Why does commercial beer suck arse?

[Vincent Hine]

Went to an exibition opening at a friends gallery last night, they were giving away Tiger for free. I felt a strong compulsion to complain about how shit the beer was. Why do people drink this flavourless horrible shite? It's bad when you get given a beer for free and still feel like you've been ripped off!

[Reviled]

Hahaha, hilarious! Maybe after all theyre just the same beer with different packaging? lol

[AndrewC]

C'mon Chaps. We don't want to sound too much like CAMRA do we?
There is room for all types of beer for all types of situations. Many people in NZ just simply don't want to think about their beer when they're drinking it. Just like in the ever increasing RTD market - it's pretty, fizzy and gets you cut if you drink enough of it.
Blindly criticising a particular beer market means you don't really understand it or it's drinkers.

[Vincent Hine]

Farkin hell bruv, reckon you nailed that one. It IS all the same, tasteless, boring shit! Next time my mates turn up for a poker game, with there bevvy of pure's heiny's and monteiths NZ lager's, I'm gonna make them all do a blind tasting and see if they can distinguish one from the other. Will let you guy's know the results, even though you all probably can guess them already. What a sad indictment of our species, thank god for this forum! You people give me hope!

In Hungary, apparently they say something like "ege shege dra" (phonetic's) when we would say cheers.

CHEERS!

[Sam Possenniskie (TGM)]

I did exactly this a few years ago - blind tasting of 8 mainstream lagers. I can proudly say I only got 1 of 8 correct.

[Doublehoppy]

Ha, my story.. I did this pub quiz a couple of years ago. They had a blind tasting of one lager. I was the only one one of about 20 who correctly picked it as Crown Lager. Everyone else had Heineken, Steinlager, Macs Gold etc etc.

Alelover's right. Most people just drink the label/image and are more than happy to do so.

[Reviled]

I wont let people in my house with mega swill, I consider it an insult :oP lolz

[David Wood]

I recently went to a Lion "Blind Tasting" as part of a Foodstuffs promotion with New World. The beers listed were the likes of Steinlager Classic, Steinlager Pure, Castlepoint, Speights (Castlepoint and Speights are the same beer - rebranded), Mac's Gold etc. The few of the mega swill lagers we got correct were pure luck. The three beers with actual character (Hoegaarden, Great White, Hop Rocker) I guessed correctly on the first sniff.

[denimglen]

I drink it.

I think I KO'd like a whole box of Heineken when I was in town last night haha.

There's not really much else at strip clubs and yuppie bars.

Yeah yeah, 'db boycott', 'ask for better beer', meh.

[Greig McGill]

:(

The "meh" is why things never change.

[Simon David kelly]

I have a mental image of the brewers themselves going home and crying into a pint of Tuatara or Epic and asking "Why one they let me brew a lager like this?"

[James P]

Hang on, isn't all beer brewed by a brewery paying exise tax and sold in New Zealand commercial? The beer is prepared with an emphasis on salability, profit, or success: i.e. a commercial product.

You can not tell me that Yeastie Boys, Epic, Brew Moon, The Twisted Hop etc make beer to sell at a loss (yes tight margins, and not the intention of sustaining a loss)? Remember the emphasis on SALABILITY, PROFIT or SUCCESS. Not necessarily all three....

I just find the comment "why does commercial beer suck arse" to be a throw away comment to insite discord without considering what is being referred to, which you have said is the "flavourless horrible shite". I believe comments such as this give beer enthuasists the label of being beer snobs.

Some of my homebrews have been in that category... and I don't brew commercially!

[JoKing]

I hear your argument James - but I still think Vince has a good point, and he has drummed up some pretty good discussion too.

Don't forget that Vincent has targeted Tiger Beer in particular, and has asked his question probably specifically about that beer... it seems pretty light hearted too.

On a lighter note though, many of my home brews have definately sucked serious arse also.