On the way to work this morning, I passed an advertising billboard for Stella Artois: “Six hundred years ago, the quality of life improved dramatically.” Well, hm, okay. A bit pretentious, but whatever.
Now, I haven’t actually tried Stella Artois lately – or six hundred years ago, either, unless I’ve grown forgetful over the years – but it made me think.
What are the really great beers? The world-class ones, that stand head-and-shoulders above the rest?
And, perhaps more interesting, how do you judge? What are your criteria? What makes a beer great? Is it the hops? The alcohol content? The raspberry essence? Or what?
I lived 13 years in the town where Stella Artois is brewed. There are even some pubs that have a direct pipeline to the brewery, and serve absolutely fresh beer. Quite a different taste compared to the bottled Stella.
Best Beer ?
Some extraordinary suggestions to try
Gueuze Lambic Frank Boon
(most delicious lambic/gueuze I know. Try to get the Faro variant if your S.O. doesn’t like the lambic)
La Chouffe
(If you like Orval, or Rochefort try this one)
Rodenbach
(drink the regular in hot weather, grand cru with candle light at a long winter evening)
Judas
(Similar to Duvel)
Julius
(a white beer, strong variant of Hoegaerden)
For the amateurs of Trappist beer, if my information is correct,
the sixth Trappist brewery, La Trappe, in the Netherlands, has ceased production. On the other hand, a new trappist beer has emerged, from the monastary of Bocholt. Unfortunately, this trappist beer is not up to standard, and virtually undrinkable.
Flymaster, I looked at the first 20 of BeerAdvocate’s “top 50 accessible beers” list, and at least half of them I’ve never seen at a store (upscale grocery stores and a couple liquor stores.) Also, their top 50 list has only 42 brews on it and is rounded out by Coors Light, Bud Light, and Corona. Think I’ll stick with Ratebeer, it seems to have a lot more existing user feedback than (the newer?) BeerAdvocate.
Neuroman, I can get pretty much all of their top 20 available beers at specialty beer stores around here, must be a regional thing. Their top x# lists really aren’t what makes the site so good, though. They have 30-40 reviews on pretty much EVERY beer that there is, so you can get a wide sampling of opinions. And it’s a great community, as well.
Ratebeer is a Texan site, and as such will feature more beers available down there, while BeerAdvocate is Boston based, so they have more of what I can get up here.