And I’m just telling you that ‘objective’ has little relation to ‘assessment’ when it comes to taste perception and the hedonics involved with forming and holding preferences. That applies to everyone, you and me included. And THAT’S what sells beer, not objective measurements.
But anyway, your snobbery is noted. I hope it makes your beer taste better.
It’s taken a trip to California to find it, but I’ve now had 3 separate tastings of Moonlight’s Reality Czeck.
It’s a good beer, but I don’t think it deserves all the raves it’s received here. Based on these tastes, I found RC more turbid, its head less pillowy (and shorter-lived) than Veltins’. I also disliked RC’s level of bitterness. It’s certainly overpriced at $18 for a 4-pack of pint cans. I’m going to save the remaing 9 cans to compare A-B with other canned beers.
Does anyone know of any place that pours both Veltins and RC? I would order both for that comparison at the same temperature, pouring technique, freshness and line cleanliness.
In @honkman’s defense, they haven’t once belittled anyone’s tastes nor preferences toward less hopped beers, nor have required some sort of double blind A-B test to somehow validate the quality of American beers. And your assertion that American craft brews have somehow not progressed in the last 50 years is downright laughable.
Sorry but you’re being the snob here bro. Relax, its just beer.
Where you see belittlement, I see disagreement.
Honkman held out this Reality Czeck as a “far better” Pilsner than Veltins. I hadn’t tried RC, which is not widely available, even in Central California. In the meantime, he sneeringly suggested that I enjoy my inferior beer. Note that he didn’t merely state his preference.
So, in order to challenge my own preferences, I went to California --specifically Lake Tahoe. RC is apparently unavailable there, too. But a dear friend brought some from a Bay Area outlet, which allowed our group to taste and enjoy RC. It’s good beer.
I thought others who haven’t tasted it might benefit from reading about objective flaws I found (especially since honkman tweaked me about objectivity).
The draft A-B comparison was my attempt to be fair. Comparing any beer from a can with the longterm taste memory of a favorite beer on tap is fraught. Ideally, for a meaningful comparison (if the taster is honest), the comparison should be draft:draft or can:can. I would jump at the chance to sample and compare draft Veltins with draft Reality Czeck. Hence my ask about places that pour both.
The flaws you describe are subjective - and many people would disagree with them
No. Clarity, head height, and bitterness aren’t subjective. How one chooses to express them may be.
I also noted very fine bubble formation, that was on par with excellent Pilseners. What I didn’t find was the concentric rings that the best fresh ones leave on clean glassware.
Any new developments on Anchor? There are rumors of an employee buyout attempt. But that often happens, e.g., with Elysian, with nothing coming of it.
The preferred level of bitterness (of pilsner or any style of beer) is very subjective. There isn’t a “perfect” bitterness for pilsner. Even in Germany (since you seem to think they make “better” pilsner) the bitterness level of some of the most widely sold ones are very different.
Head height isn’t a sign of quality. It’s again a very subjective view - some breweries prefer different levels of carbonation which will lead to different head heights, e.g. I often find German pilsner over-carbonated
No, a beer is as bitter as that objective measure indicates. Likewise turbidity and head height. All can be tested objectively, with repeatable results. One’s subjective preference is an entirely different matter.
No, I don’t think German brewers have any monopoly on quality Pilseners. But they generally have very long traditions of making fine Pils, unlike most of the craft brewers in USA. They typically start as garagistes or work as hose-pullers until they can afford some equipment. Then, with a buzzy name and graphics, they get a spot on the shelves while they flail looking for a winner. At least Moonlight’s founder has formal training in brewing (UC Davis), but most do not.
Ironically, Clemens Veltin studied zymurgy and beers worldwide–including a stint in Milwaukee in the early 1850s.
Traditions don’t mean automatically higher quality. Often, by far not only in beer brewing, new people/thoughts are the way to move things forward - otherwise “traditions” are a “nice” safety net to never change anything. Innovation based on tradition (any many brewers in the US are founded in “old world traditions”) is important to get to bigger varieties and quality.
Well, not strictly as a matter of logic, no.
Still, it would be unlikely that a brewer with >200 years of uninterrupted and expanding success in the European market would put out inferior beer. I’ll go as far as saying on average such venerable houses make better beer than startups and one man shows.
I guess that’s where we have to agree to disagree - I had too many disappointing pilsner (many with 100+ years of tradition) in Germany and surrounding countries.
I am really enjoying the lively discussion here lately on the merits of brews and appreciate the honest and candid opinions. Thank you for sharing, this has been educational!
This may be a matter of your personal taste or extraneous influences. Obviously the tastes of the consumers who’ve been buying the pilsners that have succeeded and grown over 100+ years count (x -1)/x.
That’s not specific about beer but just because something is popular on the market for a long time and with many customers doesn’t mean it is good and high quality l, e.g. McD is very popular with many customers but is lousy food. Popularity and surviving the market is often directly correlated to the marketing budget - the most popular pilsners in Germany tend to have by far the largest marketing budgets
I am not going to comment on any particular posts, but I do want to interject my view which was informed by being part of tasting panels for many years.
Taste and aroma are objective in that you can test an individual for their JND {just noticeable difference: ie measure how much of a compound needs to be present for them o ‘just notice it’ in a statistically reliable amount.
This is typically done in triad testing where you have a trio of samples, one or two adulterated with the compound in question. The ‘tester’ needs to identify the adulterated examples a specific proportion of times to be rated as having a JND for that compound. Since it usually takes more than 3 trials to establish this, and it needs to be done at least for the specific compounds a tester needs to consider, it is time-consuming, incredibly tedious.
It is something one does when one has a lot of time on their hands, and belongs to a nerd wine-tasting group. If you did not have a light box to rate the colors of wines in one order, check smells in another, taste in yet a third, and finally enjoy the glass as a whole is a 4th order, you have no idea. Half our time was spent on statistics. And the other half was spent trying to figure out which was which on your cscore sheets. The wine tasting itself was unimportant.
That’s what happens when one tastes with several engineers from the aerospace industry at a time when one did not have a girlfriend in college.
But here is the point, this rigorous methodology has specific results. Like order of placement had a strong statistical effect on ranking. If we had 8 zinfandels, and 7 were high alcohol a lower alcohol example scored higher when tasted after the high alcohol ones and lower before. The descriptors changed. And there was no way for our methods to untangle our bias. What wound up happening was we put the bottles out in bags and just grabbed what we liked to go with our sandwiches or pizza. And the empty bottle test yielded another set of results.
Technical, objective tasting is great for winemakers. They need to be able to ID the various compounds in their wines. beers, booze for stability reasons at least. They need the sensory input and lab results both.
On the other hand, the empty bottle test relies on nothing but your subjective tastes but it also yields more info on pleasure than anything.
I mean we can look at a steak and measure how even its color is from top to bottom when sliced. I am sure that sous vide will win and char-grilled will fare poorly. But I love the feel of the char {char, not sear} and if MOST of the steak is medium rare, a little well-done ring is a small price to pay for the char flavor. In my opinion. You are entitled to your obviously wrong opinion. I am nothing if not magnanimous.
A lot of McDs components do not fit the standards of identity that they would need to if you bought the item in a retail package as opposed to in a sandwich at a ‘restaurant’. At one time, the buns had too much sugar to be called bread. The all beef patties were too manipulated to be called hamburger. The meat was denatured of any flavor and then had meat flavor added back {the essence was produced at food labs mostly in New Jersey}. When they first switched from frying fries in tallow, they added beef tallow flavoring to the fries. I do not know the state of affairs well enough any longer to know if they still do or if the masses do not want that much fat flavor in their fries.
In any case, what I have read above about objectivity is fairly true. But so are the defenses of subjectivity. It all depends on the ultimate use the evaluation is for. There is no such thing as an objective documentary {even camera placement is editorial}, and there is no such thing as an objective product evaluation that can prove 'quality.
As an example of this final meander, look at brett in wine. Some winemakers only see brett as a flaw and others see it as a flavoring that can be wonderful if handled properly. And two highly qualified tasters who both have an identical JND for brett can disagree on which bottle they would rather dink even if they agree on the amount of brett taint the wine has.
And having closed the circle on this meandering essay, I retire.
All I was saying is your taste preferences are yours alone.
The preferences of however many millions of drinkers who’ve purchased and liked Euro pils from the venerable brewers over 100+ years (and continue) to do so had/have theirs. Whatever the X denominator, you’re the ‘1’ in the numerator.
You can question inductive logic as a predictor, but it’s pretty plain that the big Euro brewers of pils are making very good beer.
Sorry, but there are large sellers of beer that sell beers that are skunky, oxidized, and have aromas not typical of their type etc. There are brands that are better at marketing than the chemistry and cost of making chemically stable beers.
Sure, and even more small brewers fit that bill.
