Old Rasputin (well, the one I’ve had) is brewed in Northern California, and is available at a number of grocery and liquor stores with good selections. I buy it at Trader Joe’s just up the road from me, but I’ve also seen it in several other places.
Several of you mentioned a love for Guinness, which is certainly a world-class beer, but I find it too dry for my taste. this would probably be less of a problem if I could find a pub that didn’t serve it so cold. I may just have to buy some in the Draught-Flow cans, just so I can try it cool. Generally, though, I prefer the Extra Stout (bottles only), as I think it’s more balanced.
Does anybody here hail from the vicinity of Chico, CA? If so, you’re a lucky dog, as Sierra Nevada’s beers are particularly good, especially the Bigfoot. (Ooh. I just remembered. I have a sixer of last year’s Bigfoot squirreled away in my closet. Maybe I’ll put one to cool for later.) If you like beer, I urge you to drop by the brewery next time you’re in the California gold country. The restaurant is pretty good, too.
Darn it, now I’m thirsty again.
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
RTF, I feel almost the way you do. I do still enjoy one of the Big Three when it’s really stinking hot out, or I’ve been digging ditches, or some such. I’m not ready to write off the whole concept of American Lager yet, but my consumption of the style is tailing off. I know some folks who sneer at it, but Budweiser, Coors, and Miller are really, really good at what they do, and they set the standard for a very difficult-to-brew style. You can drink many, many beers from any of these breweries before you find a bad one, and the chances are good that that bad one is bad because it was mishandled. Every Budweiser I’ve had has been just as good as every other one: cold, clear, crisp, a tiny bit sweet, and a tiny bit bitter.
American lagers still have a place in my book. Not a very large one, but they’re still there.
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
Guineness stout is good but sometimes I prefer Young’s oatmeal stout which is much more smooth. I like Killian’s red but the original ale which isn’t available anymore AFAIK was much better than the lager.
Rheingold is good, fairly hearty beer. It’s refreshing, and what I buy when money is a little tight.
Sam Adams is excellent, especially with a meal of steak. It is heavier than other domestic beers, but not overpowering. Sam Adams Cherry Wheat is especially good in the summer.
Beck’s and Beck’s Dark are also good, but rather pricey, at least around here.
Nearly any port in a storm (no ten inpunded) after a long, hard, hot day. That first taste of cold, bracing beer hitting the tongue, the palate, the back of the throat, is nothing short of a life-saver, IMHO.
The Dave-Guy
“Since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx
I’ll happily drink Bud and its peers and like it just fine. Whining about “American Beer” is kind of tiresome to me.
However, when I want a good beer, I go for a Fosters in the bottle. Before they changed the bottle design, that first sip produced an absolutely charming “gurk-gurk-gurk-gurk-gurk” song.
When we were in high school and poor, we discovered Texas Pride, at 99 cents/6-pack on sale. As a bonus, under the bottle caps, they printed little picture-puzzles (rhebus). They got progressively harder.
I tried Texas Pride once. It made Milwaukee’s Best (let alone Bud, et al) taste like the nectar of the gods by comparison. If you can drink that, you can drink anything.
Mynd you, I don’t whine about mainstream American beer; I simply avoid it. But if the subject is raised, I’ll cheerfully lend my (negative) opinion.
My idea of enjoying a good beer is sipping at about 6 ounces of a Guiness or Celis White over the course of a couple of hours. The only beer I can drink faster than that is Belgian fruit beer, which tastes more like soda pop with a kick. I really like Lindemann’s Peche.
Every once in awhile, our grocery store will have Pete’s Pub Lager in twelve packs. It’s really good…light, but not watery. It’s becoming my favorite, but they don’t often have it. I get that when I can. Otherwise, I like Bass at home, Bud when I’m out, because it’s cheap and it’s easy to yell to a bartender in a crowded, noisy bar.
I’m not a beer snob. This weekend I had more than my share of Miller Lite. We had company and this is what our guests like. But when I am going to buy for myself I usually get Bass, Pete’s Wicked Ale, Sam Adams Scotch Ale or anything that looks like a heavy, full bodied ale. One of my favorites that I have some difficulty getting is Bellhaven Scottish Ale. When I find it I try to get a couple of bottles to stash away for a rainy day.
John
Then he got up on top
With a tip of his hat.
“I call this game FUN-IN- A-BOX”
Said the cat.
If you can get it, New Glarus’ Belgian Red is unlike any other beer I’ve ever had (and not much like a Belgian red/kriek). Thye use Door County Cherries and a standard ale, but it tastes like a liquid version of the best cherry pie you can imagine!! Mmm–cherry pie beer.
Bud is not beer, in my book. This isn’t snobbishness. It uses almost no barley (lots of corn and rice), it has few hops, the “beechwood aging” is actually a filtering system. The owner talks about family tradition, but his great-great grandfather would punch him in the nose if he tasted the stuff that is now called a pilsner.
America can and does make some great lagers. Miller even made some reasonably priced good beers about a decade ago (an amber ale and a velvet stout). But most of the macrobreweries make the product as cheaply as they can. They’re making wonderbread when I want rye or focaccia or sourdough. I’m not being a snob when I say that I don’t like wonder or that I don’t like Bud.
If I called you an idiot for liking them, THEN I would be a snob.
Count me in with the anti-beer faction… generally it takes two beers to get me puking. Not from the booze, but from something in them. Ironicly, I can drink more of the low class beers than the microbrews. I polished off a 6 pack of bud once, but Guinness I am ill after maybe half a glass. Here I am in the heart of microbrew country (Pac-NW) and I can’t drink the stuff.
On the good side, there is generally a good selection of Ciders available (not as good as in Portland as in Seattle, but still good) so I don’t go thristy. Mmm… Cider Jack.
I’ll have to agree with Bucky here. This seems to be a much better to relay my feelings on mass-produced American beer. I used to say I’m a beer snob. But I guess accroding to Bucky, I’m not. I just seem to like the foreign or microbrews, or those that have some care taken to produce the stuff. Not that I like everything that’s a microbrew. Fat Tire (New Belgium Brewing Co.)seems to get a lot of notice around here since it’s produced in Colorado. I don’t think it’s that great. The Trippel that they make is much better. Guinness is always a fav expecially from the tap. I usually try something new every time I buy beer. There are standbys (sp) like Harp and Samuel Smith’s, but I want to see what else is out there.
There are a lot of people out there going to some effort to make some good beer. I’ll spend a little dough to find the good ones.
I am large,
I contradict myself,
I contain multitudes.
~Walt Whitman