Commercial vs Homebrew – Fight!

In March, I took a trip to the UK, and was back again for 3 weeks this month. I had great time with friends and family and took the opportunity to sample beer where I found it.

At the local pub, they had Bass, Buttcombe, and some other one that I didn’t like much. The Bass was Ok, but not as good as I remembered. (They say, “the older you get, the better you were” – maybe the opposite is true for beer?) My wife tasted some, and she said “I think yours is better.” Isn’t that what every homebrewer wants to hear from their significant other?

The Buttcombe was excellent – assertive hop bitterness but not overly so and nicely offset by the fruitiness and maltiness. Ok, I’m no BJCP judge, but I thought it was really good. Strangely though, a pint in a pub-restaurant some 30 miles down the road produced a much less pleasing variation – the the hop bitterness aggressively so, making it more like an IPA to my taste. There may have even been some strong bitterness from the grain, though I don’t recall exactly. I drank both our pints, with a mental note not to have another pint.

When I started homebrewing, the mantra I heard was “brew beer as good or better than commercial beer”. I never really believed it, thinking rather that it was just a way of reeling in prospective homebrewers. Yet, I came back from both visits to the UK with the feeling that my beer was on par with most the commercial offerings I tasted. In fact, with gall, I’d say most pub beer now tastes bland in comparison to what I usually drink.

This might be old hat to seasoned homebrewers, but it was a surprise to me…and also disspointment, as some of my old favorites are not so favoured any more.