What's the Best Beer in the World?

I can tell you which brands are NOT the best beers, but I can't tell you which ones ARE the best beers in the world. I feel confident in sending you over to read Allyn Hane's recommendations at the Big Beer Blog if you want to know what the best beers are, in his opinion. It's one of the pretty sites where I actually read the text as well as watch the videos.

During my 20 years in the military and since then, I've known people to drink a variety of the "cheap" beers. I'm talking about brands like Budweiser, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Coors, Miller, Michelob, San Miguel (in the Philippines) and more cheap beers than I care to remember. I don't care for drinking beer and it's probably because I've never taken a liking to any particular brand or flavor. If I want to abuse alcohol, beer just doesn't cut it. Why drink something with alcohol content lower than 40 percent? Liquor is simply quicker.

The truth is: Beer is an acquired taste and good beer is a progressive taste.

The Acquired Taste

I've known people who liked the taste of cheap beer the first time they drank it. I've also known people who learned to like it because it was the only alcoholic beverage available to them. There are others I've known who never acquired the taste for it. I belong to the last group. I can drink it, but I prefer not to drink it.

I'm not knocking beer in general. I'm just knocking cheap bear. I guess I automatically belong to the group of people with a progressive taste for beer, as Allyn talked about in his video about Sam Adams beer.

The Progressive Taste

I wonder if Allyn has ever tried the Fat Tire amber ale. I consider it a craft beer but maybe he doesn't. All I know is that it tastes better than the best beer put out by Budweiser. Even Blue Beaver Beer tastes better than Budweiser and it's not even real beer.

If I'm going to drink beer at all, I prefer to drink beer that doesn't taste slightly better than water (yes, I'm talking about Budweiser and most of the common brands). I like Fat Tire (which I drank on occasion in Arizona) and Guinness (which I drank at the Dublin, Ireland airport), neither of which I can get here. I would probably like a whole lot of the craft beers and even some that people told me they hated, like Samuel Adams beer.

I may be one of a kind. Most people progress from the cheap beers to the heartier beers, after acquiring the taste for beer in the first place. I never acquired the taste for beer, but I like the heartier beers. Perhaps it's because they usually contain more alcohol and my tolerance is high (I drink rum and coke on a regular basis nowadays).

Beer Drinking Fanatics

Some people take beer drinking to extremes, even making a game out of it — beer pong comes to mind. Some people will only drink from a beer bottle and some people will only drink from a beer can and my mind boggles when I try to figure out why.

There are even people who belong to a beer of the month club so they can get more out of their beer drinking pastimes. I didn't even know beer clubs existed until recently.

There are a few people who actually like the taste of beer with little or no alcohol content whatsoever (along with beer with a lot of alcohol content). In other words, they drink beer for the sake of the beer, not the alcohol. I knew a guy (back in the early 90s) who actually liked O'Doul's.

What is beer anyway?

According to some sources, beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed alcohol beverage. I doubt that it's older than wine, but who am I to argue? Supposedly, beer ranks as the third most popular beverage, after water and tea.

Beer brewing is an art form in itself, with various beer recipes in use throughout the world. Ingredients include cereal grains such as barley, wheat, corn and even rice (rice beer is nasty, in my opinion). It can be flavored with hops, herbs or fruit. The brewing process is what defines it as beer.

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