Is it me or does all commercial brew taste the same?

[SiPMerlin150]

What do you guys think? I'm not an alcoholic (honest!) but will drink between 4-6 cans or bottles per week, mainly weekends. I will drink:

Special brew or Orangeboom black - If I do its one or two and thats all I do that night.

San Miguel
Fosters
Carlsberg
Carling
Budweiser
Peroni
Old Speckled Hen
Leffe
Duvel
Hoeggarden
grafenwalder and so on.

Except for the last 5 on the list, all of these beers taste practically the same! I'm not well educated in the brewing industry, but I'm imagining huge stainless vessels and pipes, steam randomly escaping from places.. you get it!

I like my ales and you can't throw them down your neck like you can with most of this commercially mass made brew... which allows you to actually taste these old type ales..

Am I the only one who feels this way?

 

[brightspark]

i can certainly tell the diffrence on the 1st 5. some of them are like pi..s water

 

[chunkolini]

Ale? revolting stuff.
I can enjoy decent lagers in the summer.
I have had my palate destroyed by drinking proper cider for 20 years.
I have no taste at all for sweet things and beer just tastes anything from plain weird to completely revolting.
But give me proper ciders and I am a happy chappie. My pal has 100 varieties of apple on his farm and about 10000 trees. Combining spcific varieties to get a custom cider is a good game. then you get onto the whisky cask ciders. or Rum barrel ciders, or start adding other fruits into the mix, or even magic mushrooms. (that was a long long time ago).

 

[piman]

Hello Sip Merlin,

most commercial beers are brewed, filtered and pasteurised to ensure a long life and consistent taste and are over carbonated and rather bland, sold by aggressive advertising.
You might like to try the increasingly more popular local beers produced by small breweries. You will find a much broader range of flavours, some you may like and others you may not but they have a variety and depth of flavour that is missing from the popular beers. These so called real ales are live so continue to develop their flavour as they mature. It does put a greater demand on the publican to look after the beers he stocks but that said a much tastier brew can be enjoyed.

Alec

 

[armalites]

I must admit I like Peroni and it doesn't taste like the others. It does need to cold though.

I do like Hoegaarden but it guaranteed to give me a minging headache.

I like Fullers London Pride but it's so rare on draught out in the sticks.One good thing aout BA Flights they serve London Pride.When I lived near Wokingham me and a mate used to go in The Ship and order 2 pitchers of Pride, the barman would ask "How many glasses?" when we said "2" his face was a picture

 

[SiPMerlin150]

The only ciders I have tried will probably make you snigger : Strongbow, Magners and Stella's Cidre...oh and gaymers pear cider. I prefer pear cider over traditional apples, but then again I've never tried proper cider.

Piman, Thats exactly what I thought, mass produced nasty beer used for thirst quenching and to get tipsy I often look along the ales aisle in the supermarkets for something different looking, though I keep going back to Leffe Blonde!

Come to think of it, They still advertise alcoholic drinks such as 'van damme with coors light, and the strongbow advertisements, but they done away long ago with cigarette ads.

 

[armalites]

Ale? revolting stuff.
I can enjoy decent lagers in the summer.
I have had my palate destroyed by drinking proper cider for 20 years.
I have no taste at all for sweet things and beer just tastes anything from plain weird to completely revolting.
But give me proper ciders and I am a happy chappie. My pal has 100 varieties of apple on his farm and about 10000 trees. Combining spcific varieties to get a custom cider is a good game. then you get onto the whisky cask ciders. or Rum barrel ciders, or start adding other fruits into the mix, or even magic mushrooms. (that was a long long time ago).

Scary stuff, we have 5 varieties of apple and press a bit of juice, I left the pulp in a wheel barrow once and it stripped all the galv off overnight.

I've brewed some at home and a guy who bought apples from us said they brewed out at 8-9%.

It does seem that born and bred Hereford people can hold their beer. The ones that shock me the most are skinny young women who can drink 6-8 pints of cider and be ok!

My wife gets some comedy updates on Facebook, one girl(in her 20s) was so proud a few months back that she'd had a night on the cider and hadn't wet the bed for the first time

 

[chunkolini]

Pear cider? whats that then? a townie drink?
Perry drinkers are a lot weirder than the rest of us.
8-9% is pretty good, just has to be treated carefully.
I confess to often drinking it with water.
Armalites where in Mrs Gods own county are you?
It is funny watching guys necking pints of perry at festivals, then spotting them duck walking to the bogs later.

 

[garethp]

I reckon generally if you can buy it cheap in a supermarket its fizzy p**s and I think that covers the first 6 on the list? Most commercial beer/cider is brewed with profit in mind, other stuff is brewed by people who want to produce decent beer.

I'm currently supping some Caffreys and its delicious!

 

[SiPMerlin150]

I did my fair share of Peroni back in Italy last October, We ate out twice per day because it was so cheap, and it was always a Peroni! I tried a Peroni when I got back to the UK, and it didn't taste the same

The acidic juice from the apples can do no wonders to teeth....I've heard of teeth being eroded away from excessive cider consumption (I mean a looot!)

 

[SiPMerlin150]

I reckon generally if you can buy it cheap in a supermarket its fizzy p**s and I think that covers the first 6 on the list? Most commercial beer/cider is brewed with profit in mind, other stuff is brewed by people who want to produce decent beer.

I'm currently supping some Caffreys and its delicious!

+ 1 on this gareth! I'm on the Fosters, and hopefully will be getting back to '4 X' when I arrive in Queensland in August/September, since 4X isn't done here any more....The one thing I will miss are Ales here in UK. I hop they have a nice import line of these Ales down under.

 

[brightspark]

I reckon generally if you can buy it cheap in a supermarket its fizzy p**s and I think that covers the first 6 on the list? Most commercial beer/cider is brewed with profit in mind, other stuff is brewed by people who want to produce decent beer.

I'm currently supping some Caffreys and its delicious!

try carlsberg special brew and you might change your mind

 

[SiPMerlin150]

try carlsberg special brew and you might change your mind

That was the top of my list! Have you tried Orangeboom black? Its around the same strength, a nice Dutch beer, and it doesn't carry the special brews stigma!

 

[armalites]

.
Armalites where in Mrs Gods own county are you?
.

I'm about 8 miles north of Hereford

 

[dannyp]

try some, henry westons vintage that **** water will get you going then top it off with a littel old rosey

 

[PaulC7]

Not a big drinker myself, i like cocktails, steamboats, jd, baileys... but when i do drink lager and so on it tastes all the same to me too... tried coors light but that was the worst just like water dirty water.

 

[JoelC]

Hello Sip Merlin,

most commercial beers are brewed, filtered and pasteurised to ensure a long life and consistent taste and are over carbonated and rather bland, sold by aggressive advertising.
You might like to try the increasingly more popular local beers produced by small breweries. You will find a much broader range of flavours, some you may like and others you may not but they have a variety and depth of flavour that is missing from the popular beers. These so called real ales are live so continue to develop their flavour as they mature. It does put a greater demand on the publican to look after the beers he stocks but that said a much tastier brew can be enjoyed.

Alec

I'd say the same, there are some really good small and micro breweries around at the minute. Even some of the supermarkets are starting to stock them.

I'm not a lager drinker, fizzy crap beer makes me ill.

If you fancy some different brews to try, http://www.beerritz.co.uk/ have a really good range of different beers and ciders, you can order a mixed box and then pick your favorites. It works about to be about 2 quid a bottle, which isn't bad. I've had a few different packs off them and its a good way to find what you like.

There are some really nice imported beers, including American brews. The yanks have realised that p*ss water is not for everyone.

 

[brewdexta]

just recovering from my stag night.
Didn't drink any pasteurised over carbonated crap all weekend - only proper hand pulled ale - and lots of it.
Only problem was the interstitial shots - I drunk all sorts of really horrible muck. Jaeger, Tia Maria, Sweet sherry dry sherry, campari, grand marnier.......
I seem to have lost a few hours of my life and probably several million precious brain cells however there's no sheep in the room wearing suspenders and I don't seem to have any tattoo's so I think I've escaped lightly - so far.......

 

[pedrobedro]

I used to like a couple of pints at the local, Tetleys usually but all the good pubs here shut. I would have a couple of cans of Oranjeboom but nowadays tend to buy bottles of brown beer from individual breweries which they have started selling locally, Hobgoblin, Scarecrow, Bombardier etc. and follow with a whiskey.

 

[piman]

Hello all,

any drink that is served very cold is sold that way to mask it's lack of real flavour. Try one of them at 12 to 15 degrees to see what it really tastes like. Commercial ciders seem to bear no resemblance to the real thing, chalk and cheese.

Alec