I Love Beer ... Not Fruity IPA's or Crafts ... Just Plain Beer: "The Search For Suds"

 

“I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow
I like beer, it helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow
Whiskey's too rough, Champagne costs too much, vodka puts my mouth in gear
This little refrain should help me explain as a matter of fact I like beer.”

– from “I Like Beer” by Tom T. Hall

I love beer, and I prefer mine with pleasant company and rock music. I've logged a mountain of hours consuming suds while acquiring my own beer taste. Beginning with 3.2 beer (legal at age 18 in my home state of Ohio), I drank my way through local domestic favorites like Stroh's and Hudepohl, into less appealing tastes like Blatz and Black Label (We always joked you had to wear gloves to drink those two.), and all through all the other popular brands like Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Yuengling, and the rest.

Now, I must admit I like the taste of beer not flavored by fruits and other exotic tastes. I favor beer in its traditional brews. Bitter IPA's and craft beers are OK for a swallow; however, I often find their flavoring get in the way of the taste I crave – the simple, refreshing savor of beer. Maybe my conservative preferences have something to do with why I think pineapple on pizza is also taboo.

Artisanal brews offering complexity and unique combinations of flavors and aromas do not appeal to my palate like beers with a clean drinkability … your know, like the cold and crisp beer that tastes so refreshing on a hot summer day – hold the added lemon, lime and cucumber, please – or the satisfying taste of a good pilsner or lager from a huge, icy, frosted mug.

The choices of beers seem almost limitless these days. In 2019, according to the Brewers Association, there were 7,480 active craft breweries around America – 1,016 more than in 2018. Craft brewers love to experiment, so new beers are constantly pouring onto the market, and it's not uncommon for a single producer to have a dozen or more beers on the market at any given time. Keeping up with the craft beer scene can be a full-time job. Frankly, I just don't have the inclination to do so.

Still, I thought I might find a new beer that appealed to me. Seeking some advice from experts, I set out on the Internet to find top-rated beers. Can you imagine what I found? The very titles of beeradvocate.com's “Top Rated Beers in the United States” sounded like recipes for cakes or pies. For example, high on the list was Barrel Aged Imperial German Chocolate Cupcake Stout, Laird's Apple Brandy Barrel, and Marshmallow Handjee.

Coming in at #1 was “Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout” from Toppling Goliath Brewing Company in Iowa (Kentucky beer from Iowas, go figure).

Here is the summary for the winning beer: 

“Ranked No. 1 on the most recent Beer Advocate listing of America's top 250 beers, with an almost perfect score, this imperial stout is thick, dark, sweet, complex, smooth, and memorable, combining flavors of chocolate, coffee, maple syrup, bourbon, figs, toffee, and vanilla to what its many fans consider transcendent effect.”

Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout (KBBS) was also rated as “one of the ten great beers you will never taste” by Esquire. The article says …

“The absolute hottest beer of the moment may very well be a barrel-aged coffee stout from little Decorah, Iowa. Kentucky Brand Brunch Stout has so far been released about once a year, about 300 to 400 bottles each time, always straight from the brewery. Beer geeks have gone bonkers for this brew and by the end of the year it looks poised to become the No.1 rated beer in the entire world on BeerAdvocate.com. In fact, so coveted is it, that it inspired a counterfeiting scandal last year!”

(Aaron Goldfarb. “10 Great Beers You Will Never Taste.” Esquire. June 12, 2015.)

Note: Toppling Goliath Brewing Company released a press statement (December 09, 2014) concerning counterfeit bottles by a particular individual used to scam innocent beer traders.

“Hello, Friends.

“Yesterday, we had the misfortune of experiencing one of the most dishonest acts that we’ve ever had to face. A certain individual had been taking our beers, refilling them with other beers, and then trading the forgeries. To prove a trust-of-trade, the individual had been citing close relations to several of our employees, including our owner. These claims are exaggerated and are definitely not the kinds of actions Toppling Goliath does, or would condone.

"While we will not share the person’s identity, we do know who the perpetrator was and have taken actions to prohibit their access to our beers. No longer will they be welcome in our tap room. Should it be found that others are exercising the same dishonesty with our beers, similar actions will be taken.”

And, get this. There was an online lottery in 2020 for KBBS “packaged in hand-waxed and hand-numbered 12-ounce bottles that carried a retail price of $100 each and a purchase limit of one bottle per person.” Yes, that's right. $100 per bottle. Oh, and by the way, a ticket to enter the lottery was $5.

Past incarnations of the Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout have been packaged in 12-ounce bottles sold exclusively at the brewery and have sold for more than $1,000 on the secondary market. The stout was last seen in Dec. 2019, when the bottles were sold for $100 each to winners of an online lottery with a limit of one bottle per person.

(Brooks Whittington. “Toppling Goliath Opens KBBS 2020 Online Ticket Lottery.” Tenemu. October 20, 2020.)

I want to find a good beer to drink, reasonably priced, and not a keepsake packaged in a designer bottle. Even if I could afford a bottle of the highly touted KBBS, how could I possibly enjoy drinking it while thinking about paying the high price tag and realizing I was guzzling a sizable investment? You beer aficionados can fight for that boozy concoction of chocolate, coffee, maple syrup, bourbon, figs, toffee, and vanilla and I'll be happy saving the price of a sugary taste.

So, maybe my 70-year-old geezer brain is just too 'beer traditional” to find what I really consider to be a relatively inexpensive, delicious refreshing beer – one free of fruit, candy, and other taste-masking ingredients. Then, about to give up on my quest for a new beer, I found some recent research from YouGov in Food and Wine concerning “America's favorite" – a judgment that implies both recognition and quality – “all the quality in the world won't matter if no one has heard of you.”

The online market research company showed over 8,000 respondents 41 major beer brands to gauge their favorability. In the end, Heineken just edged out Guinness for the title of America's favorite beer, but it was far from a consensus. None of the brands were viewed positively by a majority of those surveyed.

YouGov first determined what percentage of people recognized a brand before asking if they had a positive, negative, or neutral opinion of it. As a result, the best-known brands had a major leg up in the voting. For instance, about half the people who had heard of Dogfish Head (makers of the touted SeaQuench Ale) had a positive opinion of the brand, but only 34 percent of people recognized the name, so its "popularity score" was a paltry 17 percent.

The findings …

“95 percent of those polled said they had heard of Heineken, helping to propel it to the top spot with a 47 percent popularity score. YouGov says that Guinness finished second by "a marginal difference," but in some ways, Guinness's stats are more impressive. The Irish stout also had a 47 percent popularity score despite having lower recognition than Heineken. And Guinness had significantly lower levels of negative opinion — 13 percent compared to Heineken's 19 percent. So in the end, the race really would appear to be neck and neck.”

(Mike Pomranz. “This Beer Is 'America’s Favorite' (Even Though Most People Don’t Like It).” foodandwine.com. May 17, 2019.)

I've drunk both Heinken and Guinness; therefore, only one new brew caught my eye.

So, I'll leave this blog entry with the results. All of the favorites in the survey were reasonably priced. I think I might actually look for Dogfish Head despite its unappealing name. It will probably be too fruity for me. Therefore, I will likely buy a 12-pack of Heineken, which, to me, tastes nothing like the darker Guinness although I have never tried their Blonde or Ale. 

1. Heineken – pale lager beer

2. Guinness – dark Irish dry stout beer that also comes in a Baltimore Blonde and a Wide Mouth White Ale

3. Dogfish Head – many IPA's including SeaQuench Ale – “a session sour mash-up of a crisp Kölsch, a salty Gose and a tart Berliner Weiss”