Ok,
So I am writing this post just off the cuff. I just got back from lunch at Yia Yias Pizza in Lincoln, Ne and I had a piece of pizza and a pint of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine style ale. The Pizza was great as usual and the beer was pretty darn good too. But the beer was so very big that I just don't feel as if I can do much the rest of the day. I just feel like I can't really be that productive now.
So, why am I posting this???? Because even though I appreciate big beers, I really think the true beauty of beer is in the more moderate gravity offerings. I like to drink beer. I like to drink multiple different beers in one sitting. I even like the feeling of having a bit too much sometimes. But beer to me is more about flavor then an alchohol delivery device.
So that is what I don't understand about the BIG BEER phenomenom. Some may crave extreme flavors and very intense particular tastes in the beers they choose to drink. I personally want a beer that is well attenuated, with great balanced flavors that won't make me feel all funny after my lunch break.
P.S. BTW, I am not at work or taking part in any activities right now that I shouldn't. Except maybe posting this message on this blog.
4 comments:
I believe some of it is personal preference (a little bit of beer gives you a big buzz), and some of it is the fact that newly awakened beer geeks gravitate towards the “extreme” end of spectrum. They want to distance themselves as far away as they can from the mass-produced, general-public beers.
When I started down the path of beer redemption, the big thing for me was stouts.
Moderation takes many forms. One might posit that drinking a barleywine at lunchtime might fall outside the boundaries of moderation, if one wanted to get something else done the rest of the afternoon. After all, would you drink 3 Bud Lights over the lunch hour and return to work? The alcohol content would be approximately the same as the Bigfoot in this circumstance.
New to the blog - good stuff.
I too don't get the extreme beer phenom. I've noticed this trend on sites like beer advocate in the top-beers section (beeradvocate.com/top_beers), where pretty much all the high ranking beers are "extreme". Comparing beer styles is apples to oranges. While I enjoyed pretty much every beer I tried at Beertopia's Extreme Beerfest - they are not for all occasions, which to me makes them no better than any other beer style. Sure that double IPA tastes great, but it's not going to taste near as good as a well balanced Wit beer washing down a brat on a hot summer day.
So very true Justin, thanks for checking us out too. Beer Advocate is terrible about extreme beers, if it isn't at least 7% ABV it isn't worth drinking and if it doesn't have a ton of IBUs it doesn't stand much of a chance either. A lot of those guys wouldn't know a good session beer if it bit them in the face. I bet, I haven't looked, that there are very few quality reviewed session beers that fall in their A category. It is too bad. really.
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