On the subject of Hobgoblin, I tried it during my time in Romania. It was really bitter, but I liked it. Any quality beer I have access to always happens to be of the super bitter variety. Getting quite a taste for it.

Lovely beer weather we're having down under - humid, rainy summer night and two delicious brews to taste.



Knappstein (Enterprise Brewery) Reserve lager and a Vale Ale (pale ale), which are both Australian. The Knappstein brew is actually made by a company that makes wine mostly, and has a wonderful fruity taste, similar to a wine balance, that goes down well on warm nights. With a 5.6% ABV, it's somewhat strong, but it never overrides the actual flavour. The Vale is another new one I have yet to try.

Both South Australian, I'd note! The Vale Ale is from the town I was born in (Mclaren Vale, also a wine region)! If you like the Vale Ale get their Vale IPA, it's one of my favourite beers. Heavy on the hops, great fruitiness and damn sessionable for an IPA. Awesome brew.

Being Albertan, I've always had a soft-spot for relatively local beer. Lucky, born and brewed on Vancouver Island. It's dirt cheap, doesn't taste half-bad and it gets ya drunk. Grasshopper is another favorite, as well as Mountain Crest.

But I'd have to say my favorite import would have to be Newcastle Brown Ale (thanks for that one, Alvestam!). Delicioso.

Hmmm, i Love black beer. I'm dinking it right now

Was in Würzburg, Bavaria, for the Hammer of Doom-festival last weekend. Not really beer country that place: It's at a valley along the Main so loads of grapes are grown along the hills and the city is much better known for its wine. The place only has one local brewery: Würzburg Hofbrau. Decent enough, but nothing special. Distelhäuser has a strong presence in the city as well, but one is better off sticking to the wine. Last year their hefeweizen was great with a lot of grapefruit and orange in the flavor, this year it was merely a good, normal hefe. Their pils was in great form though. Very crisp with even some lemon, orange and pine in the flavor. Their landbier dunkel was good too. Got a bunch of hand-selected beers from an old acquaintance so thanks Hart as well as my wife for arranging it all.

The Lohrer-Keiler dunkleweizen was something I bought myself, a big fan of the style. I'd already drunk the Kneitinger Edel Pils, an excellent example of the style. The wines were just something I picked up. Quite like the German Gewürtztraminers, a bit similar with their acidity to Belgian gueuzes. The red wine I should've chosen better, but didn't have much time for that.

The image isn't working MacMoney

Well, replaced it with a link. Google Drive doesn't give a proper .jpg. Let me know if that one doesn't work either.

Works fine now

What's the beer on the far right? In The strange flask-like bottle.

Oh, that's the red wine I mentioned. The bigger, but similarly shaped, white wine bottle is hidden in the very middle. The shape is distinctive for the wine producers of the Würzburg region.

Oh, it's a wine haha. Some tasty looking stuff there.

Yeah! That's me!
LOL!

Yeah, definitely looking forward to trying them. I've not been too keen on German beer, but I suppose I've made the mistake of judging them by the ones that get sold here i.e. mainstream stuff (Kulmbacher, König, Krombacher, Beck's) and hefeweizens from smaller breweries (Weihenstephan, Ayinger, Schneider, good but I'm not too big on the style) because at least the stuff at the source is pretty damn tasty.

Regarding Westmalle and trappists in general, while both Westmalles are definitely good (the dubbel especially in cooking and with food), they're probably the one whose beers I like the least aside from La Trappe. Chimay is great, Rochefort's 8 is on par with Blue while 10 is just superior, Achel is all around good, Orval is just Orval. And well, haven't tried Westvleteren.

Where do you live,San Diego? Thats the only place I have ever seen Stone. Their IPA is godly.

Stone is all over bro! I used to live in Cleveland and it was everywhere! I agree, the IPA is tasty.

I live in Ontario, Canada, but have visited many states in the northeast and a bit in the south, and a lot of places in the US seem to have Stone beers. Recently I ate at DInosaur Barbecue in Rochester and ordered several Arrogant Bastard ales. There's even a place in Toronto that has it..for $14 a bottle!! arrrgh...no thanks.. It's really good though; indeed one of my favourite US beers.

Also really a fan of stuff made by Ithaca Brewing Company, as well as Storm King Imperial Stout from Victory in Pennsylvania.

Anybody know of an American IPA that isn't terribly hoppy though...i.E., more in the British style? I do like tte hoppy ales but I find sometimes it can bb a bit overkill with these uS IPAs. Most Canadian ones follow the same model, by the way, except for Mill Street IPA, which is only sold in kegs, but is so goddamn delicious and almost makes me think of Greene King from England, still my favourite beer in the whole world!...and no longer available to me. *weeps*

Dubbel is what I drink every saturday night when I go to the pubs after having dinner. REALLY nice!

I like Chimay too (the problem is that it's more common here and I'm something tired of it) and I'm into this Orval madness (just to get them home).
That's where I buy:
http://laboutiquedelacerveza.com/
And that's where I drink:
http://www.barcerveceriaetxeberria.com/

By the way, anybody knows the Straffe Hendrik?
http://www.halvemaan.be/

I've had some from their range, quadrupel and tripel I think. Alright, but nothing special for their styles.



If you'd prefer an IPA with less of the hop bitterness, wouldn't just getting an APA do? Or is there something specific in the IPAs that you are looking for?

A lot of APAs are pretty strongly hopped... Less bitter than an IPA sure but the flavour is still there.

Oh well shit. All I know is that Stone is from San Diego. Shits real tasty

Currently enjoying some Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale for the first time and it's quite good, superior in fact to Great Lakes Christmas Ale by comparison which I always thought was a tad overrated anyway. SN's really one of the handful of decent American breweries and their lineup for this coming year looks to continue their rate of quality alongside the usual suspects (Torpedo and so forth.) Hopefully Magic Hat steps it up as well. Note to self: Get on Winking Lizard's World Tour of Beers.

It's still very much here.

In celebration of the cold, wet weather we've been having in Augusta, GA the last couple of days, I've been enjoying Victory's Storm King Imperial Stout. This is a damn fine beer, and it had been a couple of years since I last had it, and beers like this just beg to be drunk when it's cold and gloomy outside.

Yeah! I took a pack with me from Belgium. Nothing special but the logo is cool:



Lately, I've been drinking Judas at home:



Nothing special too.

I live in San Diego and while Stone is a great beer, it's loaded to the max with hops and can be a bit of a palate destroyer The second most popular brewery in San Diego would be Ballast Point, which is getting nationwide recognition, so it shouldn't be too hard to find and has a much more mellow and flavorful IPA to offer than any other breweries I have come across in awhile.
The IPA is called 'Sculpin'.

Regarding Ballast Point, as I said earlier in this thread (April), I had the Big Eye IPA in Las Vegas, and man, was it tasty. It's pretty stiff with pine and passion fruit, but I like IPAs like that. Superb with the sea food I had it with. Aside from maybe 8-Wired's Hop-Wired it's the best of the style that I've had. Hoping to try Sculpin at some point, but I'm not counting on it.

I've just been drinking Karhu for now. Best Finnish beer if you don't count the late Lahden Sininen. I must say every Finnish beer tastes almost exactly the same, so it doesn't really matter what you drink. And I don't really have time to *taste* them anyway, as I'm so busy to get drunk. It's really gotten out of hand. I drink nearly every night. But evenings are long, so what else you can do?

As the name suggests, a kingly beer and appropriate for the season. Probably the best pumpkin beer I've ever had. The 8% ABV is a nice bonus.

Hot summer night again and another two new brews to sample:



Burleigh Brewing Co's FigJam IPA which is 7% ABV, and I'm drinking it right now. Heavy, fruity first impression on the nose and palette - and ALL delicious, pretty good stuff. The Sierra Nevada Northern Hemisphere (wet hop) will be a first, but seeing as how the Pale is quite nice, I would imagine this being quite moreish as well. And to Bezerko, I tried the Vale IPA and loved it. Very nice stuff indeed.

Love the name of the FIGJAM IPA haha.. Speaking of the Vale IPA, tonight's brews. A Bezerko favourite, and a couple of new ones for me... Love the name of the FIGJAM IPA haha.

[iimg]http://sphotos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/59071_4497197343965_622086467_n.jpg[/img]
Ranga Premium Red Ale. Haven't seen this one before so I decided to give it a crack. Brewed by Ranga Brewery down in Melbourne, to celebrate being a gingernut and something about saving orang-utans... Regardless, a nice red ale. Nothing too fancy to stir the pot, a reasonable hop profile with some nice malt flavours to back it up.


And now for something completely different... Baron's Black Wattle Original Ale brewed by Great Southern Brewing in NSW. Based around your regular Australian Pale Ale (reasonably balanced, not huge on the hops), but the roasted black wattle shakes it up a fair bit. The roast definitely comes through, it's almost as if someone dropped a bit of porter in my ale... Excellent beer.

And of course...
[img]http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/75903_4497381428567_307437541_n.jpgp/img]
Vale IPA from McLaren Vale Beer Company in McLaren Vale, SA Currently my favourite beer. Great amount of hops, awesome aroma, amazing fruit flavours and amazingly sessionable. Oh, and from my place of birth as well, I swear I'm not biased... It'll be considered an Australian classic in a few years.

EDIT: Ah fuck ya facebook, pictures won't link.
EDIT: Fuck you world, I win.
EDIT: Okay, I'll take 1/3

Hell yes! Baron's! I love the black wattle ale, as it's bloody delicious. The smokey overtones of the wattle give a wonderful flavour profile, adding richness and depth. The almost burnt caramel hint is truly lovely. Great Aussie beer.

Just tried this last night and I also thought it was pretty good. I think it's interesting they use a different recipe each year. In terms of winter beers I'm looking forward to getting some Troegs Mad Elf Ale soon! Pretty good taste and at 11% ABV it's hard to beat.

currently enjoying this Innis and Gunn - Rum Cask beer. Quite good, you can taste the Rum as well as the oak barrels the beer aged in. It's not overly fizzy, has a smooth follow-through and, though not overly deep, it's not too bland either. It's also a %7.4 so a single of the 1 pint bottles can put you in a nice place before bed or after a long day of work.

They're not bad per se, but the regular version is just too much butterscotch for me. Also with the clear bottles the skunk is usually a bit much as well.

This is a bit late but see if you can't get your hands on some Shipyard IPA or their "Fuggles" single hop IPA, I remember them both being English styled. Not sure how easy they are to track down in Canada but they do have nationwide distribution down here.

Anyone in the states had any good holiday seasonals this year? Winter's usually great for stouts but I haven't had the disposable income to sample as much as I'd like to.

Well, It depends. My favorite style is the imperial stout but it depends on what you mean by seasonal; most non barrel aged imperials you can get most of the year round. If you mean stuff that is only released this time of year, I was impressed by the duck rabbit Wee Heavy, not as complex as Founder's but having a burly character of just caramel malt balanced by just enough peat smoke. Their Barleywine is pretty good too, it has the trademark booze soaked fig/cherry flavor with an equal helping of orangey hop notes. Maybe a little out of season but Ommegang's Scythe and Sickle was awesome. It's made with Rye, Wheat, Barley and Oats and has a taste battle between all of them, with rye winning mostly on the taste, oats not far behind, and the wheat taking some minor notes and owning the fluffy mouthfeel; it's a fall seasonal but it should still be around if you are in their distro area.

@Abominatrix Victory Hop devil maybe? I haven't had it in years but most of the reviews on ratebeer are in awe at how balanced it is. Still, depends on what they mean by 'balanced'. Not huge into single ipas, for imperial ipa's I always lunge for the Hoppin' Frog Hop Dam and Stone Ruination. So, I may have no idea what I am talking about when it comes to the singles.


I had this for my 22nd birthday, and it was worth the hype and the price; best beer i've ever had. I picked up about 15 different flavors, and my palate isn't super sensitive:

Bershire Brewing's "Lost Sailor" should be pleasing if you like English IPAs - I'm not sure how widely available it is though. Based out of Massachusetts, I can get it in Connecticut, but they're very strict about quality control to the point where they regularly stop by every store that sells it to make sure that their stuff is refrigerated, and it only comes in 22oz bottles and 64oz growlers (jugs), and kegs in some bars, though I rarely see it in bars.



Sculpin is great, but if it's not really fresh, the bittering hops are really overwhelming and it doesn't have the same fruity hop taste that makes it great. I had it in the first month or so and it was amazing, but a month or two later it tasted like a completely different beer, though it smelled great. I'm not sure everyone tastes the same way, but those seemed really out of balance when it was older.



HopDevil is most certainly an American IPA, it is balanced in terms of hops/malt, bitterness/sweetness but it's a mouthful of flowers. Not even close to an English IPA

Just looking for anything either released in limited quantities during the holiday season (ie Deschutes' Abyss) or holiday seasonal brews (Sierra Nevada's Celebration.) The few Founder's brews I've had have been great but they're impossible to get on the west coast

Bought this in Dunedin, and just had it now:



St Peter's cream stout. This was bloody beautiful, smooth, rich and wonderful creaminess. Absolutely gorgeous.

The Cream Stout's alright. Had their Winter Ale recently, pretty alright that one too. They're definitely a workhorse kind of brewery. Though they have their misses: G-Free (though all gluten-free-targeted beers taste pretty crap) and Honey Porter.

Recently acquired 18 0,75l bottles of Belgian stuff via Germany. Christmas is coming and all that. A whole lot cheaper than getting them domestically, which is pretty crazy, but that's just how things go.

Drinking an Isolator from Half Pints... It's a limited release, so I ended up getting up going to the brewery with my girlfriend and her brother to grab some a few weeks ago; it's my last one. I'm not the biggest beer expert (that would be my brother in law), but it's an extra-strong doppelbock, clocking in at 8.6% with an IBU of 17. Very malty with hints of caramel and a slightly bitter finish. Doesn't taste like 8.6%, that's for sure.

Also, the label looks like it could be the cover for an Earth album.