These rules are important and universal, so don’t fuck it up.
Resist the urge to fill every tap with one of your favorites. Your taste is probably not very good. This is particularly true if you’re a beer connoisseur or aficionado.
How important is Hops? It’s important, but not that important. It is as important as carrot is to carrot cake. If you substituted sweet potatoes, nobody would notice. Resist the urge to overhop everything.
This brings us to IPAs: No IPAs until you have three taps. After that, keep it to under 20 percent of the total.
Avoid hazy and unfiltered. The brewer is just trying to make you pay more for less.
Doubles, Triples, Quadruples: Just say no. Respect balance. If you think you need four times something, put four times the amount of air you need in your tires or or take four times the prescription, or have a quadruple bypass. Just don’t do it to beer. Or carrot cake. It has enough already.
If you’re opening a bar, having a party, whatever, choose your beer for what people like — but don’t choose Bud Light. In fact, never choose mass produced swill.
Say you’re opening a bar and have only one tap, what beer should you choose? You should question why you’re opening a bar with only one tap.
Two taps: I think Boulevard got it about right when they started their brewery with Pale Ale and Wheat. Something heavy and light. I would consider a Kolsch here for the light.
Three taps: If you insist, add your fucking IPA here. But, make it a single, filter it, absolutely no New England-style IPA. The I stands for India. Learn your fucking geography or convince me that the Iroquois drank this. I would probably add a stout. So my three would be Kolsch, English-style bitter and stout.
Four or five taps: I would probably have an IPA and a sour here to broaden the range.
Six to 10 taps: You can get creative here. Throw in a personal favorite, maybe even a barleywine. You can even add ONE more IPA.
More than 10: Respect the previous rules and go to town. Hell, add a double, a triple and a quadruple if you like. Just remember to clean the taps periodically so they don’t silt in.
It’s really pretty simple. Follow these simple rules, don’t fuck it up and everything will be fine.