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Comment by MarkMarine | Hacker News Reader

This seems to be a conclusion in the beverage world as well, the craft beer wave has broken and people are just trying to drink something that tastes like what it says on the label.

I home brew beer and the instinct is to make something crazy, but I get sick of my own experiments and double sick of paying 18$ for a 4 pack of someone else’s experiments. I could never stand being told that hop burn was a sign of craft beer, it’s a sign of a shit process and you should never have those flavors in your beer.

I’ve actually been shocked to discover hard kombucha with some fruit juice is great. I still drink my beer, but this stuff is light, refreshing, and it’s 7% so it gets the job done.

Anchor’s taste changed to me sometime after the acquisition, I liked it in years past and there was something off to me now.

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Homebrewer here too. I agree. I like some experimentation but also like some "normal" stuff. I also don't like the really expensive odd stuff in the store. I've also begun to dislike the really plain stuff in the store.

Even if my beer is a little different every batch, I think I prefer it. It's fun to grow your own hops and even grow/malt your own grain.

I just bought a random craft beer 4 pack that cost me $17 the other day, reminds me why I don't buy craft beer.

Is it hard to home brew something like a Pilsner? I imagine the hard part is consistency

At small scales, a rule of thumb is that it's harder to brew beers with lighter/subtler flavors. You can hide a lot of minor brewing mistakes behind an IPA or a heavy stout. Not so much with something like a pilsner.

To add on, in addition to needing more consistency and skill to brew something light in flavor, it also more difficult to brew a lager (which a Pilsner is) than an ale -- the yeast involved are different, and the fermentation process is generally longer (more opportunity for stuff to go wrong) and more temperature sensitive (more opportunity for stuff to go wrong.)

It’s not hard to brew a Pilsner, and brewing your own beer is rewarding, but the light German styles are the hardest to really improve on. If you just put some quality ingredients and decent temp control fermentation at a Pilsner, you’re going to get a super great beer judged against some regular commercial offerings, and a good beer in general. To get better that that, look into LoDo brewing if you want to go down the rabbit hole.

If you like to strive for perfection, the german styles will scratch that itch for you.

Edit: I will add that brewing Pilsner or Helles will literally never impress your friends. You’ll get a shrug and a “oh that’s good” out of them when you’ve put your heart and soul into driving out one little off flavor from your ferment that no one else can taste but you. IPA is basically the polar opposite.

Some of the highest-status beers during Peak Beer were well-executed straightforward beers; Pliny comes to mind. As does Zombie Dust.

Pliny adapted to shifting tastes too, they reduced the grassiness and switched to bittering hop extracts to get a more mass appeal flavor and reduce waste with flower hops that would also soak up more wort. If you aren't constantly adjusting in beer you'll go the way of Anchor.

I think the whole world is off axis if Pliny is a straight forward beer. Maybe we were all better off when Russian River was sending it out for us to buy in lots of 2 bottles to a local store that you had to call every day and check to see if they got any.

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