With all the americans here, still no vote for Coors Lite?
Ahhh, a good subject.
Re:Guiness and the maligning of perfectly good stout… Guiness if MUCH easier to acquire a taste for once one allows the sticks and twigs to settle at the bottom.
Related, ever tried Kilkenney Cream Ale? A fine dark brew… kicks Guiness out of the hand for me.
Re: Canadian locals. Alexander Keith’s India pale Ale is, without a doubt, the best beer from a tap I’ve tasted. But I’m young and foolish. I’m cutting into my beer drinking time when I could be making these fairly hard judgements.
Regards, and imbibe liberally,
Jai Pey
I’ve had the Pilsner. It was okay. Just okay. I like most beers, but I especially the Trappist brews (heck, they take vows of chastity; that leaves a lot of attention to spend on perfecting other pleasures).
Guiness is good, I can’t imagine what you derogators are thinking.
Rolling Rock is…inoffensive. Practically water. What’s not to like?
I just bottled a couple of cases of my own brew last night - a bitter, to round out my current menu.
As a fellow that doesn’t care for sweet beers, I heartily agree with UncaBeer and Uke on the fruity “beer” position. Although sometimes airborne yeast makes an interesting concoction with the Cytomax sports drink I mix for bicycling: when I see the sides of my water bottle bulge, I know it will be an interesting ride home.
I had the opportunity last spring to do some serious research in Old Town Square in Prague, and my vote is for Pilsner Urquell over Budvar Budweiser, mostly on the sweetness issue; I thought the Budvar too sweet for my taste.
After other serious research in trips to Britain, I have to commend the cask-conditioned, cellar temperature British best bitter.
Pilsner Urquell is fine if you like that kind of thing, and the opinion that it is the best beer in the world probably comes from Americans and Bavarian-Austrian-Czechs who are used to drinking pilsner lagers most of the time (compared to American pilseners it perhaps IS the best in the world). IF you like pilsner lagers, which I don’t. Even the best pilsner still tastes like wee to me. The Belgians have a much more varied and complex selection of beers-- much more interesting, I think.
A thousand pardons my good sirs, it is absolutely correct that Uke was blending with the Romans in Chicago, and Unc you did stick to the Canadian variety. Labatts Blue no less, one of my favorite lagers. The best Canadian Macro I’ve had, although the Labatt’s that came in the Green label was pretty foul.
I adore a Lambic under the right circumstances, but don’t see cause to order it in a bar. It is however spectacular over dessert, or as an apertif.
Now Chimay I could compose sonnets about, what a boon to mankind this is. God bless those silly misguided souls slaving in the monestaries.
Barley wines are a kick, but after a few they start going down pretty quick and can really lay you out. One of the best I had was served hand pumped out of a barrel in the Goose Island brewery here in Chicago. Try it sometime if you get the opportunity.
Unclebeer, I see we’ll always get along just fine in the brew pubs of the world.
But don’t get me wrong, I love a bland macrobrew the majority of the time I go out drinking in volume. But I’ll be damned if I throw away my money on some skunk piss. Gimme a Labatts Blue or a Budweiser anyday.
Re: Coors Light. This beverage makes the bottled water people feel like their market share is threatened. Rolling Rock is skunk piss, Coors is just wet.
The best beer: “Red White & Blue” of course.
[ducking for cover] 
That’s thought to be a result of drinking too much wee.
.
Pilsner Urquell was bought out about 5 years ago and the recipe was changed. IIRC it had been the beer whose recipe had gone unchanged the longest. The current recipe is very similar to Heineken but with less alcohol resulting in a slightly sweeter taste when not skunked.
As far as green bottled beers go, I drink Heineken (or Beck’s) from a can on a hot day. I don’t buy any green bottles that have been removed from a sealed case. Anyway, unless there’s an especially good price on a green bottle beer, I drink Watney’s Red Barrel (not the cream stout). Unfortunately, since the microbeer craze has taken over, many bars and liqour stores no longer stock Watney’s. :mad: On the positive side, since I can’t get Watney’s I have been trying lots of different beers.
Here are the results of my forced survey. Oregon Ridge has a great Hop Harvest, I love hoppy beers, unfortunately that’s hard to find too. Avoid microbrews from Minnesota or Wisconson, they almost always use lots of champaign yeast which results high alcohol content but also a head that reminds me of CocaCola. I never realized how important head texture can be to beer enjoyment. It made me go back and savor a Guiness. At the Wharf Rat in Baltimore, you can buy an Oliver’s Black Friar Stout. It’s the only stout, I have found, superior to Guiness. Very few beers priced in the midrange at liqour stores are worth buying. Shell out for the good stuff or stick to Miller (or Yuengling Old German, the only cheap Yuengling since they changed the bottle on the porter). Above all, drink Watney’s whenever you can so that everyone will begin stocking it again.
If men had wings,
and bore black feathers,
few of them would be clever enough to be crows.
- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
Stout (but not physically) supporter of Guinness checking in. It’s my favorite! 
As for the world’s best? I go for the Chimay line, any one of 'em. Those Belgian Trappists walk with God as far as that’s concerned.
VileOrb, next time I get to Balto I’ll check the Oliver Black out - any chance to try a new stout is welcome by me. Hmm… wait a sec…
VileOrb [anagram] Oliver B [/anagram]
…any connection, there??
Cave Diem! Carpe Canem!
Wasteful–you da man! You’re absolutely right. Kansas City’s Boulevard Brewing Co. makes a range of good to excellent beers, the local fave being Pale Ale. Spanish beer is crap though high potency (typical alcohol percentage: 5.4% for a lager, ranging up to 7.2% for a not too dark beer). However, we do get good European beers here. Pilsner Urquell is excellent on tap and decent in bottles, though by no means is it the best. I like all Weissbiers (sp?), though the one they have at my local bar is branded Erdinger. I like it. Of course, Guinness on tap is excellent. Belgian brands are uniformly good, as are English ales that aren’t that high-octane 9% lager shit they sell to the hooligans. The German beer we get here that isn’t Weissbier or bock is pisswater. Best beer I ever had was a Belgian beer called Grimbergen at a neighborhood bar in Paris, of all places. Mainstream American beer sucks but you can always get something good anywhere you go…there’s a microbrewery or a local company there, and if nothing else you buy Sam Adams or Anchor. By the way, the idea that Canadian beer is better than American is BS.
College memories…(to the tune of “Hot Blooded”)
Black Label, check it and see
Get a twelve-pack for two-ninety-three
Come on, baby, you can buy more than that
Black Label, Black Label!
I got Black Label inside of me
So wasted that I can’t even see
Come on. baby, you can drink more than that
Black Label, Black Label!
Needless to say, at age 18 taste was not the highest priority that we had. Quantity was the big one. I think that that may be what has ruined many Americans’ taste for beer–imagining that what you poured down because it was cheap is actually a model for what is good.
–Lawrence, your Barcelona correspondent, formerly from an unnamed Midwestern city
sigh
I had a great zinger conceptually, but it was ruined by the facts. Rats.
Well, I am gratified to see at least some support herein for my beloved Pilsner U.
And since no one has quoted that great Monty Python line yet… ref American beers: “They’re like making love in a canoe.”
“Why?”
“They’re fucking close to water.”
- Rick
“Some take delight in carriages a-rollin’,
Some take delight in the fishing or the bowling,
I take delight in the juice of the barley,
And chasing pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early.”
(from a non-Thin Lizzy version of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’)
I am of the opinion that a ‘favorite’ beer is situational. If I’m at my pub, I have to get a Guinness. Maybe it’s cuz I’m the latest in a long line of micks, but I just love the stuff. If I’m at a hockey game (or watching hockey on TV), nothing except Labatt’s or Molson will do. If I’m mowing the lawn, prolly Rolling Rock-it’s cheap, and tastes ok when it’s hot out.
However, seasonally, we in the NW are lucky enough to have Snowcap on tap. For the unintiated, Snowcap (http://www.pyramidbrew.com/goodbeer/beerguide/index.html) is a sweet, lethal, brain cell destroying machine. When I don’t have anything to do the next day, I get a couple of Snowcaps.
Olent, never noticed the anagram thing - Thanks.
I agree that “best beer” is situational to some extent, but I’d like to throw out opinions based on cost. I love Corsendonk Monk Brown Ale, but at $10 a four pack I don’t buy it much. I still think it’s one of the best beers you can buy. Watney’s Red Barrel, though cheaper, is better.
Nothing quite like simple tunes and Irish brews. Now if we can only figure out if it was Gilgarry or Kilkenny mountain… Who gives a damn! Another pint, good sir.
This doesn’t date me well, because it hasn’t been brewed here in far Eastern Canada for a while, but Labatt 50 was a fine brew, for Father and Father’s father. Pilsner is good stuff… as is bavarian lagers. Newfie brewed “Blue Star” is as fine as anything I imbibed in Germany. They tell me you can still get it in Ontario and Quebec. Blue is my primary brew… in the fridge, at the bar, and where-e’er my roamin’ takes me.
Regards to the “mick”, Spankboy.
Jai pey
Cartooniverse,
Couldn’t agree with you more. Yuengling is truly one of the finest brews on the planet. It’s actually the oldest brewery in America. My personal favorite is their Black and Tan. It’s sooooo smooth.
Three Words, My Friends: **BUD-WEI-SER!!!**They invented beer. Need I say more?
I love many of the above mentioned brews, plus these tasty ones:
Kronenberg (French)
Optimator & Celebrator & anything else from Bavaria(German)
Sapporo Dark (Japan)
Everything from Belgium
Oranjaboom & Peter’s (Dutch)
Saxer Liberator Doppelbock (Oregon, USA)
Bridgeport ESB & IPA (Oregon, USA)
Black Butte Porter (Oregon, USA)
Samuel Middleton’s (Maryland, USA)
Anchor Steam (California, USA)
Red Hook (Washington, USA)
Pilsner Urquell is simply delicious (I drank nothing but that and the original Lowenbrau out of the tap when I was in Prague in 93…mmmmm) and it very well may be the World’s Best Pilsner. As for the best beer, well, I’m not sure what that would be, but I know it would come from Bavaria or Belgium.
well, yes.
what is essential is invisible to the eye -the fox
I think the Pilsner Urquell is total crap. I’ve never understood the hype about this beer. Tastes watery and thin to me. But I don’t usually like pilsners anyway, so who am I to judge.
The best beer in the world? I’m still looking, but Lagunitas IPA comes pretty damn close. Ahhhh, I seem to be getting awful thirsty all of a sudden.
Beer. It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
Mr. Samurai reminded me of a trivia nugget-
If you see any beers ending in ‘-ator’ (i.e. Terminator, Elevator, Emasculator), they are supposed to be bocks or double-bocks by naming convention.
-sb
They say the Lord loves drunks, fools and little children.
Two out of three ain’t bad.