Hyo Razuki wrote: A friend of mine went to the States recently and visited some kind of beer testing in California and he has been going on about how awesome those American Craft Beers are since he came back. I want to try some but there is only a very limited choice of Craft Beers in shops where I live and most of them are from Germany or Belgium but I'd be most interested in American ones. The problem is I usually don't order stuff online because the mail man mostly comes when I'm not home and then I have to go to the post office to pick up the stuff by myself which is a hassle, so I don't wanna order the American beers online through some importer.
I love beer and I also like our German beers very much but the problem with the commercial beer from Germany is that most of the breweries here use old recipes which are like 400 years old or something and while a lot of those beers taste good, I would like to try something new from time to time. Also we have the Purity Law which doesn't give local breweries much freedom in developing new recipes.
Also the thing for me is, I don't have that much money and I could get an entire crate (20 bottles) of top quality local commercial beer for the price of about 2 bottles of Craft Beer. That's why I only ever buy it when I have a friend who also likes Craft Beer coming to my place or wanna treat myself to something really nice. For that reason, I usually end up buying a crate of local beer which then will last about 4 or 5 weeks.
What's the prices like in the States? Do they sell Craft Beer per crate there?
I especially like the American Dark Ales and I hope they'll sell a greater variety of those here in the future. Some of the blond ones are great too, but I haven't tried many. That being said, you have to be careful with the whole Craft Beer thing in general. Like collecting wine or whiskey, it is actually a cool hobby, but it can easily turn into some poncey obsession if you overdo it.
In America it's all over the place in regards to price but generally the major macros (Bud, Miller, Coors) will all run you the same price, and it's about a dollar a beer if you buy a twelve pack, whereas a good craft beer is about ten to twelve dollars for a six pack. And if it's one with a higher than average alcohol content it could cost more. And bar pricing is kind of all over the place, some places put a premium on bottles, some on draft. Generally a macro will always cost you less either way, but to what extent depends on the bar or restaurant. To me it's always worth spending the money on good beer though, it's one of those little indulgences, like I'll pay a little more to enjoy what I'm drinking that just be drinking to drink. I'd rather have a sixer I'm going to like than a twelve pack I'm going to have to push through.
Oh, and import beers are always priced at a premium, whether they're good or not. Obviously some are and some aren't, but people will pay extra for Corona, because people are dumb.
Also, in America a "case" is 24 twelve ounce beers, although I think most people get either a twelve or six pack for personal consumption. "Craft" beers and imports usually run twice the price of macros. so it's not ten to one as you seem to be describing. I honestly would be pissed if that were the case.