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.

Bells Expedition Stout is generally rated as one of the top 10 imperials on the planet Earth. If you didn't count oaked versions of imperials as additional to their non-oaked varieties, it would probably be top 5.

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.

That's very interesting. I'm beginning to realize why I hadn't posted in here. For all my love of beer, I just don't know enough to actually contribute. I'm alright at placing that trace flavor that different beers may have, but the only thing I know about IPAs, Imperials, or IIPAs is that they typically taste good to me.

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.

I recommend anything from North Coast Brewery out of Ft Bragg in Mendocino.

North Coast Brewery

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?

Mighty Arrow was "upgraded" from a random one-off to New Belgium's annual spring seasonal, so the stuff is on tap all over town now. Never had it before last week, and I was pleasantly surprised. As far as the hop flavor...I can only describe it as the time I ate a hop pellet while making some homebrew. The taste and aroma are very, very fresh, almost grassy. Seems like they must have filtered it through a hop back, or dry hopped it shortly before bottling. There's not a whole lot of bitterness, it's all about the flavor and aroma hops.

I think it's a solid session beer, though it won't dethrone Sierra Nevada for "best pale ale ever".

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 ?

Just to add to this, I had some Expedition Stout this weekend and it was sublimely delicious. Also some Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout, which had a warm coffee flavor tempering the hops. Hopefully we see some of the Stone black IPA on the east coast, sounds very intriguing.

If by "Stone black IPA" you mean the Sublimely Self-Righteous then yes, it's pretty intriguing and you shouldn't miss it. It's part of their year-round lineup now so you shouldn't have any issues ordering or finding it at a local specialist, although you might not be tripping over it at liquor stores even in the middle of nowhere like we do here in San Diego.

Did you have the 11th Anniversary? If so, it's the same brew. I think I still have a few of those cellared that I can now drink with impunity.

Brew your own? I have a Delirium Tremens clone in the secondary, a Cranberry Porter and a Bitter Ale bottled.

Beer? Yeah, I can make that.

The last week I spent some time in the real Northrend (Norway), and the first thing that I noticed was that beer is expensive as hell! A pint of the typical Bud/Miller (Ringnes) in a bar will cost you around 8 dollars! The only beer that I decided to have a taste was called Borg Bokkol, and the only reason I paid 10 bucks for 1 beer was that the logo of the beer is a Viking with a helm and sword in hand. I think it was a Bock, and it was more expensive than the average beers, it was good, kinda sweet and malty, but definitely not worth the 10 bucks for one beer. Lesson learned here: Don't drink beer in Norway!! Also they stop selling beer after 8 pm on weekdays, and 6 pm on Saturdays in stores, and you can't even buy it on Sundays. Yet despite all their efforts to stop people from drinking, I saw more people puking outside at 5 am in Oslo than any other city I've been to in Europe. Guess it goes to show how important beer is to us, cheers.

If anybody is in the uk then i suggest you try a pint of Worthingtons cask ale, Brains bitter and Hancocks HB (Personal choice favourites) And perhaps Brains smooth/Worthington Creamflow if you like the smooth beers with a thick head. Quite a bit less of a hoppy/bitter flavour, and to be honest way more pubs serve those 2 than my first choices. I feel privaliged to be british in that we have some of the best beer in the world. That said i do like lager in the summer and drink a lot of Carling (not so great british lager) and Becks (a very nice german lager).

I see a lot of people here aren't fans of american lagers, and i see a lot of snobbery about it in general, but to be honest i find them to be really quite nice, having drank quite a bit of buddweiser and coors during my university years i dont quite understand where they have gotten their bad name, they really are quite enjoyable and refreshing to drink on a hot summers day, atleast to me.

As far as home brewing is concerned ive heard good and bad, quite considering getting a do it yourself kit from one of the online beer enthusiast websites, to make some beer for parties in the summer. How good it will turn out i have no idea, My older brother brewed a few barrels a couple of years ago and it turned out like rocket fuel, and was to be honest, quite nasty.. can't say i look forward to spending a summer drinking shite beer.

The thing about American lagers is they're just really, really, really boring. They're incredibly well made, the fact that a beer as light as a Budweiser or a Coors tastes exactly the same no matter where in the world you buy it is just amazing - fantastic brewing on their parts. But the beers themselves lack any character or defining characteristics.

Which was fine until the advent of Microbrews, when us Americans were shown the true variety that beers were capable of. Sure, a cool Budweiser might be refreshing on a hot summer day, but isn't a Sierra Nevada Summerfest equally refreshing, and actually interesting to drink as well. Frankly, if I want flavorless alcohol, I'll mix Vodka and water and get something I find more palatable than cheap beers. Even in the category of Lagers, if that's your thing, get a Samuel Adams Lager, it's miles better than Bud or Coors. It will give you a taste of what the genre is capable of.

The extract kits really take all the guess work out of it. It takes a little start-up cash, like most hobbies, but once you have your fermentors, bottles (save the stuff you drink while you are fermenting!), airlocks and so on, you can make good beer cheaply, and easily. After you've cooked up a couple of easy batches though, you are going to find yourself wanting to experiment.

Irony is, as boring as the BMC (Bud, Miller, Coors) are, they are nearly impossible to clone.

Are you sure you were drinking the American Budweiser and not the Czech Budweiser?

This is what we call a paradox.

That's because most respectable people don't use fucking corn and rice when they cook up their own beer. That and the techniques those places use to dumb down the taste of their swill is miles beyond what an average garage brewer is capable of.

But seriously, this thread isn't the place to talk about our crappy, American, mass-consumer beers, so I'm going to shut up.