Short answer: yes
Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees
Short answer: yes
Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees
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.
Real talk, it's your common mass produced and internationally sold beers that suck. S'ok, a lot of mass produced Canadian beer sucks too (lookin' at you, Alexander Keith's. Pride of Nova Scotia indeed.)
The issue is that the good stuff doesn't often make it outside of your borders. I've had decent beer when actually in the U.S before.
Will say I will drink a cold PBR if there's no other valid choice, but if someone just has Coors or Bud (especially Bud - but especially Bud Light) I'll stick with water. Only other American beer that reaches Canada I'd probably drink is Lucky Lager, but that's more out of nostalgia for west coast teenaged mayham than its own merits, and Kokanee would produce the same effect and caveat anyway.
Edit: After thinking about it more, I've enjoyed Sam Adams limited releases before, and we get those sometimes.
I've enjoyed Sam Adams limited releases before,
The Summer Ale is nice on a hot day
When asking the waiter for a local craft beer, got pretty decent ones.
Stuff like Miller like is just a less sugary alternative to cokeà or to pretend your drinking during a business event
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.
Maybe it's because I don't really like beer (or alcohol) but I've been to Germany and the beer wasn't any better or worse than American beer.
The Jagermeister, on the other hand, was definitely way better in Germany.
Because of the German Purity Law, there isn't much that German beer can do to experiment or try new things. There are some excellent German beers (Brlo is one), but generally you don't get the variety that you find in other countries.
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.
Yes. There are exceptions, but most American beer usually fall into ine of two categories:
At least these are the common denominators for most well known beers.
Exceptions, off the top of my head:
Blue Moon
Shiner Boch
Some weird local brew I stumbled across in Galveston
While it doesn't hold a lot of flavor, I do enjoy Miller now and then.
Some are okay-ish. But there is nothing compared to european beer. German especially.
Germans make great lagers. But that’s it. There’s a lot more beer styles out there and the American microbreweries excel at a lot of them.
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.
Also, shoutout to almost anything by Unibroue - They're from Montreal, but hey that's not Europe.
The Abyss changed my life. Before I had one of those, I thought I liked dark beer. That beer made me realize that unless it's actively absorbing light, it's not dark enough.
I've had friends call it "soy sauce beer" though, so it's still not for everyone.
Glad to see Tröeg's in that list! Their Perpetual IPA has been my favorite beer for years.
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.
I've not tasted many American beers so I could not tell if they all taste like crap, and I also do not drink at all anymore. But being French, I can say that our Belgian neighbors have some exceptionally good beers, as well as Germans do. I loved a few of those, back then. But then they may also be a tad too... tasty for an uninitiated palate ;)
I'm pretty confident there must some local breweries in a few US places that can make quality beer too, the issue would then mostly be to find enough customers willing to drink it because it's no use to make the best beer ever if most your customers prefer Budweiser or stuff like that.
It is only a wee bit worse than a piss.
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu