I really don't mean to come off as snobbish, but, what kind of beer is worth drinking that comes in 18 packs? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything but cans of alcoholic water in that configuration.
I'm an avid craft beer drinker that is involved in home brewing as well as trading. I've had word class beers in my fridge sitting next to a 30 pack of Beer 30. Beer is beer is beer. People drink what they like, and not everyone likes Heddy Topper/Westy 12/KBS/etc.
The question wasn't meant for people to justify or apologize for their choice of beer.
Despite its (unavoidable?) snobbishness, it really was the bare question itself, "what kind of beer that comes in 18 packs is worth drinking?" A few responses actually answered that; "beer that I can, or choose to, afford" was the essence of many of those. Or "because I like it" were some others.
Interesting, and probably not surprising, that most responses addressed the snobbishness behind the question, and that was as valuable to me as the responses that addressed the question.
Optimising every aspect of your life like that has rapidly diminishing returns. Before too long you end up like that one guy writing blogs about your bespoke fucking japanese spoons or whatever it was.
Pick a few things and maximise those. Presumably the guy buying the 18 pack of beer chose something else.
You're factually correct that it is like premature optimizing code, but it is a hobby for quite a few people to optimize their lives. Others collect money. Some friends do board games. Or sport. (Personally, I spend a lot of time learning about some odd interests.)
There is no such thing as "right" when it comes to the subjective world of taste (whether food or beer). There are only snobs that claim there is a "right" and everybody else who enjoys what they like regardless of the snobs.
Do you optimize your choice of cups? Of USB cables? Brake fluid in your car? How far do you go to get the perfect sugar?
I get my olive oil from an electrical hardware store around the corner from where I work - http://mroliveoil.com/page19.htm - how far do you go to get yours?
Lots of things are worth doing - often unavoidably so - but that doesn't mean you need to optimize each and every one of them until they're "right".
>Do you optimize your choice of cups? Of USB cables? Brake fluid in your car? How far do you go to get the perfect sugar?
No, I don't "optimize" everything, but I do optimize a lot of stuff. If you like beer enough to consume 16 cans a week, then it sounds like something worth optimizing.
In general most things diet related are quite important to leave to chance. And if fun is involved too, then optimizing them can be fun too. You don't have to be OCD about it, just to try different brands and experiment.
>I get my olive oil from an electrical hardware store around the corner from where I work how far do you go to get yours?
Hmm, that's a bad example, as we value olive oil very much in my country, so I even have my own olive trees and produce my oil in cooperation with the village mill. Well, my parents do at the moment, as I live abroad now.
Cups and USB cables are tools, a means to an end. (I do buy fancy sugar, because I bake as a hobby). Beer is supposedly something you do for fun - it's not like it's nutritious - and if you're just drinking to fit in or using it as a way to get drunk, you might have a problem.
4, 6 and 12-packs are just as inconvenient if you're hopping on the subway to head home. Even if they aren't as bulky, they can still be plenty heavy if you can't grab a seat or if the floor is too nasty to put stuff on.
Plenty of good session beers are coming in 12 packs these days too.
Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, and Blue Moon can come in large packs. I know I've gotten 24 packs of those, along with some much more local brews that aren't nationally distributed.
But if you're talking about American beer overall, Budweiser is much more common and therefore a better indication of mass-market American culture.
I think that was his (snobbish) point - only mass-produced domestic beer like Bud or Miller is in boxes of 18. Everything else seems to be boxes of 6 or 12.
But that's just not true. In the NE, I can get Smuttynose, Harpoon, Long Trail, Sam Adams, etc in 18 and 24 pack boxes. I have difficulty imagining it's that different for the rest of the country. And whatever you think of those beers, they're certainly not of the Bud/Miller variety.
you can pick up high quality microbrews at pretty much any decent grocery store these days so i'm not sure where your sense of superiority is coming from.
I really don't mean to come off as snobbish, but, what kind of beer is worth drinking that comes in 18 packs? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything but cans of alcoholic water in that configuration.