He is, however, brilliant. He gets beer and marketing beer better than anybody else I've ever met.
Unless you're the most famous brewer in the world -- then I suppose it might be easy to miss that sign.
I don't buy cheap beer, ever. Not even if I'm asked to get a case for a party. If I'm going to drink, I want something I'll enjoy. Cheap beer is about getting a buzz or getting drunk. It always freaks people out, "you shouldn't have spent so much for a party". Why? I don't see it as a choice. Should I have only opened a can of kidney beans for the dish I brought, too? No, I want to have something that I will enjoy, that others can enjoy, too. It's not just about "filling ourselves to the gills on as little money as possible." But that is how people treat beer.
That's not to say I don't get drunk sometimes. The experience of sitting in an innertube on a lazy river is significantly enhanced by alcohol. A wedding party is significantly enhanced by copious alchol. But most days I want to be productive and make things. I can't code or write well--and certainly can't solder at all--when I'm drunk. I similarly don't watch a lot of television, or read a lot of books. I'd like to fill my time with more productive tasks than consumptive ones.
I also find cheap American beer to be ideal for the beach.
Can't help but read your reply in a thick southern accent. Personally, if I'm aiming for an aggressive, high volume night, I'll take a busch over a bud.
New Belgium has Shift ( http://www.newbelgium.com/beer/detail.aspx?id=fc35795d-8d9d-... ) as a good session beer.
Fort Collins Brewery has a nice list of less hoppy beers:
http://www.fortcollinsbrewery.com/brews/red-banshee/
I like that I can still get the crazy IPAs, but there's a ton of other good stuff to drink too.
As to hops, for myself I do enjoy extremely hoppy beers, just not nearly as much as I enjoy less hoppy beers.
It's worth noting that the "appreciation" of fine beers, wines and spirits is often an excuse to inebriate while convincing oneself that it's actually a higher pursuit. The simple exercise of bifurcating products by price, and assuming that correlates with quality, is flawed.
Thinking through friends and peers, the ones who show the greatest specialization of their drink (only the finest vintages and best, small-brewer beers and long aged bourbon) are the ones who drink the most. But it is shrouded by a classy veneer.
I rarely drink more than one beer in a sitting. But if the only thing being offered is Budweiser or similar, it'll be zero. I don't take it to an extreme, and am perfectly happy with a Sam Adams or similar decent big names, but I'm not going to waste the calories on something awful.
It's not a matter of "a higher pursuit", just a matter of taste, no different from preferring to drink nothing than, say, Mountain Dew.
"Cheap beer is about getting a buzz or getting drunk."
Cheap and expensive beer are made with close to identical processes, with the same controls and outcomes. Often beers are "cheap" purely as a function of the scale of the operation, but they still use the same quality ingredients and processes.
People often buy cheap beer because they actually prefer it (just as many, many people prefer lighter beer, which is something that many of my Canadian countrymen can't understand), or because the taste differences are so small that they can't justify the extra expense.
When you find yourself in the position of differentiating yourself from those other people -- that your own drinking is more cultured and justified -- it's time to take a step back and seriously contemplate things, because it's almost always a cover.
You're right that tastes can vary. Some people do prefer the cheap stuff, somehow.
But you're applying a blatant double standard here. You're saying that we should realize that some people prefer the cheap stuff, and then simultaneously turning around and saying that "almost always" preferring the expensive stuff is a cover. No, it's just taste.
You have to decide: is it legitimate to prefer different kinds of beer, or is it a cover? If it's a cover, it has to work both ways. If it's not, then you can't accuse people who don't want to drink Miller Lite of being secret alcoholics just because they want something that costs more than 50 cents a can.
The guy who elevates himself above the hordes and their cheap beer, on the other hand...it isn't really about the product anymore.
cheap bear definitely does not have the same outcomes.
Some products aren't filtered as much. Some have different blends of ingredients. Some are fermented more or less. And so on. But those things seldom impact the actual price in any material fashion, instead are subjective choices of the brewer based upon their market.
Filtering is interesting, because at one point the premium products (in many categories -- beers, wines, coffee, etc) earned their position because they were filtered more, while the cheap swill of the masses where the slurry products full of bits and grinds. As filtering became mainstream and inexpensive, unfiltered and raw -- doing less -- became the sign of a premium product.
Unless you disagree that they for example replace a lot of the barley with rice and corn - I don't really see how can you claim it's the same thing.
"Unless you disagree that they for example replace a lot of the barley with rice and corn"
The ingredient lists of the "cheap" beers were, in most cases, set in the 1800s, and remain unchanged. And they were set when rice was much more expensive in the US. And indeed even today rice is neck and neck with barley -- they aren't saving a penny using rice. Instead it was used specifically because it gave a lighter taste, because, again and amazingly, this is a preference of many drinkers. Many Japanese beers are heavy on the rice, and are considered "premium" products for it.
The notions of expensive versus cheap as a patron of a brand are often completely detached from reality.
I come from a place where people will polish a 24 in a night. I have an appreciation for fine spirits, but I don't think that I "drink the most," and additionally, when I drink, it's more to enjoy the liquor, then get hammered (though, I do that, too). My appreciation comes from drinking a varied variety of beer, rather than just the same thing ad infinitum.
[W]hen I drink, it's more to enjoy the liquor than get hammered.
Hmmm . . . is it the former or the latter?
Jim Koch is able to function fairly well as an alcoholic that many people wouldn't be able to because of the industry he's in.
And as to your other comment, unfortunately, I'm all too familiar with alcoholism and its many forms. There's no such thing as "true alcoholism," there's just addiction.
Edit: Alcoholism isn't just drinking alcohol all of the time. It is a life threatening and often fatal disease. True alcoholics destroy their lives and the lives of everyone around them.
So downvote me all you want but people who have no experience with the powers of addiction should keep their petty labeling to themself.
The OP is making a blanket statement about a man he has apparently met a few times, and even states that he goes around to various other forums stating the same thing. In my opinion that is extremely rude.
People love to toss the term around lightly. If you've ever lived with a true alcoholic then you know it's not something to be joked about and it is a life threatening disease.
How would you feel if everyone in this thread was non-chalantly calling John Koch a junkie.
it's not something to be joked about
News flash: the fact that you know worse cases doesn't mean the less severe cases aren't bad and it doesn't mean that people calling out those cases are joking. Grandparent was saying Jim Koch is drinking in a way that has severe negative consequences for his long-term health.
There are a whole lot of people that are indeed functioning alcoholics: they don't drink themselves into a stupor, but they are constantly buzzed, which has long-term health consequences and impacts their effective personality and behavior in (usually) a bad way.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-functioning_alcoholic
High-functioning alcoholics... "Have difficulty viewing themselves as alcoholics because they do not fit the stereotypical image and because they feel their lives are manageable, [and] avoid recovery help."
Saying that people who are high-functioning are not real alcoholics is just going to make them even less likely to admit they have a problem and seek help.
Both types of alcoholism are important and trying to raise awareness of one by denying the other is not helpful to alcoholics of either type.
You are right there is definitely a wide range of addiction and I shouldn't have indicated there wasn't.
In retrospect it was really just an emotional response to the OP labeling Koch an alcoholic.
I lived in complete denial for 15 years before some of my HFA buddies started burning their lives down in rather spectacular ways.
I didn't want my life to serve as a warning to others, so I quit. Luckily, I didn't lose anything along the way, but many have, even many of the HFA's I used to know.