New twist on the "best beer" question

[Joel]

Say you want to give a brief beer tutorial to somebody
who is interested in beer but only knows whatever style
is most popular in your country/region (e.g., for the USA,
light lager). Assuming you have access to any beers you
like, and picking a semi-arbitrary number, what five beers
would you use to help demonstrate the range of styles and
flavors beer can have?
I have my own idea, but would be interested in seeing
what others have to say.

[Joel]

dgs <dgs1300@gee-mail.com> wrote:
>Joel wrote:
>> Say you want to give a brief beer tutorial to somebody
>> who is interested in beer but only knows whatever style
>> is most popular in your country/region (e.g., for the USA,
>> light lager). Assuming you have access to any beers you
>> like, and picking a semi-arbitrary number, what five beers
>> would you use to help demonstrate the range of styles and
>> flavors beer can have?
>
>This almost sounds like naming BJCP commercial examples for given
>styles. And there's the rub: there are so **** many styles, I'd
>find it hard to do what you propose with just five. You'd do well
>with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Guinness Stout, Victory Prima Pils,
>Schneider Weisse, and Westmalle Dubbel, but you'd still wind up leaving
>out so much. Tough call, hmm? You still have abbey triple, a whole
>range of lambic-based beers, one-offs like Orval, German Bock and
>Doppelbock, amber lagers, porter, and on and on...

True, but this would just be an introduction. Obviously
five tastes of beer won't run the full gamut, but it's a
start. The kind of thing that sparks my interest in giving
people a gentle push down the road of beer education is
hearing people say things like "I don't like beer; I tried
it once and it was awful."