Discussion The Beer Thread!

[Teubier]

I was listening to this song earlier, walking under the sunlight of a cold day with a cold desperados. Vive la bière

 

[xi0]

Had this on NYE in place of Champagne...wow, really quite a different experience. Not a sweet taste at all - it's dry, very sour and funky. Something to definitely experience, but I don't think I could drink a ton of it. Not a sweetened Lambic.

 

[Jorge D. Dragon]

Teubier
I agree on you with cold Desperados.) It's especially great in summer, when it's hot and you can drink it in the park.))) I got the habbit to drink it from time to time from Spain.

 

[kkck]

I came to the realization that my country is a beer wasteland on its best day .... Liquor stores which used to import good beers don't do so because new taxes made it far too expensive. A bar I go to used to have endirger but an universe where I would pay 12 dollars for endirger beer (even though its good) is inconceivable. I have 1 place I have my hopes on however even if they do have some new beers I would have limited options and they would be expensive as hell.... Worst part is the delusion that budweisser is a decent just because it is foreign or "American" meaning there are times I have no option but to drink that. Realistically speaking the national beers here would be about the same or a little better however people still go for budweisser.

 

[xi0]

Sounds like you need to go on a beer-finding quest kkck

 

[kkck]

I do and I have and I failed miserably. No beer in my country ...... There is only that one place where I put my hopes on.... and expectations are not reasonably high...

 

[xi0]

I do and I have and I failed miserably. No beer in my country ...... There is only that one place where I put my hopes on.... and expectations are not reasonably high...

It sounds like you just need to go online and do some investigating. Maybe it'll be for naught, but it's still worth trying.

 

[kkck]

Online? I live in a third world god forsaken country. Obviously we do have internet however as far as this goes it is quite surprising how many companies do not have any sort of online advertizing or even a web page. Its not quite like the US or europe where the very notion of a company without a web page, facebook, myspace, twitter and so on is not only beyond absurd but plain moronic. The problem at hand is easy to find though. A few years ago you would easily find imported beers at regular liquor stores. You wouldn't find an overwhelming amount of variety but you would find your stouts, ales, weissbier, guinnes, spaten and plenty of stuff different from heineken, corona and budweiser. Recently the government has implemented not so light taxes on all forms of imported alcohol. In this regard the price of an imported beer being 3 times what it was before is a bit of an issue. The 2 companies actually producing beer locally actually only make 2 types of beer, pilsen and lagger. I blame socialism.

 

[Teubier]

I blame stupidity. How come no one gets that beer is the key to wisdom ?

 

[kkck]

Seriously lol. I just went to the last place where there might be a shred of a chance of finding a couple decent beers and as it turns out I found absolutely nothing. My country is simply no longer importing beers and if they do the prices are absurd. I guess it makes sense, recent tariffs and taxes basically doubled (or more) the price of imported alcoholic beverages and recently they also implemented a 5% tax on any capital that leaves the country (which for importers is like a tariff on every product they have). My country's current government made sure to kill, bury and spit on any shred of a chance we ever had of developing something vaguely similar to a beer culture past ordinary lager.

 

[k-dom]

So does it mean you are not studying in the US anymore kkck ?
I somehow feel your pain, since I left Germany, prices of beers have made x2

 

[kkck]

Yep, I graduated last semester and went back home. I went back home under the assumption that I would be able to buy at least common imports such as spaten or guiness however even that is non existent. To my surprise beer imports are not the only ones that have suffered, there are a number of other products which cannot be found. As it turns out there are a few cereal imports which are no longer available. I am not actually starving as my country has plenty of food however I feel I am being deprived of the good stuff. Right now my only realistic chance of finding beer is going to another city 8 hours away from mine however that is obviously not easy.

 

[Jorge D. Dragon]

kkck
Sorry, but where are you from? Cause for me to hear that beer can cost more than 4 dollars even if it is imported is a bit strange.

 

[kkck]

Well, I went to a bar and the reason they stopped selling endirger is that it would be 12 dollars a bottle. Obviously at a store it would be cheaper however it would still be a lot more expensive than what people in general would pay for beer (specially if budweiser is available at the price of national beers since a plant recently opened in the country).

 

[Jorge D. Dragon]

Yeah, such price is really a problem. We also have taxes for imported alcohol, but that sounds barbaric.
I might understand the reason why they used such taxes, but actually it won't work the way they wanted and won't bring any income for the state, cause simply noone will by imported beer for such price.
And what's common drink in your country? Is it cheap if we compare it with local beer?

P.S. About Budweiser... I wouldn't say that's a bad beer, but of course it's not something to enjoy (if we talk about tasty beer. ). But I understand the problem of having alcohol getting more expensive. We have same problem now. I woulds say when I was still at school like 7 years ago it was cheaper to drink beer than juice. It was even cheaper to drink wine or vodka than juice, but now it's only beer that is cheeper than juice, cause our government tries to fight alcocholics.

 

[kkck]

The reason for the taxes and whatnot are actually stupid. The current government is basically spending far more money than what it should (for fucks sake they are quite literally giving it away under the name of solidary bonus or whatnot) and as a result it is desperate for more. I don't particularly believe making alcohol more expensive actually helps to combat alcoholism though. At least my own experience suggest that such an strategy is ineffective to say the least. I am obviously not an alcoholic but I do consume reasonable amounts of it socially. What have I done when alcohol increases in price? Either I pay more or I buy the cheaper one(which is usually the case, say I traded vodka for rum recently). How much is the cheapest bottle around? As far as I remember the cheapest bottle of vodka or whiskey around was around 3 US dollars. Now with the taxes it comes at around 5 or 6. My country might be poor but it does not get to the point where that increase would stop alcoholics from spending on it. More so, there are plenty of alternatives which are even cheaper although there are those little risks of them not being actually sanitary, basically an informal sector which makes liquor. In the end, raising the price of alcohol does not stop people from drinking, it only makes the vast majority of the population spend the same amount of money on cheaper/worst alcohol and it makes the people who were already buying dirt cheap stuff spend more or even worst force them to the informal segment. People who are either snobby/connoisseurs probably will just spend the extra money as they didn't get to either of those situations from being poor.

---------- Post added at 04:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:16 PM ----------

As for a common drink.... I guess it would be beer for the most part. I don't think we have anything else in that regard. Of course, the national brewery (which is owned by sab miller I think lol) only produces pilsen or lager styles of beer. I lack so much as an ounce of patriotism and am out of touch with what should be my culture (I don't completely understand the even my own city's sland -about half of it-, I do not regularly eat typical foods and my actual background has nothing to do with the background of 99% of the people) so I would not be particularly knowledgeable about such things.

---------- Post added January 23, 2012 at 11:27 PM ---------- Previous post was January 20, 2012 at 04:22 PM ----------

Just got a tip that there are a couple of stores which might have what I am looking for -dark beers in general-. Haven't had a chance to check it out but I got good hopes. I don't particularly expect much variety but at least enough to know I don't live in a beer wasteland lol.

 

[xi0]

What kind of haul are you in for to find this store? Hope it isn't too much

Though for good beer, I wonder what "too much" is

 

[kkck]

Well, from what I understand they should have spaten, stout franciscarner (or however that is spelled) and stout and weissbier endirger. Its not much but it is the most optimistic I can reasonably get.

---------- Post added February 17, 2012 at 04:51 PM ---------- Previous post was January 24, 2012 at 10:14 PM ----------

Tried a very interesting red lagger the other day. Weird random encounter of a craft beer in a god forsaken town in a god forsaken country of the month. Interestingly, they also had a bunch of other import beers which makes no sense whatsoever considering the country's overall tariff situation. Very real chance that they are actually smuggling beer from the neighbor country lol.

 

[xi0]

Hey it's beer, it's probably worth it

Do you remember some of the stuff they had?

 

[Teubier]

Damn, tasted this from the local grocer tonight, and I must say it was not too shabby for a beer below 2€ at ~12°. At least far more beerable than the monster trick Maximator. The aftertaste was still a bit aggressive though.