I like beer… but I also care about what is added to my beer and food to such an extent my purchasing of products is largely dictated by what I perceive to be the ingredients and country of origin. I don’t want to buy something I think is Danish and realise that it is Irish. Now I am just drinking Irish beer with Irish ingredients. If the Danes hate to see Carlsberg leave so much, why do they let it be brewed in Ireland? It isn’t just Carlsberg tho, Budwieser, Coors Light are also brewed in Ireland under license. How can you get the taste of the Rockies from a beer that is brewed in Dublin?
Maybe my point is more about the marketing of products associated with the national identity of another country or place. If I associate a brand with a particular place I expect same to be from that place. Under the German Beer Purity Law beer is made out of water, hops, barley and yeast and I got to say I like this: simple, natural and made out of quality ingredients.
I recently read a book about the Brooklyn Brewery where I learned a lot about beer, how it is made and what should and should not be in it. Again, quality beer is made out of water, hops, barley and yeast while beers looking to make cheaper beer for mass production add other additives such as rice or chemicals. Many of the commercial American beers are brewed using 30 to 40 percent rice or corn which ends up with a light coloured beer with a mild taste. This mild taste is added to by the presence of rice in beer. At the end of the day the product is tasteless.
I am sure people will read this and think beer is beer, but what if I exaggerate this argument to show my point. What if we bought a bottle of Australian wine only to discover the grapes are grown in a different country and it is produced under license in Ireland? Beers are associated with countries and marketed as such. Shout me down if you think I am being ridiculous, but if I buy a beer in a bar in Dublin I can pay as much as e6 for a bottle of beer, and if I am paying that much, I want quality produce and not beer that is brewed under license or made using corn or rice.
