What is a beer

Thurston Brewer · Dec 1, 2016

In the US, draft (American for draught) nominally means on tap (not bottled). However, the all-powerful beer industry marketers have no qualms about 're-purposing' (corrupting, mangling, denegrating) the term draft to mean whatever the hell they want just to sell more suds. They sometimes claim that bottled draft beer (serious oxymoron..) is beer that was aged in a keg before bottling, but who knows whether there's any truth to that...

If I go into a bar and ask what they have in the way of draft beer, the bartender will inevitably list those libations available in kegs, and keep the bottled ones separate - they are professionals and use the terms correctly, bless their hearts!

BTW, the word 'draught' is taken from the verb 'to draw', meaning to pull. Therefore a draught horse is a horse bred to pull a wagon/carriage. Draught beer is a beverage that must be pulled from a keg before it can be enjoyed. Bottled beer is poured, not pulled, so it can't logically be called draught/draft.

There... your English lesson for the day!!

Mark D Pirate · Dec 1, 2016

My local pub has 2 taps labeled Draught , neither are worth drinking

A very large commercial brewer here has bought several small brewers that used to make some delicious beers , the craft beer has become blander and the parent brewer is offering slightly crafty beers
I was given one as a sample , called Carlton Pale Ale and that alone is a lie , its a cold fermented lager with some Amarillo and Cascade as late kettle hops ...about only thing right with it is the colour !

Nosybear · Dec 1, 2016

There's a very good economic reason that getting bigger means blander beer: The high-quality ingredients smaller guys can use become harder to source at the quantity you need. Think coffee: Starbucks uses mediocre coffee because it's the only thing they can get in the quantities they need. It's easier for them to convince you that what you're drinking tastes good through marketing than it is to produce really good stuff, in fact, they can't. There's not that much high-quality coffee in the world. Same with beer: There aren't enough high-quality malts and hops in the world for AB Inbev to produce good beer. They have to produce mediocre stuff because the material isn't there. Even if they were to buy it all up, there wouldn't be enough. Therefore it's easier and cheaper for them to try to sell crappy beer using sports images and jiggly girls than to produce a good product. What is beer? We can go with a technical definition but to me, it's what the little guys, including me, make.