Define "piss-beer" because I tend towards lagers and pilsners and the "I want a 300-calorie IPA" crowd tends to look down on my "it was good enough for five generations of Americans and countless generations of Germans and Austrians" beer.
Pilsners are a tie with Belgians, for me. Pilsner Urquell, yessir. Most of my other faves are local microbrews. My girl and I just finished our first batch of homebrew, a “Pilsner”, and it’s an abomination. We’re both beer snobs, luckily, it’s not just me.
We just had a $100 starter kit and followed their recipe. My biggest transgression was buying distilled water, which I thought would be a safer bet than spring water, until we tasted some of the water after brewing and realized that it tasted weird. Turns out that we’re conditioned to prefer the taste of minerals. Makes total sense. I’m dumb.
You know what’s funny ? There’s so many Europeans that rag on our light “piss” beer this side of the world but they love that shit, they order round after round. Or maybe I just serve the most unself aware people you’ll ever meet. One was surprised I was Canadian because I looked beautiful in a European way, he thought it was wild that Canada was full of Canadian women who were beautiful in a European way. Probably drank some “piss” beer after that.
I love that there's an IPA called "palate wrecker", at least they're not pulling any punches
I guess it tastes less like ash when you’re smoking cigars in tandem. I’ve done that a handful of times and always found it enjoyable, but I was always in great company, so disentangling the sensation from the circumstances is difficult. Some IPAs are mildly enjoyable, but I worry that I just like high ABV beers. Belgians, MMMMmmmmmmmm
There's a lot of shit sours out there. But give me a good Flanders red or Gose and I'll more than happily drink it.
I agree with bfx. There are some sours that I enjoy, but I can't ever drink more than one. Pilsners or lagers, though? Line 'em up.