I agree, there is a world of difference between micro-breweries and the large scale industrial brands.
It´s not that difficult to brew great beer yourself. I have some friends who do and i´ve been there to help out a couple of times. (with help i mean standing around tasting what they have made before)
Tastes amazing and is far better then any of the industrial brands.
Oh, should you ever find yourself in Copenhagen you need to locate this pub:
http://mikkeller.dk/the-bar/They have about 400 different types of beer. Lots of amazing and really hard to get beers.
I was there earlier this year, one of the beers i tasted was "sink the bismarck". If you haven´t heard of it i can inform you that it is the strongest beer in the world.
41%
Tastes like shit and costs way more than any beer has a right to. The only reason to ever buy it is to say that you´ve tried the strongest beer in the world.
So yeah, i´ve had the strongest beer in the world ;P