I don't know why your husband -- who apparently is open to drinking a pretty broad spectrum of Belgian and German beers -- would be so opposed to Belgian-style or German-style beers, particularly if his only other option is drinking water. That said, I just took a look at 12 South Taproom and they seem to have a several options that would fit his requirements. (Maybe this is a place "like the Flying Saucer," but having had a drink in Nashville, I have no idea.)

Flying Saucer is awesome - one of the biggest beer selections in the country. Lots of other places have great beer selections too, as long as you stay out of the Broadway tourist traps; although even the tourist zone has the Broadway Brewhouse Downtown, which has 72 taps, and most of those taps are crafts and imports. You can get just about any kind of beer you want in the Nashville area without looking too hard, even if your tastes are sectarian. There are also a bunch of local breweries, with more popping up all the time.

I could quickly come up with a list of reasons to dislike Nashville, but lack of access to quality domestic and imported beer would not be on that list.

Of course, Bud Light is always the first thing on the beer list :D

Thanks for the recommendations. What he means is that the Flying Saucer and similar are beer destinations and not places where we'd go for food. Yes, you can find great beer in Nashville but finding it at a "normal restaurant" is pretty rare. The Taproom's menu is more extensive than he recalled though.

Taking one for the team as the DD on one hand and poor results experimenting with American analogues on the other. Too often the "-style" beers are things like Shocktop or cherry-flavored wheat beer. He's not a hophead either, which puts him further out of the mainstream.

If you ask him, he will probably tell you that if one expects raises, promotions and good bonuses controlling costs are very important to the chains. Draft Buds are much higher margin (or lower cost) then most high-end beers and drinks. To an 'empty suit' in a corporate office your costs are lower and you look better selling the Buds.

Of course, this logic is flawed: this is no way to build and grow sales. In addition, this logic rewards selling a high margin drink rather than a lower margin but more expensive drink where the bar makes more $ on the expensive drink.

I thought I had posted here. They lead with Bud Light because it's the number one selling beer in America. They wouldn't lead with McEwans as they know 99.9% of the people would say either no or what's that followed by no.

Exactly! But my point was that having Bud Light on tap (as the number one selling beer in the US) should be a foregone conclusion. No one walks into a bar and asks "Do you serve Bud Light?" In part because most people would assume without asking that they did. In addition, most beer drinkers can recognize the tap handle from across a very dark room.

If you visit the Budweiser Brew House at the new St. Louis Ballpark Village, be sure to ask if they have Coors Light. Our sever was not amused. :D

There are some fantastic Belgian-style beers being made in the United States. ShockTop isn't one of them.

:D I know a few bars where, if you ask if they serve Bud Light, they're likely to suggest you leave. :D

All too often, I'm with one of those people. I try to guide them to something with a little more flavor. Sometimes they just can't be helped and they really should be asked to leave.

Mrs BamaVol is a red wine drinker. Occasionally during the summer (half the year here in FL), she will want a beer. I usually order for her. She told me she wanted a beer before we got out of the car and without thinking, I ordered a Bud Light for her. She stopped the server and asked if there was any wheat beer on tap. I credit our daughter-in-law who got her started on wheat beers a couple years ago at a place in Huntsville that doesn't serve anything but beer. Check out this beer menu. I even forgive them for including ciders on the beer menu and the food's pretty good too.

Welcome to the big players answer to microbrews. They mass market mass produced beer and put them off as micros and use their financial power to steal shelf space.

:D You know I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. :D I rather enjoy bars like that, in part because it's fun to talk to the bartenders afterwards. :D

LOL, glad she decided she didn't want Bud Light. :D

It certainly isn't. Allagash has a tripel and a witbier and Live Oak a hefeweizen that are highly regarded on BeerAdvocate, so he's planning to search them out. Hopefully they're more common than their European counterparts but still true to style.

A search of Nashville area brewers isn't turning up anything that really stands out.

Agreed. And as dolcevita mentioned, Allagash has some great products. I think they are the best Belgian-style brewer in the US.

But I am biased, as I have had MANY of them ...:D

I don't know how much you travel outside of the area, but I find that no matter where I go, wide-ranging beer selections are more common in beer-focused establishments, rather than restaurants. There are always exceptions, but they are always few and far between.

Well, I guess I'm forced to agree with a previous poster - if all you can find in Nashville is Shocktop and other big-vat beers, and if your husband's tastes in beer aren't accommodated by the wide availability and variety that can be found in Nashville if one makes the effort to look, you should consider moving to someplace where the selection is more in tune with his tastes. Perhaps an area of the country where there are a lot of descendents of German/Belgian/Dutch immigrants would have more easily-found restaurants with a beer selection catering to his likes. Consider Minneapolis/St. Paul.

No one has disagreed with that, but unless your spouse and friends are also beer connoisseurs AND they find pub grub appealing, you're seldom likely to visit such places for social events. If they prefer wine or food instead of grub, then you may have a problem.

The sensible thing to do is to stock up on your favorites, enjoy them at home, and abstain if you don't like a restaurant's offerings. Some do seem to take offense when you do that however.

As big-vat beers go, Blue Moon isn't half bad, he says, and he's looking forward to sampling Allagash and the others mentioned above.

Incidentally, the post you quoted in this section was referring to Beer Advocate's ratings of Nashville brews, not his personal observation. Nothing really stands out aside from a few with very small sample sizes. Are there any that really stand out for you?

I'm a fan of Mellow Mushroom. Excellent pizza and a decent beer selection (including Elevation Beer Company's Double Black series).

I agree with your assessment .... up to a point. The 3 or 4 Mellow Mushrooms I have patronized had good pizza (something I no longer indulge in) and a decent beer selection. However, management, especially in the kitchen appears quite weak. I've seen too many mistakes and delays to be impressed. I think most of them are franchises - the local in Oxford, AL was owned by a couple doctors' wives that didn't know the first thing about hiring compentent help or running a restaurant. After a huge opening, they drove off customers one by one and it's hard to find many cars in the lot a few years later. One of these days, I'll try the original, which I think in in Auburn?

Sure. Fine dining and fine beer rarely go together, especially since it seems there's more disagreement over what constitutes a "fine beer" than there is over what constitutes a fine wine. Therefore, in most cases, you must decide what is more important - the beer selection, or the food. This is universal, not just a Nashville thing.


I don't find Beer Advocate to be a great arbiter of beer quality. I'm something of a hophead, but not to extremes. On Beer Advocate, only the extremely hoppy beers (Imperial and Double IPAs and the like) get top billing; everything else is at the "doesn't stand out" level. My friends who are into other beer types say the same. Just as an example - Pilsner Urquell is considered by most people who know beer to be the worldwide gold standard for a pilsner. If you were to go by the ratings it gets on Beer Advocate, you'd think it kinda sucks, and should be avoided. But a bitter ale from an obscure brewpub in Pennsylvania that's so hoppy it tastes like bad medicine, and has a name so long it won't fit on a bottle label, is rated a 5 with shooting stars and rainbows :rolleyes:

Anyway, my brother likes the wheat beers and the Belgians. He says that a couple of the regular wheat and Belgian-style brews from Black Abbey Brewing in 100 Oaks are very tasty. There aren't even any real reviews of Black Abbey's beers on Beer Advocate, despite Black Abbey having been around for a year or two.

That is a shame. We patronize the two located in the southern Denver metro area*, and both offer excellent service. Miss Swede has many food allergies, and they are one of the few restaurants that serve vegan cheese. We've never had a mishap with her pizzas, and we truly trust the staff to do it right.

* - there is one about 5 miles from our house that opened last year. However, we tend to patronize the one originally in the area, about 13 miles away. There is a server there that my kids absolutely adore, and she is a wonderful and kind person. Last Fall, she told us that she would be going away for the spring to study abroad in Europe. We gave her a large tip and wrote on a comment card how awesome she was and how we'll miss her. We went back this past weekend, and she was there. It turns out that she kept that comment card and showed it to us.

Wow...once again, I feel sorry for you guys in Nashville. Someone there is brainwashing you. Get out! Get out while you can!

Among the awesome spots in Chicago that pack a great one-two food and beer punch (and also have terrific wine and cocktail options for those who aren't into beer): Dusek's, The Publican, Owen & Engine, Longman & Eagle, Fountainhead, SmallBar, Goose Island (Clybourn)...I pity all of you people who have to choose in life between great food and great beer.

:D Ok, if I have to choose between great beer and great food, I'm going with ok food and great beer. :D

Funny, I could say that about Chicago. What a horrible place. :D

I don't know about horrible, but even if all that great food and drink (and I know it is) in Chicago was free, I wouldn't live there in a million years. Then again, I like Budweiser, so what do I know?:D

Drinking Guinness at a small pub in Ireland; do not remember town (too much Guinness). Two American couples came in and demanded BUD LIGHT. Made big deal over it, did not want any of the four good beers on draught. No wonder the would hates us.

That was very kind of you. Are you saying she gave up her dream to study in Europe because of your comment card? LOL

We have been to MM in Gatlinburg & Franklin, TN, Panama City Beach, FL and Oxford, AL, Hickory and Asheville, NC. BTW, Wikipedia tells me it was founded in ATL by Ga Tech students - I even had the wrong football conference. Of the 5 I recall, I think Asheville may have been too busy to judge, Hickory too new and we were only drinking at the one in Franklin. I had not seen a vegan cheese on the menu - I may have to look again. I am lactose intolerant and prefer to avoid all dairy products. That makes ordering at MM a challenge. On the one hand I wish I had discovered my intolerance earlier than 4 years ago, on the other hand, I sure do miss the pizza.

Where?

I'm a little bumfuzzled this morning. It now reads Oxford, AL, which would truly be a better place if it were in Tennessee.

LOL. Just for the semester. :)

They use Daiya Vegan Mozzarella Cheese. It's becoming more and more mainstream, as I can now find it at my local Kroger's chain.

They carry it at Publix. I find it takes a pretty high temperature to "melt". Of course that's not a big problem with a pizza oven.

If there were four good beers on tap, why were you drinking Guinness? ;)

dolcevita, I was thinking about your husband yesterday. I went to the Midwest Belgian Beer Fest in St. Louis yesterday. There were about 50 US breweries represented, all of which were pouring at least two (and some as many as eight) different Belgian-style beers. It really was a fantastic event -- one I'd happily consider attending again next year. (It was one of the kick-off events for St. Louis Craft Beer Week, which apparently has about 100 scheduled events.)

Anyway...you might want to use the list of attending breweries, cross reference it against Beeradvocate or Ratebeer to see if he can find any others worth trying. I'm sure a lot is stuff that is produced in such small quantities that it's typically only available on tap at the brewery, but some of it must make it into bottles and cans.

That's so very kind of you! We'll look into it, thanks!

He recently tried the Allagash White and found it surprisingly understated, while a Canadian witbier, Blanche de Chambley, was on the other end of the spectrum, but still nice enough. It's always nice to have extra options at dinner, though La Chouffe is in no danger.

I got half an answer to my original question last night.

We had to pick a restaurant close to the hospital last night for a fast dinner, so went to Applebee's. I asked the server for a list of draft beers since I couldn't see the tap handles clearly from where I was seated. She started with Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Miller Lite, Yuengling. She paused and said "they're all two for one". Then she mentioned Sam Adams and Goose Island. Which led me to my next vent.

Why do they say Sam Adams and Goose Island as if there was only one variety. I had to probe deeper to determine that it was Sam Adams Seasonal and Goose Island IPA.

For the record, I'm not a big fan of the Sam Adams summer ale so had the Goose Island IPA.

Ah, I am so glad I live in SBA. Even the local burger joint in my neighbourhood carries draft beer.

Definitely frustrating. When a server says "Sam Adams" without elaborating I assume it's Sam Adams Boston Lager (the classic, most common variety). Generally I won't ask, "Which Sam Adams?" because most servers don't know/aren't even aware there's more than one. It's a similar situation with Negra Modelo. Frankly I often avoid ordering these beers because I loathe having to argue with servers about them. :eek:

I've been burned too many times to assume that. And when they start with Bud Light, I know it's going to be that way.

I try not to embarrass Mrs. BamaVol when we're out together. But the first question I want to ask the server who starts the list with Bud Light is "Do you drink beer yourself and do you consider yourself knowledgeable on the subject ?" and the second is "Have you ever been in a US bar that didn't serve Bud Light?".

The third is "Can I get another server, please?".

Instead I politely ask "Which Sam Adams?" and remind myself that I'm at Applebee's.

Last night we ate at a Mexican place. I know from experience that if I don't specify Dos Equis Amber, I will be probed further as to which Dos Equis I want.

Are you saying that they're just saying "Modelo" and leaving you to assume whether it's Especial or Negra (or potentially one of several much less common ones), or somehow implying that there's more than one Negra Modelo?

A bit of both, actually. Sometimes a server says "Modelo" without knowing which one. There are also times when a server specifically offers Negra Modelo when the beer is actually Modelo Especial. I presume this happens because Negra Modelo is most common Modelo brand in the US and some servers assume anytime they see the Modelo label it's got to be cerveza negra.

I mean, if you're at Applebee's how can you expect anything else?

Living in Maine has made me appreciate beer much more than I used to. If you ever see anything made by Rising Tide or Maine Beer Co, grab it and don't look back.