Thoughts on Sours/Belgians

I've been thinking a lot this week about the tasting, and the wild ales that were tasted. It's almost like there is two schools of thought on this. It's weird, I love beer, like obviously, but some of the most highly regarded and most creative concoctions I just can't get a taste for. As I sip a Hopslam, I wonder more about what distinguishes it to people that love it, and to people that hate it. No one at the tasting enjoyed the wild ales, particularly not the Juliet, but everyone loved the hoppy beers. What am I missing on this? I love the flavors of dark malts, the subtle flavors of amazing hops. I can appreciate a good barrel-aged ale not like the next guy, but I just don't get the sourness. Belgian beer in particular is pretty popular. And one thing I notice about Belgian beers is well, they all have a similar taste...a similar taste in a way that across a style, tastes will be similar. Maybe it's that familiarity, maybe it's that consistency, or maybe it's the flavor. I've never really appreciated the Belgians as much as I did American craft brew, even American-made Belgian styles.On a general basis, I've always attributed Americans love for imports on upward-branding and an impossible-to-break hegemonic belief that American beers are mass-produced, mass-consumed swilly swill swill. And that is pretty much the truth on the matter, conspiracy theory or not, it's impossible to escape that image of American beer, and beer like most alcoholic products is an image product. When you take a step back from the internet-savvy beer geek, well its pretty much everyone else out there and some of them actually want good beer. It's up to us people to show them, and hey if you like sour ales, I really want to know why.