I have a lot of friends who simultaneously don't actually like flavorful beer very much and know enough about beer geekery to turn down ambers, blonds, bitters, wits, and wheat beers. They typically drink tecate or PBR or really any BMC-like beer that doesn't explicitly say "Bud," "Miller," or "Coors" on the label. Yes, the bay area really is that pretentious.
I find that Altbier, Oktoberfest, "Red Ale" (which is just what I call Amber Ale for them), and lighter-bodied and less hoppy American Pale Ales are popular with them.
Sometimes older people (40+) and non-beer-drinkers will dislike hop bitterness, but not know what that means, and assume that "light" in color means "light" in bitterness. On occasion, I can get them to try my porter, which is awesome and balanced and not particularly roasty. They usually love it and say "did you put chocolate/coffee in this?" and "it doesn't taste like dark beer."
That said, the majority of the people I know who taste my beer are pretty sophisticated beer-drinkers and tend to prefer my IPAs, Black IPAs, Porters, and Trappist Styles. It is fairly rare for anyone to find my Kölsch, Altbier, Bitter, or Amber Ale offensive, as well.
Topic: Beers for the non-craft drinker (Read 7279 times)
