Ask Lemmy

I've had plenty of really good craft beer but anything mass produced is fine at best and gutter water at worst.

American. I visit Germany once every few years. Each time, I see American beer get better and better. I think, this time when I visit Germany I'll finally be able to say "Yes, you do beer incredibly well, but American beer has gotten much better, come visit me, I can't wait to show you."

I have one sip of German beer and all my hopes and dreams are shattered. We cannot make a beer as good as Kölsch, it seems. Tbf there's cheap German beers that taste like swill, but it isn't hard to find just amazing Kölsch in Köln.

Struggled to find beer that I like in usa- I've not been there much though.

It's increasingly hard here though (UK).

Shitty lager, or hipster-grapefruit-jizz or guiness is the normal choice in most pubs, and even in many so called "real ale" pubs, those of them still left. A decent pint of bitter is hen's teeth these days. I guess fashions change and there's no money in old style beers that I prefer. You can't argue with the bottom line.

I find shitty lager in US is not as nice as shitty european lager - it just seems to have an odd taste - but it's not what i want to drink.. I guess german/czech lager is about as good as it gets, for lager/pils - but still not very flavourful.

Belgium is good, but not really for a session beer. It's for a different type of drinking.

One thing to note is that there are a lot of bad American beers in small and mid-sized cities. Basically what happened is that in the 2010s it became trendy to go to a brewery with a food truck and just hang out. As a result a ton of "breweries" opened that were more or less selling the experience, with a handful of low effort trendy selections to serve as a hook.

That doesn't mean there aren't good beers though. America is the land of people who do their own thing, often regardless of social norms and established conventions. There's a lot of great beers across a broad range of categories, it just takes a bit of digging.

As a sidenote a lot of these D tier breweries are closing and/or rebranding. Changing consumer sentiment means merely being a craft brewery is no longer a hook, while rising real estate costs make the entire endeavor more expensive. The breweries in shitty locations tend to close. The ones in good locations tend to massively reduce their own output, while offering a variety of local alcohol and expanded food options.

Mass produced beers are pretty bad. Ironically the bigger the brand the worse the beer generally. Americans are known for bud and Coors which are especially shit

American beer that is sold in Europe? All the ones I tried, yeah, absolutly.

And most of that microbrew shit doesn't even count as beer under the Reinheitsgebot.

I'm from the Netherlands, and we say the same for Heineken and also for the Belgian variant Jupiler. The truth is, at a party or festival it's mostly these or Bud that are available, and people drink a lot of it. At home I'll mostly drink Krombacher, or some other German brand since I live close to the border.

I've been to the US once, and stayed in the Boston area. I drank a lot of Sam Adams lager there, which was decent enough for me. I'd assume every region will have it's own decent brand of lager, just as it is here in Europe.

The American beer you get in Canada is terrible. Budweiser and Miller and shit like that. American beer at an American pub was great, when I last visited.

American, but I enjoy beer and have tried hundreds. I tend to like sweeter or richer Belgian and German ales the most. Things like König Ludwig, Tripel Karmeliet, Augustiner, Weihenstephaner, Ayinger, Paulaner, and St. Bernardus will always top my list.

If you like those, here are some US recommendations that are also damn good. Note, some of these are quite regional.

• Tröeg's - Mad Elf
• Fat Heads - Alpenglow
• Boulevard - Bourbon Barrel Quad
• Royal Docks - VLAD
• Dark Horse - Scotty Karate
• Descutes - The Abyss
• Fat Heads - Goggle Fogger
• Sierra Nevada - Kellerweiss
• Terrestrial - Blue Dream
• Thirsty Dog - Irish Setter Red
• Penn Brewery - Penn Weizen
• Ommegang - Manhattan Shine
• Sibling Revelry - Lavender Wit
• Ithaca - Apricot Wheat

Also, shoutout to almost anything by Unibroue - They're from Montreal, but hey that's not Europe.

American here:

There’s a LOT of bad American beer, but to say ALL is just plain dumb. The micro brewery boom made a lot of small breweries pop up and about 90% had no idea what they were doing so yea a lot of them are kinda garbage.

I personally know micro brewers in NY who studied their ass off to make some incredible beers that I would put right up there with Westies and Cantillon.

One of the best beers I’ve ever had is from a Gypsy brewer in NY called Cantina Cantina. The guy used to work in my local distributor, then went to work for our favorite local brewer Barrier, then took his expertise to Greenport Brewery and turned around their whole operation, then started brewing his own absolute masterpieces.

My point is the best of the best is probably going to be buried deep under a pile of garbage beers cause they’re usually obsessed with making art and don’t focus on getting their name out there.