Magic Hat spring seasonals are out. I got the 12 pack with Odd Notion and HIPA, both are decent but nothing extraordinary. The Odd Notion gets extra points for being a bit different by the inclusion of floral accents from poppies and some nice agave sweetness.

The ones you mentioned are all great.

Additionally, Sierra Nevada, although I assume you can find that back east. Their wet-hopped Harvest Ale, if it's still around, is pretty great though, and I can't imagine too widespread. Alesmith and Russian River have good brews. I like some of Mendicino Brewing Company's offerings. Pizza Port has some amazing beers, and the Lost Abbey offshoot has more amazing brews as well.

Also, while not California brews, Rogue and Deschutes have some good beers, and probably aren't too widely spread on the east coast yet. Worth picking up if they're not.

I would recommend Rogue and Deschutes beers as well. I love Deschutes Black Butte Porter.

Rogue consistently makes some of the best beers I've ever tasted. A lot of them are bold and overstated- those are good, but there's really nothing like a Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale for sheer pleasure.

Funny both of you guys mention Deschutes. I fully agree with you on that, I like them so much I special order some of their beers when I can. I really enjoyed their Hop Henge, and actually have that Porter on order right now, but with it being cold, pretty much means it is waiting to be shipped.

Late reply, I'm from San Francisco and one of the better micro-brewery beers that you can obtain at the local market is Anchor Steam - Definitely recommend it.

I'd 3rd or 4th the notion of picking up Alesmith brews, esp the Speedway Stout mentioned earlier. Alesmith make a decent IPA (Alesmith IPA), if you'd like that. I also tried their Wee Heavy Scotch Ale last weekend, which was great. I'm a little spoiled living out here in So. Cal with Stone and Alesmith all driving distance... I almost want to do beer swaps since the stuff I've been looking for are those Dogfish Head 120min and their yearly World Wide Stouts, which you east-coasters can find more easily.

Btw, for Stone, if you haven't tried their 11th anniversary ale (I picked up like 8 bottles back in 07 when it came out, and I sadly went through it all....), it's one of the best. The reason why I bring up a 2 year old beer is b/c due to popular demand, they recreated it last month and released it under the name: Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale. Black double hopped IPA, which I'm sure you'd like if you like the hoppy stuff. It came out last month, so you might be SOL... but you might come into luck if you're willing to drive out to Escondido while you're here.

Also, I tried this Coronado limited run beer called, Neptune's Nectar recently, and I quite liked it. They brewed it for the Pizza Port Strong Ale event, but apparently they had to dilute it according to one of their brewers (I believe they used Duvel to dilute it), which made it too costly to make again, so if you can find any of it, give that a try while you're out here.

Stone's beers aren't _quite_ worth driving from SF to Escondido for :p.

Pizza Port's strong beer festival pretty well is though( well, carlsbad, but close enough ). For those of you in Boston, the Extreme Beer Festival is likewise more than worth attending.

Had that one back when it was the 11th Aniversery. Went looking for more and it was sold out. My hope is that now that Stone has upped their distribution we may get the rebranded version here in the East again. We have been getting all of their stuff, even if it is a little late. Took forever for the Belgian/IPA hybrid to show up, but I can at least find it now. I did read the SSSA is going to be brewed all year round, just in small batches, so ventually some some appear here. I hope it does, black IPA's are not a very common style, the only other one I have had was Dogzilla which I had to order to try.

Speaking of Stone, they just released the 09 version of their Old Guardian Barelywine, didn't they?

I highly recommend any beer from The Duck-Rabbit Brewery. And to any native North Carolinians...they brew here. The Milk Stout is amazing.

duckrabbitbrewery

Beer = Meaning of life.

I'm a huge, i mean HUGE Guinness fan. I just can't get enough of it.
Also i adore Leffe and Hoegardeen.

On the other hand i'm working in the marketing department of a beer brewery, which is the 6th biggest in Europe.

My life goes like; i get paid for beer and i spend my money for beer. Weird cycle eh ?