As a Canadian, this is an important question for me...

What are the brands of Beer around in Shadowrun?

Just by the title, before I read the name, I knew you were Canadian. Sad or what?

Peter

That's not necessarily so. Beer is a staple here in Wisconsin, too!

Um, what brands do you want around? I'd guess that is about what they have, plus the two cheapest and worst beers you have ever tasted, which have a 90% market share between them...

No, just an understanding of our Culture.

Eww... Northern Ale. AKA: Wolf Piss. And that's from my own hometown Brewery!

OK, let me put it this way. What beers do your groups come across?

Just a staple, well, that would explain it.

Beer Is Life here. You think Spice is important and must flow, you've never been in a bar that ran out of beer in Northern Ontario!

See, that just proves how unimportant it really is...
I've never been in a bar that ran out of beer in Belgium or Germany...

I have to imagine Natty Boh is still around, and is still just name recognition attached to rebottled Bud (or whatever the cheap brand of beer of the time is). For the most part though, cheap beer has been replaced with some sort of soy-alcohol drink. So the 'beer' would in fact be 'beer drink product'.

Pearl Beer, which apparently is only produced in small quantities in Texas, was featured in Lone Wolf McQuade.

Beers I would have to resuscitate if they were gone: Spaten Optimator, Franziskaner Hefe Weizen, Hoegaarden Witbier, New Castle Brown Ale, Guinness Stout, Troegs Rugged Trail Nut Brown, Spaten Lager, Anchor and Steam Imperial Oatmeal Stout, Lindemanns Lambic Fraboise (nummy desert beer), Hacker Pschorr Weisse, Brooklyn Brewery Chocolate Lager, the list goes on and on. Such a sad thing when a fine beer is no longer brewed. Beers I would not miss at all: Any Anheuser Busch, Milwaukee's Best, any Miller, any Coors, any Sam Adams, and San Miguel (the Phillipines finest, make sure you drink it in Mexico )

Exactly. It just doesn't happen in bars in Milwaukee. I do so love to try, though, with the 10 dollar all-you-can-drink specials that some of the bars around here have.

I cannot believe you rank Newcastle Brown Ale above Sam Adams Boston Lager! Sam Adams Boston Lager's testicles are exactly three times as large as Newcastle Brown Ale's testicles. When I drink Newcastle I feel like I'm drinking Japanese barley tea!

I was at a four day archaeology conference in Milwaukee a few years back. The organizers warned the main hotel ahead of time that they should lay in extra beer, "'cause we're archaeologists, see?" They said, "What? In Milwaukee? Who are you trying to kid?"

Five nights in a row we drank them dry of beer. Every brand. Everything. They were nice people, but you would think by the second or third night they would have caught on.

Peter

Becks, Flensburger, Radelberger, Holsten . . GERMAN Beers . .
i don't even drink beer, but even i know that american beer is . . bad at best . .

Hey now. Miller High Life is the champagne of beers! Still, I'd rather have a Hacker Pschorr.

Kirin 2.0

Newcastle Brown Ale has to be served at the correct temperature I will give you that, however and this is purely a taste thing Samuel Adams Boston Lager and every other beer they make is entirely too hoppy for most beer drinkers. So all I have to say is you know who did not have hops shoved up his nose I might actually like the beer.

Well, there were extrenuating circumstances.

Like a road that was snowed out for close to two months.

That's no excuse! They should have brought it in by helicopter!

As one who brews/ferments his own alcoholic beverages ie Beer, Ales, Lagers, Stouts, Barleywines, Meads, and Wines, I tend to be called a "Hop Head" or a "Chewy" brewer. So 95% of American produced brews to me are pig swill, and yes that includes Buttwiper, Swiller, and Boors. Or as those in the Land Of Oz say "Drinking American Beer is like having sex in a canoe......"

In SR4 I hope that the MicroBrewery types would at least be a option if not a growing business. IIRC there are alot of Microbreweries in Seattle in present day.

Hmm wonder what properties Awakened Brewing/Fermenting ingredients (Hops, Barley, Yeast, Grapes, Honey) would have...and any fermented beverage made from such would have....

In my games in Seattle the microbreweries are very popular and strong in the market place.

That is one thing we have not yet seen in SR in all its iterations is the 2070 version of a Brew Pub with full wireless connectivity. Hmm another idea for my setting.

I also wonder how many of today's present day Major Corporate Breweries are still in business and or been bought by who?

WMS

American beers are actually easily on par with european beers, it is only when you go to the big brewers that you get shitty beers. Try local microbrews or regional brewers and you will find that they compare very favorably.

Bruce: Hey Bruce, you know why American bear is like making love in a canoe? .... It's fucking close to water.

Interesting coming from one who does not like Samuel Addams because it is too hoppy for him.... But I disagree on European Beers being on par with American pig swill. We Americans are number one in generating vast amounts of pig swill beers, Europe has nothing on us in that category.

I enjoyed San Miguel Beer (Cerveza Negra), and San Miguel Red Horse.

Yes you can find some local and regional breweries or microbreweries, but then I brew my own so I can have a large variety of tastes and flavors in my alcoholic beverages.

WMS

and what is IN THERE?
in german beer, there are three things, and three things alone . . water, hops and malt . .

In the Big Three American Brews, you have Rice, Corn and Rye, in addition to the basic three.

WMS

Ah yes, so that's what Kirin is. I was wondering.

Yeah it is fun to hate on American bear, but really it's not like wine, where geography plays a huge role in the final product. The only real difference between European and American bear is distribution of quality. The poles are just as extreme.

Official Web site
kirin Beer

And the Wiki for it
Kirin Beer Wiki

WMS

sadly, even tho im from norway, i cant say i have much love for local beer...

so not all european beer is that good...

They changed the recipe after an actual kirin came by the factory, poked holes in their tanks, and urinated in them.

"Let's pour this back in the Kirin and make the world a better place. Bleh!"

@Stahlseele if you ever find yourself in Pittsburgh PA, I will gladly take you around to sample some world class american micro and regional brews. Troegs makes a particularly fine seasonal beer known as Mad Elf which is 12.5% alcohol per volume, definitely a merry christmas.

Some beers (and some breweries) that should still be around (dammit)

Belgian

Hanssens A
Cantillon
Wittekerke
Vlaamsch Wit
Brugs Tarwebier
Liefmans Kriekbier
Liefmans Framobzenbier
Charles Quint (AKA Keizer Karel)
Dupont
Wesvleteren Trappistes 12
Rochefort Trappistes 10
Corsendonk Pater Noster
Ename
Maredsous (8 & 10)
De Koninck
Straffe Hedrick Blonde
Delirium Tremens
De Dolle Brouwers
Hercule
Kwak
Grottenbier

German

Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock
Schneider Aventinus
Andechser Doppelbock Dunkel
Ayinger Maibock
Aecht Schlenkerla Fastenbier
Hacker-Pschorr Weiss Bock
Kulmbacher Eisbock
Weltenburger Kloster Asam Bock
Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Urbock
Schneider Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock
Schlüssel Alt
Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier
Plank Heller Weizenbock
Hummel-Bräu Räucherator Doppelbock

Czech
Pilsner Urquell Kvasnicový (Unfiltered)

I think that in Shadowrun most beers are close the cheapest beers you can find today, and made with soy. There are probably some troll-beers that have the same "taste" but are stronger and maybe some dwarf ale for the sheer folklore of it (but it's probably the same thing as the common beer except that it's more expensive).

@Chrysalis: Where's the Chimay?

Shadowrun being a Dystopian Future, I guess Northern Ale has gone big time, causing everyone to drink the Wolf Piss that it is.

LOL Soy is made from Soy Beans. Very little in those beans to ferment. Yes you can add Soy to a fermemtation mixture/mash, but the major ingredients are a not Soy. Yes modern day microbeers have soy in the recipe, but they are not in widespread distribution.

I like the German Law concerning Beers/Ales/Lagers/Bocks.

You can make a "Cheap" beer by using rice and corn like the Big Three here in America, they have been doing it for years. They just make a huge profit off it so it is not sold at "Cheap" Prices.

In a ADnD game of long ago, I had a character due his being the party's halfling ended up being the Money Man. He bought/married into a Brewing Family and bankrolled it. The GM was stunned at the amount of profit made brewing alcoholic beverages. I used spreadsheets to micromanage everything. The spreadsheets took into account weather, crop yields etc. The character was a major contributor the the Major Deities Churches connected with farming/brewing/Waste Recycling etc.

The amount of money made by the Big Three is absolutely astounding even in today's world.

I guess following the SR4 there should be Brewing Megacorps in SR4.

Miller-Busch-Coors aka MBC a AAA brewing corp.

WMS

Maybe not AAA, but AA at the very least.

...

*Writes notes about competing Breweries staging Shadowruns*

Damn, and I thought getting the PCs into the Cola Wars was going to be bad enough...

Chimay Bleue is one of the best, but so are all Trappist beers.

-Chrysalis

In Shadowrun I would think that beer beer is hard to come buy.

Soy beer is fairly common, but you got to pay good money to actually get the real kind of beer and even more if you are getting the "good kind." Most things you drink in SR are probably just fermented soy drippings and taste terrible... also it might not be good for your health in more ways then one, but it will probably get you drunk (and probably sick as well.)

that being said....

Soyweiser - aged to perfection

that or possibly wood beer.... hum....

Olde English tastes a lot like Trappist beer.

Maudite
Éphémère
Chambly Noire
Guiness Extra Stout
Watneys Red Barrel
Pretty Much all of the Belgium Trappist beers I can get here in the States.
SingHa

Olde English tastes a lot like Trappist Beer?

As for if non soy beer will be brewed in SR4, sorry the economics of brewing will keep non soy beer brewed.

Yes if you want something Cheap or Sorted try BuckHorn or Pearl, or a Jax.

WMS

Can you make alcohol from soy. Humans have made alcohol out of just about everything they can, and I can't think of any legume drinks. Also and correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't anything make from soy by definition not be a beer?

If it has a sugar content, it can be fermented into Alcohol.

And Soy Drinks are typically called "Synthahol", Soy Alcohol for cheapness, with artificial flavouring.

So you water down the Soy Alcohol a lot, and add in "Guiness" flavouring, and, voila, you have a bunch of pissed off Irishmen!

my guess is that most beers around now could be found in 2070 except something limited to a particularly changed area- like Coors, made mainly in colorado is SOL. But for example the brewey down the street in Boston or Philly or or Seattle will still be there. There isn't enough cannonical info on the Carrib league to say if Red Stripe is still around.At least our Australian posters will finally be free of Fosters.

Probably the houses in Milwaukee are doing better and in St Louis could be an interesting spot. Horrible as it is i bet the poorer American beers (Budwieser, Michelob, Miller, Schlitz, Pabst) might have seen a big resurgence as quality beers get too expensive and a sort of red neck/working class pride resurgence as AMERICA gets beat up on by the NAN CAS ETC.

and most are probably owned by ares via some subsidiary or other...

LOL yes you could "Mash" the legumes, but said "Mash" will need something more easily fermentable to get the yeast started. Legumes contain more proteins than starches. Something is going to have to break down those starches for the yeasts to process the simple sugars into alcohols. Generally proteins in fermented beverages are signs of a bad batch/brewing. Anything with a good sugar or starch content can be fermented. I know I have tasted a few of such.

As for what is Beer, in my Great State of Texas the alcohol content determines the name that can be used. Ales are stronger in alcohol than a Beer, Malt Liquors are stronger than Ales and so on. Hey I am not making this up.

One reason why a lot of fine Beers, Ales, Lager, Trappists, Bocks never get here, the Brewers do not care to alter/change the words on the Label due the Cranial Rectal Inversion of Texas Law Makers.

WMS

Runner Havens has FungiTek's brew, too.

Runner Havens page 144

Mushrooms have starches so fermentation is very possible.

WMS

Guinness is wholly owned by the Tir Na Nog government and is considered a vital national resource with rumored magical properties.

Budweiser is a subsidiary of Ares and is available at all UCAS and CAS military PXs, It has also been the cause of several unauthorized cross border raids by Azatlan troops seeking to obtain it as the knock off version produced by Aztecnology does not meet the troops standards, there are rumors that the company is employing several blood mages to correct the deficiencies.

Pabst was in the center of a vicious bidding war between CAT and Ares, though Ares eventually won they have had to find a way to off set the huge cost, they finally settled on a wide ranging product placement campaign to make PBR seem the beer of choice for shadowrunners everywhere.