The only advantage I see about drinking craft beer is that the taste will drastically reduce the amount of alcohol you drink and save you money, but if your desire is to enjoy yourself with a cool refreshing, tastey beverage, then there is a fair chance you will get more satisfaction from a jug of badger pee than a craft beer.

Having never tasted a jug of badger pee, I'll just have to take your word for it.

I think if one generally likes beer, there is a craft beer to suit your taste.

Indeed! And though many craft breweries are putting out swill, I'm just happy there are many to choose from... because some of them are putting out fantastic stuff, and without the explosion of options, most of those never would have gotten off the ground.

After attending graduate school in Germany, I can say the varieties of local beers was a valued part of the education. Hefeweizen, Koslch, Baltic porters, stouts, tripel, doppels, dunkel, blonde ale, red ale Belgian wheat, Czech pilsner etc. None of the beers taste the same. My choice is influenced by the weather and the food. I am old enough to be a father to the hipster generation. 99% of the IPA's are not good beer. A few IPA's are good with burgers.

I'll disagree with you, as quite frequently, I find that many "Belgian" beers taste like candle wax.

I won't disagree since I will not drink some Belgian and German beers. English beers are overrated. Stella Artois is a wife beater beer then has been upsold in the US.

This thread should be sponsored by Anheuser-Busch (and the Stella appendage)

Some people, Ms braslvr included, don't like IPAs. Personally, I wouldn't touch craft beer if it weren't for IPAs and a few pale ales. There are many less than stellar examples out there but no where near 99%. Also, IMO, IPAs should in general be consumed stand alone rather than with meals. I do know many disagree with that.

I enjoy IPAs both stand alone and with meals.

Too many IPAs are just indiscriminate hop bombs. I like the east coast IPA style much better, because they tend to have lots of tropical fruit overtones as well.

New England IPAs, particularly ones from Vermont, are absolutely delicious. They're almost always 8% ABV (so closer to imperial IPAs) and taste magnificent.

That said, as my beer drinking has become more discriminating, it is certainly the case that many craft breweries simply do every style beer for the sake of it (or for giving things a name). This was quite prevalent when I visited Vancouver this past week for a long weekend...I was really disappointed in the local beer scene. The concept of hoppiness does not exist...an IPA with 60 IBUs is hardly an IPA at all! Every pale ale was quite weak. The only interesting beer I had was a 14% ABV imperial sour that I really liked, even though I usually despise sour ales.

The only brewery I can think of that does a lot of different styles really well is Stone Brewing out of San Diego (and only their CA-brewed beers...their VA-brewed beers are terrible). Most other breweries don't cut it when they go broadly.

I love craft stouts, porters, wheat wines, IPAs, and sours... just MHO.

You are lucky. Many more choices.

Haha,
got a chuckle out of me^

+100