X-rated Bob wroteAnother misconception is that all American beer is ice-cold, fizzy, weak-ass rubbish. Au contraire! There are many excellent beers to be had in the USA.
I agree that there are excellent American beers to be had and your explanation of their economy of scale is bang on the button. However, I still maintain that American beer in the general sense is utter tasteless, structureless rubbish. The thing is, even if a "micro"brewery serves the massive state of Texas, they are still small fry when compared to the typical American beers and therefore they're still an exception that proves the rule.
Most beer drinking countries seem to have a style of beer that they favour. Germany is very much an old lager drinking country. By "old lager" I mean unfiltered lagers such as Weiss, Altbier, Bock etc. which has some level of milky or dark colour to the beer. Belgium is very much an ale drinking country but not porter or stout. In fact their ales are fairly unique with all those trappists, dubbels, trippels and whatnots. England is also an ale drinking country with perhaps more of a focus on porters and stouts. America is very much a pale lager drinking country.
Of course there are porters to be found in Germany, of course there are lagers to be found in Belgium and of course you can get a Castle Lager in England but these are all exceptions to the rule, in my view. So while I agree that the American microbreweries (well, at least most of the ones I've tried - and I've tried a number) were really very good, the typical American beer is weak.
