If you asked me to pick one beer to drink for the rest of my life, I probably would end up choosing a pale ale of some sort, most likely Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale, even though I’ve bitching and complaining about the oversaturation of APAs and IPAs on the market for almost a decade now. My second choice might just be a simple Guinness stout.
But, most of all, like my tastes in food, music, weather, I like variety. And my choice of drink really does depend on the time of year, where I’m drinking, my mood, etc. Typically, during the winter, I lean more towards the maltier brews, during the summer more towards lagers/pils, sours, and American wheat beers (a style I used to hate). And the spring and fall are kind of transition points where I tend to most often go into full-on IPA mode. I’ll drink any beer at any time, but those are my general cycle of tastes.
I’ve been a homebrewer for about 18 years, and worked for 5 years as a brewer/ quality lab guy for Leinenkugel’s, which is far more widely known than it was when I worked there in the early 2000s.
I agree completely with pulykamell, my tastes in beer are also seasonal.
Winter is for stouts, imperial stouts, baltic porters, and dubbel. Spring is Marzen, hefeweizen, and Maibock. Summer is APA, IPA, generic light american lager, and Pilsner. In the fall, Belgian golden ale and Oktoberfest!
I’ll have a few beers about once a month. I have mostly substituted wine and/or scotch for daily drinking. I’ve given up on IPA’s and anything hoppy. They’re drinkable, but I much prefer a crisp German-style beer or a Pilsner.
My first beer was Stegmaier and that’s because that’s what we could sneak from my father’s stash of 16 oz returnables. From there it was Carling in 16 oz cans (friend’s father’s beer), Genny Cream Ale, PBR, Stroh’s, whatever the Frat house had on tap, and then Rolling Rock (still my every day beer - no comments, please). Now, I love a good porter, Kolsch styles, Marzens, and any good German lager - Warsteiner, when I can afford it. I don’t mind some IPAs but it became a hop contest with predictable results. OTOH, I recently had a Jai Ali by Cigar City Brewing and really enjoyed it. Sadly, you can’t get it in NJ. My favorite is probably Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout. Or Guinness on tap (especially in Ireland!) I was in Beer World in Savannah last year and they had 300+ craft beers in bottles/cans. So many choices and so little time.
P.S. - Why is it that I have no problem paying $3.50+ a domestic beer all night long at a bar but am reluctant to pay even $2.00 per for good stuff when buying six packs or cases? It makes no sense!
I like all sorts of beer, but gravitate towards the darker, heavier ales; stouts, porters, Russian Imperials, and the like, but it really depends on the occasion. Some of the best beers I’ve ever drank have been things like an ice cold Strohs, Hamms, or PBR on a hot summer day after mowing the lawn. But there’s much to be said for a nice medium-rare steak paired with a Kalamazoo Stout (or Guinness in a pinch).
Last visit to Costco we picked up a case of the Kirkland ‘Craft Brewed’ beers. $19.95
I must report that they are all drinkable and the Double Bock is actually quite good. The Wife has been preferring Kirkland wines for some time; until now the only Costco store-brand beer I had seen was their “Light.”
I pick up a case every 6 or 12 months and decide it’s just not that good. Not bad but not great. As I know, Gordon Biersch, the same company that brews private-label beers for Trader Joe’s, does the brewing.
Actually, I feel quite awkward drinking alone in a bar, even my local hangout. Not that there’s anything wrong with that either. But you’re right, of course. Drinking a few at home is an entirely different experience. The beer is savored, not quaffed!
I’m generally a fan of all styles - all have those that are done really well and those that aren’t. I generally find myself with a Pale Ale or an fruity IPA (which seems to be more and more common in the Southeast - the fruit balances the hoppiness perfect IMO) or a subtle Sour (Sours have seemingly followed IPAs in who can make the more extreme version). But I am also glad to drink a good lager or pilsner. (or Belgian ales, dubbles, tripels, stouts, porters, etc).
Everyone knows I like beer, but at some point everyone got it in their head that I love IPAs. Even my wife, who sees me bring home the 30-packs of Tecate for everyday liquid refreshment, insists on buying me 6-packs of IPA.
Now I like IPAs just fine, but I’m not going to sit and drink a whole bunch of IPAs. And frankly most IPAs just aren’t that great. Dumping tons of hops into their brew until it tastes like battery acid doesn’t make it great; in many cases I’m wondering what they’re trying to cover up.
I just want something I can sit and drink mindlessly. I’m not going to sit and analyze my beer, and write detailed reviews for Beer Advocate; I don’t care about any of that shit, I just want my simple, crisp lagers and pilsners.
I’m a big fan of hoppy IPAs, with New Belgium, Terrapin, Fat Tire and Sierra Nevada being my go-tos when I buy. Ales are nice too, I like Lagunitas. I can’t drink cheap beer anymore, it tastes disgusting. Still willing to swill cheap wine though, when the occasion calls for it.
Fat Tire isn’t an IPA. New Belgium brews it as a Belgian brown, for lack of a better term; it’s basically DeKoninck. Also, IPAs are ales, and Lagunitas IPA is one of the highest-selling IPAs in the country. Or did you mean some other beer by Lagunitas? Many of their widely-available beers are IPAs.
I’m pretty much awash in IPA. Thanks to friends who like driving to Vermont, plus contacts in the beer business, the heavyweights – Other Half, Hill Farmstead, Tired Hands, and Alchemist – are typically somewhere I drink, or in the refrigerator. Add in other IPA-obsessed breweries local to New York – Industrial Arts, Peekskill, Barrier – and it’s a good thing I enjoy a well-made hoppy beer. Most of those breweries and the rest of the dozens of local and semi-local breweries turn out very good beer in a surprisingly wide range of other styles as well, and while I won’t wait in line to buy beer on its Release Day, pretty much everything winds up on tap somewhere that I visit.
I’m sort of glad the newer breweries churning out the “New England IPA” style, code for “murky”, are more of an occasional curiosity given the lack of distribution, than an urgent need to be consumed.
But I’ll drink anything tasty. Having a bunch of craft-beer-friendly, and nearby, bars makes that super easy.
Love for this man