I can't believe this simple, kind of stupid thing I did has gotten so much attention. I also can't believe so many people hate Stella. It's not the greatest beer I've ever had, but it's no bud light.
But this isn't about your attitude, this is about far more serious things: Beer. Leaving Germany for good end of this month and - well.. Israel's beers are f...ing (well, it's kind of on topic with your app, isn't it?) baaad. So my choice in the future, after being spoiled in a country of beer drinkers, is
* Local brand starts with G (Ugh...)
* Local brand starts with M (Really. Life's too short to drink that)
* Weihenstephan (which seems to be from Germany, but the fact that I never heard about it here gives away how decent it is. Seems like an export-only product)
* Stella
So - rest assured: You're not alone. If you remove all the better alternatives, Stella is really okay. Kind of.
I actually like G.
Also, in Tel Aviv/Herzliya you have good choices (Guinness, Kilkenny, La Chouffe and Mc Chouffe, Bischoff Dopplebock, ...[1]). Pubs that have many kinds of beer in Tel Aviv:
* Norma Jeane - you can find anything there
* Beit Ha'bira ("house of beer")
* James' Beer Factory - this one in Petach Tikva, kosher (opening times wise as well, so no drinking on Friday night) and actually doesn't have much choice. But they serve self brewed beer which is decent.
There are others I can't recall now, but I can ask friends.
If you want to go out for a spree with me and other hackers, make sure to drop me a line here or at maayan@maayank.com! :)
EDIT: Googling for it, Beit Ha'Bira might have closed shop. I suggest as an alternative Norman. I don't recall visiting it, but I've heard (and after googling, read) only good things. For exact addresses google for the names of the pubs with "Tel Aviv".
Weihenstephaner is very good and well known (outside of Germany).
For example "Hefe" is one of the best Weissbiers in the world (http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/weihenstephaner-hefe-weissbier/...) and certainly the best of widely available ones. Absolutely no reason to complain. Stella is only average (gets 18/100 vs Hefe's 99/100 at Ratebeer), but it is also different type of beer - lager.
Do yourself a favor: try different types of beer, not just brands.
I'm an Israeli living in Austria for over 6 years now & I honestly don't see much of a difference between Goldstar/Macabi and any other (Czech, Austrian - supposedly renown for their quality) lagers I can get here.
Seriously, beer is a working-class beverage: find something else to be a snob about ;)
If you find yourself in the neighborhood, the Golan Brewery (http://www.beergolan.co.il/english_main.php) in Katzrin brew its own, and they are pretty good. You can even buy some bottles to take with.
The 'G' and the 'M' are undrinkable, but we also have Leffe and Guinness which I find pretty good. If you want more quality choices in Israel you should consider switching to wine...
Europeans think its sewer water, and you have to wear (or be) a wife beater to drink it. North American's think its gold -- At least here in Vancouver, its usually the most expensive thing at the bar and people only buy it if they're really treating themselves. I think it tastes fine (not great, but definitely not bad).
That's not completely true, that would be the 1667 ("the kro") and other similar french non-beers. Stella is simply the base beer in Flanders (the base beer in Wallonia being Jupiler). Not good by any means, but still drinkable.
Stella's evil, nick-named wife-beater over here in the UK. It's stronger than Heineken and seems to make people aggressive compared to Kronenberg for example.
I won't drink it now after an incident one night where I managed to insult every person in a group of friends.
Stella in the UK is basically the same as Carling's 'chemical' lager, it shouldn't be surprising that the hangovers are so bad.
Most lagers on sale in the UK (outside of city 'mini-marts') are brewed in the UK and all seem to taste the same (terrible) and give me hangovers before I have even stopped drinking. We have no beer purity laws like there are in places like Germany either, sold out brands that are brewed in the UK like Carlsberg / Stella / Kronenburg etc are nothing like their native counterparts. The difference when drinking duty free (real) Stella is like night and day (but it does go flat very quickly). The EU just wouldn't put up with such terrible lager, us Brits seem to lap it up though. Another one is Fosters, we seem to love it, apparently Fosters is Australian for 'horse piss'.
In Belgian off-licences, even the 'real' Stella is relegated to the bargain bin alongside Juliper. They 'reassuringly expensive' advertising campaign is a total sham.
Imported Heineken, Becks, Budvar (the original Budweiser brand from Czech) etc. seem to be the only decent lagers you can still find in the shops here, rip off prices though.
Since we're on the subject of alcoholic beverages that taste better than your average beer, I'm honour-bound by my West Country upbringing to suggest some decent quality cider. I'm talking about Henney's Frome Valley, Weston's Organic, or (if still and cloudy cider is your thing) Addlestones. This is, of course, unless you can get hold of some proper West Country homemade scrumpy. Cheers!
Stella is the beer which snobs love to hate- because it's marketed different in America than Europe. (Note to self- don't ever let your brand fall into that trap)
There are few topics as polarizing and annoyingly superficial as which beer is "piss-water" and which beer is "good beer."
Foster's in Australia is similar. Domestic Foster's is so bad that we won't drink it. Foreigners seem to think that Foster's is a good brew... and they might be right, because Export Foster's is actually a different beer. Causes no end of confusion.
How undrinkable is Fosters? We had a '70s theme party once (Foster's is iconic of the 70s here) and I bought a six-pack of Fosters for the humour value (and copped some abuse, too). In the morning, every drop of alcohol in the house had been consumed, even left-overs in the back of cupboards. It was a hell of a party, with empty cans and bottle everywhere, and the punch bowl would have been bone dry were in not for fruit remnants. The six-pack of Fosters remained untouched, pristine in it's carrier in the dregs of the ice tub...
Budweiser in Australia is drinkable, though very much generic tasting.
Over all, Australia has better beer, but there are some pockets in the U.S. where there is some kickass brewing culture. I lived in Wisconsin for a bit and they do have a better drop than we do in the East Coast. I mean, Leinenkugel & Stevens Point both brew stuff that's widely available and very much enjoyable, up to bar with Boag's here in Australia.
I live in Madison right now, and I fear that I'm being spoiled on good beer. Between New Glarus, Capitol Brewery, Ale Asylum, and Lake Louie the selection is amazing.
I went down to Orlando for a conference not too long ago, and found that the only thing drinkable to me was Guiness.
When I went to London a couple of years back, I found that the beer was actually quite enjoyable, though I can't remember which beers I had while I was there. (More as a result of time rather than of the beer)
Hipsters are easy to disperse. Concerned citizens should sponsor four back to back shows by Larry the Cable guy. He can reduce any Seattle or Austin to a Raleigh or Jacksonville.
Moving into off-topic waters here (Edit: Erm, wrote it and it got quite long. Thought about scrapping it, but it might be either amusing or annoying to read. You judge): I guess I can give a very nice example for these kind of things..
I currently live in Cologne [1] (~1.000.000 people, west Germany) ~40km away from Dusseldorf [2] (~600.000 people, but capital of the state). These cities are the prime examples for rivalry between cities all over Germany. Both are cities that heavily rely on tourism, both are very much into carnival (one of the topics that are discussed to death) and both are _the_ place to be for (different types of..) beer.
Here you get 0.2l (i.e. tiny) glasses of rather light beer, brewed in a way that is even (as far as I know a first!) a protected regional trademark akin to Champagne. You can create it somewhere else, but you cannot use the name (a derivation of the name of the city, Koelsch [3, contains a reference to the rivalry as well]).
Dusseldorf is famous for (larger glasses, 0,3l or 0,5l) stronger (in taste), sweeter and dark beers. Not protected by law, but they are more or less _the_ city for these types of beer.
This leads to a lot of (mostly friendly) discussions like the one you used. In fact, since the local beer here is very light and served in these tiny glasses, ~most~ of Germany compares the 14 different brands of beer here to a kind of 'diluted water'.
It always amuses me (moved here, so I'm kind of an outsider) to see these kinds of discussions and I think like to be reminded (thank you!) that this is a global phenomenon..
