Light Beer is more pointless than diet soda.  if you want to be healthy, save a step and just don't drink the stuff period.

Not the ones I know.I hang with the hardcore chicks..

So whose Hard . . . . . Lemonade do they drink?

Light beer can also refer to low-alcohol beer. I can understand why you might want to be able to drink more beer without getting smashed, but I can't understand why you'd want to drink more terrible beer.

When Miller introduced Miller Lite, several beer companies had already tried and failed.  Miller was doing market research to try to find out why, and also to figure out what gimmick they needed.  One of the researchers went to this po-dunk, out of the way place in the Midwest because this one bar was selling double the amount of any other bar its size. 

The previous ad campaigns had dealt with watching your figure.  They promised that you could drink light beer and not have to worry about a beer gut.  They thought that women would be a good target, since women's consumption of beer had been rising for 20 years.  Naturally, they thought, you should target their desire to be attractive.

Turns out, they were wrong.  When the researcher got to the bar, it was filled with big burly construction worker types with beer guts.  Puzzled, the researcher asked these guys, who obviously didn't mind putting a few quarter pounders down over lunch, why they were drinking light beer.  They said, "Well, it's simple.  With regular beer, you drink four or five, and you're bloated and full.  No matter how much you'd like to stay out, it's just not fun anymore.  With this light beer, we can drink more.  That means we don't have to go home to our wives until later."

Thus, "Less Filling, Tastes Great" was born.  Remember how they had all the big football player guys in those commercials?  That was their audience.. not women.

I'm diabetic and drink probably close to a gallon of diet soda a day - that much real sugar - including that in a fruit smoothie which would also be a pain in the ass to make all the time (I live in the middle of nowhere) would probably kill me. And water sucks. Drinking a glass of water is like drinking a glass of nothing.

Bah. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine is also kickass, at 9.6%.

My wife prefers porters. Great Lakes Brewery here in Cleveland makes the Edmond Fitzgerald Porter, which is very nice. It's almost an imperial stout. My favorite is their Nosferatu Red, though.

I have a clone brew going at home right now. I'm doing up an imitation Mac & Jacks, which is out of Redmond, WA. It's the only good thing to come of of Redmond, near as I can tell. It is also very good.

So, though Canadians make some decent beer, the US has its share of damned good beer, too. Just stay away from Miller & Coors and especially Budweiser, the Microsoft of beers.

Another scotch drinker! Fantastic.

What's your favorite scotch?

Bleh. I just don't like water period - it's bland. And unsweetened tea would make me vomit.

Agreed on the can, not on the bottle. I used to be with you on that, then spoke w/ an Eastern European about how much flavor is opened up by pouring into a glass or ceramic. Think wine. Open it up, pour it out to open flavor. Same w/ beer. Try it!

I thought the whole point to drinking beer is to get smashed.  I have yet to hear a drinking story which goes like "Yeah, my friends and I had a few beers but stopped ourselves before getting hammered and then all got home safely without incident."  Besides, isn't being proud of putting a bunch of light beers in you like being proud of beating up a baby (i.e. its so easy its pointless)?

<beer nerditry>I'm talking purely stuff sold as "beer" which in the states, IIRC, can't contain more than 3.2% alcohol.</beer nerditry>

I've actually never had barleywine anything, but my brother raves about some of the stuff he's had so  I'll see what I can find and give it a whirl.

Gotta love drinks named after disasters.  "I'll have a pint of Podunk Brewing Mine Collapse, please."

We've got the Irish Car Bomb, so how long until someone makes a Twin Towers Lager or Branch Davidian Chardonnay?

I never meant to impugn the beermaking abilities of Americans; I was just pointing out that what is sold as "beer" south of the 49th is quite a bit weaker than its northern counterparts.  Also not claiming that Canadians CAN'T make bad beer (I'm looking at you, Labatt).

Love me some Highland Park 10yr.

I also have a serious case of like for Aberlour, Macallan, Auchentoshan, Glendronach, Caol Ila...come to think of it, there aren't many single malts I've tried and HAVEN'T liked.  Some have definite "times" for drinking (Laphroaig on a blustery winter night, in front of a fire), but I'm having a hard time thinking of one I thought wasn't fit to drink.

I'm also a wine, gin, dark rum, and bourbon fan, listed in order of experience base.

Ahh, booze; is there anything you can't do?

Yep.  In Georgia, I think it's 14%

(That's recent, though.  Used to be 5.1%)

That's a damn fine question.  I'm guessing the Branch Davidian exists somewhere.  Twin Towers... gonna be a tough sell.

American microbrews have really picked up the slack left by a lot of the major brewers.  I'm quite fond of Hebrew beer.  The Messiah Bold is very good, as is the Jewbilation.  Also worth trying is the Sweetwater IPA.  (Sweetwater is right down the road from me, so their stuff is everywhere around here.)

Hell, as cheap ass beer goes, it's hard for me to find better than Pennsylvania's finest.. Yuengling.  About as cheap as PBR, and much more flavor.

    A beer convention is going on,   and one day at lunch  three brewery CEO's find themselves at the same table.  A waiter steps up to take the orders,    "What will you sirs have this day?"   The CEO of Budwiser says "I'll have the special with a bud lite."   The CEO of Miller's says "I'll have a Steak with mashed potatos, with a Miller Lite."   The CEO of Molsen's (Canadian) says  "I'll have the chefs salad, with fries-gravey- and a small coke."   The waiter leaves   and the  CEO's start in.  "Hey why didn't you even ask for your own drink,   why the coke?"

   The Ceo of Molsen's said "I noticed that you gentilmen were not drinking beer so I thought I wouldn't bothewer either."

Yeah, the very idea of a dry county is idiotic and ought to be illegal. I'm surprised it doesn't anger the Flying Spaghetti Monster enough to make it rain marinara sauce there. That "In Heaven there ain't no beer" song is another reason that even if Chrstianity were true I'd rather go to Hell. The Flying Spaghetti Monster would probably consider that song either blasphemy or heresy as the Pastafarian version of Heaven includes a beer volcano.

Speaking of which, the Weyerbacher brewery (also in PA) makes an Imperial Stout called "Heresy!" They also make a raspberry Imperial Stout called "Old Heathen" and another very strong beer known as "Blasphemy." Wonder if the owners are atheists?

I drink beer because it tastes amazing (assuming it's good beer). But maybe I'm just past the age when it's cool to get shitfaced just to tell my friends how shitfaced I got. Not to mention that if I was looking to get drunk, beer would make me bloated way before it made me loaded. Bring on the rum.

Beer should be served at room temperature (unless it's lager). Chilling it weakens the flavour.

It should preferably be served from a pump, by the pint.

It should be served in a pint glass, dimple pot or tankard.

It should always yeild strange and unexpected flavours.

It should always be made by small local breweries, not mass produced with chemicals.

The only time cheap cans of piss are acceptible is at a party when it really doesn't matter what you're drinking so long as it gets you merry.

American beer is an abomination and should not be drunken at any costs!

I think it could be something to do with climate. In summer I do like cold beer. But often in the middle of winter, you don't want a refreshing drink, you want a hearty beer. In my experience it's only English beer which should be drunk at room temperature, other beer is fine cold. I'm a fan of English ale.  

I don't care much for the British beers I've had, but I suspect from the off tastes and what I know they were ruined on the trip over. British styles are my favorite - India Pale Ales and Imperial Stouts. I was able to once have Thomas Hardy Ale which was great.

A lot of it often tastes like copper. I don't like those ones too much. But a good  solid ale is fantastic. Old Peculier, Lancaster Bomber, YUM!!

Old Speckled Hen is also pretty damn good.

Let's see if I can remember everything I wanted to respond to:

America has a particular penchant for getting smashed while drinking.  Not that other countries don't do it, but drinking is seen as somewhat taboo here, and there are so many people telling you why you shouldn't do it, it doesn't surprise me that people drink to get smashed more here.

Having said that, I know a lot of people who drink one or two and go home.  I think age has a lot to do with it.

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There's a lot of information out there about particular chemicals in soft drinks, particularly diet, that are bad for you in large doses.  A calorie is a calorie.  Unsweet tea is demonstrably much better for you than soda.  Frankly, almost anything is better for you than soda.  Beer is better for you than soda.

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I've had some of the Victory beers.  I find most of them to be a little over the top.  I feel like saying, "Ok... I get it.  Hops.  You like hops.  Could we have, I don't know... maybe... some other flavor besides hops?"

I like beers with sublety.  I find Victory to be very "in your face." 

I was just using the Hop Wallop as an example.  I also find the Golden Monkey to be over the top.  It's just too much work for me to drink more than one of any of the Victory beers.  What's that other one I had... Pils... That one, too.

It's not that I don't like beers with bold flavors.  I compare it to food.  Sometimes less is more.  For instance, when I make chili, I don't make super-hot chili.  I try to incorporate hotness into other flavors, so that the heat accentuates other flavors, or kicks in after other flavors have worked their way through the palette.  I like my alcohol to do the same thing.

I also like hops, but to me, a beer as hoppy as Hop Wallop... (Hop Wallop?  Don't they do Hop Devil?   Or am I thinking of another brewer?)  is akin to putting so much pepper into pepper gravy that you don't taste the gravy.  A good example of a hoppy beer with a lot of other things going on is Sam Smith Organic Ale.  You know you're drinking hops, but there's a lot of other things dancing around, too.  I like Red Hook IPA and Sweetwater IPA, primarily because both are pretty complex without being completely overpowering.

Barleywines are relatively new to me.  We just don't see a lot of that down here.

Now that I think about it, I think part of the problem with some of the Victory is that their alcohol content is so high that they have to create a very heavy handed flavor profile to compensate.  As I'm going through the hoppy beers that I like, all of them tend to be in the 5-6% range.

That's damn respectable.