Best beer country

jrar

Now I know this is a debate which will split beer-drinkers in terms of preferences etc., but if you had to stick to 1 country's beers for at least a year, and drink beer from nowhere else, then where would you choose ?

I expect many will go for Ireland or Germany or Czech Rep. for instance.....

Personally I'll plump for Belgium as I've always loved the sheer variety of beers available there, and particularly like Westmalle, Orval, Adler, Duvel, Grimbergen, Brugse Tripel, etc. On the downside, I'm not a fan of Stella or Jupiler.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

The Bollox

Czech Republic deffinitly. fantastic booze

Royale with Cheese

I'll go for America











A ha ha. Seriously I'd go for Germany. You can't really get decent German beer here though. Becks sucks. Warsteiner is ok, Erdinger is very nice. That's about it in most places. Becks Vier isn't German incase anybody thinks it is. It's for the Export market only, aimed at Budweiser drinkers I'd say.

noby

America is not to be scoffed at. They have a lot to offer if you see beyond BMC.
Belgium will probably be the favourite, but not for me.
I would go for England, but you could do a lot worse than Ireland these days.

Saruman

Yes as long as you do not get the big name American beers, America has some real good local beers.
Same with England, they have nice local beers there too.

jrar

The Scientist wrote:

I'd also go for Belguim.
Was in brussels during the year and one small pub we went to had over 200 different brands on offer.
Oh, and you forgot Chimay, luvvely stuff!
+1 for Duvel aswell though, its a shame its so goddamn expensive in ireland.

Don't worry Scientist, I'm partial to Chimay (red, blue and white !) as well ! - just didn't want to list TOO many beers

And it's the very fact that you can get places offering scores of local beers that supports my overall choice of Belgium - there's probably a different beer for nigh on everyday of the year !! Ahh, heavenly

dave2pvd

Has to be Belgium for me.

Ireland? Not a hope.

Hon mentions to France, Germany, England and US.

Imposter

For me i'd have to go with:
1: Czech
2: Austria
3: Germany
4: Belgium

What are we talking about when we're talking about Irish beers?

oblivious

Here are a few of the most active breweries

Galway hooker
Carlow Brewing Co.
Porterhouse
Biddy Early Brewery (Co. Clare)
The Celtic Brewing Co
Franciscan Well Brewery (cork)
Hilden Brewery (Lisburn,)
Messrs Maguire
College Green Brewery (Belfast)
Strangford Lough Brewing Company Ltd (County Down)

noby

...and Guinness. Extra and Foreign Extra are two fine beers.

oblivious

noby wrote:

...and Guinness. Extra and Foreign Extra are two fine beers.

Some of the about breweries produce stout that can slap the pants of the Guinness extra and the porterhouse celebration stout (10%) could give foreign extra stout a good run for it money

noby

But it's not about giving Guinness a run for it's money, is it? I was adding to the list of good beers available in Ireland.

oblivious

True, but I thought he would be familiar with Diageo brands

guildofevil

Assuming I am not limited to supplies available in Ireland I would go for the USA.

A year would not be long enough to sample even one beer from all of the reputable microbreweries in that county and, as they gleefully copy and reinvent styles from other countries, I would have all of the beer styles of the world available to me.

MoominPapa

I'd say England but then I am a bitter sort of person, nice beers coming out of Scotland these days too so soon it could be Britain

finbarrk

Germany for me anyway, I've been there 3 or 4 times and yet haven't got a beer I didn't like.

Blisterman

Gotta be Britain. Or possibly USA, for the reasons Guildofeveil mentioned.

Gotta be Belgium. Westmalle all the way baby.

dodgyme

Well for Variety and sheer expanse of beer types and brewing it has to be Belguim.

For lager/Pils/Weis/Drunkel , germany and the czech republic are of the one category, esp the Bavarian and Bohemian traditions.

For Real Ales, england is very good. And after a while you get used of drinking them at room temp.

For Stout/Porter, Ireland. Not into the Draught cans but a bottle of irish stout is the business and Draught guinness in a decent pub is a must.

Coileach dearg

Can't believe nobody has mentioned Australia yet. I have moved here especially! Such a wide variety available:

Coopers, Little Creatures, VB, Carlton, Tooheys Old & New & Extra Dry, James Squire, James Boags, Crown, Hahn, Blue Tongue, I could be here for the day naming all of them....and no not Fosters!!!!

I could spend a day getting acquainted intimately with each one of the above.

Brockagh

I think Belgium have the widest variety, no?

oblivious

Brockagh wrote:

I think Belgium have the widest variety, no?

Although they do produce a few and I love them all, America produce the most varied number of style

oblivious

Coileach dearg wrote:

Can't believe nobody has mentioned Australia yet. I have moved here especially! Such a wide variety available:

Coopers, Little Creatures, VB, Carlton, Tooheys Old & New & Extra Dry, James Squire, James Boags, Crown, Hahn, Blue Tongue, I could be here for the day naming all of them....and no not Fosters!!!!

I could spend a day getting acquainted intimately with each one of the above.

Nott long back from oz, most notable beers I thought where Tooheys Old, James Squire, porter/IPA, Coopers

The lord nelson brewer and Redoak brewery cafe

Brockagh

oblivious wrote:

Although they do produce a few and I love them all, America produce the most varied number of style

Yeah, probably. Maybe they produce the most per head of capita, or something like that.

oblivious

Belgium has a couple of hundred breweries, but are generally limited in there range

but for shear number of beer style commercially produced, , America craft brewer out compete everyone else, they produce a massive range, IPA, American IPA imperial IPA, triple IPA, brown ale ,America brown ale, dry stout, sweet stout, foreign stout, American stout, imperial stout, Wits, Hefe’s, abbey ale and so on. They produce most style of beer, where as most country focus on the style most associated with them.

dodgyme

oblivious you forgot Bud light!

jrar

oblivious wrote:

Belgium has a couple of hundred breweries, but are generally limited in there range

but for shear number of beer style commercially produced, , America craft brewer out compete everyone else, they produce a massive range, IPA, American IPA imperial IPA, triple IPA, brown ale ,America brown ale, dry stout, sweet stout, foreign stout, American stout, imperial stout, Wits, Hefe’s, abbey ale and so on. They produce most style of beer, where as most country focus on the style most associated with them.

Take your point Oblivious, but in starting this thread, I was thinking more about which country has the best beers that "originate" in that country - yes, I take your point that the thousands of micro-breweries in the US provide nearly every known type of beer, and then some, but how many of them are native to the place ? - in other words, anyone can "re-create" a beer, but to recreate something, it has to exist in the first instance which is where Belgium, Germany, Czech Rep. etc. come into their own

oblivious

jrar wrote:

Take your point Oblivious, but in starting this thread, I was thinking more about which country has the best beers that "originate" in that country - yes, I take your point that the thousands of micro-breweries in the US provide nearly every known type of beer, and then some, but how many of them are native to the place ? - in other words, anyone can "re-create" a beer, but to recreate something, it has to exist in the first instance which is where Belgium, Germany, Czech Rep. etc. come into their own

Good point, I am generally an ale man, so I go for Belgium and England

But I have a taste for all beer:)

Just one last point on the American thing, may micro are beyond just re creating styles, firestone for example are doing some amazing barrel aging and blending aged beer that just does not happen anywhere in the world. 10-20 years down the road they could easily be producing better beer that the country of origin

kenmc

Coileach dearg wrote:

Little Creatures, VB, Carlton, Tooheys Old & New & Extra Dry, James Squire, James Boags, Crown, Hahn, Blue Tongue

you blaspheme by putting VB and Carlton in the same sentence as Little Creatures, Blue Tongue, Squires and Boags! VB and Carlton are not even fit to be used to wash the floor of these breweries. Little creatures.MMMMmmmm

guildofevil

jrar wrote:

in starting this thread, I was thinking more about which country has the best beers that "originate" in that country

Hmmm. That's a can of worms.

In that case, Ireland can only claim the Irish Red style of beer, if even that. Porter & Stout originate in England.

Germany has to do without lager, as that originated in Bohemia, now part of the Czech republic.

The Netherlands and France could have as much claim to many of the Belgian styles of beer, as Belgium. not to mention that much of Belgian beer production is actually lager, so we're back to Bohemia.

What makes an original style of beer, by the way? If you take a pale ale and call it English, but then make it in the US, using distinctive US hops and call it an American pale ale, is it a new, original American style?

How much do you have to change a beer to claim it for your country?

noby

jrar wrote:

Take your point Oblivious, but in starting this thread, I was thinking more about which country has the best beers that "originate" in that country - yes, I take your point that the thousands of micro-breweries in the US provide nearly every known type of beer, and then some, but how many of them are native to the place ? - in other words, anyone can "re-create" a beer, but to recreate something, it has to exist in the first instance which is where Belgium, Germany, Czech Rep. etc. come into their own

Funny that. I read it as been your personal favourite. You did say that if you had to drink beer from only one country for a year.
The origin thing is a little ridiculous, because a lot of countris have taken a beer that originated in a different country, and made it their own, as guild has said.

oblivious

kenmc wrote:

you blaspheme by putting VB and Carlton in the same sentence as Little Creatures, Blue Tongue, Squires and Boags! VB and Carlton are not even fit to be used to wash the floor of these breweries. Little creatures.MMMMmmmm

dodgyme

Ok well if we all agree on Belguim, Czech,Germany, and England (ales only) and ireland (stout) what other countries can we put in say a second division. I for one love Windhock from Namibia and am partial to a cool castle from neighbouring SA. Worst beer countries on the other hand, Egypt, despite the mad brew they make in cambridge with some old receipe discovered in a tomb. (google it if you want to see more) has sakara beer (muck, but I drank loadsa it) also Bintang from Indonesia, aweful stuff, tastes like irish heino. What about Japan, kirin beer and rice beers, nice also, are they in the second division of decent brewing countries?

dave2pvd

dodgyme wrote:

Ok well if we all agree on Belguim, Czech,Germany, and England (ales only) and ireland (stout) what other countries can we put in say a second division. I for one love Windhock from Namibia and am partial to a cool castle from neighbouring SA. Worst beer countries on the other hand, Egypt, despite the mad brew they make in cambridge with some old receipe discovered in a tomb. (google it if you want to see more) has sakara beer (muck, but I drank loadsa it) also Bintang from Indonesia, aweful stuff, tastes like irish heino. What about Japan, kirin beer and rice beers, nice also, are they in the second division of decent brewing countries?

Going along with the thread title, 'Best Beer Country' in terms of if you had to stick to 1 country's beers for at least a year:

I suggest you could possibly bounce Ireland out of the list, but definitely ought to substitute in the US. Broadly speaking, all Ireland has is stout. The variety just isn't there. There are too few 'microbrews' to qualify (or are most of them just brewpubs?).

To an earlier point: the US does have a solid brewing tradition and some of its own indigenous beers, particularly ales - and I don't mean bitters. American IPA comes to mind. Anchor Steam would claim that their 'steam beer' qualifies. Certainly the numerous Summer Ales stand out as indigenous. What about 'red ale'? Hard to be sure where it comes from exactly - the trademark is owned by Strasbourg la Brasserie last time I checked. Yet the US makes many, many brands of red ale.

Isn't Kirin Mil/weiser? I think if you were to pick a rice beer, Asahi or Singha would have to be near the top. Not exactly too far removed from commoner garden variety bland lager, mind you (Heineken, Becks, Coors, Milweiser, Peroni,...). The dryness can be refreshing though.

Shouldn't Denmark be div 1 solely because they 'invented' scientific (read: repeatable, consistent) brewing. That be Carlsberg, IIRC. Did they win a Nobel Peace Prize for that? No? Well, they should have.

Every country has its beer gems. Some just have waaay more than others: Belgium, Germany , England, US and France.

Brockagh

guildofevil wrote:

Hmmm. In that case, Ireland can only claim the Irish Red style of beer, if even that. Porter & Stout originate in England.

Dry Irish stout is native to Ireland, is it not? I think that Guinness began using a mix of malted and unmlated barley in its brew because of the tax on malt, and a new type of stout was developed.

dave2pvd

Brockagh wrote:

Dry Irish stout is native to Ireland, is it not? I think that Guinness began using a mix of malted and unmlated barley in its brew because of the tax on malt, and a new type of stout was developed.

Still though, where does that leave us? It seems that the Belgians, Germans and Americans are brewing as many varietals - in quantity, as there are red wine varietals.

Keep in mind that you have to drink the country's beers for an entire year. Variety and quality: muy importante.

Please God, let me win.

jrar

dave2pvd wrote:

Every country has its beer gems. Some just have waaay more than others: Belgium, Germany , England, US and France.

OK, I'm intrigued as to why you have mentioned France in 2 different replies - not sure I'd give it div. 1 status as a lot of their output is low-grade soapy lagers.........what makes it so highly regarded by you ?

oblivious

jrar wrote:

OK, I'm intrigued as to why you have mentioned France in 2 different replies - not sure I'd give it div. 1 status as a lot of their output is low-grade soapy lagers.........what makes it so highly regarded by you ?

Simple, biere de garde

Orginaly a farmhouse brew, not to disimlay to Saison of beligum

oblivious

Good points

dave2pvd wrote:

To an earlier point: the US does have a solid brewing tradition and some of its own indigenous beers, particularly ales - and I don't mean bitters. American IPA comes to mind. Anchor Steam would claim that their 'steam beer' qualifies. Certainly the numerous Summer Ales stand out as indigenous.

Steam beer has been renamed due to copyright/ legal reasons and renamed Californian common.

Dampfe beer of Bavaria most like was the most original variant of the style, but interesting both developed out of the lack of quality ingredients and lager yeast

dave2pvd wrote:

What about 'red ale'? Hard to be sure where it comes from exactly - the trademark is owned by Strasbourg la Brasserie last time I checked. Yet the US makes many, many brands of red ale.

Is that the Killian's Irish Red stuff?

dodgyme

ok this is getting quite tough. If the criteria is to choose a country because you could drink the stuff from that place for a year lets leave ireland out since we have all drank our stuff for the last number of years. I am sure people here remember the good old days when there was only guinness/harp/smithwichs and snake bit (you know what I mean). Anyhow the question then comes to which country??? well I know I could drink belgain beer for a few months but the alco content is so high, I suffered from working there for a while. Basically I couldnt stem the volume. I was so used to double figures of pints on any night out, belguim really hits hard. Trying this in belguim and you end up like I did. I couldnt do belguim for a year.??

So then we have bavaria and bohemia. The volumes are twice what we are used of, opposite problem to the belgian beer. Now we all have done the summer in Germany sucking on litres in the english garden in munich but for a whole year??

Then this leaves me at a tie and I havent even got to taste buds yet (sorry should nt use the word bud)! Anyhow maybe I should stop thinking volume but I cant help who I am??? can you!

pdebarra

Belgium, for sure.

That said, though, England has a hell of a lot to offer, and the Czech Rep. is superb, as are Austria and Germany. Canada's Unibroue, from Québec, produces some superb brews as well.

kenmc

I think I could easily drink Galway Hooker every day for an entire year and not get bored of it. In fact I'd like to try that experiment I think!

jrar

pdebarra wrote:

Belgium, for sure.

That said, though, England has a hell of a lot to offer, and the Czech Rep. is superb, as are Austria and Germany. Canada's Unibroue, from Québec, produces some superb brews as well.

Enlighten me on the Austrian scene - I recall drinking mundane rubbish like Gosser in Budapest bars many years ago (1988), but can't say I've been exposed to Austrian beers that much since. W

what do you recommend i.e. why do you rate the country in such exalted company as Germany, Czech Republic, etc. ?

BeerNut

jrar wrote:

Enlighten me on the Austrian scene

There are some superb brewpubs in Vienna. I have fond memories of 7 Stern in particular.

oblivious

and the Augustinerbräu in Salzburg is worth a trip and your relive all your sound of music fantasies!

guildofevil

BeerNut wrote:

There are some superb brewpubs in Vienna. I have fond memories of 7 Stern in particular.

7 Stern is great, as indeed is Wieden-Bräu (their Roggen (Rye) Bier blew me away) and there are quite a few others in the city with solid offerings.

Even the more mainstream Ottakringer brewery has some nice beers like Zwickl, Rot Zwickl, and a Dunkles, featured alongside it's Helles.

Imposter

I'll post a map of all the austrian breweries when I get home. Most of the breweries are beside the german and czech borders. Some beers are bad and some are really nice.

My favourites:
Hirter Morschl - dark beer
Edelweiss - Weißbier both the helles and the Dunkel.
Grieskirchner Dunkel - again a dunkel weißbier
Stiegl - really nice tasting lager
Wieselburger - slightly sweeter lager

Not so good (imo):
Kaiser
Zipfer (all types of lager)
Swechater
Gosser
T***** Pils
Hirter Pils (there's one type which is ok and another which is awful)

Terrontress

I had Asahi Dry in Japan. It lived up to its name. I have often bought Asahi here and it is made at the Staropramen factory in Prague, I believe.

It isn't a patch on the Japanese stuff. That makes you more thirsty the more you drink.

dodgyme

Terrontress wrote:

It isn't a patch on the Japanese stuff. That makes you more thirsty the more you drink.

If I had a beer that would be my slogan

dave2pvd

oblivious wrote:

Good points

Steam beer has been renamed due to copyright/ legal reasons and renamed Californian common.

Dampfe beer of Bavaria most like was the most original variant of the style, but interesting both developed out of the lack of quality ingredients and lager yeast

Is that the Killian's Irish Red stuff?

What a great discussion. You just can't get better subject matter

Interesting re Anchor Steam -> Cali Common. I didn't know that.

Yeah, Killians is an S-la-B owned brand. Now, that may have changed over the years, but I doubt it.

As for French beers: I spent quite a bit of time in France. Initially, I was fascinated by the alc/cost ratio of such dregs as Blonde Beer d'Alsace. That quickly passed.

It didn't cost much more to buy a decent 6-pack. The usual fare was 1664, Pelforth, Kanterbrau Gold or Tourtel. Or, if feeling somewhat sassy, the attraction that Adelscott (a whiskey beer) held just couldn't be repulsed.

Now all of the previous are fairly vin ordinaire. French beer offers so much more when you consider the farmhouse beers and other craft styles. I seem to recall that a lot of the brewing was done either in the North - near Lille or else in Strasbourg.