8 beer things I wish I'd known from the start | The Craft Beer Channel 

The more I’ve learnt as a brewer, the more I go back to the classic styles. They’re classic for a reason, right?

So right about the lager. 20+ years of chasing beer unicorns, and here I am on a hot evening with a cold Budvar. Magic.

I wholeheartedly agree with the local style lesson, I love Porter, for me it's an essential part of London's beer history.

YES, A better Pilsner/Lager is why I started brewing more than fifty years ago. And yes, I too have come full circle. My taps have a steady diet of German Pils or Helles, English Bitter, London Porter or Irish Stout accompanied by something Belgian or American that suits my fancy at the moment.

The most important video in beer history on RU-vid

As I see a lot of tourists and beer enthousiasts in our bar in Antwerp I am proud of our Belgian culture beers, and will always try to let people have a taste of my own culture first.

Wow, some of these tips were like a slap in the face, in the best way. Makes me self-reflective as a beer drinker. I've been into beer long enough to reach many of the same conclusions, or at least thought about them, but hearing you discuss things like "don't age beers" or "freshness vs storage" makes me realize the silliness of some of my subconscious beer habits. Congrats on 10 years, and keep producing good content and making the world of craft beer better!

Congrats on 10 years! Amazing. The channel is great!

I would add one more thing, and that is to regularly give a chance to styles you haven't been fond of in the past. We and our palates change and if I hadn't gone back to look for "failures" I wouldn't be able to enjoy some of the beers I love nowadays.

Great video. Beer quality has improved so much in the last 20 years and especially the time you have been doing the channel. So much more variety and high end beers. But also everything is kept so much better. 15 years ago I'd say one in 4 pints of cask ale tasted of vinegar in London now its more like one in 50.

Congratulations on 10 years. Have been a pleasure watching for a good part of it. 🍻

Thanks Jonny, you and brad rock! Keep it coming. Appreciate the honesty and always hanging with you guys!

Excellent video. Cheers.

I love this channel. Congratulations on 10 years and thank you for the entertaining videos and podcasts. I have learnt lots about beer and tried many more styles since I found the channel and your "a Year in Beer" book is a regularly used guide. My weekly Friday long distance drive is made just that bit easier listening to the Friday 5pm episodes.

Drinking my way through a selection of Braybrooke’s finest over a few weeks has been one of my highlights of this year. No dissection or beer knobbery required. Just an amazing product. Same could be said for Newbarns! No hype, just quality.

Congratulations on your 10th anniversary Brad and Jonny! Thank you for making the content to entertain and to share knowledge with us fellow beergeeks. Cheers! 🍻

Congrats on 10 years ❤🎉🤘🏽

Great stuff

I am 10 years in and I can't say I have a favorite style but definitely came back around on lagers and pilsners. Depending on time of day I go lager over ipa

Well done on an excellent 10 years dudes, what an achievement! Myself & a friend saw you & Brad at the LCBF quite a few years ago now, you were filming a segment with some other youtube beer channels (some of them may have been a little drunk & overexcited). You could tell it was a struggle getting through some of the segments, but despite this when we managed to talk to you later you were both exactly as you are in this channel. Bloody genuinely lovely.

Thanks for sharing... congradulation for your 10 years... hope a shiny futur for you

I’m absolutely hearing a lot of this, a really enjoyable watch. I’m still stuck with cask (esp. stout and hoppy modern cask) being at the top of my pile of favs though. Certainly noticing more pilsners et al at my local bottle shop so I’ll try to try more regularly. Want to hear more about this beer festival too, and have joined your mailing list

Congratulations on 150.000 subscribers 🎉

Untapped is the trip advisor of beer, as a Chef I take no notice of either. Eat where you enjoy and drink what you enjoy. Although my wife calls me a food and beer snob 😂. Great show as always !

HAHAHA - 11 seconds in and 'independence doesn't mean shite". As I watched & heard that comment, I was halfway through a damned good pint of Black Country Mild from Holdens Brewery. On business in the Black Country and thought I would pick up a mixed case from aforesaid brewery. So 2 sups into my first Holden's beer and you come out with that gem. Cheers to Hook Norton, Sam Smiths et al.....and Holden's.

Huge congratulations on your tenth anniversary chaps. It's been a hoot! One thing I wish I'd have known when much younger would have been to put aside a bit of extra cash for future craft beer fun and shenanigans.

Great honest video that really hit home . No beer is a bad beer if someone enjoys it 😊. We very often talk about how much food we eat can change beer taste . . Cheers for the opportunity to keep learning about this great creation 👌🏻🍻. Cheers Speno .

Thanks so much for the sage wisdom and advice! Your channel has been invaluable to my Cicerone study journey, in influencing my approach to beer journalism, and showing overall respect to culture and history surrounding beer! Cheers!

Great video, and congrats with 10 years! As a beer geek that can really relate to all these conclusions, I do think some have to be experienced personally at some level though. When getting really interested in beer, there is a period where you have to chase the dragon a bit before coming home to the local styles and pilsners with a more experienced palate.

Spot on about people from abroad being excited about UK beer. I was doing the Adnams brewery tour and there was quite a few Americans getting VERY excited about Broadside. A beer we can pick up in most Supermarkets that they simply don't have and such a niche style in America that they can only buy expensive imports in a few specialist bottle shops

I only use Untappd to keep track of what beers I have had. I don't rate the beers at all because you can have a beer one time and like/not like it, and have a completely different opinion if you try it a 2nd time.

Coming back around to Pilsner is not the end. But it's a grounding. The journey has been the thing! Have loved this journey with you guys. Keep it going another circuit!

Great video. Loved several points…Pilsners!!! …Your view on all regions are important and should be supported … and beer snobs. We have enough whisky snobs… Cheers to beer is to be enjoyed with friends.

Wise words

Thanks for sharing these Tips on purchasing a good beer 🍺! Will put this information to use today 😃👍✌️. Tucson Arizona Desert 🏜️ Beer 🍺 Drinker!

I love the greater appreciation shown towards good, relatively simple brews at a high quality. One of my main gripes with beer for a long time has been that many breweries tend to either make something way too experimental while neglecting basic styles, or, if they’re calling a beer a classic style, that they haven’t followed through and instead went way off (once ordered what I thought was a quite hoppy “German Weißbier” - it was more akin to any regular hazy citrussy IPA but just with a hint of wheat!). Sometimes you just want a high quality and homely beer with loads of flavour, not this arms race of innovativeness, even if it also has its merits.

The greatest lager or pils I've ever had will always be 4 out of 5 stars for me and never higher. They just don't excite me like a great IPA or stout can. They're solid, sessionable beers at best.

Best thing to happen to my beer taste buds was to join a beer of the month club. The one I belong to costs me about $65 CDN per month, you get 2 each of 6 different kinds of beer that run the gambit of styles. I am in Eastern Canada, probably 90% of the beers come from Ontario breweries, and are from breweries I have never tried before, or styles I would tend to skip over for the umpteenth different, but similar IPA, but we do get the odd beer from Greece, or the odd beer from farther west in Canada, sometimes there is beer from my own province in it. This month's offering has a beer coming out of the US There is always a good selection, and dates on the beer usually aren't an issue (as I have no idea how they were stored before getting to me) This month from the US we have Heavy Seas, Heavy Canon NEIPA, Powerhouse Brewing, London, ON, Lager, Lake of Bays Brewing, Muskoka, ON, a Wheat and a Gose, Woodhouse Brewing, Toronto, ON a Kellerbier and a Haze Red IPA. Decent line up that definitely will get you out of your comfort zone Now don't get me wrong, but I still love my IPAs, but when you are getting lagers, pils, Italian Pils (albeit Canadian made Italian Pils) which I have discovered I like a lot, along with the stouts and porters, and lots of other styles. It has opened my eyes. Not saying I wouldn't have had them before, but less chance to skip over them now. Of course you have to take the good with the bad along the way. The bad usually gets relegated to the cooking beer list, but hey, my 8hr smoked beef brisket and pork shoulders need some beer love as well!

Oh fudge off you guys. This was awesome. Congrats on being great for 10 years, Jonny and THEEEEEEEE BRAD.

1. Big ups for the love of true pils and big ups for the hard poor! Foam is friend and pale lager is king... 2. Personal observation: west coast IPAs I find best as fresh as possible with aging highlighting more of the malt character. HOWEVER, I've had some old (I mean 6 months +) NEIPAs that were still tropical and juicy

I have to completely agree about storage, I have managed to store some Session IPAs for almost a year and drinking it after all that time, it still tasted just as generically NEIPA-y as it did when I had it fresh alongside the thames, and 100% on caring about your local cultural beers, Cask is king.

couldn't agree more. I went to Bohemia House (in London) a few months back. Drank some Czech pilsner and made new friends. That's what beer is all about essentially.

1. "Pilsner" - good lager is good! - I am extremely proud to have been part of the teams producing two international championship winning lager beers! Two of my career high spots... Other beer medals have been won! 2. "Storage more important than freshness" - Some beers do require maturation to develop their characteristic flavours (as in lagering etc) - I was at one time a beer clarification and stabilisation expert and I feel that most younger brewers have far too little knowledge in this area! Only a very few niche beers need to be really fresh. 3. ? 4. ? 5. "Hype" - Is marketing by another name and as such should not be taken too seriously. 6. "Beer snobbery" gets you nowhere - never judge someone by what they drink - my take on this - in answer to the question " what is your favourite beer" - " I have lots of favourite beers and a few I personally really don't care for" - or another way of looking at it - liking for beer is like religion and politics there is not one that suits everybody. 7. "Independent doesn't mean shit" - I agree - there are "good" big brewers and there are "good" small independent brewers. 8. "New breweries" - all producing similar beers - sadly still all too common - I agree - too many sheep following the latest fad without putting enough of their own interpretation into it.

I got into beer in 2004 after an early life of being straight-edge. I started with craft beer essentially, and after three years of... intense study I started working in the industry. After almost 20 years, I had my periods of cynicism (had to quit the industry three years ago due to it), but like you mentioned, the pandemic put a lot of things into perspective. The channel has been instrumental in rekindling the complete joy of not just craft beer, but all beer. At 50 years now, you both reminded me of of a younger me, and I thank you for reminding me why I got into this in the first place. Come to Toronto some day! It's not as bad as people say!

Once again a "How you do anything is how you do everything" or "Getting to the universal through the specific" making for a great video. A lot of these points apply for my other hobby, drumming. Cheers/Prost/Na Zdravi!

That's some top-class Šnyt pour! Cheers to your 150k

Lager comments are 100% on point.

Great content and commentary. When are you going to put another homebrew vid up on your channel? Also what are you planning for your next homebrew?

Great video. I used to feel pressurised into having to like certain styles of beer by pretentious beer snobs. Lot's of factors define what people like to dink, favourite flavours, your pallete and what you can afford. I enjoy a nice cold crisp pilsner on a hot summers day, I have tried IPA's NEIPA's DIPA's etc.. after a while quite a lot of them end up tasting very samey, just different ratio's of Hops and Malt. At present as well as Pilsners I am quite fond of Sours or fruity largers, others may not like them but I am enjoying the flavours and tartness of some as it is a change from the generic beers. At present I cannot stand Stouts, ports or Bitters, but my pallete may change in the future and I may start to enjoy them. I am lucky to have a craft brewery in my village "Box Social Brewing" who I have enjoyed many of their concoctions over the years since they have started years ago. The "Newcastle Tap" bar in Newcastle is also a fantastic bar where you can try some amazing beers from independant brewers, well worth a trip to if you are up visiting Newcastle. Also pay a visit to "CentrAle" in Newcastle Central Station to pick at a nice choice of drinks.

Happy Anniversary! Have really been enjoying your videos for a while now. I've definitely come back to lager as I sit here drinking a homebrewed munich helles. On the independence matter I like to support them mainly as they tend to produce more bold and adventurous products and are more innovative generally. How many times have you seen a fantastic indi brewery get bought out and begin the slow but inevitable slide into blandness. Well at least that's the way it works here in Australia. Personally ethics are not a consideration for me at all, the beer has to come first. Cheers

Finally, a great episode...(joke). Congratulations, guys!

Blooming heck I was worried at the start of the video you was properly sticking your neck out but absolutely great vid. Definitely agree with everything you said brilliant nice work cheers 👍🍻

If I were to put these in rank order starting with most important, Number Seven would be at the top of the list. Everything else would flow from this. Ethics is the great head on a beautifully poured beer, metaphorically speaking. Thanks for a wonderful 10 years and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

I've never liked Pilsner and I never will. Ha ha. I'm an alehead. Thanks for the ten years though!

I would like to see a channel such as yours, in your efforts to increase diversity amongst beer consumers, do something around the inaccessibility of so many pubs for disabled people. Congratulations on your 10th anniversary

That is the word!!! "Beer is contextual." 90% not the brewers fault in my opinion, ok maybe less, it depends... :) Anyways you also named all the reasons, why some awesome breweries are just overlooked, great job sir!

Johnny was listening to your podcast and heard you were going to Chicago. Well you should definitely try to get to hop butcher for the world brewery. Great beers! And on the way home hit some breweries in western New York 👍🏻🍻🥴

Entirely endorse the closing statement. Social, not insufferable. And congratulations on ten years!

As a New Englander your point #3 makes me feel less guilty for usually going for the NEIPA. It's the song of our people and I'm just respecting my region's culture! Congrats on 10 years!

Man… lagers, was a stout boy went to IPAs and drink about everything in between but lagers just never caught me. I can enjoy them but I’ve never found the one that real got me. I love my cream ales for the hot days which is a nice bridge between ale and lager but I just haven’t caught the lager bug. Love the channel tho man, my favorite brewing channel by far. Cheers from sunny Oregon!

I never left lager. But happily have discovered other beers as well.

Like the never judge rule. Been drinking craft beers last 7 or 8 years and I can’t get into dark beers. I also have a friend who drinks cheap beer but just loves heifewizens. Funny how the pallet works.

I think untappd is a good tool but often misused. It can provide great feedback to breweries if a particular batch has an issue which is usually down to packaging or serving/storage and can be rectified quickly as a result. It can also introduce people to new styles and ideas along a journey, introduce new beers and local breweries and be fantastically social. It gets a bad rep because people can be disrespectful and misinformed quite often.

Happy 10th 🍻

I've learnt recently that in cooking and drinking. Typically simpler is better

I’ve gone from ale to macro lager to craft beer and finally back to ale. For me cask ale, when served well is unbeatable, but I also like Corona 🫣

Several years ago I got a six pack of Samuel Adams Black Lager (I don't think they even make that now) that were almost all flat but I drank them anyway. As I was working in manufacturing at the time, I thought the company might want to know about that particular lot, so I emailed them with the details. A few weeks later I received a $10 check. I called them at that point and explained that I drank the beer anyway and was just letting them know but they were insistent. I forgot to cash the check so they called me a year later and asked about it. I told them I lost it but really hadn't intended to cash it so they sent another!

If you can get it, Lager of the Lakes made by Bells Brewery in the States,It’s states it’s a Bohemian style !

The two that spring to mind for me are like you say, lagers can be great. Funnily enough it was a Utopian beer that got me back onto lagers after dismissing them since I got into craft beer. My 2nd is barrel aged hype stouts can be shit, just because there's bourbon in it an untappd has given it a 4.42, it can still be a shit unbalanced mess of a beer, same with tipas.

Come to Australia!

If you guys haven’t done a video on cold IPAs that would be cool, it’s a fun style that is new to me, IPA brewed with lager yeast and technique that produces a clean mash flavor with hops that just pop.

Great video! How do we do #6 yet still have a push for high quality?

Great analysis! Thak you for sharing it. Question: Is beer made for export to the USA 'hoppier' than the version sold in its country of origin? I have found of late that ales from the UK, Belgium and Germany have a more pronounced bitterness than I remember.

Great video! Lots that i agree with! I also love your side notes about head on beer. I hate the US pouring method of beer to the top of the glass with zero foam... It makes the beer look unappealing. Also, on your comment of appreciating the beer from your land, I find myself having trouble with that... I live in New England and am sick and tired of 8+% hazy IPA... Especially with how it's poured (see above). There tends to be more mediocre IPA than good, and when a tap list consists of 50+% high abv IPA, it makes me less and less inclined to visit other breweries. Otherwise, I feel like I have been through a similar journey with craft beer as you. I no longer follow the hype. I find myself looking for lower abv, flavorful, consistent staples from local breweries. I drink what I enjoy and I try not to piss on anyone else's enjoyment of beer.

Agree with most of this, but not on the 'don't age beer'. I find Barrel Aged stouts are well worth aging. Plus sometimes adjunct heavy stouts can age well - dpending on the adjuncts though. They can improve greatly over time. Sometimes brewers get the mix wrong on release, and you can end up with poorly balanced adjuncts e.g. one overpowers others. Or the barrel aged beers can take on a much smoother and mellow quality after extra time. But with time that can even out, and you get a much better beer. Very frequently i find barrel aged stouts etc are often at their best a year or so after release.

Not sure when I am going back to lagers. Aside from dopplebocks, I tend to prefer mostly ale styles.

What's this you mention of a festival? Details please. Great video, stuck in that rabbit hole at the moment but more due to having to diet. I've had a week off beer and I'm already starting awkward conversations with people in strange places. Going to treat myself this weekend though.

I’m 37. Drank lager since I was 13 and discovered ipas and craft pales very late in my drinking life at the age of 34. I just can’t drink lager anymore. I think maybe you’ve had too much of a good thing so your coming back to basics. Maybe the same will happen to me. But I just can’t see it or feel it right now lol agreed with all your points except the lager…. Maybe I should come back in 10 years and see if I change my mind. My big takeaway from what you said is drink what you enjoy and don’t think your missing out. ( we are probably spoilt for choice these days ) Wise words

Freshness is 1000% varied by style, brewery, and storage and serving and is very important. Some styles are great 6 months or 6 years old. Most lagers are good within 6 to 8 months. Belgians and other yeast driven beers are fairly shelf stable. You cant explain this. Experience, palate, and knowledge can only give you the experience needed to understand. Honestly one of the most subjective discussions in beer.

Jump the shark😅 what do you know about "happy days"? Did you know that is where that saying came from? Not picking just saying I'm really surprised that you may have seen the show in the UK. 1st lesson; absolutely agree. Home brewer for 6 years now, just starting to brew lagers. I did a Czech pilsner, found out what they're supposed taste like now I'm hooked. American hop water with corn syrup can go fly a kite😂😂 🇺🇸🍻🇺🇸 WV, USA

I could've told you years ago that Pils is the best beer.

Well, you lost me at #1. IPAs forever! 😛

Can anyone recommend a gateway pilsner? I have found helles (Paulaner) and festbiers (Augustiner) I really enjoy but yet to discover a pilsner that really does anything for me. Happy to accept this is because I don't seek them out and would like to be proved wrong.

Lesson 1: Pilsner is the best. Lesson 6: No style of beer is better than another. Great video nonetheless with a lot of valuable insights!

Fantastic video as usual Jonny. What are the ethical requirements that the channel endorses in order to work with a brewery? I'd really like to know. Best, Seb

There's a craft beer journey meme going around which goes on the scale of evolution and it starts with Lager and ends with Lager.

Tbh when I hard pour my glass will spill over, but that might be just be non-uk beers

You're spot on with that last point - the Whiskey Tribe lads have it right, "the best drink is the drink you want to drink, they way you want to drink it". And in terms of classic styles, for me, the best beer I've ever had is Augustiner Edelstoff, from the wooden barrel, in Augustiner in Munich. As a homebrewer, that's going to be my white whale...

Frank from Bklyn NY try a lot of l craft lagers and pilsners nothing compares to German and Czech beers

What - you mean we will all be soon drinking FOSTERS LAGER? HA - thankfully that CRAP is not sold on tap here in AUSTRALIA these days (not that I have seen for years and years). CHEERS from AUSTRALIA.

I’m sure West brewery was producing great lagers in the early days

Swap pilsner for porter and I generally agree 100%.. in twenty years still not got hugely into pilsner 😂 I try good ones are alright. But a great porter perfect for all weathers if you ask me 🎉

NO! I will not go back to lager. i started out with cider (obvs), moved onto lager then bitter and IPA's and now i'm very happy drinking dark beers in fact i have a few crates from black sheet of imperial stout and riggwelter to quaff. so again i say no to lager.

Sorry Jonny even though I live very close to Utopian I would always choose an IPA in preference.

To me, a beer snob is someone who declines a free bud light or coors light because they're not worth the calories. Nothing wrong with being a beer snob.

I like to call crisp lagers I-dont't-want-to-think-about-it beer. Because sometime... I don't want to think about it

Yeah yeah yeah we all agree with Jonny’s points, but why is no one talking about the CBC festival

Haha it's all cause your getting old and realize what's good. Beer drinking is a fad when your young but when you get older and realize you have a style you love, its what it is. You can love alot of different styles of beer for a minute like a cheap date but once you realize your style.....its on man!

I certainly wouldn't have you down as a beer snob Jonny far from it in fact. I hold your knowledge and Brad's too in high regard. With regards to 'aging' beers, there are beers that are specific for aging such as Fullers Vintage or Brewdog MMXXX which have long dates on them. Is it not worth aging those at all then? I mean I have a 2008 Fullers Vintage which I am sure would taste really good. Everything else in this video I totally agree with and have only jumped on the hype train once or twice and that was when Cloudwater started releasing their DIPA's v1, 2, 3, etc. I got off at the next platform though and have never ridden it again.

You say to choose the styles that my locale is known for. What does that mean if I am in America? Or, what if I'm not in a region particularly known for beer?