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Batch

Discuss beer or anything else that comes to mind in here.

Moderators: Craig, Cass

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Tapsucker
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Location: Toronto

Post by Tapsucker »

saints_gambit wrote:
Tapsucker wrote:
I'll take a Creemore Keller over any trendy rotting/brett/sour/mop bucket mess with a goofy misogynistic or sports themed name any day...
This is correct. Fresh Creemore stuff (FRESH being operative here) is a lot better than much of the rest of the market in Ontario. The problem is dirty lines and old product. Fresh Kellerbier is very very good.
Ironically, kellerbier is a lagered beer and historically rather rustic in how it is handled. My own homebrew kellerbier went into conditioning a few weeks ago and will be ready by my shady standards in June/July, depending on my patience.

Still, I am with you on this.
Brands are for cattle.
Fans are cash cows.
The herd will consume until consumed.

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Belgian
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Post by Belgian »

Interesting. You presumably wouldn't serve spoiled eggs or milk to a customer, why beer?

Was just having some wonderfully fresh & bretty stuff at Folly brew pub;
I guess it helps if your beer is made 40 feet away & you answer for the entire quality control!
In Beerum Veritas

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Craig
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Post by Craig »

Well, beer is basically spoiled by definition, isn't it? Spoiled barley tea, I guess.

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groulxsome
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Post by groulxsome »

Belgian wrote:Interesting. You presumably wouldn't serve spoiled eggs or milk to a customer, why beer?

Was just having some wonderfully fresh & bretty stuff at Folly brew pub;
I guess it helps if your beer is made 40 feet away & you answer for the entire quality control!
Well, that's kinda the point, isn't it? Always seems like three things are conflated in "craft beer" discussions:

(1) Craft = Flavorful
(2) Craft beer is independent/local
(3) Small is Beautiful

So, (1) seems to be assumed for all craft beer and denied to all corporate beer. Batch is corporate and flavorful. Ace Hill is presumably craft by (1) and bland.

The (2) independent thing lines up with your other priorities, not just beer purchasing. Lone Pine with a Big Mac or Lone Pine at, lets say, the Wren with a cheeseburger? That's the rub with the Cigar City/Oscar Blues/Fireman Capital thing. How big can still be "independent?" How big can still be "local?" Kinda a personal thing to design your own shibboleth for that.

I think (3) is pretty important. I think that was mostly the point of many Belgian brewers running their small faculties without much in terms of expansion. American breweries expand and grow as a culture. With that comes loss of control and some of the problems of (1) and (2). I think the small approach provides the most control over the beer and the most range of expression and experimentation.

For me, then, Batch's house beer fits (3) pretty well. Sure, it has oversight, but it also has a bigger pantry than most breweries and what seems to be brewer control over quality and flavor. That leads to (1), which leads to this discussion because it fails (2) very, very badly. Depends on your priorities. If they are mostly hands off on the design and keep the system pretty small and only at the pub, they can do (3) very well despite being (1) higher up.

And Folly is 100% not craft beer... it's small beer (in the sense of 3 - though hopefully it's flavorful and I cannot imagine it being more independent). Plus, Folly beer is out in accounts as far as Hamilton which are less easy to QC (you have to trust your publican to be honest in their feedback and only sell to trusted publicans). Same for bottles which should be QC'd hard before they ever leave Folly.

Anyway, my two cents. I should have probably become some kind of weird monk, maybe.

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S. St. Jeb
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Post by S. St. Jeb »

groulxsome wrote:Anyway, my two cents. I should have probably become some kind of weird monk, maybe.
I don't know how old you are, but....it's never too late, is it? :D

atomeyes
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Post by atomeyes »

El Pinguino wrote:
Tapsucker wrote:I'd like to ask a basic philosophical question.

Would you prefer to drink a beer from a brewery owned by a brewery or by a bank?
To me it doesn't really matter....I'll try most beers no matter who brews it.

But I think the 'owned by a bank vs by a big brewery" argument is a bit odd. I mean if CIBC opened a brewery under their own brand, or if a brewery opened their own bank....those are businesses I may not frequent.

If you like how it tastes, who cares who brews it, right? That is one thing I love about blind beer tastings....it makes people realize macro beers are all bad and micro beers aren't all good.
think Tapsucker forgot this part of his post.
"and the next time you have sex with your wife, think of how you're actually, genetically, also having sex with her mom and dad."

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Craig
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Post by Craig »

Are we not supposed to do that? :-?

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El Pinguino
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Location: Downtown TO / Galapagos Islands
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Post by El Pinguino »

groulxsome wrote:
Belgian wrote:
El Pinguino wrote:To me it doesn't really matter....I'll try most beers no matter who brews it.
What if Stalin or Hitler brewed it?
My goodness...
Haha, well Taedonggang beers from North Korea have been high on my list of travel beers to try. Next time I head over to that side of the world I plan to make a pit stop in Pyongyang....should have gone last time I was in South Korea.

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