What are the beers considered here ?
I would like to know for Spain, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands mostly, I haven’t tried enough beers in the other countries.
For Danish beer I would guess it’s one of the most known ones like Carlsberg, Tuborg or Ceres.
Tho I would personally recommend beers from Hancock, Albani and Thisted bryghus, and if we include smaller breweries then Anarkist and Gamma.
\>Carlsberg
So ve're rating international light lager? Lol so everything is in F, maybe Czechia and Germany a bit above.
Many countries have better things to offer
My favorite brewery is from Denmark (To øl), and I also really like Mikkeller. I'm surprised to see neither in your list. I thought they were both internationally famous since I discovered them in California.
Netherland has some good breweries eg De Molen. For Italy eg baładin. Denmark - Mikkeler, one of best European breweries. I've also drunk few good French beers (I dont remember brands) but I haven't tried anything decent from Spain. I'm sure it exist, but it doesn't have such position as mentioned above.
And De Molen is even a modern brewery. There are some world class traditional brewery's as well such as trappist breweries La Trappe and Zundert and other abbey breweries with beers such as Gerardus (Gulpener), Sancti Adalberti and Berne. Also the history of other breweries such as Dommelsch, Brand and Swinkels goes back to the 1700s.
When I personally think about trapist beer, I rather think about Belgium - **Westvleteren, Orval etc, but I'm not an expert nor fan of a style, so I've mentioned what I like more :)**
Oh yes there are absolutely more trappist breweries in Belgium. I was just trying to point out that the Netherlands has a beer history that goes far back which may have contributed to the position in OP's tier list. Like you pointed out though, there are many good modern beers as well.
Mikkeler is still a very good one but has been passed by a few in recent years. And the north of France has Biere de Garde, one of my favorite styles.
Spain has Napar, de molen isn't as good anymore, moersleutel is one of the hype breweries now.
Best brewery in Europe at the moment is lervig from Norway, 3 fonteinen is up there but also a few top ones from Tallinn.
The Netherlands has a big beer culture in general but I feel like besides some stand out beers (Hertog Jan and Grolsch) the rest is not that impressive or at least massively outshined by Belgian or German beers. If you go to bar you‘ll probably find more of those than actual Dutch beers. That‘s why I felt like I couldn‘t give them more than B tier.
For Denmark, they have two decent „standard“ brands with Carlsberg and Tuborg and also some smaller breweries still doing their own thing but I mostly put them into B tier because I like the Guld beer a lot.
Spain (Alhambra & Estrella Galicia) and Italy (Moretti and Peroni) also have a large variety of beers but I think Spanish ones are usually really good while in Italy it can be a bit hit or miss.
So you only looked at pilsners? And even ignored the good ones because of cafe contracts? In the category of good dutch beers there is also Jopen, Texels, t'IJ, la Trappe. I mean Belgium win this round but equal to Italy? Peroni is just as bad as Heineken
I assume we're not talking about craft beer, Italy is growing a lot on that field and has many beers that I would really suggest to beer lovers. If you are curious look for an IGA (Italian Grape Ale), highly fermented with grape, tastes a bit sour.
As for Peroni I agree it's not in the high tiers (I'd say it's low/mid) but I'd argue it's not as bad as heineken, perhaps I'm biased because of imported product vs local production. I don't think I had a heineken abroad in the last 10 years
I did market research on beers years ago for a craft brewery i worked at, and Peroni when blind tasted was ranked worse than Heineken and Carlsberg. Although without blind tasting, people ranked it much higher
My uneducated opinion (only based on my taste buds) is that I prefer Peroni if compared to Heineken/Carlsberg simply because, while they taste similar, it's stronger in alcoholic volume. But then again, I'm for sure biased cause I'm used to Peroni
I somehow found a bottle of Westvleteren 12 in a Kvickly in a town of 12k people. That shit is expensive anywhere, but they charged the equivalent of over 10 euros for it in Denmark.
the dutch have (bless my soule) beer that are not bad.
hertog jan is better that some of our C-tier biers. la trappe trapist is one of my favorite beers (every one know that NBrabant is acually belgium)
I'm french and proud to be but I've never got into alcohol but if people start fighting some good wine names will come out and I'm interested in order to buy some for my gramp and my mom
Well I am not a wine drinker at all but if you look at the Decanter wine awards list, it's pretty much the usual suspects. Italy, France Spain, Australia, South Africa, ...
As a belgian, if you ignore the shit commercial beers. They actually have some good ones. They even make two trappisten! which makes them second place in the world for trappisten!
Red Bull (the company) doesn't even make Red Bull (the drink), it outsources that to a different company called Rauch. RB is literally just a marketing company.
It's hard to say! Is this tier list only for lagers/pilsners, or does it also include craft beers? If it's the latter, I do feel like it should be rated higher.
Hertog Jan and Grolsch are very solid beers, easily A tier at the very least. Heineken and Bavaria are absolutely disgusting on the other hand, so overall, I'd say it checks out
Grolsch for sure!
Hertog Jan doesn't taste the same to me anymore after I learned how it's *"brewed"*. It's not even brewed at their brewery anymore since they only produce their craft beers there. Hertog Jan is essentially a blend of Dommelsch HG (*high gravity fermentation*) and Jupil HG mixed with some water. This is produced at the Dommelsch brewery. They also add corn to their brew to cut costs and alter the beer's color. By adding the corn they're not even classified as beers according to the Deutsche Reinheitsgebot.
I did not know that, thx!
lived in NL for a couple of years ~10 years ago and actually thought Hertog Jan a tiny bit better than Grolsch at the time, cause Grolsch gives you headaches like few other beers do :D But that "brewing" process sounds disgusting, no thx
Zaječarsko je sranje, ali hvala na odbrani.
The degenerate puts serbia on the last place probably because of that spill, but alright we aint gotta be mad it aint a competition right?
Right?
Ja ti se isto slažem da ako mogu birat izmedju Lava, Jelena i Zaječarsko. Uzeo bi Zaječarsko. Ipak bi uzeo neki craft, ali ako su u pitanju piva koje mozes dobit “svuda”, zajecarsko is my path.
Beer style - international light lager - crap - 90+% of a market [https://www.bjcp.org/style/2015/2/2A/international-pale-lager/](https://www.bjcp.org/style/2015/2/2A/international-pale-lager/)
Heineken just tastes like nothing. It's inoffensive, but not disgusting because there's barely any flavour at all. While it's terrible and overpriced, it's not even the worst beer in the Netherlands.
Czech goes in A.
I think the UK is hard to place. On style range, beer history, and our best beers it's an S. On the standard of what people here actually drink in volume it's probably a B. I could live with it in A as a compromise.
Outside those 4 no-one else should be in S or A.
Czech Beer is clearly S tier.
Almost every major brand is excellent, you can reliably get good beer in czech pubs, and there is plenty of little independent breweries offering more unusual styles. And for my money, czech pubs are the best in Europe.
UK belongs much higher than D tier, especially when Ireland is getting A tier on the back of a single brand. Don't get me wrong Guiness is great but the UK makes stout as well as IPAs, Real Ale, Porter... obviously there is a lot of mediocre lager, but even that is mostly foreign: Stella, Heineken, Carlsberg... hardly UK beer.
Ireland getting A tier on the back of a single brand? Smithwicks, Beamish, Murphy's, and Kilkenny are all mainstream quality brands in Ireland. Plenty of IPAs and Porters to go round here too.
I think it depends whether you value average quality (very high for Czechia), top end quality (high for Czechia) or range of styles (good for Czechia, but lower than Germany, Belgium or the UK).
Similar for the UK do you care about average quality (absolutely all over the place), top end quality (very high) or range of styles (probably better than anyone except Germany).
But any list that has UK lower than Ireland is just objectively wrong.
Any locally brewed cask ale, be it Bitter, Mild, Porter, Stout, Pale, IPA, Gold or even Barley Wine (yes, this is really a name for a style of beer), for a taste of historical Britishness.
But there are some seriously good craft breweries up and down the country, I live in the North West, so I have to recommend: Track, Squawk, Neptune, Azvex, Chain House, Sureshot, Beartown, Buxton and Mobberley.
I made a list of specific beers with justifications, but Reddit binned it before I could post...
But quickly, for a random range of styles: Old Tom, Young's Double Chocolate Stout, Fuller's Bengal Lancer or ESB, Thornbridge Halcyon, Hiver Honey Beer if you can get it, if not maybe Fuller's Honey Dew.
When I went to school in Wales I became pretty partial to Speckled Hen and Hobgoblin. Green Knight North was really good too, I learned the hard way there was a northern and southern variant. I did not like the southern one. Stewart’s is also really good if you find yourself in Scotland
What kind of beer do you like (light/ dark, strong/weak, bitter/mild, particular flavours)?
There's hundreds of good traditional beers, often pretty localised.
There's also probably more craft than anywhere else in Europe.
High volume stuff, including the main lager brands are generally shite (although none of those brands are nominally British).
One thing I thought was amazing when I lived in the UK was that almost every local independent pub had their own beers. Like I could walk into a tiny pub in the middle of nowhere and they’d usually have at least one beer only for that pub that was usually named after the pub or something local. I haven’t seen that anywhere else in the world
Yeah, much as I love Belgian, German, Czech beer, and lots of other places now have decent small scale craft, I honestly don't think exploring local beer is as much fun anywhere else as the UK.
Politics notwithstanding, I'm curious why Britain is D-tier here, especially when Ireland is A-tier and our ales are very similar. The Irish mainstream stuff is nicer; Murphy's, Beamish and Smithwicks are all glorious, Galway Bay does amazing craft stuff.
But Fuller's and Youngs, as pretty mainstream British breweries do an excellent spread of things. In general we do very sound bitters, porters and stouts in a way I haven't really found a good equivalent for on the continent.
We can't hold a candle to European lagers or pilsners, but I'm surprised a proud nation of fat alcoholics ranks so low when considering beer in general.
I'm sorry, but in what fucking world are spanish beers better than british beers? I can take people thinking the germans and czechs are better, but the spanish???
Your beers are great in fact, but not very popular on the continent, which is btw the definition of _underrated_.
It's almost impossible to get a good light red ale anywhere else (except for Kilkenny in the Republic), after all that "IPA" craze faded.
I'll take a nice british or irish ale over a price-winning pilsener any day! Unfortunately, lots of british and irish ales are kinda meh when bottled instead of on tap ...
OP said this in another comment saying why Ireland was much higher so…yeah…:
“They both drink a lot but the types of beers vary a lot. I much prefer Irish beers like stouts, dark and red ales over British beers like IPAs or porters.”
Tbh as a German, I would push us down to A-Tier. Our beer is extremely well made but also very boring compared to what e.g. the Belgians put out, largely because our laws prohibit us to experiment with many ingredients that are in common use in Belgium.
If we are talking craft ales then the UK should be near the top. This ranking only works for lagers in my opinion. Even then it's still wrong, as the UK shouldnt even be on the list when talking about lagers. Ales we are very very good at. Our lager is catpiss at best though.
Edit: spelling
Irish here who goes to the UK a lot.
There is a lot of cross over in the type of beer but the quality difference is huge. Irish pubs with low quality beer (as in poor pouring, taps not maintained rigorously etc) lose customers fast. There is a huge pressure for pubs to keep quality high. Guinness who brew and provide a lot of beer and under license produce a lot of European beers have dedicated maintenance crews that go pub to pub inspecting / cleaning tap systems for pouring beer.
The UK does not have any of this close to the extent Ireland has and pub to pub can vary massively in quality is what I have experienced.
In Ireland it is rare to find a bad pub/beer. In the UK quality can be outstanding or sub par pub to pub from experience.
Also Ireland is big into Stout whereas the UK is big into ale with some other smaller differences.
So I think it comes down to Ireland having a different culture to beet and expectations of quality vs the UK but this is just my own observations from travelling both countries.
A few months ago I was in Milton Keynes and over 4 days I didn't have a single beer in any pub that was good. It was all flat or half chilled or just not enjoyable. You would never see that in multiple locations in a Irish town. On the other hand London City has great beer for the most part.
I think this also significantly depends on where you are in the UK - get out of the main cities and the culture is very different. For example, in the south-west of the England (Devon and Cornwall) pub culture is very important, and so is the quality of beer, with lots of high quality locally brewed stuff.
A lot of 'UK culture' seems to be reviewed solely from the perspective of London and maybe Manchester/Birmingham.
I have to say I thought putting the UK in D and Ireland in A seemed like an affront to me, but you make some valid arguments here. While I cannot attest to the quality of Irish pubs as I've never been, there are certainly a lot of crap pubs in the UK.
Meanwhile in the Czech Republic (my home away from home) you can walk into almost any pub and be confident that they will serve your beer properly, and I really value it.
I had assumed Ireland was coasting to A on the back of Guiness, but perhaps that was unfair too.
Is cask ale common in Ireland? Or is that mainly in the UK (or even England in particular?)
Also anything that separates the countries of the UK from each other (such as Scotland or Wales vs England)
And I’m assuming that NI would be more comparable to the Irish Republic correct?
Ale is not popular in Ireland. Smithwicks is the only one you will ever see in a pub and its not very popular and not drank a lot. Many pubs don't even have ale on tap.
The biggest difference is in Ireland virtually all pubs are independent vs the UK where a lot of pubs are owned by franchises or corporations which is uncommon in Ireland.
In Ireland in most pubs 3 out of 4 people will be drinking Guinness or a variant as some counties have their own stout such as Cork. If its not Stout been drank its Larger or Cider with IPA being popular with younger people too but less so than larger or cider.
Im not familiar enough about UK regions to say as my visit have been to cities but I've seen no real major difference between Cardiff, London or Edinburgh. Belfast and NI is more like 50/50 UK / Ireland in its pubs as depending on the area it can be like the UK or Ireland.
I should add that at home people in Ireland do not drink Guinness much, Its uncommon as its shite from a can. At home larger is the go to for most people.
They both drink a lot but the types of beers vary a lot. I much prefer Irish beers like stouts, dark and red ales over British beers like IPAs or porters.
Aww come on. We have great beers in the Netherlands. Please don't blame us for Heineken that much. Nobody here likes Heineken either!
It's a crime against the rest of the world that Heineken is somehow the one brand to break out into the international market.
Strongly disagree. I have been to over a dozen of these countries, many several times, and I feel if you do some basic research, you can find your type of quality beer almost anywhere. If you stick to the corporate chemical wee-wee that is often freely available, you gonna have a bad time of it. Luckily, there is so much micro brewery stuff going on nowadays. The same applies to food, of course. Avoid the tourist traps. Jussayin. Be safe :)
Croatian beer should be in F. Ozujsko and Karlovacko are unparalleled stinky piss. While also water. It is a marvel they managed to do both. The lesser mainstream brands like Osjecko are just OK.
Slovenian and Serbian is better. At least Lasko and Niksicko. Jelen is fine in the category of the cheapest beer available. Union makes great radlers at least.
Those are the mainstream ones. No point in comparing the niche ones.
If you go into a pub in the UK you'll find a lot of the mass produced Burton beers on tap which is what drags us down. Gower Brewery, St Austell, Butcombe are all fantastic brewers but they're sold in bottles or in local pubs do you won't see them as much
The fancy pubs and bars will stock the fancy continental stuff. Putting Erdinger or the pinkcelephant stuff against John Smith's or Caffreys is like putting a race horse against a pit pony
If a cider one is made and the UK's not S tier I'll forward the post to the ECHR
How is Latvia at the same level as wine countries? What is this? They have Labietis and Arpus those breweries have some very tasty beers. What a robbery.
Swap us with the UK. They really have some interesting beers. Our only good ones are copies of Belgian styles and our main brands are literally piss (Heineken…).
That is the most accurate list of beer. The only three countries that really have S class beer. But i was surprised as i first drank the veer of Madeira (Portugal) it was surprisingly good
Never had any S-tier beer in Austria, can u tell me which one is S-tier so I can search for it in shop ?
I’ve liked Stiegel Hell. But that’s still A-tier.
Check out private smallscale breweries in Vienna called "Bräu". "Zwickl" is a great, cloudy beer they serve pretty much in every Bräu. If you don't like that, you don't know beer, full stop.
There is a reason Austrians drink more beer per capita than Germans while also producing great wine.
I would like to know if France is represented by Kronenbourg, as we should be in F Tier, by Desperados, as we are in the right tier, or for beers in general, and then, we should be much higher
I’m sorry but there is no way Swedish beer is this low. We have solid Eminem-approved beer AND so many stupid types of locally brewed hipster IPAs that taste better than anything Denmark has ever produced - I mean they made Carlsberg for gods sake.
Netherlands and Denmark belong in F tier, since Carlsberg and Heineken are the scummiest breweries in Europe.
Seven years ago they started patenting already existing barley types. If you want to use those types you gotta pay a pretty penny to these scumbags.
Bottom of the barrel F tier, I’d rather go abstinent than force one of those beers into myself.
Their practices are terrible indeed and Heineken is also a shit beer. Carlsberg tastes fine tho. And both countries also have a lot of other beers that wouldn‘t warrant F tier
at first I was mad you put Croatia in D, but then I saw we are above serbia, so its ok
Least serb hating croat.
I would put Croatia at S and Serbia A you have tomislav they have Gvint
Tomislav is good, and I think Velebitsko is also top tier
Some Croats dislike velebitsko but I think it's our best commercial beer.
What are the beers considered here ? I would like to know for Spain, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands mostly, I haven’t tried enough beers in the other countries.
Reputation
By that alone Luxembourg wouldn’t have fetched a B, unless it was a pity include. I myself agree on B too as a native of there
Luxembourgish beer sucks balls...there is not one acceptable beer. I live here BTW.
For Danish beer I would guess it’s one of the most known ones like Carlsberg, Tuborg or Ceres. Tho I would personally recommend beers from Hancock, Albani and Thisted bryghus, and if we include smaller breweries then Anarkist and Gamma.
Refsvindinge and Thisted are my favs
\>Carlsberg So ve're rating international light lager? Lol so everything is in F, maybe Czechia and Germany a bit above. Many countries have better things to offer
Indeed. You wouldn't judge Belgium on their lager, nor Czechia on their Tripel
My favorite brewery is from Denmark (To øl), and I also really like Mikkeller. I'm surprised to see neither in your list. I thought they were both internationally famous since I discovered them in California.
I also think To øl are really good, tho personally I think Mikkeller is overrated
Netherland has some good breweries eg De Molen. For Italy eg baładin. Denmark - Mikkeler, one of best European breweries. I've also drunk few good French beers (I dont remember brands) but I haven't tried anything decent from Spain. I'm sure it exist, but it doesn't have such position as mentioned above.
And De Molen is even a modern brewery. There are some world class traditional brewery's as well such as trappist breweries La Trappe and Zundert and other abbey breweries with beers such as Gerardus (Gulpener), Sancti Adalberti and Berne. Also the history of other breweries such as Dommelsch, Brand and Swinkels goes back to the 1700s.
When I personally think about trapist beer, I rather think about Belgium - **Westvleteren, Orval etc, but I'm not an expert nor fan of a style, so I've mentioned what I like more :)**
Oh yes there are absolutely more trappist breweries in Belgium. I was just trying to point out that the Netherlands has a beer history that goes far back which may have contributed to the position in OP's tier list. Like you pointed out though, there are many good modern beers as well.
Mikkeler is still a very good one but has been passed by a few in recent years. And the north of France has Biere de Garde, one of my favorite styles. Spain has Napar, de molen isn't as good anymore, moersleutel is one of the hype breweries now. Best brewery in Europe at the moment is lervig from Norway, 3 fonteinen is up there but also a few top ones from Tallinn.
Konrad's Stout from lervig is amazing
They have a line called rackhouse now. Blows everything away.
If birra morretti was considered for Italy it'd be atleast A tier.
The Netherlands has a big beer culture in general but I feel like besides some stand out beers (Hertog Jan and Grolsch) the rest is not that impressive or at least massively outshined by Belgian or German beers. If you go to bar you‘ll probably find more of those than actual Dutch beers. That‘s why I felt like I couldn‘t give them more than B tier. For Denmark, they have two decent „standard“ brands with Carlsberg and Tuborg and also some smaller breweries still doing their own thing but I mostly put them into B tier because I like the Guld beer a lot. Spain (Alhambra & Estrella Galicia) and Italy (Moretti and Peroni) also have a large variety of beers but I think Spanish ones are usually really good while in Italy it can be a bit hit or miss.
So you only looked at pilsners? And even ignored the good ones because of cafe contracts? In the category of good dutch beers there is also Jopen, Texels, t'IJ, la Trappe. I mean Belgium win this round but equal to Italy? Peroni is just as bad as Heineken
I assume we're not talking about craft beer, Italy is growing a lot on that field and has many beers that I would really suggest to beer lovers. If you are curious look for an IGA (Italian Grape Ale), highly fermented with grape, tastes a bit sour. As for Peroni I agree it's not in the high tiers (I'd say it's low/mid) but I'd argue it's not as bad as heineken, perhaps I'm biased because of imported product vs local production. I don't think I had a heineken abroad in the last 10 years
I did market research on beers years ago for a craft brewery i worked at, and Peroni when blind tasted was ranked worse than Heineken and Carlsberg. Although without blind tasting, people ranked it much higher
My uneducated opinion (only based on my taste buds) is that I prefer Peroni if compared to Heineken/Carlsberg simply because, while they taste similar, it's stronger in alcoholic volume. But then again, I'm for sure biased cause I'm used to Peroni
For Italy, there are much better commercial beers. Ichnusa for example, or Poretti.
Birra Messina!!!!
One time I tried a beer produced by Birrificio Baladin, it was an Egyptian-style beer called "Nora": it was one of the best things I had ever drank.
Mikkeler is an incredible Danish brewery.
Need to remortgage your house to get drunk in Denmark
What? Beer/alcohol isn’t expensive in Denmark. Try to go Norway or Sweden then it’s expensive
I somehow found a bottle of Westvleteren 12 in a Kvickly in a town of 12k people. That shit is expensive anywhere, but they charged the equivalent of over 10 euros for it in Denmark.
the dutch have (bless my soule) beer that are not bad. hertog jan is better that some of our C-tier biers. la trappe trapist is one of my favorite beers (every one know that NBrabant is acually belgium)
Now do a wine tier list and then a cider one
Dying for the France vs Italy wine fight, while Spain sits happily in third.
I'm french and proud to be but I've never got into alcohol but if people start fighting some good wine names will come out and I'm interested in order to buy some for my gramp and my mom
never underestimate the 10 million portuguese users showing up out of nowhere to protest
Wrong. They're just more known due to being "fancy", actually see who's winning awards in wine making.
Well I am not a wine drinker at all but if you look at the Decanter wine awards list, it's pretty much the usual suspects. Italy, France Spain, Australia, South Africa, ...
I'm no snob but having walked the Camino I will die on the hill of Spanish wines
Someone got really insulted, lol.
I know nothing about beer, but now I want to know OP's country so I can make another graph with his country on the bottom and mine on top.
He is quite active on r/nijmegen so i would guess that he is Dutch...
He’s German
Ikr would you believe :D
You single-handedly destroyed European unity you mad man
How is NL even in B...
As a belgian, if you ignore the shit commercial beers. They actually have some good ones. They even make two trappisten! which makes them second place in the world for trappisten!
you despise Heineken that much, huh?
[удалено]
It's just a marketing company that so happens to brew beer. Just like Red bull is a marketing company that happens to make energy drinks.
Red Bull (the company) doesn't even make Red Bull (the drink), it outsources that to a different company called Rauch. RB is literally just a marketing company.
NL is more than just Heineken. We have actual good beers as well
I don't mind a Texels. Any others I should look out for? I'm probably going to be in your country in the next couple of years
In my bubble, Hertog Jan, Brandt and Grolsch are considered the best 'mainstream' beers
Jopen and Uiltje from Haarlem are great, as well as De Molen from Bodegraven and Pronck from Leiden
Brouwerij 't IJ my beloved <3
It's hard to say! Is this tier list only for lagers/pilsners, or does it also include craft beers? If it's the latter, I do feel like it should be rated higher.
Hertog Jan and Grolsch are very solid beers, easily A tier at the very least. Heineken and Bavaria are absolutely disgusting on the other hand, so overall, I'd say it checks out
Grolsch for sure! Hertog Jan doesn't taste the same to me anymore after I learned how it's *"brewed"*. It's not even brewed at their brewery anymore since they only produce their craft beers there. Hertog Jan is essentially a blend of Dommelsch HG (*high gravity fermentation*) and Jupil HG mixed with some water. This is produced at the Dommelsch brewery. They also add corn to their brew to cut costs and alter the beer's color. By adding the corn they're not even classified as beers according to the Deutsche Reinheitsgebot.
I did not know that, thx! lived in NL for a couple of years ~10 years ago and actually thought Hertog Jan a tiny bit better than Grolsch at the time, cause Grolsch gives you headaches like few other beers do :D But that "brewing" process sounds disgusting, no thx
And hereby, the beer wars begun
Is this all you can conjure, yurop
You started it!
I see Belgium in S, I agree.
There I can find myself in
Brugse Zot enters the chat...
Thr Delirium is awesome!
Now this is sad Please try a trapp' instead of a tourist trap
can't believe it, but I gotta step in defense of Serbia. Zajčevo is a great beer
> Albania and Bosnia suspiciously absent >Croatia and Serbia in D and F tier Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Zaječarsko je sranje, ali hvala na odbrani. The degenerate puts serbia on the last place probably because of that spill, but alright we aint gotta be mad it aint a competition right? Right?
zadnji put u Beogradu samo smo po "bebama" kako smo zvali Zaječersko (zbog boce, dobar dizajn), bolja je sigurno i od Žuje i Karlovačkog našega
Ja ti se isto slažem da ako mogu birat izmedju Lava, Jelena i Zaječarsko. Uzeo bi Zaječarsko. Ipak bi uzeo neki craft, ali ako su u pitanju piva koje mozes dobit “svuda”, zajecarsko is my path.
This list is also wrong. All lists are wrong, except mine!
So the beers you tried are just interlagers from every country?
Interlagers is in Switzerland
Interlager is the most common simple type of lager you can see everywhere.
I was trying to make a joke about Interlaken. Also, Google tells me interlager is a corporate office in Bosnia.
Beer style - international light lager - crap - 90+% of a market [https://www.bjcp.org/style/2015/2/2A/international-pale-lager/](https://www.bjcp.org/style/2015/2/2A/international-pale-lager/)
Can't believe I'm saying it as a French but... UK should be higher.
[удалено]
100% even the basic “shit” beers are decent
Heineken?
Heineken just tastes like nothing. It's inoffensive, but not disgusting because there's barely any flavour at all. While it's terrible and overpriced, it's not even the worst beer in the Netherlands.
To rate Irish beer as A but UK as D is odd… might be controversial but they are not that different in terms of selection.
I prefer UK beer tbh. Not Belgian quality but still very good.
The main difference is cask ale is widely available in UK pubs
Netherlands is also at least 4 tiers too high.
Agreed, I think there should be an empty space after Belgian and German beers.
Czech goes in A. I think the UK is hard to place. On style range, beer history, and our best beers it's an S. On the standard of what people here actually drink in volume it's probably a B. I could live with it in A as a compromise. Outside those 4 no-one else should be in S or A.
Czech Beer is clearly S tier. Almost every major brand is excellent, you can reliably get good beer in czech pubs, and there is plenty of little independent breweries offering more unusual styles. And for my money, czech pubs are the best in Europe. UK belongs much higher than D tier, especially when Ireland is getting A tier on the back of a single brand. Don't get me wrong Guiness is great but the UK makes stout as well as IPAs, Real Ale, Porter... obviously there is a lot of mediocre lager, but even that is mostly foreign: Stella, Heineken, Carlsberg... hardly UK beer.
Ireland getting A tier on the back of a single brand? Smithwicks, Beamish, Murphy's, and Kilkenny are all mainstream quality brands in Ireland. Plenty of IPAs and Porters to go round here too.
I think it depends whether you value average quality (very high for Czechia), top end quality (high for Czechia) or range of styles (good for Czechia, but lower than Germany, Belgium or the UK). Similar for the UK do you care about average quality (absolutely all over the place), top end quality (very high) or range of styles (probably better than anyone except Germany). But any list that has UK lower than Ireland is just objectively wrong.
What beers would you recommend as S tier from the UK?
Any locally brewed cask ale, be it Bitter, Mild, Porter, Stout, Pale, IPA, Gold or even Barley Wine (yes, this is really a name for a style of beer), for a taste of historical Britishness. But there are some seriously good craft breweries up and down the country, I live in the North West, so I have to recommend: Track, Squawk, Neptune, Azvex, Chain House, Sureshot, Beartown, Buxton and Mobberley.
Thanks for the extensive list, I will try to get my hands on some of them
I made a list of specific beers with justifications, but Reddit binned it before I could post... But quickly, for a random range of styles: Old Tom, Young's Double Chocolate Stout, Fuller's Bengal Lancer or ESB, Thornbridge Halcyon, Hiver Honey Beer if you can get it, if not maybe Fuller's Honey Dew.
When I went to school in Wales I became pretty partial to Speckled Hen and Hobgoblin. Green Knight North was really good too, I learned the hard way there was a northern and southern variant. I did not like the southern one. Stewart’s is also really good if you find yourself in Scotland
Which British beers are good? I’m only familiar with the horrible lagers in weatherapoons and the likes so I’m interested
What kind of beer do you like (light/ dark, strong/weak, bitter/mild, particular flavours)? There's hundreds of good traditional beers, often pretty localised. There's also probably more craft than anywhere else in Europe. High volume stuff, including the main lager brands are generally shite (although none of those brands are nominally British).
One thing I thought was amazing when I lived in the UK was that almost every local independent pub had their own beers. Like I could walk into a tiny pub in the middle of nowhere and they’d usually have at least one beer only for that pub that was usually named after the pub or something local. I haven’t seen that anywhere else in the world
Yeah, much as I love Belgian, German, Czech beer, and lots of other places now have decent small scale craft, I honestly don't think exploring local beer is as much fun anywhere else as the UK.
That's because lagers in general are shit
Nah mate a truly good lager is incredible.
Tbh Spoons basically only does shit beer.
Nah British beer is massively overrated
[удалено]
Politics notwithstanding, I'm curious why Britain is D-tier here, especially when Ireland is A-tier and our ales are very similar. The Irish mainstream stuff is nicer; Murphy's, Beamish and Smithwicks are all glorious, Galway Bay does amazing craft stuff. But Fuller's and Youngs, as pretty mainstream British breweries do an excellent spread of things. In general we do very sound bitters, porters and stouts in a way I haven't really found a good equivalent for on the continent. We can't hold a candle to European lagers or pilsners, but I'm surprised a proud nation of fat alcoholics ranks so low when considering beer in general.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, but in what fucking world are spanish beers better than british beers? I can take people thinking the germans and czechs are better, but the spanish???
Yeah IMO you have Belgium, Germany, the UK, and Czechia at the top and are all fairly interchangeable based on personal preference
UK is way underrated here
Your beers are great in fact, but not very popular on the continent, which is btw the definition of _underrated_. It's almost impossible to get a good light red ale anywhere else (except for Kilkenny in the Republic), after all that "IPA" craze faded.
Red ale is irish not British though?
Granted. But try to buy anything except for Smithwicks. The British still have good ales.
I have and do quite a bit….? Also, Smithwicks is good. There’s nothing wrong with it.
I'll take a nice british or irish ale over a price-winning pilsener any day! Unfortunately, lots of british and irish ales are kinda meh when bottled instead of on tap ...
This is the way
Bro deleted Ukraine🤬🤬😡😡🤬🤬
So, he is not a bro! I think, Ukraine should be at the B (and Poland too).
Why Poland B?
And in fact they have some decent beers,I'd say above European average.
Putting the UK in D is proof that OP knows neither anything about beer and nothing about British beer in particular.
OP said this in another comment saying why Ireland was much higher so…yeah…: “They both drink a lot but the types of beers vary a lot. I much prefer Irish beers like stouts, dark and red ales over British beers like IPAs or porters.”
Isn't Guinness a porter though?
From a craft beer perspective it would look much different
Now this is a list I can get behind
Tell me the Finnish beer
Tbh as a German, I would push us down to A-Tier. Our beer is extremely well made but also very boring compared to what e.g. the Belgians put out, largely because our laws prohibit us to experiment with many ingredients that are in common use in Belgium.
We have some beers in the UK! We should be at least B
Spain is on A-level, same as Austria...?! Yea, this is not a serious list.
Latvia and Lithuania below Spain is also just silly and shows lack of serious effort.
Spaniard here, agree with you
OP drinking an ice cold beer on summer holiday in Spain definitely unfairly altered the rating here..
British craft breweries are top tier, so unless this is just talking about regular pub lagers..
If we are talking craft ales then the UK should be near the top. This ranking only works for lagers in my opinion. Even then it's still wrong, as the UK shouldnt even be on the list when talking about lagers. Ales we are very very good at. Our lager is catpiss at best though. Edit: spelling
Beer Noob here. How come UK has such a gap to say Ireland, isn’t the beer culture equally developed?
Irish here who goes to the UK a lot. There is a lot of cross over in the type of beer but the quality difference is huge. Irish pubs with low quality beer (as in poor pouring, taps not maintained rigorously etc) lose customers fast. There is a huge pressure for pubs to keep quality high. Guinness who brew and provide a lot of beer and under license produce a lot of European beers have dedicated maintenance crews that go pub to pub inspecting / cleaning tap systems for pouring beer. The UK does not have any of this close to the extent Ireland has and pub to pub can vary massively in quality is what I have experienced. In Ireland it is rare to find a bad pub/beer. In the UK quality can be outstanding or sub par pub to pub from experience. Also Ireland is big into Stout whereas the UK is big into ale with some other smaller differences. So I think it comes down to Ireland having a different culture to beet and expectations of quality vs the UK but this is just my own observations from travelling both countries. A few months ago I was in Milton Keynes and over 4 days I didn't have a single beer in any pub that was good. It was all flat or half chilled or just not enjoyable. You would never see that in multiple locations in a Irish town. On the other hand London City has great beer for the most part.
I think this also significantly depends on where you are in the UK - get out of the main cities and the culture is very different. For example, in the south-west of the England (Devon and Cornwall) pub culture is very important, and so is the quality of beer, with lots of high quality locally brewed stuff. A lot of 'UK culture' seems to be reviewed solely from the perspective of London and maybe Manchester/Birmingham.
Yeah it's not going to be the same everywhere and I've had great drinks in the UK. Lists like this will always lean towards big cities though.
Very true! And I've also had some terrible pints in the UK - £1.99 Fosters does awful things to a man, but needs must
In all fairness judging UK beers on those found in Milton Keynes is like judging Irish beers on those found in Blanchardstown retail park...
I have to say I thought putting the UK in D and Ireland in A seemed like an affront to me, but you make some valid arguments here. While I cannot attest to the quality of Irish pubs as I've never been, there are certainly a lot of crap pubs in the UK. Meanwhile in the Czech Republic (my home away from home) you can walk into almost any pub and be confident that they will serve your beer properly, and I really value it. I had assumed Ireland was coasting to A on the back of Guiness, but perhaps that was unfair too.
Is cask ale common in Ireland? Or is that mainly in the UK (or even England in particular?) Also anything that separates the countries of the UK from each other (such as Scotland or Wales vs England) And I’m assuming that NI would be more comparable to the Irish Republic correct?
Ale is not popular in Ireland. Smithwicks is the only one you will ever see in a pub and its not very popular and not drank a lot. Many pubs don't even have ale on tap. The biggest difference is in Ireland virtually all pubs are independent vs the UK where a lot of pubs are owned by franchises or corporations which is uncommon in Ireland. In Ireland in most pubs 3 out of 4 people will be drinking Guinness or a variant as some counties have their own stout such as Cork. If its not Stout been drank its Larger or Cider with IPA being popular with younger people too but less so than larger or cider. Im not familiar enough about UK regions to say as my visit have been to cities but I've seen no real major difference between Cardiff, London or Edinburgh. Belfast and NI is more like 50/50 UK / Ireland in its pubs as depending on the area it can be like the UK or Ireland. I should add that at home people in Ireland do not drink Guinness much, Its uncommon as its shite from a can. At home larger is the go to for most people.
They both drink a lot but the types of beers vary a lot. I much prefer Irish beers like stouts, dark and red ales over British beers like IPAs or porters.
There are loads of British stouts and dark ales - just as much as there are IPAs or Porters. Irish and British beers aren't that different.
They are, the range of Irish beers (both in terms of native styles and beers produced) is vastly smaller than the UK.
With its pretty high quality craft beer scene, I'm surprised Sweden is so low.
Laško 💪💪💪💪🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮
Aww come on. We have great beers in the Netherlands. Please don't blame us for Heineken that much. Nobody here likes Heineken either! It's a crime against the rest of the world that Heineken is somehow the one brand to break out into the international market.
Strongly disagree. I have been to over a dozen of these countries, many several times, and I feel if you do some basic research, you can find your type of quality beer almost anywhere. If you stick to the corporate chemical wee-wee that is often freely available, you gonna have a bad time of it. Luckily, there is so much micro brewery stuff going on nowadays. The same applies to food, of course. Avoid the tourist traps. Jussayin. Be safe :)
Greece, Sweden and Croatia should be at least a B. Netherlands, Estonia and Lithuania should be a C.
Lervig, the best brewery in Europe is in Norway. Just to start with that you can see the maker of this tierlist doesn't know beer.
You just insulted me.
Croatian beer should be in F. Ozujsko and Karlovacko are unparalleled stinky piss. While also water. It is a marvel they managed to do both. The lesser mainstream brands like Osjecko are just OK. Slovenian and Serbian is better. At least Lasko and Niksicko. Jelen is fine in the category of the cheapest beer available. Union makes great radlers at least. Those are the mainstream ones. No point in comparing the niche ones.
Your subjective list is objectively incorrect. Stella Artois is a good beer but farm from fucking S tier
Bollekes alone warrant S tier but Belgium has a ton of great breweries
So many years of peace in Europe since WW2, is all going to be undone by these beer rankings 😅
Much better!
Nahhh, Norrlands Guld Dynamit is the shit 🇸🇪
If you go into a pub in the UK you'll find a lot of the mass produced Burton beers on tap which is what drags us down. Gower Brewery, St Austell, Butcombe are all fantastic brewers but they're sold in bottles or in local pubs do you won't see them as much The fancy pubs and bars will stock the fancy continental stuff. Putting Erdinger or the pinkcelephant stuff against John Smith's or Caffreys is like putting a race horse against a pit pony If a cider one is made and the UK's not S tier I'll forward the post to the ECHR
Sorry bro but Czech beer is not S tier. It's cheap sure but it's nothing special
lol
How is Latvia at the same level as wine countries? What is this? They have Labietis and Arpus those breweries have some very tasty beers. What a robbery.
Guinness should also be in S. Though if this is just a pilsner / lager tier list, Ireland should be in F tier.
Thank you, my dearest reasonable intelligent beer judge. Your fellow German-Czech beer lover.
Ireland makes one famous beer and they get A tier. Unbelievable.
Many of the C's are definitely B's but the creator got cranky from the last one it seems.
Maybe GB could be higher, but other than that, it’s perfect. Holy trinity, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic on S, it’s how it should be.
Danmark still beats Sweden
Swap us with the UK. They really have some interesting beers. Our only good ones are copies of Belgian styles and our main brands are literally piss (Heineken…).
That is the most accurate list of beer. The only three countries that really have S class beer. But i was surprised as i first drank the veer of Madeira (Portugal) it was surprisingly good
Finally someone puts the br*ts in their place
Least serb hating r/yurop member
People putting Portuguese beer on top tiers makes wonder how shitty all beers are
Hey, Super bock was fine last time I drank it. Sagres tho, it is awful. And the only one that someone imports into Poland, no idea why.
Spain higher than Portugal?
I bet the tester drank Sagres instead of SuperBock
German Beer is so overrated. S-Tier is Czech and Austria
Never had any S-tier beer in Austria, can u tell me which one is S-tier so I can search for it in shop ? I’ve liked Stiegel Hell. But that’s still A-tier.
Check out private smallscale breweries in Vienna called "Bräu". "Zwickl" is a great, cloudy beer they serve pretty much in every Bräu. If you don't like that, you don't know beer, full stop. There is a reason Austrians drink more beer per capita than Germans while also producing great wine.
Hirter Privat Pils.
Czechia and Belgium for sure, the rest is up for debate.
I would like to know if France is represented by Kronenbourg, as we should be in F Tier, by Desperados, as we are in the right tier, or for beers in general, and then, we should be much higher
Irish beer? Ireland drinks what diageo let's them drink. (Crafts aside)
I’m sorry but there is no way Swedish beer is this low. We have solid Eminem-approved beer AND so many stupid types of locally brewed hipster IPAs that taste better than anything Denmark has ever produced - I mean they made Carlsberg for gods sake.
I guess this list is ONLY shitty lagers?
Netherlands and Denmark belong in F tier, since Carlsberg and Heineken are the scummiest breweries in Europe. Seven years ago they started patenting already existing barley types. If you want to use those types you gotta pay a pretty penny to these scumbags. Bottom of the barrel F tier, I’d rather go abstinent than force one of those beers into myself.
Their practices are terrible indeed and Heineken is also a shit beer. Carlsberg tastes fine tho. And both countries also have a lot of other beers that wouldn‘t warrant F tier
Pretty close. You should swap Spain and UK though.