As a man who makes his living making tasty craft brewed beer.

Thank you Jimmy Carter.

Carter was a horrible President, but I'll give him this one.

As a man who makes his living testing and tasting amazing craft beer, BEER IS AWESOME.

Embden.Meyerhof: As a man who makes his living testing and tasting amazing craft beer, BEER IS AWESOME.

How do I get that job?

/got the tasting part down!

Bottling my first batch of gluten-free homebrew tomorrow. Bard and New Grist can suck it! (Let's not even mention AB-Inbev-owned Redbridge.)

Watch Beer Wars

Hate BMC even more

(Bud-Miller-Coors)

It's true, he doesn't get enough credit for a lot of things. I'm going to raise a glass to our 39th president right now.

I didn't even drink beer until I lived in Maine. This explains alot.

Unfortunately, I moved. The video is right, living in one of those states really does spoil you. I used to go a little pub there that carried at least 6 locally made brews at any time, and they brewed 3 of them right there in the back room of the pub.

Empires rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall. It looks to me like we're due for a fall. I wish it weren't the case but there are way too many "craft" breweries making crappy beer simply getting by on the craze. Do we really need another high gravity hop bomb? Another extra double imperial IPA vanilla jalapeno stout porter? When these yahoos finally meet their due demise I fear the few goods breweries will go down with them. It's sad.

/I know more about making beer than you do.
//Yeah you too.
///Nobody with taste actually cares about your latest homebrewed double hop backed triple raspberry wiesen bock.

KidneyStone: At least that shiatty President did one good thing. Bless him for working with Habitat but he suck-diddly-ucked as a prez.

Indeed

And I got a chocolate peanut butter stout that's one day old right now.

/bubble bubble bubble

max_pooper: Empires rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall. It looks to me like we're due for a fall. I wish it weren't the case but there are way too many "craft" breweries making crappy beer simply getting by on the craze. Do we really need another high gravity hop bomb? Another extra double imperial IPA vanilla jalapeno stout porter? When these yahoos finally meet their due demise I fear the few goods breweries will go down with them. It's sad.

/I know more about making beer than you do.
//Yeah you too.
///Nobody with taste actually cares about your latest homebrewed double hop backed triple raspberry wiesen bock.

I'm sure the brewers at the many InBev owned breweries think the same as you, and I can - without question - assert they know very little about taste.

/Makes cider
//It's good, but I'm not an elitist asshat about it

max_pooper: Empires rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall. It looks to me like we're due for a fall. I wish it weren't the case but there are way too many "craft" breweries making crappy beer simply getting by on the craze. Do we really need another high gravity hop bomb? Another extra double imperial IPA vanilla jalapeno stout porter? When these yahoos finally meet their due demise I fear the few goods breweries will go down with them. It's sad.

/I know more about making beer than you do.
//Yeah you too.
///Nobody with taste actually cares about your latest homebrewed double hop backed triple raspberry wiesen bock.

You should start a beer blog, so we can criticize the things you like.

I get spoiled in Oregon. It's surprising that some beers aren't that good. There are a hundred others to choose from. I have two different places a mile from the house. What bugs me is when a perfectly good IPA gives me a pounding headache after half a glass, because they went cheap and used tap water. The saving grace is the free samples.

I feel kind of like a traitor to my state though; some of the best beer I ever had was in Colorado at Ouray Brewery. Link (new window) I walked into the place a beer snob, and walked out humbled. Funny thing is - I don't think they realize how good their beer is. They are out in the middle of nowhere and haven't done many competitions. Only about a half dozen choices, ale, IPA, stout, seasonal, etc - but it's all good.

I love Oregon, but a lot of the beer brewed here is crap. I'm looking at you, McMenamin Bros.

Shakespeare's Monkey:
residentgeek: Bottling my first batch of gluten-free homebrew tomorrow. Bard and New Grist can suck it! (Let's not even mention AB-Inbev-owned Redbridge.)

I'd be interested in how that turns out. My wife has Celiac Disease, gluten intolerant, so she can't
join in on my brews. I think a truly tasty gluten free beer is the holy grail of some home brewers.

I yoinked shamelessly from the the Gluten-free McGee recipe on Homebrew Exchange, with some tweaks for what I have on hand. My last gravity sample was quite tasty--still a bit lemony, but far from the piss that is available on shelves. My next step is to try to malt some quinoa and millet for more depth.

How local are you? I'd be happy to send you a few bottles if it doesn't suck ;-)

max_pooper: Empires rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall. It looks to me like we're due for a fall. I wish it weren't the case but there are way too many "craft" breweries making crappy beer simply getting by on the craze. Do we really need another high gravity hop bomb? Another extra double imperial IPA vanilla jalapeno stout porter? When these yahoos finally meet their due demise I fear the few goods breweries will go down with them. It's sad.

/I know more about making beer than you do.
//Yeah you too.
///Nobody with taste actually cares about your latest homebrewed double hop backed triple raspberry wiesen bock.

I'm actually inclined to agree with you, and I'm in the biz, as said before. we are in a SECOND craft beer bubble right now, and the first one popped in the early 2000's because, there were A LOT of sub par breweries out there making A LOT of mediocre beer. and eventually the market just rejected it it was all style, no substance and the folks that survived were the ones not riding a tide of a fad. places like the one I work for. and belive you me, between the first craft bubble burst, the economic downturn after 9-11, and the hop shortage.. it weeded out a bunch of people that had no business being in the business.
And now? well.. it rising up again, it's great for the drinkers, and it's great for the brewers, we're making hand over fist, but the market is starting to saturate up again filled with a lot of brewers making mediocre beer.

the big difference now is that they are not fighting the system and blazing new trails, the system is now open to them. we have at least two generations of folks out there who have grown up drinking craft brew and expect that. and the distributors are not as tied to thier Big brewery handlers as much anymore and have no qualms taking on a craft brewer that might only be able to put out a couple of pallats of beer a month.

but if you flood the market, you are in danger of Diluting the brand, and then, the eventual consumer backlash...

it happened before, and it WILL happen again