One of the first things I noticed when started to drink real beer instead of sports advertised, super cold, tasteless, trouble fuel that so many of us grew up on, was the color. There’s a natural tendency to make assumptions about what the taste, and alcohol content is of a darker beer. I am here to tell you, this is utter hogwash.
Corporate Beer, which you been drinking for years has trained you to believe there is no flavor in beer, this is why it must be ICE COLD, because as anyone who’s had a warm Silver Bullet can agree it will make you vomit on your shoes.
Craft beer on the other had, opens the door to literally endless flavor profiles, from sours, to chocolate mint and even spicy adventures and all of these flavors are not dependent on ice cold temperatures. When you are first starting out, what you really want to look for is a term call IBU –> International Bitterring Unit Scale. There is some nuance to this that I won’t bore you with now but in general a beer rated high in IBUs will be more bitter to your Coor’s Light ruined palette than others so when starting out, look for the IBU rating and experiment with some to find what you like. IPAs are really popular and they usually contain a lot of hops and less malt which makes them more bitter, you can learn to appreciate this flavor over time, but this isn’t the only style of craft beer out there so don’t let a strong IPA drive you back into the arms of watery misery from mass produced mindless suds.
To find IBUs there are several online resouces, Rate Beer for example will give you the facts on IBU, Alcohol content and calories, here’s an example. Check back for more on this New to Craft Beer series, I’ll be adding to the color conversation as well as discussing temperature variations, styles to try, and other new exciting things in the days/weeks to come.
