As usual, Oliver does a good job promoting craft beer
However, I hate the general theme that expensive means better.
7 Likes
Thanks for that. I wish thereād been a reveal of what the beers were. Pretty sure that the cheap dark lager was a Modelo, and the expensive fruit sour was a Lost Abbey. The cheaper barrel aged beer did have an unusual bottle shape, so should be identifiable.
Yeah, that bottle type is very atypical for a US made beer.
Yep. I just saw this today. Garrett Oliver is always excellent.
Was was the twist off cheaper pils?
One comment read āHe had me at āZappāā. Exactly how it was for me too. A pleasure to listen to him, as he really knows his stuff and has rhetorical skills that make you want to listen to him indefinitely.
Would love to see Garrett Oliver distinguish between a $2 and $5 IPA, or an $6 (bomber) and $20 stout. Or even better, a $10 vs $30 sour. The problem in this video is that in every case they are giving him a macro vs a craft, which is not particularly meaningful. And itās not even blind: almost all of the macros are identifiable based on the packaging + style! Cheap craft vs expensive craft would be much more insightful and heād probably get a lot of them wrong. Best would be give him 20 craft IPAs and attempt to arrange them by priceā¦
6 Likes
And if he got them wrong, would that be because heās not so expert, or because price doesnāt always match quality?
1 Like
Both.
Last one has to be from Lost Abbey, right?
Thank you for that post, I just saw this thread and I was thinking the same thing while I started watching. Itās not a bad video, but Iād love to see a cheap craft vs āexpensiveā craft. The results might actually be the same, but Iād find it more interesting to watch.
When I was a poor college student, my friends and I would go to the closest Total Wine and make our own 6 packs of beer and see who could make the cheapest mix pack, always striving for trying to find the best tasting craft beers (or ācraftyā in many situations) as we could.
As I made more money, and the craft beer market boomed, I shied away from that, but now I have a mortgage and other obligations, so Iām trying to cut down on how much money I spend. A lot of local craft options are just so damn expensive. Itās hard for me to justify purchasing a 4 pack of 16oz beers for anywhere between $15 and $20, even if itās good.
1 Like
I agree. There are certain beers which I refuse to pay for because their quality comes nowhere near to their price tag. Cascade for example. Always $30 or more and definitely worse than Allagash sours under $20. Eclipse 50/50 variants, which always just suck, $45, and are nowhere near as good as a $4 rasputin, expy or a Ten fidy.
Then thereās Ale Apothecary. $60 bottles?? Ya. Ok. Their top beer is a Sahti. Iāll get right on that.
3 Likes
That sounds like the DC markup. I mean they are $30-$35 typically but $60 is an insane markup. Even PA has these for around $40.
FWW, Iād rather pay 30 for Ale Apothecary than Cascade.
If Iām paying $30 for a bottle of beer it better be like a 3 liter bottle.
7 Likes
No it fricken aināt. Looking at the reviews, itās a saison with an inappropriate grain bill for a sahti, an inappropriate hop bill for a sahti, and inappropriate ageing for a sahti.
Looking more deeply at the reviews, their view of hygiene is spitting on a tissue and wiping off the most visible bits of the god-knows-what-it-is-better-not-ask. But fortunately, the discerning raters who were so keen to get a āsahtiā tick were able to detect these multitudinous brewing flaws, and score it appropriately:
āSmells like Band-Aidsā - 4.0
āThe aroma is heavy with fecal, farty funk, cheese,ā 4.0
'Light poopy note ā - 3.8
āpiss and earthy rot were the aromaā - 4.4
ālightly soured medicineā - 4.3
āthe aroma makes me gag a littleā - 3.8 (6/10 for aroma)
āTaste is big band-aid, ā¦ medicinalā - 3.8
ā¦ and many more
5 Likes
Ha. Now Iām even more hyped on it.
2 Likes
Itās ISO here, so I can take a bottle of it to this yearās sahti competition in Finland, and see what people who really know what a sahti is think of it.
Make it 2 bottles, as itās also ISO here so that it can be shared with every Estonian and Finn imaginable, as we pretty much all really know what a sahti is, even if weāve never brewed one. Iām sure even the staunchest leaver could be brought out of hibernation to rate that.
Just about every American ātakeā at the style can be moved to other styles where those beers actually belong, but letās just say there was resistance from my American colleagues about it. 
Saison has become a meaningless term in the states nowadays. We really need a new style called American-Belgian Ale.
1 Like
Yeah, but the style weāre talking about is being made a meaningless term by force by brewers looking for attention from style tickers and trying to jump on a random āexoticā bandwagon without putting the least amount of effort to actually brew the style they claim to be brewing. And okayed by everyone gunning for those precious style ticks, since, well, traveling to the countries of origin is expensive. 
1 Like
tickkkkkzzzzz
