What BEER(s) have you been drinking?

I bought a six-pack of "devils Tower - Wyoming" lager for the VT vs Bama game....bottled and brewed in Butte, Montana. eh. tasted just like bud lite. it was drinkable

I have started watching Mad Men and drinking straight Wild Turkey with honey flavoring whilst doing so. So far, the results are good.

Excuse me. Your attention, please?

A short announcement:

Stone's Smoked Porter is the finest beer ever crafted by human hands.

Also. I'm completely fuckin' drunk.

My apologies for the interruption, please continue.

Hmm...I guess that explains the "Hey Barnes, I fuckin' love you man" PM I just got...

I'm pissed (off that is, and not drunk) that I have little to contribute to this thread apart from memories. Due to a youthful binge (lasting from 17 - 35) and then a hiatus during a major lifestyle change (yungsta showing up and moving country and navigating relationship) my body re-adjusted itself to being alcohol free with the end result I don't drink shit all these days.
All I can claim these days is having a couple of cans of Carlsberg in the fridge (and they've been there awhile) and all my beer glasses still packed up in a box, although my Kiwi version of an Aussie schooner is in the cupboard for infrequent use.

But I'm gonna make an effort to analyse and report back on beers this side of the puddle - probably on an intermittent basis, although the culture here seems to be more cheap lagers and different ales in pubs rather than being able to buy many fine brewed bevvies in bottles from outlets (as in Kiwiland and Oz, and the US by the sound of it), but I'll raise my game for F:AT.

So, we've sadly neglected this thread for over half a year!

Tuesday before the Goatwhore/3 Inches of Blood concert we stopped at Vineyards in Ottawa (huge selection of wines, spirits and beers) to try some more sweet brews.

My buddy got there some time before me and when I arrived he was well into a Floreffe Double, great Belgian beer that I've had before. Around Christmas time they sell this half meter of beer in stores, a selection of 8 bottles from the brewery, goes from the light fruity stuff (apples or cherry) to some trappist stuff.

I quickly ordered Sgt. Major's IPA, from local micro Scotch Irish brewery , probably the hoppiest stuff I've ever tasted.

Then we split a bottle of Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout (10%), really good stuff that's unavailable in stores over here.

Finally went for my favourite of the evening, scottish Traquair brewery's Jacobite Ale ( link ), smooth and delicious with tons of different flavours.

Concert was lots of ridiculous fun, I hadn't moshed with underage kids half my age in forever. Too bad the place only had crappy Molson Canadian, Coors Light, Corona and Heineken (and too few blink and they're gone Moosehead).

Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout (10%)

Whoa, baby. That's an incredible beer. I picked up some at Whole Foods around Christmas, I've still got one in the refrigerator that I'm saving for a rainy day.

My recent drankin'-

Oskar Blues Brewery "The Gubna"- You like Dale's? The Gubna is even better. It's an Imperial IPA (10% ABV)with a similar grapefruity/peachy/ultra floral taste. But very smooth, and the IBV is surprisingly tame given the raw power of this brew. Expensive though- $15 for a four pack.

Bell's Oberon Ale- a terrific spring/summer beer. Light, easy to drink, and with a good wheaty/malty balance tipped off with clove and phenols.

Samuel Smith varieties- got a three pack gift set a while back with their Oatmeal Stout, Nut Brown, and Pale Ales. All three were great, a distinctive brewery taste running through each. I really liked the Nut Brown Ale, very nutty indeed with a nice crisp finish.

Ommegang Hennepin- A little saison action, I'm not too crazy about this beer but I was in the mood for this style. There's a certain pencil shavings-like taste to it, a mustiness, that I don't care for. But I drank all four, go figure.

Victory Golden Monkey- Another Belgian, this one a Tripel from one of my favorite brewerys. This is a good one, a little on the stiff side, but it has a nice body and a spicy character.

Sam Adams Noble Pils- Sucks ass. Tastes like an armpit. The first couple of sips are fine, but then a nasty aftertaste sinks the beer. Just pick up a Victory Prima Pils instead.

Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager- Not terrible, but boring. Very hoppy (it's a Sierra Nevada brew) and it comes across like a hybrid Pale Ale/pilsener. For a grocery store beer it ain't bad, but it's not up to scratch to SN's other brews.

I've got a Surly Abrasive Ale in my fridge that may need to be quaffed tonight.

Last weekend I got a couple tastes of Surly Four , which was released in amazingly limited quantities around here and sold out everywhere the first day. $17 per bottle, limit two. I didn't hear about it until it was gone, but a friend picked some up for someone's 30th birthday bash.

Light on the beer drinking recently.

I still have a couple of bottles of Moose Drool in the fridge, which ought to be feeling pretty nervous after this hellish week.

Brown Ales are my favorite, of course.

Have you done the Smuttynose Old Brown Dog? It's a pretty nice brown.

Nut brown ale is always good.

If I was posting to this thread in the last 8 months it would be 99% of the time to say "I bought 12 MGD and drank 7 of them."

I've been drinking sour ales when I go out recently. I really like the Duchesse de Bourgogne (sp?) but have had some other good ones as well from the beer bar in town (C-U has some surprisingly good beer bars).

Michael Barnes wrote:

Have you done the Smuttynose Old Brown Dog? It's a pretty nice brown.

I'll go look for it, but the brewery being 3000 miles away isn't going to help the availability around here.

We get all the crazy West Coast beers, which doesn't help me as I'm not addicted to hops.

edit: Jesus, never mind. They don't even have a single distributor west of the Mississippi, much less way over here. There happens to be one in Atlanta, but you're on the fringe of their territory.

Below a certain level of sales (which is pretty big), we're all operating in completely different beer markets.

My recent drinking:

Troeg's Nugget Nectar - A breath of fresh air. I'm getting pretty tired of the micros all banging the "Drink this IPA, it'll make your asshole pucker" drum day in and out, so it's nice to see someone do a high-alcohol, hopped up amber ale for a change. It's not that far removed from a strong IPA, but the hop character isn't so pine tree-ish.

Great Lakes' Eliot Ness Lager - Think the Brooklyn lager if it were made by a legit microbrewery. It tastes a little like Anchor Steam, but with more alcohol and a more pronounced hop bite. Watch out though, 'cause the 6.5% will creep up on you quickly. Also try their pale and porter if you get the chance.

Victory Hop Devil - I actually wasn't too impressed when I first had this one, but I've since done a 180. It's a great, complex, full-bodied IPA and easily stands up to anything you'll find from Stone or the other usual suspects.

Yuengling and Michelob porters - Hey, don't knock them. They're cheap as shit, all-malt, and not bad at all for what they are.

If any of you brown ale guys run across Lost Coast's Downtown Brown or Ithaca Nut Brown, give them a shot.

I had a Victory Hop Devil the other night, it was after some other stuff so my opinion may not be totally accurate but I remember really liking it.

I had a Lagunitas something (had some pin up girls on the label) and it was alright.

I've mostly been drinking the IPA we brewed ourselves. It's all Chinook hops and has a great floraly sort of character to it. It's a little less heady than we'd like, but it's better than a lot of stuff I could buy and way cheaper.

We just set to ferment another super hoppy jammer this past weekend that will be ready in 6 or so weeks. I'm getting pretty into adding hops to the carboy about a week before bottling for some extra plant power.

I'm gonna see if I can find some of that nugget nectar, sounds right up my alley.