What's the best beer then?

For British beer, I have a ridiculous bias towards Caledonian Breweries, cause not only do they have such yummy beer, but such pretty bottles. And all named after random Scots things as well. So you have BURNS ALE and FLYING SCOTSMEN RUBY RED and things like that. Highly yummy.

For American beer the only drinkable thing is Brooklyn. They make a lovely lager, an amazing ale, an incredible India Pale Ale, and the KING of Brooklyn, the superb Chocolate Stout.

However, country holding the title for yummiest beers would have to be the Netherlands, especially for their wheat beers. (leave those horrid Belgian fruit beers alone!) Hoegaarden rocks my world. Orangeboom is lovely, too. But the best has to be the double and triple brews- there's one called Kasteel or something like that which, surely, is ambrosia in beer form.

Ally would hate every single beer I have mentioned, but then again, Ally is wrong.

Gambrinus lager was really nice in Prague too.

Stones is very good when it is good though. Orange is a good colour for a beer label.

I love Belgian beer, speshly Chimay (rouge et bleu).

Of British beers, I really go for Cameron Strongarm and Wadworth Farmer's Glory. I used to really like ABC, but they don't brew it anymore.

Gambrinus can be found in the odd London pub. I suggest The Lord John Russell on Marchmont St near Russell Square for lovers of this Czech beauty. Other European lagers of note are the aforementioned Oranjeboom (the Trotwood or De Hems) - though the current laughable attempt to rehabilitate Lowenbrau is a step too far. British lagers - only one reigns supreme: Youngs Pilsner.

As for Ales, well the Green King IPA is just nudged out of best summer drink by Flowers IPA (though the former is more reliably kept in Green King pubs). Pride can be lip smacker if on, if off its rank. The three Morrells bitters are all pretty good too - especially Varsity. Oh and Black Sheep is a nice one (blagged shed loads at a trade fair a while back so I might be biased). Tim's your man for this one anyway.

Belgium =- Chimay to me. Especially out of the wine bottles with authentik cork popping action. 9% is mey favourite. And De konnick of course - but I do have a soft spot for Cherry beers when alcopops are not an option.

Beers around the world? Tsing Tao is lovely, as is Asahi - but both seem best with food (which is admittedly where I normally have it).

Budweiser = King Of Beers / Budvar = Beer Of Kings. Which would you prefer.

I love guinness, but if I'm honest but any beer I get for free instantly becomes the best beer.

Budvar. Oh, man. I went to this club in Brighton (I think) - cramped, dark, lots of red, big signs over the bar. One said, in big letters, BUDVAR. Ooo, sounds exotic. So I order one. Never mind asking what Budvar actually is - I'm a loner, Dottie, I'm a rebel. (I have no idea where that line is from, by the way.)

God damn it, I hate beer. How the hell did this concept of "beer" develop, anyway? "Gosh, if you soak wheat & barley in water under pressure, it fucks you up righteous like! Kick ass!"

I do have a very soft spot for Sapporo and Kirin, though. Ah, college...

(Cue the awful taglines from a commercial thread...)

Baseball = chewing tobacco.

I sez: "It's the title of a song by the Get Up Kids."

I stand by my Coronas. Molson's good tü. Never cared much for the Brooklyn Brewery stuff. I always thought it just tasted like Coors, ergo "Shit."

And before that, it was a line from Pee Wee's Big Adventure...

If it was possible to hug pubs, I wd hug the Head of Steam.

pbr because i can have THIRTY of them for THIRTEEN BUCKS!

Per Ian's post above, like Rogue Dead Guy, but I had a couple Rogue Junipers on draft recently, and they were very tasty.

Hofbrau Original is my new favorite.

this, absolutely. i wish i could get it here.

runners up: paulaner original, pilsner urquell, spaten
honorable mention: bass, harp, newcastle, smithwick's.
best cheap beer: pbr

we should get develop a catch-all beer thread to make up for the 5 or 6 threads out there...

but in any case, i tasted a pretty insane stout this weekend (and extremely well-balanced one, for a big stout like this):

founders breakfast stout:

http://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.59.2/t.gif (not my photo)

weird, didn't show up. anyways it has a baby eating a bowl of oatmeal or something on the bottle, it's a thick, black, opaque stout that's brewed with coffee, chocolate, and oatmeal

Duvel is a perennial favorite.

any if you Nashville folk tried the Yazoo beers? I dig the ESB and the pale ale a lot. They won some big award for their Hefeweizen, but it was prob my least favorite of the bunch. Brewmaster L1nus is first cousins with one of my oldest bros.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_nXTU8U2MRaQ/RYlsjS5X4GI/AAAAAAAAADQ/JeWLwk0tNSA/s1600-h/Founders_Breakfast_Stout.jpg

grr

i have been digging the sour ales as of late, but they are def a love/hate sort of thing. also less satisfying in the winter death freeze.

leinenkugels' honey weisse is pretty pointless, or perhaps I should say it has a lot of "drinkability"

+ thanks to bud light admen for giving me a new term to describe the degree of similarity between a beer and a glass of tap water

I finally figured out what a "session beer" means.

harp is fucking disgusting! omg how can someone say harp...

no idea, takes all kinds

Schneider Aventinus Weizenbock is the answer to the original question AFAIC. Weisse-style mouthfeel, light enough to drink during the summer but has a hint of cloves at the finish that makes it perfect for right now. 8% abv but you don't taste it. You know that Snoop and Dre video where they are at the house party and some guy opens the fridge and it is filled with 40s? I want to do the same with this beer.

this list is kind of lame but it's partly inspired by drinking nostalgia... the beers that hold that subjective "best" place are pretty much all from my o.g. boozing days

wheat: paulaner dunkel weizen
pale ale: bell's
amber: bell's
brown: bell's
stout: so many of these taste the same to me... something something oatmeal something
lager: leinie's original

I almost never drink stout, but a few of us had the Left Hand Milk Stout last weekend, which is v. drinkable.

rotating top 10:

01. Grimbergen (Belgian)
02. Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout
03. Spaten Optimator
04. Guinness or Muphy's*
05. Bell's Two-Hearted
06. Dogfish Head - the one with raisons
07. Delerium Tremens
08. Red Hook ESB
09. Bell's Porter
10. Fat Tire amber (from Colorado)

*only if fresh from the brewery (i.e. made earlier that day & delivered to a local pub in Dublin or Cork respectively)

also just wanted to say how happy I am to see that Bell's is making such a strong showing on this poll. K-zoo reprazent!

poll thread

I've also gotta mention the very refreshing Bell's, since I went to school in Kalamazoo, where it's brewed. Kzoo represent!

― jaymc., Thursday, April 3, 2003 9:38 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol appropriate. i did not see that. did you go to WMU or K.College jaymc? I went to KVCC for my freshmen year, but transferred to UM after that. I still return to Kzoo and visit friends on occasion, and invariably spend some time at the Bell's brewery while doing so. Love that place dearly.

I went to K College. The funny thing is that I didn't turn 21 until March of my senior year, so I've actually spent more time at the brewery on return trips than I ever did when I was a student. Beer on tap there is delicious, and so cheap, too.

y exactly. I was never able to go the brewery when I lived there - just when I went back for visits. I actually spent the first few rounds of my 21st birthday there.

rotating cast at the moment:

dogfish head pangaea,
dogfish head palo santo marron,
leinenkugel's fireside nut brown,
cooper's sparkling ale,
paulaner hefeweizen or schneider weisse or weihenstephaner,
sam adams winter lager

think I've mentioned it but the coney island albino python was really good, I hope we see it again but I kind of doubt it

schneider weisse is really good.

for me right now

hoegaarden or that white kronenberg
paulaner wheatbeer and their lager isn't bad either
innis & gunn oak aged beer
and oddly I like heineken in the UK as far as pub beer goes. In Dublin it's a diff brew which is one of my most loathed lagers, but apparently it was relaunched here as a different brew with new taps etc. pretty good stuff.

Lately for me:

Leffe Blond
Alaskan IPA / Deschutes Inversion IPA (my usual defaults)
Rogue Yellow Snow
Oaked Arrogant Bastards
Great Divide Hibernation
Unibroue Fin Du Monde
Cans of Olympia

KIRIN ICHIBAN.

I thought ILX wasn't started until August '00

The most drinkable ones I'm on right now:

Sam Adams Winter Lager (it's everywhere, but it's damn good, slightly hoppy and bitter, kinda spicy, very woody)
Red Hook ESB (solid all around)
Rogue Dead Guy (I bought it by the jug at the beer store)
Full Sail LTD (I don't know the details behind this one but it's so damn drinkable, not too bitter, I want to have gallons and gallons of it)
Most anything by the Dogfish guys

hmmm, weird, I think Ally's post is actually the first post of the thread...and hurting's post is actually from sometime later? Maybe something wrong with the db or something?

2nite i have had

bomber of Rogue Brutal Bitter
2 tallies of Surly Furious

regarding beer, I just finished a six pack of New Belgium's 2 Below, which was pretty good. Lots of crazy hop flavor, not a lot of bitterness. I'm looking for some good xmas/winter brews, if anybody has any good recs. Liked the goose island mild winter ale a lot, though I kind of want something less, uh, mild.

hmmm, weird, I think Ally's post is actually the first post of the thread...and hurting's post is actually from sometime later? Maybe something wrong with the db or something?

If I'm not mistaken, a couple of years ago there was this weird thing for a few hours where everyone's post was backdated to June 26, 2001. Maybe it also fucked with threads that were actually started on that date.

for some reason i've been gravitating towards heineken when no smaller brew strikes my fancy (mainly if i'm not in the mood for a pale ale of some sort) and whenever i decide to buy heineken before i got to the liquor store, i feel good about myself because it's a big brew and will be cheaper but then i remember that it's actually like... $9 for a six pack because it's an "import" - shit is so fake!

(i still buy the heineken anyway)

bud >>>>>> heineken!

idk! i'm okay with bud but i think it tastes weird out of bottles. kind of poisonous. and i'm in missouri, we'ere supposed to fuck w budweiser exclusively but idk :-/