German helium infused beer

[Borgholio]

It's in German...which for a non-German speaker such as myself, just makes it even more hilarious listening to these guys.

[Executor32]

Turning on auto-translated English captions makes it even funnier.

"Now just have to set a host, and the percentage that they did not dissolve in total there really nothing, and describe extensive renovation and bow the antiquated building, so rents were to take Viggo Mortensen to Symbian, we were lucky that my good friend us in Boston why we have said to you, "Hey, you do not you drop agreed and unscrewed and Roquebrune but the gaps."

[Thanas]

1. Mutti will revoke their citizenship tomorrow for calling this beer.

2. Leave it to the US to inject helium into Beer. But then again, adding anything might improve the taste of US coloured water.

3. It is fitting that they described the taste as "sugary and a bit doughty". Why? See 2.

[Imperial528]

US coloured water piss

FTFY

[Borgholio]

Leave it to the US to inject helium into Beer. But then again, adding anything might improve the taste of US coloured water.

Didn't know it was an American beer. Makes sense though, since I know you take the quality of your beer very seriously.

It is fitting that they described the taste as "sugary and a bit doughty"

So, as someone who was never much of a beer drinker and only familiar with Budweiser or Corona, what SHOULD a proper beer taste like? Is it bad to have the beer be too malty or too bitter?

[Thanas]

That depends on what kind of beer.

If it is wheat beer then it should have a bit of banana and vanilla taste in addition to being a bit sugary.

If it is a northern beer it should taste a bit bitter and not sugary at all.

If it is dark it should taste earthy, with some having a touch of liquorice.

If it is a normal Pilsener it might be best described as nondescript, with a hint of bitter bread.

Didn't know it was an American beer.

The clearly printed "Sam Adams" shown in the video might have been an indication.

[Alferd Packer]

Hate to burst everyone's bubble(har har), but it's a faaaaaake. Helium is one of the least soluble gases in water (of which beer is about 90%). Even if you could somehow force-saturate the beer with helium at very high pressures, it would come out of solution pretty quickly and violently when exposed normal atmospheric pressure. It's impossible to saturate beer with helium. This is an April Fool's gag.

Also, I take issue with the notion that American beer is universally shit. There are between 3000 and 3500 breweries in the United States. Judging them all on the output of the well-known macro breweries (which are no longer US companies) is dishonest.

[Thanas]

Hate to burst your bubble, but nobody cares about those unless they get a global market share. Until they do, the rest of the world is going to continue to think "American beer = shitty" whenever they see it.

[Borgholio]

This is an April Fool's gag.

Dammit...Snopes agrees with you. Oh well...it was fun to watch. I wonder if you COULD put a lighter-than-air gas into beer that would be more soluble...a quick Google search shows that most lighter-than-air gases are pretty horrible when it comes to being dissolved in water.

[salm]

Well, helium changes your voice when breathing it in, not when swallowing it, so...

[Borgholio]

Yeah, I assumed it was because they burped it up then inhaled some of that burp.

[Alferd Packer]

Hate to burst your bubble, but nobody cares about those unless they get a global market share. Until they do, the rest of the world is going to continue to think "American beer = shitty" whenever they see it.

Why allow stereotypes to cloud your assessment? I mean, I could assume that because we only get a small selection of the more popular German beers stateside, that there has been no innovation in the German beer market for decades. But since I haven't been to Germany in over a decade, I don't know if that's the case. There could be a large number of German breweries who are experimenting with new styles of beer and coming up with amazing new brews, and their operations are still too small for the export market. And as a beer enthusiast, I will give the benefit of the doubt to the German beer industry (and other countries which I cannot access directly) and recognize that my experience as an export consumer is not the typical experience.

[salm]

Why allow stereotypes to cloud your assessment? I mean, I could assume that because we only get a small selection of the more popular German beers stateside, that there has been no innovation in the German beer market for decades. But since I haven't been to Germany in over a decade, I don't know if that's the case. There could be a large number of German breweries who are experimenting with new styles of beer and coming up with amazing new brews, and their operations are still too small for the export market. And as a beer enthusiast, I will give the benefit of the doubt to the German beer industry (and other countries which I cannot access directly) and recognize that my experience as an export consumer is not the typical experience.

There is some experimenting. Mainly so called "trend beers" marketed to a younger target group. The vast majority of is either crap and boring or boring and crap.
The microbrewery thing has been swapping over from America in recent years a little bit. Personally I´ve never tried one due to simply non being around when I need one but I hear there are some decent ones out there.
In general I´d say beer innovation is firmly in American hands.

Personally I ususally drink whatever local beer there is around as I find shipping beer several hundreds of km from Bavaria to here a bit silly when there is perfectly drinkable beer brewed in the same city.
Sometimes I do get a Bavarian one because they just know how to get it right.

[Thanas]

This is an April Fool's gag.

Dammit...Snopes agrees with you. Oh well...it was fun to watch. I wonder if you COULD put a lighter-than-air gas into beer that would be more soluble...a quick Google search shows that most lighter-than-air gases are pretty horrible when it comes to being dissolved in water.

No, it was an April Fools gag.

Then Sam Adams decided to produce it for real, because why not, can't hurt the quality of American Beer.

[Thanas]

Hate to burst your bubble, but nobody cares about those unless they get a global market share. Until they do, the rest of the world is going to continue to think "American beer = shitty" whenever they see it.

Why allow stereotypes to cloud your assessment?

I have never drunk an American beer I liked. That's why.

[Alferd Packer]

There is some experimenting. Mainly so called "trend beers" marketed to a younger target group. The vast majority of is either crap and boring or boring and crap.
The microbrewery thing has been swapping over from America in recent years a little bit. Personally I´ve never tried one due to simply non being around when I need one but I hear there are some decent ones out there.
In general I´d say beer innovation is firmly in American hands.

Personally I ususally drink whatever local beer there is around as I find shipping beer several hundreds of km from Bavaria to here a bit silly when there is perfectly drinkable beer brewed in the same city.
Sometimes I do get a Bavarian one because they just know how to get it right.

Fascinating. I sometimes wonder how the beer experience translates to other countries, especially because the US beer history is so weird, thanks to Prohibition, the Depression, WW2, and so on. At its nadir in 1983, the US had 50 operating breweries. 32 years later, we have 3500, with the vast majority of those coming online in the last 5 years. We in the US are living in a golden age of beer experimentation and innovation.

The only inkling I've gotten that this is spreading to other countries is that I recently saw a West Coast IPA offered from a South African brewery. I figure if they're bothering, other countries must be trying emulate new American beer styles, even if they're not exporting them.

[Thanas]

Over here the Reinheitsgebot kinda limits what microbreweries can do.

EDIT: It is no longer official law, but so unofficially binding that nearly everyone adheres to it.

[Alferd Packer]

I have never drunk an American beer I liked. That's why.

That's kinda provincial. I mean, I've never drank an Australian wine that I liked. Does that mean that Australian wine is shit? No, it just means I haven't found one that I've liked. I'm sure there's an Aussie wine out there, made by some obscure winery, that is fucking fantastic and will completely change how I view wine, because it takes like the goddamn nectar of the gods. But I'm not going to dismiss the effort of a nation's wine artisans just because I haven't undertaken the effort to find that perfect vintage for me.

Incidentally, have you been to the US recently? I'm legitimately not trying to be all "HURF DURF YOU DON'T KNOW MURRICAN BEER" with the inquiry, but our craft beer scene has undergone a momentous transition in the last five years, and it's only been accelerating. Even if you were here as recently as a year ago, you may have missed the upswing in the craft beer movement, depending on the region of the country you visited. Even as a beer enthusiast, I never would've guessed anything like this happening so rapidly. I mean, pretty much every medium-sized city on up now has some sort of local craft beer scene, but a lot of them are extremely recent developments. If it has been a while, and you are planning on visiting in some reasonable future, I highly recommend you give it(it being American Beer) another shot.

Over here the Reinheitsgebot kinda limits what microbreweries can do.

I honestly think you're find it remarkable what kind of flavors can be unearthed with the proper combination of of the big four ingredients. I've had a beer made with Japanese hops, US water (duh), German barley, and Belgian yeast that tasted unlike anything I've ever had before, yet still fits the rigid definition of beer. I had a straight saison fermented with a new hybrid yeast strain that produced tremendous blueberry and strawberry aromas, but did not affect the flavor or mouthfeel of the beer. Again, just the standard four ingredients from various sources in a new combinations. It's beer, but it's something new.

[Thanas]

That's kinda provincial. I mean, I've never drank an Australian wine that I liked. Does that mean that Australian wine is shit? No, it just means I haven't found one that I've liked.

a) Australian wine is fake ass shit for the most part because they do thinks that are simply stupidly fake, like adding wood splinters.
B) so what?

I'm sure there's an Aussie wine out there, made by some obscure winery, that is fucking fantastic and will completely change how I view wine, because it takes like the goddamn nectar of the gods. But I'm not going to dismiss the effort of a nation's wine artisans just because I haven't undertaken the effort to find that perfect vintage for me.

Incidentally, have you been to the US recently?

Not since 2011. TSA and all that stuff. I doubt I will go there anytime soon.

[Simon_Jester]

Hate to burst your bubble, but nobody cares about those unless they get a global market share. Until they do, the rest of the world is going to continue to think "American beer = shitty" whenever they see it.

I don't question that many people will think so. Many people are stupid or prejudiced or simply ignore facts that don't fit their worldview.

But you are noticeably more intelligent than average, so the question I ask you is this:

Is this a reasonable stance to take, when the corporations manufacturing the shitty beer are multinationals that only care about the American market insofar as they can't sell more beer elsewhere for the same profit margin, while the individual Americans who actually try to make beer have been undergoing a renaissance for the last decade or two?

[Alferd Packer]

Not since 2011. TSA and all that stuff. I doubt I will go there anytime soon.

Ach so! Well, even four years ago the craft beer scene was nothing like it is today. The number of breweries nationwide has nearly doubled in the last four years. Also, I was wrong earlier. 1978 was the nadir, and there were a full 89 breweries operating.

I don't have access to year-on-year sales figures, but as it stands, craft beer is carving out a large enough chunk of the domestic market that Budweiser thought this ridiculous ad was a good idea. Also, this one's pretty dumb too.

[salm]

I don't have access to year-on-year sales figures, but as it stands, craft beer is carving out a large enough chunk of the domestic market that Budweiser thought this ridiculous ad was a good idea.

This is the first ad in a decade that managed to make me angry.

[Borgholio]

I don't have access to year-on-year sales figures, but as it stands, craft beer is carving out a large enough chunk of the domestic market that Budweiser thought this ridiculous ad was a good idea.

This is the first ad in a decade that managed to make me angry.

That ad is actually surprisingly accurate. They just needed to change some of the text to say, "Bud is not a beer you sip, because it tastes like carbonated urine. It is a beer you drink to get drunk."

[Thanas]

Is this a reasonable stance to take, when the corporations manufacturing the shitty beer are multinationals that only care about the American market insofar as they can't sell more beer elsewhere for the same profit margin, while the individual Americans who actually try to make beer have been undergoing a renaissance for the last decade or two?

Most German large breweries are also multinationals.

As to the market share, how high is it of microbreweries? Is it actually a majority now or still a minority? Because unless it actually has a majority, I see no reason to change my stance.

[Alferd Packer]

Craft beer is still a minority by a long shot, at least in the US. I did see that almost 400K bbl of craft beer was exported last year--by comparison, I wonder how many barrels of US macro beer are exported? It's gotta be more than 400,000 barrels, but I wonder if the ratio is closer, because no one except US tourists and expats would ever want to drink US macro beer. Unless they're forced to because InBev bought exclusive alcohol rights to an event or festival or something.