just purchased some Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley Wine and a couple 4 packs of their hoptimum. also some great divide titan double ipa.

New Belgium beers are my fave''s. 1554 especially.

Can anyone rec any good dark ales? Really only tried a few - White Rabbit, Tooheys Old, Guiness if you count that as a dark ale...maybe a couple of others (Had Viking awhile ago, can't remember if that was dark or not as I had it from a bottle) - but quite liked 'em.

Well, "dark ale" is very ambiguous a term and Australian beers aren't that known around here. You might find it easy to track down some Coopers Best Extra Stout if you count Guinness as a dark ale. Those who are very technical/strict about their terms usually don't include stouts and porters in dark ales, because... Well, they're porters and stouts even though they are also ales and dark ones at that. Coopers also do a Dark Ale, which is a brown ale and a Vintage Ale that's also pretty dark. Also a lot of the Belgian classics; Chimay Blue and Red, Westmalle Dubble, Rochefort 6,8 and 10, Achel Bruin and Extra Bruin. Don't really know how well penetrated Australia is with the big American micros, but there's Anchor's Porter and Breckle's Brown as well as Sierra Nevada Stout and Porter that I would imagine are available.

purchased a Deschutes 'Hop Henge Experimental IPA' on the way home from work today.

Just had a glass of this beauty today:



Allagash Black. Great, great stuff. Wonderful Belgian-style stout with a great mix of sweet and bitter, awesome coffee-toned aftertaste. Definitely one of the best 'unorthodox' beers in the Belgian spectrum that I've tried. I have a big thing for Belgian beer and would strongly recommend this to anyone with the same preference.

Speaking of dark beers, will be heading along to this even this evening, with a whole crew of friends.
http://garageproject.co.nz/post/20893519301/old-scratch

Not my favourite NZ craft brewer, but i haven't tried their darker beers yet. They've had tons of beer launches at that bar over the last year, some really interesting combinations.

Allagash makes some amazing beers. Their Curieux is one of the best ones I've had.

My personal favorite is Stone Brewery's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale.
http://www.stonebrew.com/sublimely/
Nice and strong, very hoppy and aromatic. I've brewed a few beers myself, and for my next one I'm probably going to go for a russian imperial stout, aiming for about 9% abv and 100 IBUs.

I've found that I much prefer wheat beers to ale beers. They're nowhere near as bitter as ale beers, which is the biggest thing I don't like about ale beer.

I have to say I'm an omnivore as far as beer is concerned. That is not to say I'll drink any shit, but I don't have any special preferences as to what kinds of beer I like. From stout to wheat, ale, red, whatever, if it's good, I like it. Recently discovered this, it's great stuff:

could be worse (and has been, many times)

Wheat beers are ales actually, ale is just a term referring to the brewing/fermenting process, and there's plenty of them that don't focus on hops (bitterness) so much. It's actually a distinctly American idea.

One of the better German macrobreweries, as far as I'm concerned. So yeah, it could be a lot worse.

Picked up a Chimay Red on Friday, I'm hoping it's good. I haven't had many Belgian beers (Aside from Tempelier and one or two others (Brugse Zot i think it's called? We have one of the glasses in the kitchen, I'm just too lazy to go check properly for sure.)

I've had a lot of different beer, mostly domestic and the popular imports - but my favorite beer is Stroh's.

oh definitely - warsteiner runs rings around becks and astra, to pick a couple of easy examples. warsteiner and jever are about as good as macrobrew lagers/pilsners get.

La Chouffe is great. We have a restaurant here that has a selection of Belgian beers selling it. So after my trip to Belgium last week I decided to bring back some (presumably short-lived) souvenirs. Apart from La Chouffe I also bought a Chimay Grande Réserve, Tripel Karmeliet and a 11,3 % Rochefort. Haven't yet tried those last two, but they were highly recommended by a friend. I tried a Maredsous in Liège as well, it's okay, a little bitter for my taste perhaps.

My local favourite:



Brewery exists since friggin' 1266. You can definitely taste that these guys know what they're doing, lots of character. Also comes in 1- and 2-liter bottles. Their regular Alt is good, too. Recommended to anyone who likes dark beer, but probably very hard to find outside the lower Rhine area.

Fitting name, then.

I really need to start sampling some good German beers. I think the last German brand I had was actually that godawful Wackenbräu (or whatever it was called, from some Hamburg brewery, I think).

After Mclaren Vale Beer Co's Vale Ale (an American style pale) last night, I've picked up a four pack of their IPA. Keen to get into it!



Update: drinking now (from the glass of course). This is an awesome, awesome brew. http://properbeermate.blogspot.com.au/2 ... e-ipa.html <<< This guy describes it pretty well.

Hadn't had Jever in ages, but since you reminded me, I picked up a few bottles yesterday, and I agree. It's good stuff.

Never could acquire a taste for Jever ..or Stuttgarter Hofbrau ..The Stuttgarter tastes like a shitty American beer imo.

I randomly picked up a 6 pack of Sam Adams Alpine Spring and was somewhat impressed by it.

The Chimay Red I got was a disappointment, was hoping for something on the level of Tempelier.

http://i.imgur.com/dLC8a.jpg

Dogfish Head World Wide Stout
Evil Twin Yin
Evil Twin Yang
Haandbryggeriet Dark Forces

Picked up these four in Illinois this past weekend. We can't get most of these in Ohio, particularly the Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, as it's illegal here. Damn 12% ABV limit.

EDIT: removed picture because it was unreasonably large/stretching the page.

Went to the Russian store and brought back a selection of Russian and Polish brews some days ago. A lot of it was very much drinkable; however, I also got a bottle of this:



I am told this was the Russian "standard" beer in Soviet times. I have to say, if this is what Russians came to think of as "beer", then I understand very well why they prefer vodka. Tasted more like some sort of pastry, rather than a beer.

Something I've observed about Russian beer is that it is almost invariably of the pale variety, but tends to be much stronger than most beers of that type from Germany, like 6% to 8% and more, whereas here, 6% is already considered pretty strong (obviously strong beer exists in Germany, it just isn't that common).

The only Russian beers I've tried are the "baltika" range - I might have to see if there's a russian store in the area.
Grabbed a couple of Einbecker Mai-Ur-Bocks today, gonna have one tonight. I also found a local store that sells a lot of bio-beers, got to sample a few of those as well.

Big fan of strong hoppy ales, quite like Shepherd's Neame ales like Spitfire, Bishops Finger, Master Brew etc. Also really like good old Newky Brown because even pubs with godawful beer selections usually have a few bottles of it in the fridge. However my absolute favourite beer is called Otter Head, made by a small brewing company in Devon. Simply the best beer I've ever tasted by trying to find places that sell it is almost impossible

I always liked Baltika beers, No. 9 is really tasty.

No. 9 is the strong one? I really liked that. In Russia they mostly had No. 3, which was OK.

I think it is, because it's their like chocolate/coffee black porter. Really smoky, and really thick.

Yeah, that's the one. Used to have a store around the corner that had all the baltiki, but it closed down a while ago.

Porter's the #6, Baltika #9's the bock-esque light beer. Both are around 8% I think. The Polish brand "Zwiek" makes an awesome porter as well

Ahhh thanks bro. Was going from memory! I had some Polish beer awhile back, and I cannot for the life of me remember the name (it came in a glass) but it was actually really good. I should delve into the Eastern European beer scene.

Zywiec's (pronounced "tsivi-etch", apparently) regular lager is amazing, one of the best I've ever had. The porter on the other hand was just too strong. After a few mouthfuls it became too rich to continue. and it was very strong - around 8.5%

Though I like that one, I tend to be skeptical of Anglo-American styles done up with Belgian yeast. "Belgian stout," "Belgian IPA," etc---I feel like abbey yeast is too subtle (or perhaps too fickle from a chemical standpoint) to really hold up under the flavor weight of large amounts of hops or roasted barley. Allagash Black wasn't an exception for me sadly, though I could pick up a hint of yeast here and there....for me the best part about that beer was the texture. Amazing what oats can do for a stout's mouthfeel. I had a chance to try the bourbon barreled version on-tap a few weeks back but opted for an obscure Baladin instead. It'll come around again I'm sure.


Okay, some recently consumed/soon-to-be-consumed beers:


I had the 2010 vintage a few weeks back and was recently lucky enough to stumble on a four-pack of the 2007 vintage (first bottling ever!). The 2010 didn't have the butter-rum candy that the classic has, but it did have suggestions of honey, peaches (of all things ), cereal grains, and straight ethanol. The 2007 had cereal grains coupled with raisins, caramel, rum candy, and a vague nut flavor. It tasted like an aged, ester-neutral barleywine, in other words. I drank one, have another to go, and I'm aging the other two; perhaps it will acquire the toffee-soaked almond flavors characteristic of English barleywines in a few years. Already seems halfway there.


I missed last years bottling, was anxious to try this years. Won't bother again. I like hops; I'm particularly fond of the spicy-pine flavor of Chinook hops as well as "the tropical flavor" hops. This beer has neither; it tasted like sucking on pine sap. Way too many early-boil hop additions, very acrid.


I had the 2010 vintage when it was about a year old; very sour with a bit of blackberries, no funk. I just picked the 2012 vintage up and am planning on having it within the next two weeks or so. The first release (2009) was 60% fresh, 40% aged in cabernet sauvignon barrels with blackberries, wild yeast, and souring bacteria. Every subsequent release has been 100% barrel aged. Even though the year-old bottle had just a bit of blackberry flavor left, I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to tasting a fresh one with more fruit flavor. Like this year's Lolita, the 2012 vintage is stronger than last year's (8% alcohol vs 6.7% alcohol).


It's called "Superbrew 15," it's 15% alcohol, it's the cheapest barleywine I've ever seen, and it's from Romania. I expect it to taste like a pile of utter shit.

Recently went on a tour through New York and Vegas to sample some American microbrews (actually work, but who's counting). Not gonna list them all, but here's the best that I came across:

Green Flash Palate Wrecker
Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye
Ballast Point Big Eye
Triple 7 Matt's Imperial Red Rye
Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot
Widmer Brothers Drifter

Also, brought a little home.

Tried this last night, from the Australian Mildura brewery.



Fucking beautiful. This is like desert in a bottle full of rich chocolately and vanilla overtones, while still retaining a lovely stout flavour. This is something you can quite comfortably sit on for a while, and isn't repugnant when it warms up slightly.

Excellent selection from last night:



I'm sure it's likely been mentioned in the thread before, but it certainly bears revisiting. Wonderful combination of wheaty/creamy Belgian-style amber with an authentic Kriek, so it's got a very noticeable ruddy fruit undertone that gives it an almost subtly wine-like character underneath the malt and such. Very robust and flavorful but not at all overbearing, superb stuff! I also happened to try Ommegang's Witte the other night, which wasn't as luxurious, but still a very choice white beer.

Nøgne Ø Porter is fantastic. One of my favorites. Slightly smoky and very smooth.

This is a great website for all you beer lovers:

http://beerproject.nengic.com/

It's a project a friend of mine is working on. You can find new beers, review them, etc. It's like the metal-archives of beer.

Isn't that what Beer Advocate is already?