Since this is The Tavern this topic seems fitting. What is the best beer you've ever had? What's your favorite style (IPA, Porters, Lagers, Barleywine etc.) or favorite breweries?

Since the town I live consists mainly of taste-deprived asswipes most of my selection is limited to SHITTY American beers. The blessed exceptions are Arrogant Bastard Ale, Stone IPA (my favorites) and Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA. If any of you know these beers you can guess I'm a fan of hops although I do love me some black-as-night porters when the winter gets especially brutal. The best beer I've ever had has to be Arrogant Bastard (not because it's the only good beer available to me). Nice amount of hoppy flavor with just enough darkness to take some of the edge off. I can drink this beer anytime and if I had the money I'd drink it all the time.

PS If you're going to say that Coors, Budweiser, Natural Ice etc. are your preference let me ask ahead of time: What the hell is wrong with you?

I agree that beers like coors lite are horrible. Some beers I like are Guiness, McEwans and Sol. Quebec always has good beers like St.Ambrose and Griffon. When I was traveling in Estonia I was exposed to some really beers like Paul Aners and Hellhunt.

my favorite beer is Sam Jackson. it'll get you drunk! you'll be fucking fat chicks in no time!


we've got another one of these around here, but nothing wrong with more beer in 'The Tavern.' i haven't tried Arrogant Bastard but i've heard great things, and a local craft brewery just opened up locally so i'm happy. anyone catch that show Brewmasters yet on Discovery?

Just did my weekley beer run today and came back with

Lucky Bastard: Picked up two of these since they are getting hard to come by. It's Stone Brewery's 13th anniversary offering and is a combination of 'oaked arrogant bastard', 'arrogant bastard' and 'double bastard'.

Dogfishhead Pangea: A beer made with one ingredient from every continent. Heavy ginger flavor, but all around pleasent lighter ale. Last bottle I had was a 2009, this is a 2010, I'm curious to see if the flavor profile is a bit different.

Dogfishhead Rasion d' Extra: Anyone who knows a bit about craft beers in the states will know this one is a little hard to come by. Clocking in at 18% abv its much closer to drinking a wine than a beer. A shit ton of fig and raison flavor, and nice to sit back and sip. It was a limited release in 2007 and somehow I came across three of these bottles. Not to worry though, I hear they might be brewing it again for next year.

Sam Adams Infinium: I don't know much about this one. It's made from the four tradition beer ingredients as regulated by German beer laws, and it launched last night. When I saw my local package store already had stock, I just had to grab one.

I really do enjoy almost all types of beer with strong ales, IPAs, barley wines and the other more extreme fair being my favorites.
Oh, and all of you NEED to try Rouge's 'Double dead guy ale' if you have not already.

since we're all so satanic and stuff I'll throw in this one:

Brouwerij De Molen Hel En Verdoemenis 666 (Brewery The Mill Hell And Damnation 666)


a very tasty imperial stout, black as fuck with hints of coffee, dark chocolate and liquorice. for this 666th brew the brewer threw a load of oak woodchips which have been soaking in cognac into the kettle. however, by now this beer must be very hard to get, sadly. but hey, at least I've got a 75cl bottle numbered 001 sitting in my room, which will not be opened before the year 2035, according to the brewer it can be stored and aged that long easily

hahahaha thats a wrap on this topic for me!!

Great show. I was very happy to hear the show would be following the DogfishHead brewery, and I must say that every episode so far has been awesome. A must watch if you're a beer fan.
Looking forward to tonight's episode in which they'll be exploring the brewing process of the 'chateau jiahu' (a beer brewed using a 9000 year old recipe) and talking about the oh so good, but often times hard to come by, 120 min IPA.

Sam Adams! In the morning!

Thank you for that, good sir. Yes, macro brews are usually total shit, they're the Korn of beer, and usually made from corn too. One time I was given a bunch of shit beer like Corona and Bud Light Lime, etc. (my mom confiscated it from my little brother haha), and my friends and I decided to drink it. Apart from the moment of ironic amusement from chugging a shit light beer like a total bro the entire experience was basically devoid of enjoyment. I just don't fucking get it.

I'm not really good for identifying genres (hah) of beer, but I do know my favourites.

La Fin Du Monde is goddamn delicious at 9% (doesn't taste like a 9%), and my favourite beer from Unibroue (a Quebec brewery) though they definitely don't make anything bad.

Rogue Dead Guy Ale is pretty sweet too, though it's pricey as hell so I don't have it very often

Samichlaus is completely fantastic, and at 14% it's a doozy. Probably the most unique beer I've ever tried. It's pretty hard to describe because I've really never had anything like it

Innis and Gunn is great too, a hint of caramel flavour but not so overpowering as to make it taste like a cooler or something.

Other good ones: Delirium Tremens, Peche Mortel, 10W30 (BLACK AS NIGHT), Mill Street's Ginger Beer (it's beer with a hint of ginger, quite pleasant) and Tankhouse, Hobgoblin, Schlafly Quadrupel and tons of others that I can't think of right now.

Also, I don't drink beer to get drunk and fuck chicks or whatever. I drink beer because I really enjoy beer. I enjoy the history behind brews, I enjoy relaxing at a pub with friends, I enjoy all the flavours and aromas of it. I really don't even like being drunk that much to be honest. It's alright, but I prefer the altered state that grass brings. If it wasn't for beer I probably wouldn't drink at all, or at least very seldom.

Has anyone tried any of the extreme high percentage beers like Sink the Bismarck or Tactical Nuclear Penguin? I'm really curious as to what they're like and if they're at all pleasurable.

Ninkasi Sleigher beer. As soon as I saw the logo, I absolutely HAD to buy it, ha ha! It wasnt too bad, actually- not quite up to the standard of, say, Newcastle (which is my top fave) but very drinkable.

I've become more and more of a fan of dark beers over the past few months. Current favourite is James Squire's Porter. JS is a fairly popular brand in Aus, mostly because they don't produce macro-lager trash. Their Golden Ale is absolutely magnificent as well!

Mmm, beer.

I found the old thread!
but it's been locked...

on normal days, I enjoy Arrogant Bastard, and any Sierra Nevada.
Lately I've been digging IPA Harvest Ale and Orange Blossom Ale. good stuff, reccomended!

YES!! Golden Ale is delicious! And one of my favourites. The Sundowner lager isn't too bad either. My beer of choice at the moment though would be Knappstein Reserve Lager from South Australia. Much like JS Golden with the hint of aromatic fruit finish, but...deeper in flavour. Packs a almost 6% punch as well. Apart from that, the other beer I crave is almost anything from the British brewer Samuel Smith. Amazing beer.



What?! How old are you again?

If I'm in a setting where my only choices are big-name beers, it's Guiness or nothing. Unibroue makes a ton of great beers too, but lately I've been all about a local microbrewer here in Edmonton, Amber's Brewing Company.

In particular, the Australian mountain pepper berry lager, and the kenmount road chocolate stout. The pepper berry has the craziest black pepper aftertaste, and the stout is definitely a change of pace from something like guiness (Very chocolately), but is definitely a great winter beer.

Then there's always the old readily available standards like Boddington's pub ale, Hoegaarden, etc.

I always give a nod to the Belgians when im not enjoying my homebrews (anise oak stout, marshmallow porter and a wild sage amber).

Westmalle, Westvleteren, Cantillon, Callewaerts, Achouffe McChouffe and Sint Bernardus Pater have all been in roatation recently.

Tonight (after a very positive board meeting) 5 colleagues and I shared a very rare bottle of 'Sink the Bismark', a 41% quad-IPA. A very special brew more akin to a whiskey than a beer, other than the full out attack on your taste-buds via the hops. A bit pricey (~$100 USD per bottle), but worthy of the experience.

Guessing from the name of the brew, it may have been brewed using the original Sumerian formula for brewing beer. Ninkasi was the goddess of beer to the Sumerians. A Hymn to her doubles as the instructions to brewing beer. Did it taste like oat by any chance?

If IM drinking a high end beer, I typically go to the Killian's Irish Red. ON. MY. ASS. every fuckin time, I love it!

I'm really curious as to how this tastes, and where you got the idea for it

I'm a lover of many beers - I quite like the dark ales I have, which are generally Tooheys Old on a weekend out with my mates, or a White Rabbit on a quiet day at the pub. The latter may also include me having a Yak, and probably a VB. But I'll drink VB anywhere.

Other than that - I really dig Little Creatures, Coopers, Tooheys and Carltons. I found Tiger to be a really nice beer as well...oh, and so is Boags.

I like beer.

But you know what I can't stand? Guiness. Now - I've only had Aussie Guiness, so I don't know if it's any better in it's homeland or not, but all I remember is a night where I had three shots of Absinth and a Guiness (Not all at the same time, obviously) and the Guiness being the worst tasting part. That can't be a good sign.

Little Creatures Pale Ale is one of the best Australian beers I've ever had. So damn good! Pity it's a bit on the pricey side. Fat Yak was surprisingly good as well. My local pub now has Bulmers cider on tap, so I don't drink their tap beer anymore (and most tap beers here are, well, kind of crap), which was Carlton Draught.

I also like beer...

EDIT:
Right now I'm drinking Grolsch.

I've been drinking nothing but beers made by a semi-local brewery called Troegs lately. Specifically their Hopback Amber (american red/amber ale), Mad Elf (delicious belgian strong dark ale brewed with honey and cherries), Java Head Stout (coffee/oatmeal stout), Dead Reckoning Porter (american porter) and Troegenator (doppelbock). I'm looking forward to February when they put out their Nugget Nectar (basically an imperial/stronger version of the Hopback).

Generally I prefer imperial stouts and imperial IPAs though tripels, trappists and other kinds of stouts. Usually the higher ABV levels give these beers the backbone and character beers benefit from. Funkily spiced and weird additives are okay for experiments, but they often don't really beat regular old malts and hops in beer. The stuff I've most enjoyed has been Finnish microbrewery stuff: Plevna's Siperia imperial stout, Plevna's regular dry stout, Laitila's (not a microbrewery) imperial stout. Also should throw in Nøgne Ø's #100 (aged for about a year in the bottle). La Chouffe tripel is up there as well. I've just recently gotten into the Belgian stuff though so I'm not really that well versed in those. I've got a Goose Island Bourbon County Stout aging and waiting for the right moment to drink as well as a Beer Geek Breakfast from Mikkeller.

But of course, different situations call for different beers. All these I mentioned are pretty heavy beers and if it's a hot summer day, something lighter and more lager goes down better. Something like Bohemian Black Lager or Wheat Lager or Nokian Keisari Elowehnä.

I'm probably forgetting something and there are a bunch of others I could mention, but well...

Had some beers last night, so some thoughts!

Grolsch: Nice, but I struggled to finish the schooner. Some decent flavour but I can't imagine enjoying it beyond a pot/midi/schooner/whatever measure you use in your Australian state.

Stella Artois: Kind of meh. Considering it's marketed as a "premium beer" I expected a bit more... complexity. Still, a nice enough drop if nothing else is available.

James Squire's IPA: I've been wanting to try this for weeks now, and I must say I was kinda of disappointed. Reminds me of their Golden Ale but with a heap more bitterness. Another comparison would be Cooper's Pale Ale, but without the fruity tones that beer has. Not terrible beer at all, but a bit disappointing.

Sapporo is alright, Foster's is decent, but Hogaarden is a very interesting unfiltered beer with a hint of orange taste and if I remember correctly, correander.

I drink quite a bit but I have to control myself so I stick to what I can control. After getting into lots of trouble with liquor, I stick to beer, and mostly Miller Lite. It's not a fancy beer or something you would tell people to taste, but it has low calories, and you can drink as much as you want, get nice and drunk, but still not get sick or have too bad of a hangover. Even when I drink like 14 of them I can function the next day. It's a good beer in that respect.

It's a bulk lager. I don't think you can expect complex out of something like that.

It's made worse by the fact that CUB brews it under license in Australia.

Pretty much anything by the Three Floyds Brewery is gold, beers like Alpha King, Gumballhead. A place called The House Cafe actually has Gumball Head on tap, which is heavenly. Big fan of Sam Adams, first beer I ever had that I liked. Before then i had a bud light i think, and i remember if this is what beer tasted like, then I don't like beer I figure, if i'm in the mood to drink bud light, i'll just make tea, cause it's cheper and tastes the same.

I had a really weird beer last night, it was a Russian Imperial Stout. I forget what brewery made it (it was from Ontario though) but it tasted a bit like root beer, it was really bizarre. Also, Samichlaus is king

most often friends and colleagues tell me it tastes like a "beer s'more"

lots of biscuit malt in the base and chocolate malt judiciously boosted with cacao beans at flameout and secondary. lots of the color came from the carafa malt since biscuit lends very little to the overall hue.

bottled with just a hint of cinnamon and a splash of chocolate extract, with no corn sugar used. instead i used kaluha for carbonation. very lightly hopped so as not to clash with the delicate aromas of the marshmallow/chocolate. clocks in at 6.1%.

in my opinion, their description is not entirely accurate as the high alcohol content is, in my opinion, a (albeit welcome) detraction from the "dessert" profile so often noted by others. the kaluha adds a VERY slight coffee flavor, and another added "dimension" to the overall taste.

next time i will scale down the initial malt and go for a 5% beer.

getting the marshmallow flavor is a bit of a trade secret, but no actual marshmallows were used. reinheitsgebot is blasphemy to me and i will continue to challenge what "defines" a beer.


was simply a product of my own twisted mind and almost 8 years of brewing experiments.

Hell yes! Little Creatures is great.

When I'm in the States I drink Arrogant Bastard and Sierra Nevada.

Anybody drunk right now?

There is a "Beer Cafe" in Sydney called Red Oak. They brew an IPA there that is the best beer I have tasted in my life, by a very wide margin. Many of their other beers are also very very good.

Normally I enjoy either a James Squire or a Coopers of some sort though.

I tend to drink lager most of the time because its cheap, and although its not the best tasting, carlsberg is the easiest to drink and if I know I'm going to be drinking all day I would rather drink this because I can drink it all day and not get massively wasted, whereas something stronger I get drunk more quickly which isn't always good. If I am drinking lager for taste I have budweiser or San Miguel though.

However, why have lager for taste when you can have ales? I have recently re-discovered my love of ales, and my favourites are: old speckled hen, bishops finger and the best of all - hobgoblin. At least 20 times nicer than lager, and stronger too, so if you are just having a few soical drinks you can save some money

I'm jealous of all you guys that live in NOT America. Do you all realize how hard it is to find a really good beer around here? I live in a collge town. The best i can usually get my hands on (without going to chicago(about 60 miles away from me) is Sam Adams, which I like, don't get my wrong, but sometimes i want something better.
I know Stellas was was mentioned earlier, but the best thing about it is that it's a GREAT food beer: it's still got a decent flavor without completely over-powering the taste of the food.
High calliber around here is shit like Natural Ice, or Keystone Ice (stay away from these!!!) I bought a 30 rack for this halloween, ended up staying in, and now i have about 20 beers in my fridge that I completely detest. I reached for a coors, and i thought "No...no, i have to save this." It's bad when the beer you have to save, is fucking Coors light.

With your microbreweries, lack of state-enforced monopoly and ridiculously high alcohol taxation, dont' be. The situation will improve once you move to somewhere that's not Bumfuck, Illinois. Stella, like most regular lagers, is an alright food beer because it doesn't have a very strong taste or any particularly distinct flavors so it goes fairly well with almost anything. Beers with strong taste and a variety of flavors have to be matched up with foods that fit them, like with wine.

I love Arrogant Bastard but it's too damn expensive.

Lately I've been drinking a lot of Eye of the Hawk. It's got a great taste, it's 8% and if you go to the right place (AKA a REAL liquor store) you can get a six-pack for $6. Can't beat that.

I dunno where you're from but when I was just in the US last summer I found tons of awesome brews. The US is actually pretty good about that. Though they have a reputation of "not getting beer," there are some really good American microbreweries. Better than Canadian microbreweries definitely, because here in Ontario The Beer Store (that's what the store is called) and the LCBO are the only places you can buy alcohol. The Beer Store is owned by Anheuser-Busch and a couple of other big breweries, and they charge stocking fees for any non-shareholder microbrewery which is completely not fair. It's pretty much a monopoly. The LCBO is better because it has more selection, but it usually only sells beer by the single, or maybe a 6-pack if you're lucky. I kinda like it better that way though, because I can get lots of different kinds of beers that I've never had before to try, and then later get more of what I do like. It's expensive as shit though, I miss sitting in my Memphis hotel room and walking across the street to the convenience store to buy beers for dirt cheap.

Yes, I have nearly-finished bottles of Obelix (45%) and Start the Future (60%) at home. I say nearly finished because they're swing-tops and I have been drinking them a little at a time, in the manner of whiskey. Obelix is quite nice, I would get it again if it wasn't such a hassle to do so. STF is not great though, not much flavour of its own beyong the alcohol, and for bonus points it stings the eyes and kind of feels like you're drinking IMS. I don't recommend it!

I don't really have the time or energy right now to wax lyrical about beers that I like. Suffice it to say that I fucking love beer? Dude I'm living with for the last year and half really does too so we've been experimenting with basically everything we can get our hands on, it's been great.

Drinking Bud Light right now, that shit sucks but it's cheap.

I like the Dutch beers, of course. Duvel is my favorite.

My preference is usually for English-style ales (preferably dark), porters, and stouts. I will echo the previous statements about Arrogant Bastard, it is fantastic. Sam Adams is a good American company. They make a lot of styles, including some unusual choices like the Black Lager. Infinium is ok. I went to a beer tasting recently where they had it. Not bad, the Sam Adams sales lady was a bit of a bitch, though. Whatever...I still like most Sam Adams, particularly their winter collection.

I recently tried Belhaven Scottish Stout and it's a winner in my book.

Edit: Goose Island also makes some great beers. I live near Chicago (and not Bumfuck!) Illinois and Goose Island is the reigning local microbrew but I don't know who prevelant it is in other areas. I recently picked up their Bourbon County Stout after reading rave reviews on Beer Advocate and Rate a Beer. It's 13% alcohol and is aged in bourbon casks. I haven't tried one yet but I'm looking forward to it!