British beer expert blind tastes American macro lager | The Craft Beer Channel

hello biggies and welcome to the third edition of our beer geek blind taste test in which i take on the best and the worst macro beers in the world in a blind taste test to the death i've just finished my american regional brewery taste test and i'm chowing down on my new favorite american macro beer not a sense as i thought i'd say but you can find out which one of these beauties it is and indeed which of them came up last coming up on the craft beer channel [Music] so i've just finished the blind taste test which means that before we get stuck in we need to rewind smells like really watered down synthetic lemonade that smells a bit gnarly though like licking a postage stamp nice aroma decent enough palette nothing going on at the end if you'd handed that to me and said that that was a small batch light lager with some kind of interesting hop in there i'd be like yeah okay very cardboardy that is like chewing on wet cardboard peas and banana that's odd [Music] hello is there any aroma in that let's look for the top scorer and the bottom score so the top scorer was [Music] okay bee geeks we are back at the start of this blind taste test and this blind taste test is more blind than any other blind taste test that i've ever done if you haven't seen the first two that i did with macro beers you can watch them uh i'll learn what side this is one day i think it's that side and in that i tasted what i considered a terrible macro beer and had some surprises there and then i tasted what i considered good macro beer and had some surprises there as well this one is different i am going to know roughly what i'm going to be drinking but i have never drunk any of these before which i do need to qualify i have had budweiser i have had pabst i have had yingling the rest are new to me even bud light and cause light they came to the uk long after i'd gone on the sort of the craft journey so i've never had these before and these are all american brewed as well so the ones that i have had have come from an entirely different place to the north hampton or burton or wherever it is that they they're brewed for the uk market so these are all going to be new to me they're going to be given to me blind in these full glasses so i won't know which one is which and a control beer will be thrown into the mix as well a beer that i consider all right from previous taste tests that is going to just make sure i'm not biased against america i'm going to be rating all of the beers out of 10 for aroma for flavor and for aftertaste and at the end will reveal to me you'll be able to see the whole way through what these beers are but i will find out at the end and we'll see what we've kind of learned from this if anything one let's start with what i'm expecting to get from these beers i would have expected some head clearly going to be disappointed there um lots of these are going to be made with maize and with rice there might be some sweet corn character they're going to be really incredibly light not a lot of mold character possibly quite dry but i would still expect some nice sweet aromas it's got to smell alluring and that doesn't smells like really watered down synthetic lemonade the tiniest hint of like honey or something but it's tough to get anything out of that no bitterness no sweetness bitter carb it's just i mean it's perfectly bland um aroma not a lot of it but it was fine that's a that's a four palette again fine just nothing to it pretty close to water for aftertaste there wasn't one um depending on your perspective that's either a good or a bad thing but i'm going to say it's a bad thing so we're going down a point tiny bit darker tiny bit more honey this one absolutely no head so that's got a little bit of stale hop character to that a little bit grassy a little bit boozy smells a bit gnarly that hmm and that has a bit of that postage stamp like licking a postage stamp that uh the cronenberg 6064 had nowhere near as bad as that beer which i now regard as the worst macro beer in the world but it's there and it lingers on the tongue and it's it's sticky and goopy and not great so the aroma is is bad i mean the palette was all right probably a three not quite as nice as the first one and then the aftertaste was terrible not a good beer that one uh right this one an entirely different color to all of the others like a really rich amber caramel and digestive biscuit with it a little bit of freshness a little bit of hoppiness okay a little bit cardboardy no bitterness no molt depth that i was hoping to get from the aroma i thought that was going to be a little bit richer than it was so aroma was was was quite nice i'm going to give that a six the palette again it had a nice bite at the start but not a lot else going on so that's a five and the aftertaste probably a five because there was one for the first time um i mean i can only suspect that that's the yingling because the yingling is like an amber lager i think it was originally a vienna lager uh right this one yeah i mean that's got some some honey and some biscuit that's all right nice aroma decent enough palette nothing going on at the end well that puts it in second place man that's bleak okay so far so expected almost no character almost no flavor absolutely no bitterness but incredibly clean and well made let's see what round two has for us a bit more to that honey sweetness malt sweetness feels like it's going to be a stronger beer because it just smells a bit sweeter a bit fuller wow that's a totally different beard to the first four definite bitterness definite malt depth and character a little bit earthy a little bit of postage stamp i need to work out what that chemical is that sort of coats my tongue makes me feel like i'm sending a letter to my gran better wow okay floral that is floral berry honey lemon if you'd handed that to me and said that that was a small batch light lager with some kind of interesting hop in there i'd be like yeah okay you know that's really quite good um it's got a lovely really lovely fresh full aroma i've gone back in that's never happened on a bad macro taste test it just lacks a bit of finish so seven that's the best aroma palette was as good as the last one so that's a six aftertaste it was better than the one before it didn't have a floor it just like bitten it a new leader right number three so we're back to the kind of weak lemonade but this one feels richer fuller i'd imagine it's probably not a light beer maybe a percentage stronger just a slightly bigger version of all the other macro beers you've ever smelled it smells alright there's something solventy about it a little bit sickly sweet kind of thing okay i expected loads more in the second half of that there's all there's definitely no bitterness a little bit of sweetness sticking around but it just kind of dies on your tongue like like quavers just disappear to nothing but not in a pleasant melty way and number four looks the same wow smells caramelized smells like caramelized banana very cardboardy that is like chewing on wet cardboard none of that sweetness carried through to the palette that's i feel like that might be like a beer that's brutal in exceptionally high gravity and then watered way way way way way way back because it feels like it had loads of flavor and then got diluted to hell not very present bordering on rancid okay so that last beer actually reminds me that we haven't talked ever on the channel why would we or indeed in these videos about how most of these beers are made so whether they're a light lager or one of the strong ones like a well like a bird i guess um they're probably made in the same way which is to brew a high gravity version up to seven or eight percent because it's much more efficient with the grain it's much more efficient with the energy and it's much more efficient space wise because you brew a giant very high gravity batch fermenter all the way down and then water it back just before packaging which can kind of leave its mark on a beer it can mean that there can be a lot of character that sort of stripped back rather than just being a very clean and light beer and the other thing to note is that these are not really lagers in the truest santa laga lager comes from the word the german word for store which means that basically it's fermented at a very cold temperature around about 12 ish 8 to 12 and then it's long condition very very cold for a matter of weeks while it drops out cleans up all the mess it made none of these beers have undergone that they've all gone through an incredibly warm incredibly intensive fermentation for just a matter of days like three or four days and then they're conditioned for a couple more days and it's all done under pressure and stuff to speed it all up so that's why perhaps these aren't as good as some of the light loggers that are made by smaller producers but they are incredibly consistent incredibly clean they just they just kind of lack that character of a true lager so speaking of things that lack true character let's see what this one has in store for us peas and banana that's odd and honey not three words you want together and not three ways that i'd associate with a light lager the flavor of it is better actually um and then the aftertaste was much of a muchness so i'm gonna go for a four so i had very low expectations then some high hopes uh and then as always uh when you're drinking it all goes wrong at the end oh sorry i should just point out that's a very different color isn't it i forgot i've got two kind of vienna inspired beers in yingli yingling and sam adams so definite amber color much better head retention than anything we've seen smells of toast and rye yeah that's not bad that's not bad it's spicy kind of thing so for the first time in this tasting a proper whack of bitterness like surprisingly big and lingering powdery bitterness on the finish so plenty of hops gone into that uh there's a little bit of roasty kind of character as well like usually for this to get that kind of color you you'd use like a munich mold or something it feels like they've gone a little bit heavier so very very different much more bold than all the other beers and even the other amber beer very good but actually if anything the bitterness is a little bit much for that style really lemony oh wait no no wait no scratch that no that's a c aldehyde so that is green apple uh green apple skin lovely and duval and belgian beers not gray in a lager yeah i mean that must be on purpose they must be intending to do that to make it smell fresh i mean i don't hate that do you see aldehyde like it cuts through makes it feel kind of refreshing and light and fresh it's got no character on the finish whatsoever but unlike the other beers which usually left something lingering there is nothing going on on my palette right now so that's almost kind of impressive that you can make something from malt hops and yeast and it tastes of so little by the end so uh props to this blonde snob right next one okay so that's a little bit it's a little bit darker yeah again so there's a little bit of color to that compared to uh the other blonde ones i've got here so maybe a little bit more characters headed my way yeah malty caramelly earthy smells like a british regional brewers uh attempt at a lager where they just can't quite let go of the the british caramels um and some kind of hot character they're not lemony like most of these but like kind of hedgerow-y it smells alright a little bit of cardboard on the palette whether i mean i very much doubt it's oxidation with these things but you know just a kind of a stringency that that i don't really know where that comes from in macro beer whether it's you know use of overuse of of hop extracts whether it's making a beer just so clean other things pop out to me but okay the final round [Applause] will this deliver the knockout blow that is the palest beer i've ever seen um that's almost water hello is there any aroma in that okay we're gonna have to go for the covered sniff so you can do this to trap the aroma as you get the essential oils out if there are essential oils out of the beer can knock out the car but hey foam bananas so that's another off flavor you get me isamel acetate foam bananas that's all i got for all that effort doesn't smell great that is the closest you can get to water that is alcohol that is remarkable i mean a feat a feat of engineering but why would you want to engineer that i mean how do you score something that has nothing going on like seriously like aroma the only bit of aroma was foam banana so one uh the palette i mean it was water what would i give water out of 10 on the palette what the aftertaste there wasn't one there you go most of its score is the fact that it didn't have an aftertaste and the final beer right so i got lots of color is that just because uh it's compared to that one i mean come on just just what is that kind of creamy malty caramely and a little bit of acetaldehyde again as well though a little bit of green apple but hey it smells alright there's that cardboard again there must be something other than oxidation there must be something that presents as cardboard whether it's the hop extracts whether it's you know that that watering down process that leaves something that is fine in a higher alcohol beer but really comes out in a lighter beer just something a bit ah so there we go the scores are in uh there's a wild range from eight up to 19 is the top scorer uh i can't wait to find out what that 19 is and i'm kind of morbidly interested to know what the what what the eight was okay so the results are in i am seeing this pretty much for the first time i saw it as i walked in obviously uh bud light and number one uh this thing that i didn't even heard of before it was muled over thanks so much to our wonderful patreons uh names flashing up on the screen right now uh you can join our patreon if you want more of this i don't know why you would let's look for the top scorer and the bottom score so the top scorer was number six one two three four five six cause banquet it's a weird i was quite excited to try this if i'm honest and i never thought i would be first the can is super cool i love the the shape and the look of it um and that was that was kind of kind of delicious so i'm gonna pour myself some um it must be very weird to hear a beer geek say he was very excited to try these beers particularly if you're american the other one i was super excited to try was miller high life as well you know these are sort of beers that are talked about in american culture all the time and within the beer gig community as well they're seen as as good lagers so this was one two three four five six seven eight nine number nine yeah didn't score that well middle of the pack roundly beaten by number 10 then oh sam adams okay um i'm just about edged out by the next one so this was my uh stooge i guess so beerumaretti was snuck in there uh by my faithful pourer and it did all right let's let's see how it did compared to how i scored it last time so i've clearly been much more mean with these which is why you they have this because that helps us calibrate the other scores i've clearly been cynical going into this and i've knocked five points off of beerumaretti which is kind of mean but hey there we go that means we can calculate this around so actually if we look at this we would probably assume that cause banquet you know would do extremely well within here you know it would was the winner was only 24. so yeah of course banquet's gonna fall just behind that probably let's now look for the lowest score so that was number 14 with a score of eight so the penultimate mitchell of ultra a superior light beer disagree i mean this one just had [ __ ] all going on really if you'll excuse my american um you still can't get anything from it i think this is this amount of foam banana didn't it yeah and that's all it had going on i mean that is just i mean people debate about whether pastry beers a beer pastry beers are closer to beer than this let's see what else did pretty well so we've got 17 for number five pabst okay so this it's a hipster beer it had its moment again where it got cool and actually that was all right drinking as they're supposed to be i mean it's got a slight solventiness or something unusual to it but it's it's got flavor i think that's why i picked it out and and quite enjoyed it um so american brood pabst i'd i'd give it another go for sure any 16s 13 so okay okay cause light was it is it the world's most refreshing beer that's what they say cold as the rockies depends on the time of year yeah i mean that is a pretty well made light beer to be fair to cause there's a bush light isn't there so that's eight scored a nine actually so that's the worst light beer worst light beer in america everybody worst light beer in america so what did i learn from this taste test that i didn't learn from the other macro ones the first one is that there's quite a lot of variation in american macro brewing and i'm saying microbrewing obviously sam adams and um yingling wherever you are are considered craft um jury's out on whether you whether that's the case but lots of variation from four to over five percent lots of different flavors some for the best some definitely not i've also learned that if i'm going to a barbecue hosted by somebody i don't really like cause light is going to be the beer of choice that was the best light beer that i've tasted um and i've also learned that this is not only a beautiful can and a great brand it is quite a tasty beer so i'm gonna go ahead and say that this for me is the american macro beer of choice and i'll be searching that out if i'm desperate it actually had character it actually had structure it was a pretty well made beer which is not easy to do at these kind of scales so props to cause it's interesting actually two of my favorite beers have been caused so yeah slight disappointment for miller high life uh not the champagne of beer more like the uh the lambrini uh but this is a delicious beer i'd love to hear about your favorite beers americans or if you've traveled in america what your favorite microbials were a couple of these things we couldn't get hold of things like hams which i hear is a brilliant macro beer lone star which i've had it's gnarly as [ __ ] um when i went to texas so i don't need to try that it would not have done particularly well so all that's left to do is to say thank you for joining me into this odyssey into what sorry beer and let me know your thoughts in the comments below if you want to check out the other macro tastings we've done they're all up here and i'm now going to kick back with a course banquet cheers [Music] you

Channel: The Craft Beer Channel

Views: 443,424

Keywords: craft beer, beer review, real ale, homebrew, homebrewing, beer documentary, cooking, recipes

Id: lhfBKZlCoks

Length: 20min 51sec (1251 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2022