I haven’t read these 2 pages yet, I will as soon as I respond.
Sierra Nevada Hoptimum.
Old Speckled Hen. Yum. 
(burp)
Old Speckled Hen is fine. It’s a significantly different beer than Guinness, though.
My year-round go to beer is Pliny The Elder from Russian River.
Lately I’ve been drinking as much Ruthless Rye IPA from Sierra Nevada as I can get, because it’s seasonal. And yummy.
The best beer experience I’ve ever had was with a Harviestoun Ola Dubh 18 Year. Sensational. Drink it slowly and feel how it changes as the glass warms.
Then again, I buy PBR by the 24 can case, so it’s not all snooty beer snob nonsense chez Kamandi.
I don’t drink beer anymore, as it doesn’t seem to agree with my digestion. I dearly miss my Yuengling Porter. So very, very tasty. Make sure to get some vapor flow through your nose as you drink - heavenly. Not so much if you get liquid flow though your nose, but it is, on occasion, hilarious. Murphy’s Irish Stout isn’t bad, but I can’t stand Guinness. Never could. I went from it being too much for me to being bland and flavorless. Never had that in-between phase of liking it. Weird. Sam Adams Scotch Ale is a tasty treat, but it’s not a chuggin’ beer. Made the mistake of taking a case of it camping, thinking it would be a treat. I don’t think anyone had more than one can a night.
I used to like a J.W. Dundee’s once in awhile. I called it “beer-pop”. Had a taste for Killian’s as well, though I suspect it’s loaded up with food coloring and other things post-brewing.
Correct, sir.
I have lately been into stouts and porters, so my nominations are:
Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout
Youngs Chocolate Stout
When I recently bought a six pack of the Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout, both the owner and clerk looked at it and said “oooooh” in a very envious and wishful tone!
I have no idea if it is the best beer in the World, but I liked it when I drank it.
There really is no such thing, I think, as one unique Guinness stout. They have breweries all over the World and change the beer to suit local preferences.
As for which is the best beer in the World I don’t think I have tasted it yet, so I can’t say what it is.
There is no “best” beer in the world other than the one that suits the immediate need.
For instance, after skiing a long, tiring, sweaty decent of an obscure Austrian mountain I could barely stand. I left my skis where they were and clumped the 30 yards to the little wooden apre-ski bar in the village square and proceeded to down a perfect half-litre of frothy pils goodness. Steigl I believe it was and never has anything tasted so good.
Other than that, choice is the key and I certainly agree with the consensus on the USA creating great beer. It simply doesn’t get much of an audience unfortunately so we end up in the UK with the dross. (although I can get boston lager, sam adams, goose island and sierra nevada in my local tesco)
Naturally the same goes for the UK or pretty much any other country in the world. There is a brewery/pub in Canterbury near where I live that makes a few hundred gallons at a time of various beer varieties that realistically you are never going to see outside a 10 mile radius (and would not be the same if you did) This being Kent of course they make a big thing of using local hops etc. Unfortunately this gets seen as beer snobbery but really it is just a return to how things were for hundreds of years.
So my advice? wherever you are in the world…go local, drink local. You may spoil yourself for anything inferior in the future but it’ll be worth it.
Even if I could drink every beer in the world, and blow me if I’m not going to make it my life’s goal to try, I couldn’t try to even guess at which was best of all just in my own opinion. But there are two beers that I love to drink, regardless of the time of day or year or what-have-you. Which are Shiner Bock and St. Peter’s Old Style Porter (whenever my local booze mercantile-exchange stocks it and I’m not too stank-ass broke to buy a few bottles. S$#%'s expensive this side of the Pond.)
I see a parallel between American brewers and American automotive engineers.
Engineer 1 - “Should we develop a small high-revving turbo engine with heaps of power and good economy?”
Engineer 2 - “Nah, fuck it, drop in a big V-8!”
Brewer 1 - “Should we develop a very tasty beer with carefully selected malts and balanced hops?”
Brewer 2 - “Nah, fuck it, add more hops!”
I agree with many others that you can have lots of favorites depending on circumstances. A nice Czech lager on a hot day. A middle strength bitter such as Ringwood Best for a session. Something dark and chewy such as Robinson’s Old Tom for a winter’s night. I’d say my current overall favorite is Rodenbach Grand Cru.
Now, the most expensive beer I’ve had is easy - Brew Dog’s Tactical Nuclear Penguin. It’s 32% and tastes more like brandy than beer. It was £6.00 for 25mil at the Brew Dog pub in Camden.
There is a bit of that going on, the whole “bigger is better” thing. But I also think it’s part a reaction against our lightly flavored macrolager past, and also a bit of that inventive, sometimes over-the-top playful, experimental American spirit. Lest you get the wrong idea, there are plenty of good middle-of-the-road beers being brewed by microbreweries. I’ve even seen low-alcohol (3.5% or so) styles like an English Mild or Ordinary Bitter being brewed at microbreweries. My guess is that craft breweries will start moving more into more “balanced” beers (and they have been to some extent; for example, American wheat ales have become pretty big in the market over the last five or so years) or try out other styles because, well, really, how many freaking IPAs can the market handle? I do think American pale ales and IPAs will continue to be the most well-known, though, as the hops grown here are distinct and wonderful.
I had something similar. My cousin bought me a bottle of Sam Adamas Utopias a couple years ago for my birthday. Same type of thing, but at 29% at $200 a 750 mL bottle. It’s pretty much tastes, like you described it, more like a brandy than beer. You might think it should taste more like whiskey, given the ingredients, but it’s more brandy-like than whiskey-like to me.
Heineken only tops my list when I am sitting at an outdoor cafe in Amsterdam downwind from the coffee shop over looking the Red Lightdistrict.
The best beer in the world is ice cold.
The only time I had a good Heineken was at some fast food fish-and-chips type of joint in Amsterdam. Maybe it was because I was especially hungry and thirsty, but damn that Heineken tasted good. I remember being a bit dejected when I saw it was the only beer on offer, but it came in a brown bottle (like this one) and tasted nothing like I remember it tasting in the US or even elsewhere in Europe. OK, maybe not “nothing like,” as it was still a middle-of-the-road lager/pilsner style beer, but there was a flavor and freshness to it that surprised the heck out of me.
I really dislike Heineken. I mean I’ll drink it if it’s all there is, but I’m not going to enjoy it. It just has a weird off-taste. It’s my understanding that it tastes better, or at least different, in Holland.
Heineken certainly does taste differently in The Netherlands IME but it’s still pretty ‘middle-of-the-road’ and I’d avoid it even on outdoor terraces in Amsterdam - but then again, I try to avoid Amsterdam all together. There’s really nothing there. As for Heineken, better beers do come out of the Netherlands and it’s typical that out of all beers, Heineken should be so successful internationally.
In any case, unfortunately, Heineken is a very powerful brewer that produces a whole bunch of other beers and has contracts with soft-drink producers so that if you’re a bar owner and you want to have Heineken on tap, they’ll provide you with a whole tapping installation, a whole bunch of furniture and other things needed in restaurant, provided you’ll only offer Heineken-approved beverages (eg Amstel, Wieckse Witte, Affligem but also IIRC Coca Cola instead of Pepsi). This is how the vast majority of Dutch bars and restaurants work, and it contributes to the high and increasing prices of beer (which is more expensive for bar owners than it is for supermarket shoppers). It also means that in a sense, for any bar that offers Heineken it is true that Heineken is the only beer the offer - if not Heineken brand then at least Heineken owned.
That was my impression. I wonder if it has to do with the green bottles. I swear, all the green bottle beers taste off to me, and sometimes slightly skunked. That’s the deal with green and clear bottles. Skunking is caused by a reaction with light and hop oils. (The only clear bottle beer I know that doesn’t skunk are the Miller products, that use some kind of isomerized hop extract that doesn’t get “light struck.”)
Now, I can’t honestly say that every green bottle beer I’ve had tasted skunked to me, but from Heineken to Beck’s to Pilsner Urquell, they just never tasted good to me, and at least Heineken and PU have tasted good to me on their home turf. I don’t know if it’s just those beers don’t travel well, or if the packaging actually has something to do with it. I didn’t have a green bottle Heineken in Amsterdam to compare (from what I understand, the brown bottled one I had wasn’t usual. ETA: No, apparently brown was the norm there but not any more.) I want to blame it on the green bottles, but the reason I don’t is because even tap versions of Heineken and PU don’t taste good to me, so I think there’s something more going on, most likely that those beers simply don’t travel well.
Piling on with the above. There is just something “off” about Heineken. I’ll drink a Coors Light before I’ll reach for that green bottle.