreervpuraonpu. Abg gb zragvba gur zbqrea HF oerjcho-fglyr cynprf yvxr Nzoeähfvnahz, Onesüßre, naq Fgrvaonpu. But seriously, have you had the Griess Kellerbier and what do you make of it? If you say that one, for example, is as balanced between malt & hops as, say, Sauer's in neighbouring Roßdorf, then you've got what I would say is a generous definition of "well-balanced". The former is quite hoppy, the latter under-hopped. Radically unbalanced. You're a funny guy! For the record, I can't stand the trendy sort of bourbon-barrel-aged bacon-coffee-sour imperial double Kölsch collaboration crap that's all the rage in the "craft" beer scene these days, perhaps to the same extent that you do. Nor can I stomach the vast majority of IPAs from the US either -- not because they're too hoppy, but because their malt profiles are all wrong: crystal malt completely mucks up what *should* be a dry, pale beer. And anything above 4% alcohol is too strong for me. The only innovation I really like is what I mentioned above: the low-gravity, crystal-malt-free, well-hopped (mostly with American, Kiwi, or Australian hops) "half-IPAs" coming out of Old Blighty in recent years. The only real innovation there is taking the dark malts out of a low-gravity bitter and doubling the hop rate. You should probably avoid Fritz Ale from the Rheinland. He brews some excellent "American-style IPA", meaning I recognise how well he's hit his target, I just can't enjoy that stuff any more. What sort of American beer do you think is well-balanced? When you mentioned above that it seems balance has gone out of fashion there, it made me wonder what American beer, if any, has ever been balanced. Brooklyn IPA is an excellent English-hopped IPA, various porters and stouts are good to excellent (normal ones, not bacon-coffee-sour ones), and there are some good lagers being brewed, better than many Franconian ones in fact. This post is not well organised, but I wanted to write something quickly. Nor does it touch on what I mentioned: innovation vs. tradition. That will come later. Maybe. |
| Followups: |
 Well-balanced-Barfüsser-and more (Berlin) by TreinJan on 2012-08-09 01:06:09 |
| Well-balanced-Barfüsser-and more (Berlin) by Nick B. on 2012-08-09 01:21:21 |
| Well-balanced by Mike B. on 2012-08-09 00:48:55 |
| Well-balanced-Steinbach-Staffelstein by TreinJan on 2012-08-09 01:44:36 |
| Well-balanced by Nick B. on 2012-08-09 02:34:55 |
| Well-balanced by TreinJan on 2012-08-09 03:09:33 |
| Well-balanced by Mike B. on 2012-08-09 03:26:08 |
| Well-balanced by Nick B. on 2012-08-09 05:13:39 |
| Well-balanced by Nick B. on 2012-08-09 05:14:36 |
| *smacks head* by Nick B. on 2012-08-09 05:22:53 |
| Well-balanced by Mike B. on 2012-08-09 05:19:28 |
| Well-balanced by Nick B. on 2012-08-09 05:23:40 |
| Well-balanced by Mike B. on 2012-08-09 06:03:17 |
| Double IPA by Uncle Jimbo on 2012-08-09 09:57:17 |
| *smacks head* by TreinJan on 2012-08-10 00:23:11 |
| Double IPA by Nick B. on 2012-08-10 01:42:32 |
| Double IPA by Uncle Jimbo on 2012-08-10 09:39:36 |
| Double IPA by Nick B. on 2012-08-11 00:35:10 |
| Double IPA by Uncle Jimbo on 2012-08-11 10:29:36 |