Craft Beers and Foodies

Craft beer is to mass produced beer as the local farm meat is to the giant, steroid-pumping, factory farm meat.

One is made using the best ingredients in small batches with a good deal of hands on attention and the other is industrial swill.

In my line of sales we are big in the food processing industry, I sold to the local Budweiser brewery in Newark and some small, mom and pop producers throughout the region. The attention to detail and ingredients is infinitely better at the local craft or micro breweries as opposed to the giant, multi-national conglomerate brewery.

The same goes for food. When I want salami I don't buy in the supermarket, I go to a specialty store where the producer raised the pigs himself and hand made the finished product.

Life is too short to eat crappy food and drink lousy booze.

a reply to: sputniksteve

I would be considered a foodie... this is much different than someone who enjoys a wide variety of food. It is someone who, when they go into their kitchen it becomes an art - not just another meal.

Everyone always said I should start my own catering business or the like, but I always refused to do that for a living. I refused because cooking is something I love so dearly, and the kitchen so much my happy place, that I didn't want to ruin it by doing it for a living.

But for some people... baking and cooking are an art. The flavors you can play with, and all the millions of things you can do... its more than cooking, its more than eating because I do it for others... its just... FUN!

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

ANYTHING handmade with the freshest ingredients is a million times better. One of the first things I purchased when I bought my own land, was a Jersey cow because they make the BEST cream, and awesome cream is an important ingredient for both homemade ice creams as well as the sweetest butter. Jersey cows are best for that.

The Amish are some of the best people to purchase various spices, cream ect from for homemade cooking - in lieu of having your own farm. Plus they are infinitely cheaper than the supermarket!

a reply to: OpinionatedB

You are preaching to the foodie choir. One of the nice things is New Jersey is still the Garden State and we have numerous farm stands and farmers markets selling everything from produce to fresh and cured meats all raised within 20 or so miles from where you are buying them.

What you need is a little to get a little Bob Marley on if ya know what I mean, cause you WAY too tight up man. Chill out. Guess what I'm drinking right now? Hmm? Yeah a nice crisp, dark oat ale from Vermont, "Wolavers" and its ORGANIC. Drink your Budweiser. Peasant.

"Heady Topper".... a little craft beer Porn for ya...

originally posted by: badgerprints
The best beer is the beer you enjoy and if someone else doesn't like it, who gives a damn.

That^^^^^

There are some big breweries that produce beer I like, there are some craft (small) breweries I don't particularly care for.

My particular issue with a lot of the small batch breweries is there seems to be a strategy of forcing as much hoppiness into a beer as they can. Which to me, makes a drink that tastes like you're drinking the vase water at a funeral home.

Now if you want to explore a little bit without breaking the bank, look for anything produced by the Ommegang brewery in Cooperstown, New York. Some of their offerings are hop-heavy, some aren't.

Also the Samuel Smith brewery in Yorkshire puts out a wide variety of interesting selections.

Yes, I like Bud, Miller, Newcastle Brown, Killian's Red and a lot of the big brewery offerings. But it's fun to try some of the 'craft' stuff coming out of local breweries, too.

a reply to: HUMBLEONE

actually, its not really more expensive - at least not much. I decided to look up prices of beers for fun.

What you would consider a "craft" beer, that is sold in a grocery, is 9.99 for a 6 pack in bottles. What my husband drinks (when he does drink beer which is rare) is Guinness, which is also 9.99 for a 6 pack in bottles.

I looked up Budweiser prices, and the only thing I could find advertised in a 6 pack in bottles was Budweiser lime, and the price of it was 8.49 for the 6 pack.

So you only save 1.50 to purchase Budweiser... that is not a whole lot, especially considering how long a 6 pack lasts! I wouldn't then consider it a "peasant" beer by any means... its only a tiny bit cheaper.

I like store bought beer and food, always have and always will.
Buying the store stuff instead of fancy pants stuff is the reason we were able to pay off our house loan 14 years early on
a 25 year mortgage.

Yep and we eat store bought potatoes and veggies and meat, always have and always will.
The savings found their allowed us to purchase things that we really wanted but only when we wanted them.

( see my sig down below?)

Regards, Iwinder

Edit to add, S&F to the OP

originally posted by: sputniksteve
a reply to: skunkape23

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people enjoying good or expensive beer, I just can't stand people trying to make it sound like there is a difference between craft beer and beer. It's just beer. There is a huge difference between Sam Adams and Bush Light but you don't hear anyone acting like 1 is above the other.

a reply to: Psychonautics

I currently don't drink any alcohol at all any more but when I did I drank anything placed in front of me and I never would have sought out "craft beers". What is a "craft beer" anyway? One that is crafted, as opposed to brewed? It isn't the act of drinking premium beer that bothers me, it is just the term.

Which relates to foodies. I also like to eat different kinds of food, and regularly seek out things to digest that I haven't otherwise digested.

I don't really expect anyone to agree or sympathize with me here really, I am just being a semantic jerk.

Which reminds me of another one, I ride motorcycles. Every other motorcycle rider on the face of the planet seems to need to wave at me just in case I didn't notice that they too ride a motorcycle. Yes I am a curmudgeon.

As someone who is a reasonably decent and consistent amateur brewer, I can tell you there is a huge difference between a micro brew, or craft beer, and a mass produced domestic beer.

The biggest of which is ingredients. Your average $%!&&y, watered-down lager from Massive Brewer X is brewed primarily with corn and rice hulls. It's taste tested by a guy in a white coat that thinks plain rice cakes are actually nomnomalicious. The spent mash is re-used to produce the "light" versions.

By contrast, a "craft beer" (I prefer the term micro-brew) was made for enjoyment. It was made either to honor the style, which could be read as "honor the history," or to explore some odd and potentially fantastic new combination of styles, or brewing techniques, or both. The guy who's taste testing it probably raised that recipe from infancy, and was probably only fractionally motivated by money and masses of people drinking his product.

All of these things are reflected in the taste and experience of the beer. Some people just don't have the interest or the palette to see the difference - but I assure you it's there. This isn't meant to be snobbery or a knock on people who don't enjoy beer - I'll still drink a few PBRs very happily in the right situation - but only that some people don't appreciate beer for what it is just like some people would be bored by a beautiful sunset..

Beer is good. Good beer is magical. =]

originally posted by: HUMBLEONE
What you need is a little to get a little Bob Marley on if ya know what I mean, cause you WAY too tight up man. Chill out. Guess what I'm drinking right now? Hmm? Yeah a nice crisp, dark oat ale from Vermont, "Wolavers" and its ORGANIC. Drink your Budweiser. Peasant.

Yes sir that is more my style now a days.

a reply to: TinkerHaus

That right there is what I was ultimately try to get at. I think micro-brew is more or less an acceptable term or description for "good" beer compared to Bud Light. It was never the desire to drink micro brew that bothered me, it is just the term craft beer. To me it sounds pretentious like the speaker is trying to imply that their taste is superior to Joe that drinks Bud Light by the gallon. I get the desire to drink good beers, while when I drank I would drink anything that was in front of me but I of course would drink micro brew over Light beer if the option was available.

I guess ultimately I connect the term with hipsters who drive me equally crazy. It isn't for any logical reason other than people trying to think they are unique and cool wearing the same exact thing as every other hipster all the while dressing in the style that was popular when I was a kid which to anyone that was actually alive in that era rightfully detests. It is terribly ugly stylistically in my not so popular or righteous opinion.

I am not a hypocrit though, when I was a teenager and early 20's I pretty much did the same thing wearing 70's style clothes basically thinking I was unique when I wasn't in the least. I still wear what was popular in the late 90's and early 2000's which is polo shirts and cargo pants. It is far from fashionable I will readily admit and I am certain I will probably wear the same things for the rest of my life. No doubt kids look at me and think I look like an idiot old man straight out of a Kevin Smith movie.