American Beer Is Awful -OR- Taste Is Subjective

Some of you may remember the write up I did about Finland's plethora of canned beverages last Summer. My friend, Matti, was a good sport about it and had a good laugh. This Summer was his turn to visit me and what I thought would be a magical journey into the wonders of Northwest craft beer turned into something else. Not bad, but different.

Being the huge fans of local craft beer that we are, Josh and I made sure Matti would have the opportunity to try a little bit of everything the Pacific Northwest has to offer. Trips to Seattle, Tri-Cities WA, Hood River, and Portland offered up a ton of local breweries for us to wow him with. That didn't go quite as planned. I'll get into details later, but let's take a look at beers he tried and my interpretation of his reaction to them (worst to best):

Is this poison? I'm pretty sure you're tying to kill me

Full Sail Berliner Weiss

Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA

Deschutes Six Bullets Belgian IPA

Deschutes River Ale

Deschutes Chainbreaker IPA

This is awful

Deschutes Double D Imperial Spelt Ale

Deschutes Jubelale

Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale

Elysian Great Pumpkin Imperial Ale

Bridgeport Stumptown Tart

Full Sail Wassail

Double Mountain White Rider

White Bluff Dunkelweiss

I'd pour this out if you weren't watching

Deschutes Fresh Hop Saison

Fremont Bourbon Barrel Abominable Winter Ale

Hopworks Lager

Hopworks Velvet ESB

Double Mountain Black Irish

White Bluff ROCKtoberfest

Old Town Brewing Porter

Anderson Valley Boont Amber Ale

Negro Modelo

I'll finish this

Oakshire Espresso Stout

Olympia

This is really good beer!

Full Sail Session Black Lager

Full Sail Session Lager

I'm sure I missed a few beers, but you get the picture. My initial reaction was that I was kind of embarrassed. I had talked up how amazing the beer is here and he hated the vast majority of it. While the two Session beers aren't bad by any stretch, I never imagined they would top any of the listings above them.

But then I reminded myself that taste is completely subjective. While my version of this list would look a whole lot different, he isn't wrong. People like what they like and you can't really force that. Sure, it significantly reduces what you'll like if a beer that was brewed within a 100 miles (kilometers/kelvin/whatever) of a single hop is too hoppy, but damn it, they're out there!

So here's to you, my ale-averse buddy. The next round of $1 Olys are on me.