Summer beer

[tommy]

i don't see a thread on this. i searched on "summer AND beer".

i vote for Corona, only because there are no labels to fall off in the ice-filled cooler.

i'll also go with belgian whites, like Blue Moon (yeah, american made, "belgian-style"). coriander and orange flavors get me every damned time.

no limes or lemons, please. that shit goes in iced tea.

a friend of mine likes all of that pete's summer, and sam's summer stuff. i just don't get it.

[jess mebane]

A lil' brewery in Houston named St. Arnold's puts out a summer pilsner that's nice, and the label is tie-dyed to catch a girl's eye, I reckon.

[Jason Perlow]

i don't see a thread on this.  i searched on "summer AND beer". 

i vote for Corona, only because there are no labels to fall off in the ice-filled cooler. 

Rolling Rock. Bottle does the same thing, it tastes better, and its American.

[tommy]

i don't see a thread on this.  i searched on "summer AND beer". 

i vote for Corona, only because there are no labels to fall off in the ice-filled cooler. 

Rolling Rock. Bottle does the same thing, it tastes better, and its American.

but the rock tastes skunky when you leave it in the cooler for 2 days after the ice melted. in fact, it tastes skunky when you buy it. or is that a good thing.

[Jason Perlow]

i don't see a thread on this.  i searched on "summer AND beer". 

i vote for Corona, only because there are no labels to fall off in the ice-filled cooler. 

Rolling Rock. Bottle does the same thing, it tastes better, and its American.

but the rock tastes skunky when you leave it in the cooler for 2 days after the ice melted. in fact, it tastes skunky when you buy it. or is that a good thing.

Better skunk than piss.

[tommy]

Better skunk than piss.

that's fair. but i honestly enjoy corona more than i enjoy the rock. then again, i like bud.

[jess mebane]

not to split hairs, but corona is totally skunky, like Pearl beercap haiku skunky. My grandparents lived in the Rio Grande valley, and used to come back from weekend daytrips with crates of the stuff that maybe cost them a nickel a bottle in the '70s. My dad always gets a laugh out of seeing twelvers on sale for $10.99 in the summertime.

[tommy]

we should probably define "skunky" here. skunky isn't necessarily bad, if it's by design. however, i don't get da skunk from corona. rather, it's a clean tasting beer to me.

green bottles have something to do with da skunk. i'm not quite sure why, though.

[Michael Laiskonis]

i'll also go with belgian whites...

At the restaurant, we just started serving an interesting Japanese beer, modeled after the white ale style, Hitachino Nest. From the Kiuchi Brewery. It's got a nose full of banana and clove and nutmeg, a subtle strawberry sweetness, yet finishes fairly clean, as one would expect from a Japanese beer. The same people also do what they call a red rice ale, among others, which is a touch heavier.

Very cool.

[malachi]

Deciding between Rolling Rock and Corona is like deciding between Colon Cancer and Prostrate Cancer.

Saison Dupont all the way.

[=Mark]

Pilsner Urquell. Crisp, clean and actually has flavor.

[Stone]

Better skunk than piss.

Racist. (Just joking -- remember after Corona became trendy there was that rumor that workers were actually urinating in the beer?)

Tommy -- Skunky sucks, whether intentional or not. You're starting to sound like one of those winsob's extolling the virtues of cat-piss in their Pee-noh. IMO, Becks and Heinekin are both skunky, and both suck -- regardless of whether they come from Europe in trendy green bottles. Green bottles and to a greater extent clear bottles promote skunk because they let in the light. The light causes reactions in the beer that produces off-flavors. That's why brown bottles are better.

Cornona and Rolling Rock both suck. When I was in high school, Rolling Rock was about as popular as Schmidts and Schaeffer (the one beer to have). Then America was hit with a major ad campaign and, oh my god, we never noticed before, but Rolling Rock is a great beer! Bullshit. Another example of how presentation affects people's taste. RR sucked then and sucks now, and scantily clad women in the ads don't change that. (But thank you for them anyway.)

Onto the subject at hand:

Pacifico. Excellent beer. Way better than Corona. (Yes, the label falling off in the cooler is a concern, but not worth drinking Corona or RR.) No contest.

Hoegarden (sp?) wheat, hold the lemon. Great summer beer. I drink pitchers of it at the Zeitgeist patio. (And if you're in SF and haven't spent a sunny day at the Zeitgeist patio, you haven't experienced the one haven of culture the city has to offer.)

Sierra Nevada/Anchor Steam. It always comes back to these. Always. They are dark and flavorful, but hoppy enough to add spice and bitterness necessary to quench one's thirst. Easily the best mass-market beers in America.

Golden Eagle/Kingfisher: Indian beer. Don't often find them outside an Indian restaurant, but they're great on hot summer days. They have a sharpness to them, almost with some saltiness underneath the hops. Try it.

16 oz cans of Bud. Dude. They rock.

Edited July 19, 2003 by Stone (log)

[Lex]

Sierra Nevada/Anchor Steam.  It always comes back to these.  Always.  They are dark and flavorful, but hoppy enough to add spice and bitterness necessary to quench one's thirst.  Easily the best mass-market beers in America.

16 oz cans of Bud.  Dude.  They rock.

I love Sierra and Anchor but they're a little heavy to be considered summer beers. Not that I don't drink them in the summer - I just need to be in a nice cool bar to appreciate them best.

A taste for Rolling Rock is genetically imprinted - you either have it or you don't. I do. The ad campaign was stupid but the beer still sells for attractive prices.

16oz. cans of Bud? Only if the alternatives were Coors Light and Zima. And 16oz. cans tend to get warm after you had a few and the pace of drinking slows down. Warm beer on a hot afternoon is not for me.

Over the past few years my summer beer of choice has been Yuengling lager. It has a nice flavor while remaining light enough to qualifiy as a summer beer. It's made in a family owned brewery in Pennsylvania and, at $10 for a 12 pack at my local beer distributor, attractively priced.

[tommy]

Over the past few years my summer beer of choice has been Yuengling lager.  It has a nice flavor while remaining light enough to qualifiy as a summer beer.  It's made in a family owned brewery in Pennsylvania and, at $10 for a 12 pack at my local beer distributor, attractively priced.

and the oldest brewery in america. their light is pretty decent as well.

[=Mark]

Followed by shots of Lairds Vodka, from Americas oldest continuously operating distillery...

[Jason Perlow]

Followed by shots of Lairds Vodka, from Americas oldest continuously operating distillery...

I had no idea they made vodka, I have their Apple Jack. Lairds is in Jersey, BTW.

[Chef Fowke]

It is threads like this that make me proud to be Canadian....

Lets face it. You might as well drink water if you are going to drink American or Mexican beer. There is no taste or substance. It is amazing that Bud actually sells 100 million barrels a year! No accounting for taste in the world’s most powerful nation, it’s still young and flexing its muscles as it grows up in the culinary and libation world.

Historically in Canada the beer regions have been broken up into four regions; Maritimes, Ontario, Prairies and British Colombia. Leaving out Molson’s and Labatts’ that own a huge majority of the brew power in Canada that brew great international brews:

Molson’s: Molson's Product Page

and

Labatts’: http://www.labatt.com/enhanced/index_2.html

In the Maritimes you have Alexander Keith (Keith's) that is a full-bodied beer in the IPA tradition. It is smooth yet possesses a lot of rich oak body and creamy aftertaste.

In Quebec my beer of choice is St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout (St-Ambroise). If you like espresso and chocolate this will be a first choice in beer. The small batch approach produces a clean, fragrant beer that drinks more like a wine then a malt beverage.

Ontario has a great little brewery named Creemore Lager (Creemore). I used to detour an hour on the way to my cottage to pick up a few cases of this beer before it was readily available in the Ontario beer stores. It has a smooth and long hops finish.

On the Prairies (specifically Alberta) the first micro-brewed beer was McNally's out of Big Rock Brewers. It was the first time for most flat-landers that we experienced a true Ale flavour (Big Rock). That’s not to say beers such as IPA, 50 and 'Generic Beer' were not full flavored beers, just more fashioned after our American cousins rather than our European roots.

In BC the Micro-brew industry really opens up. I have not found one beer/ale/lager that is the best. The industry is truly regional and each beer takes on specific characteristics of the water and land it is formed on. One of the great things about drinking a quality British Colombian beer is that you do not get a hang over if you drink two or twenty beers in a sitting. The locals tell me it is because the beer has no preservatives and is brewed from the cleanest waters on earth.

The next time anyone posting on this site is in Vancouver I would be pleased to introduce them to craft oriented Canadian beers. I guarantee no one will be disappointed.

[LBNoble]

Sam Adams Weiss

[John]

Chef,

Have you ever tasted some of our great American microbrews? It's easy to say that Bud is lousy, but that is a generalization when it comes to American beer. Sierra Nevada, Anchor Liberty, Victory beers (Hop Devil in particular) Rogue, etc are but a few examples of great American beer. Canada has some great micros as well. I've had St Ambrose and Mcauslan beers, and they are indeed top of the line. Mc Auslan uses the special Ringwood yeast from England that was introduced to North America by Alan Pugsley. Geary's of Maine was one of the first American breweries to use this particular strain of yeast, and I believe it was before McAuslan.

For summer beers, I like Pilsner Urquell (it's one of the best, if not the best beer for anytime), Dinkel Acker (light, yet tasty) and Franziskaner Hefe Weiss (no better beer for warm weather).

[Jason Perlow]

Chef Fowke is right on, Labatt's and Molson are great beers. And hey, they are ALMOST American, right?

[Dana]

Yesterday, I attended a cooking class given by David Rosengarten at Central

Market in Houston. He had us served Hoegaarden, and it was delightful. (as was he) It was light and refreshing, perfect for summer.

I asked him how he enjoyed his 'stay' on egullet, and he smiled and said that he enjoyed it very much. He said the questions were interesting and he was pleased by the whole process. He'd always done a call-in type Q and A, and that this was very nice.

The CM people indicated that he would probably be back in October. I highly recommend his class, I'll go back for the next one.

[Kim WB]

What is that funky taste in a Molson? IT tastes malted or something to me.

I like Yuengling, and what's that Mexican dark ale..Negro something? I like Pete's summer, with

"grains of paradise", too. But mostly I'll have a Corona if its really hot..I 'll stick with my Bass ale through mid June, then switch back mid September.

[Jason Perlow]

and what's that Mexican dark ale..Negro something?

Negra Modelo... very good stuff. Mexican. Same company that makes Corona.

For mexican lagers I prefer Tecate or Tres Equis. Modelo itself is ok, its just a slightly heavier version of Corona.

[Chef Fowke]

I have been experimenting with brewing my own beer at home this year. The kit I am using is Australian (Cooper’s Lager and Cooper’s Pilsner). It produces a truly great summer beer. The kit contains a molasses (the hops) like substance produced from double row Tasmanian barley. Ten minutes worth of work and you have the beer in the primary fermentation vessel. The most time is consumed by the sterilization of the bottles. I am using quart bottles (all beer should be bottled by the quart!) and it takes roughly an hour to get enough bottles clean for one kit of beer.

The beer is easy to make, the waiting time killer! It says two weeks but it is more like two months unless you have a room in your house that maintains a perfect 78f.

For an initial investment of under a $100 this creates super summer beers.

[Kim WB]

I am using quart bottles (all beer should be bottled by the quart!) and it takes roughly an hour to get enough bottles clean for one kit of beer.

Why? Wouldn't this larger bottling quantity affect the carbonation?