My local off licence has a whole wall of interesting beers that I’m gradually working my way through; there seems to have been a huge growth in the number of bottled beers of late.
I’m psyched because Pete’s Wicked has brought back their red beer, my favoritest beer ever, and it’s now called Pete’s Wicked Red Rush. I buy out my local grocery’s stock whenever I’m there.
Homebrew, I want you to know that at least one person got your crappy pun. . .
When I lived in Portland the current trendy ironic swill was Rainier “green death”.
I’m from the northwest, and I KNOW and LOVE beer, and am currently spending too much time in Belgium and I’m afraid that the Great Northwest Giants do bow, oh so slightly, to Belgium. The NW just needs time, though. I have a great deal of regional pride as well, and think that the NWPC beers are standing up against Germany and England well, but Belgium is Belgium. It’s a religious thing here. Unfortunately I can’t prove this as, like the best NW beers, the best Belgian beers (IMHO) don’t export. They are very complicated and difficult to explain, while NW beers are just really really good solid excellent beers. They don’t have centuries of experimentation behind them, though.
Pabst doesn’t make beer anymore. It has become a “virtual brewer” - i.e., a marketing company selling beer made entirely by others.
Back in the days when Pabst Blue Ribbon was brewed by the Pabst Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it wasn’t that bad a beer. And Pabst produced a premium beer in those days called Andeker that was really quite good.
Alas, those days are gone forever. For a while there, you didn’t know if your PBR was from the Pearl Brewery (San Antonio), or the Stroh’s Brewery (Pennsylvania) or the Olympia Brewery (Tumwater, Washington). Regardless of which brewery it came from it was put in a PBR can.
For my money, some of the best beer in the country these days is made in Michigan by Kalamazoo Brewing Comany . If you’re in the midwest and see Bell’s on tap, give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.
Labdad- I went to college in western Michigan, and two of the more important redeeming qualities of the area were Bell’s and New Holland Brewing Co. Yum diddly um.