Favorite Beers

[VMan]

Lakefront White beer...similar to Blue Moon, but better. Lakefront is one of many local breweries, and they consistently put out a good product. They brew a variety of beers, which is done on a rotational basis.

They make a Holiday Spice beer (honey, orange, nutmeg, cinnamon) around thanksgiving/christmas which sounds kind of gross, but is really excellent. It's also 11% alcohol, so all you need is a few.

 

[tangerine]

Lagunitas IPA
Speakeasy Big Daddy IPA
Bridgeport IPA
Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Fat Tire Amber Ale
Hoegaarten

 

[kcgreg]

I love Belgian beers all round as I was based in Europe for seven years and spent my time trying their 800+ different beers. I managed to consume about 400+ styles. My all favourites in summer are the light fruity summer beers that they serve in Belgium and all round I prefer dark, heavy ales as well. Chimay, Kasteel (which is the only belgian beer to have a glass with a gold trim which is only reserved for their top quality beers) and the beers that we used to get from the Monastery in Vest Flanderers or West Flanders. These beers came in 6%, 9% and 11% I think - I cannot remember. The vest-flaterren beers are my all favourite. The monastery produces only so many hundred cases a year which is pre-ordered so it is not an easily available beer.
Being now in New Zealand - I have the Chimay 9% almost every week.

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by kcgreg

I love Belgian beers all round as I was based in Europe for seven years and spent my time trying their 800+ different beers. I managed to consume about 400+ styles. My all favourites in summer are the light fruity summer beers that they serve in Belgium and all round I prefer dark, heavy ales as well. Chimay, Kasteel (which is the only belgian beer to have a glass with a gold trim which is only reserved for their top quality beers) and the beers that we used to get from the Monastery in Vest Flanderers or West Flanders. These beers came in 6%, 9% and 11% I think - I cannot remember. The vest-flaterren beers are my all favourite. The monastery produces only so many hundred cases a year which is pre-ordered so it is not an easily available beer.
Being now in New Zealand - I have the Chimay 9% almost every week.
Excellent suggestions!

Westvleteren is great. I have two bottles at home, as luck would have it. And Kasteel is also really good - excellent cool winter evening beer, I find (goes realy well with pfeffernusse and lebkukken, lol). Tried any of the Flemish reds like Rodenbach, Petrus Oud Brouin or Duchesse de Bourgogne?

P.s. above post is probabkly riddled with typos and misspellings. My apologies.

 

[kcgreg]

Hey Skalogre,

You got the right spelings - it's my fault. Haven't been speaking flemish for a long time now. I just got up as well from New Zealand timing.

Rodenbach - good.
Petrus Oud Bruin - Very nice.
Duchesse de Bourgogne - scrumptious.

If I remember these right.

La chouffe which is off the tap is a very nice lager which they serve in pubs over there - I don' tknow if you can get them in bottles.

 

[kcgreg]

oops - I forgot to mention - I am very envious and jealous that you have the westvleteren beers - willing to sell one of them and ship them properly to New Zealand???

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by kcgreg

Hey Skalogre, You got the right spelings - it's my fault. Haven't been speaking flemish for a long time now. I just got up as well from New Zealand timing. Rodenbach - good. Petrus Oud Bruin - Very nice. Duchesse de Bourgogne - scrumptious. If I remember these right. La chouffe which is off the tap is a very nice lager which they serve in pubs over there - I don' tknow if you can get them in bottles.
La Chouffe! Hehehe! I have actually! Love the artwork on the label, - as the name would suggest, gnomes - rather tipsy looking ones, too! Actually I don't know how to actually send someting that fragile that distance. Hmm... Also forgot to mention that I REALLY LIKE the Duchesse; I have found it does cellar (or "cupboard" in my case) very well. I have some that are around 5 years old, they mature rather nicely. Closer to a strong wine with less acidity than originally but not as sweet, naturally. The Petrus was great when I could find it. On one occassion I bought amost a dozen bottles to prepare some steaks for my parents and inlaws (my parents had come over to the USA for a visit). Left them sit in the Petrus for maybe 30 hours. Just bloody excellent after having them grilled on charcoal.

 

[kcgreg]

Are you really serious about selling me the westvleteren??? That would be cool.
All yoo really need is a good big box and alot of that bubble wrap and wrap it around the bottle nice and good and make sure the wording is fragile written all over it. Mark it as a gift as well. Heehehehe! My wife doesn't know I am doing this!!!!

 

[kcgreg]

I can't believe you marinate your steaks with such good beer!!!! AArgh!!!

I think I am a trad at heart. Good beer through the lips only. Plus a good cigar!!!

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by kcgreg

I can't believe you marinate your steaks with such good beer!!!! AArgh!!!

I think I am a trad at heart. Good beer through the lips only. Plus a good cigar!!!


What can I say? The Oud Bruin was just PERFECT for the steaks. I did a test run before committing to the menu of the day and I HAD to make it.

It paired itself very well with the Duchesse, btw.

 

[Hanseat]

Having grown up in Beck's town means that I'm somewhat partial to Beck's.
They actually make a few other beers for the local marked one of which is Haake-Beck Kräusen that is a filtered several times. Nice beer on a saturday evening. They make St. Pauli Girl too, just that no one around here has ever heard it....

Pisner Urquell sure is a nice beer- very clean taste and hey, you can see plenty of people drinking it around noon in Prague (been there half a year ago and found it hard to believe).

I'd actually not drink Staropramen: We took a tour of the brewery with school (and had a little tasting). Let's just say that I rarely ever drank that early in the morning and for that it was okay. But wondering about the funny tast in the glass made me look up the ingredients... In germany it wouldn't leaglly be considered beer because of all those funny little E-numbers in it (though with the EU we probabyl had to drop that standard as well- those damned bureaucrats who want to tell us what beer is.).

Other than that I'll conduct a nice little testing this weekend in the name of science (have plenty of weird beer from DK and CZ).

 

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by tiger02

My supply is somewhat limited--I just don't think hefeweizen and krystalweizen are all they're cracked up to be, and they're the popular ones around here.
I'm not a big Hefe fan, but when a store around here stocks a good Kristalweizen I'm liable to buy out their stock. Unfortunately, Schneider Kristal is impossible to find around here, but occasionally I'll luck into a stock of Tucher or something similar. It's not the sublime experience of a Schneider, but it's pretty good. I also like the some of the Ruhrgebiet beers, like Kölsch and (even better, though it's only available in one place) Bönnsch. The standard bottled stuff from that region (Königs Pilsner et al.) doe not do much for me, though. In general, I like my beers to have been established under the Hapsburgs: Budweiser, Pilsner Urquell, Gosser, Radegast. Maybe as far north in the old Holy Roman Empire as a Veltins. Especially in the summer, though it's lost something since they changed importers and stopped packaging it in the correct dumpy green bottles for the US market. I'm not a Belgian fan, though how much of that is a reaction to the annoying trendiness of Belgian beer right now is an open question. As for American beers, Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale is excellent, but beyond that I've been unimpressed. If none of the above are available, I'll reach for a Newcastle or Warsteiner.

 

[kcgreg]

I realise that Belgian beers may be a trend but from here in New Zealand people are really slow in trying anything new when it comes to F&B and mind you - in Europe everyone knows that Belgian and German beers are the best around. Just like the origin of French Fries - they actually originated as Belgian fries because they have special butter sauces as dip to go with it and somehow the French manage to sell the concept - I guess, who knows how this came about?

My stint in Europe was from 1993 to 1999 and now in New Zealand I cannot find proper tasting beers because I like something substantial personally - so ultimately I guess it boils down to personal taste.

Thats my two cents.