Not sure if you've been reading my posts or glossing over. there are a lot, so i understand if it's the latter.
i just told you how I was at a Goose Island event last week. I will buy Sophie, since it's an excellent beer to pair with chicken. Bourbon County Stout: give me (uninfected) bottles to purchase and i will. I still buy Pineapple Sculpin even Ballast Point sold out. and, from what i know, InBev has, so far, been very good to Goose Island. it's resulted in more product, including barrel-aged beer, being brewed, and it being available in Canada.
My taste profile leans towards one thing: taste. that's my primary concern. if McDonalds made an amazing product, i'd eat there more often. I don't blindly support independent stores or breweries, especially if their product is inferior. In Toronto, my beer friends know where I (audibly) stand on this point and I'm far from being a local brewery cheerleader. I spend more $$ on US independent beer than I do on Ontario beer because, aside from Bellwoods and the occasional beer from Great Lakes or Amsterdam, our local product is still bleh.
The term "craft beer" is kind of dead. no one really uses it except for marketing/advertising. what does craft mean? what does it mean to me, to you? craft usually means small and artisinal and well made. i can argue that most craft beer is not well made. Sam Adams and Founders and Stone are still craft (compared to InBev) but they're beheamoth companies. if their product reflects their size, i'll stop buying. usually with growth comes decreased QC.
Molson vs Fort Garry: you want to have this argument, then let's do it.
Molson has a sales team in Winnipeg. that's locally employed people. i'd guess that their team's size is the same, if not larger, than Fort Garry's team. so which is more "local"? it's your perception, and if seeing "Fort Garry" stamped on the size makes you think "this is local!", then cool. in the end, with both companies, money gets funneled to the people on top (or to their shareholders). on the flipside, using Bellwoods in Toronto as an example, i meet the owners and drink with them. and i am told they treat their employees really well. so Bellwoods gets my money whenever possible. Other local breweries, from what i hear, treat their employees poorly, have high staff turnover and pay poorly. so i avoid supporting them. one of them has a really dumb motto for their flagship beer that's horrible sexual innuendo. i'm not their target audience (and i don't like that IPA) so i've pretty much stopped supporting that brewery - and it's a 4 min drive from my house.
you cannot compare Half Pints to Fort Garry. FG is publicly traded and owned by a slightly larger corporation. Half Pints is owned (mostly) by Dave Rudge. a truly independent business that is truly community owned.
at no point have i said that i look down on posters and what they drink. it's your money, your palate, your gut. what i and others have attempted to do is present options that consensus says are better tasting options. if you're about to buy a burger from McDonalds and i said "hey, have you ever tried VJs?", would you call me a snob or thank me for the suggestion? same thing. how i see it is that some posters feel inferior to hearing this beer talk and, in turn, start to call people names and infer that we're something that we're not.
am i a beer snob? hell yeah, i am. i'm also a food and music snob. i don't waste time and money on stuff that's not great. so would i drink a coors lite? no. never had more than a sip of that metallic pisswater. i'd rather drink water than drink something that tasted like water and flaw. if you want to knock a 6er of that down, cool. if you state it's the best beer in the world, then i'd probably refute your statement.
so please, this thread's about appreciating beer and discussing beer. some posters are discussing beer that's not necessarily highly regarded or rated, and that's cool. there's an audience for that. others, such as myself, like to discuss beer that are considered to be more refined. just understand where we're coming from and why we like what we like and get excited about what we get excited about.
thanks
There are just so many beers to try and so many varieties/flavours/nuances. And I really enjoy beer and food pairing. 
