My Favorite New Beer

[Draegan]

A friend pointed this beer out to me a few weeks ago, and it's now my new favorite beer.  Just wanna pass on the favor if you like trying out some new brew.

It's a local brewery here in Jersey.  Here's where it's available:

Wholesalers and Counties Covered

River Horse beer products are available in PA, NJ, NY, DE, MD, CT, OH, VA and MA.

River Horse Brewing company

If you can find it I recommend the Summer Blonde and Hopphazard

[schild]

and it's not my new favorite beer.

Your friend sounds like a jerk.

[ahoythematey]

Speaking of beer, if anybody has the opportunity I suggest trying Fireman's #4 from draft.  It's damn good.

[Draegan]

and it's not my new favorite beer.

Your friend sounds like a jerk.

How did that word get in there. .. *now

[Der Helm]

This.

[rattran]

Lambertville? At least a few years ago they had undrinkable tapwater, I have trouble imagining good beer from there.

[Hawkbit]

I'll give it a shot this weekend. 

My friend is the brewmaster at CBC: http://www.columbusbrewingco.com/beer.html

But my personal favorite is Paulaner draft.  Mmm... 

[Bungee]

I don't know if it's available in the US (I'll do a research tomorrow!! Too tired now), but IF you can get this beer- well just try it...

[Chenghiz]

I don't know if it's available in the US (I'll do a research tomorrow!! Too tired now), but IF you can get this beer- well just try it...

My local bottle shop (Indiana) has it. 

[Tale]

drinking pintzilla

[Margalis]

My favorite beer is a scotch.

And my other car is a pair of shoes.

[stray]

I think I've rounded it down to 4 conventional preferences and won't change (impossible to have one favorite beer).

Taste-wise, when I want a hoppy ale, it's Anchor Liberty. If I want something else, that something is Guinness. Or both in a black/tan.

If I want to really guzzle, it's something without a lot of carbs, yet isn't too tasteless or too offensive. Ultra Ambers seem to be my best bet [edit -- recommendations would be nice though).

[raydeen]

I generally have what most would consider abysmal tastes in beer and whiskey (my beers of choice are Piels, Golden Anniversary, Black Label, Stroh's and Schaefer and my bourbon, Old Crow) but should any of you find beverages from the following two local breweries in your area, I'd recommend them.

http://www.victorybeer.com/

http://www.dockstreetbeer.com/

Most of the Victory beers are the alcoholic equivalent to EQ's Plane of Disease, interesting at first but you've got to be hardcore to keep coming back (I'm looking at you Golden Monkey-I had to roll on the ground to get to my car one night).

Dockstreet makes an incredible amber, a real sipping beer. Your face will fold in like space-time in a black hole, but you'll enjoy every moment of it.

And finally, my recipe for the Mock Margarita: Take a juice glass, 4 ice cubes, fill halfway with Old Crow, and then add Minutemaid Lemonade or Limeade. About 8 of them and you're in for some good cheap stupid time.

[Sky]

Saranac had a fire in their brewery and supply was cut off for a little while. 

They are going to use another canning/bottling facility in the interim, so production is going again.

Saranac Black Forest ftw. I like a ton of stuff, though. Even the hoppy stuff is growing on me a bit, if I'm in the mood.

For small beer I drink Old Mil Light, chilled to just above freezing, drink fast. It's almost water, but I don't drink to get drunk any more.

[Teleku]

I like a ton of beers, so I'll just throw out some good breweries in case you can possibly get them in your area (mainly west coast breweries, however), and highlight some of my particular favorites.

North Coast Brewery:  Could be my favorite brewery now.  They make a ton of excellent, high quality beers.  You really can't go wrong with anything.  In particular, Red Seal Ale is an awesome, aromatic red ale.  Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout is probably the best stout (or close to it) I've tried.  Here's a pic of the label:


Lost Coast Brewery:  Like everything I've tried by them, good overall.  I'm a huge fan of Brown Ale's, and there Downtown Brown is great.  Also, Great White is a wonderful session beer as well.

Sierra Nevada Brewery:  This has become massive, obviously, being the second biggest craft brewery in the US after Boston Beer Company.  Still, there beers are all very solid, with the Wheat Beer, Porter, and Pale Ale being my favorites of the main stuff.  However, they also happen to make a good brown ale that I would highly suggest if you can get it.  You use to only be able to get it locally (luckily I grew up about 30 minutes from the brewery), but I believe they are expanding bottle production of it now.  Also, they make a Harvest Fresh Hop ale that I really enjoy, and would highly recommend.  In Fall/Winter, its just called Harvest Ale, in Spring/Summer, its called Southern Hemisphere Harvest (because that's were they have to get the fresh hops from at that time).

Rogue Ales:  Makes excellent beer of every type, though its expensive.  Try anything they make, you'll probably like it (as long you like the style obviously).  Plus, I absolutely love their bottles:


New Belgium Brewery:  Solid all around, another huge craft brewery.  Lots of lighter beers.  I'll heavily recommend their 1554 Ale though.  Its REALLY good, and very unique.  Haven't found a beer that taste similar to it yet.

Brooklyn Brewery:  Haven't tried many of their beers, but what I have had I liked.  There brown ale was good (but again, I'm a huge fan of brown ales, heh).

Deschutes Brewery:  Solid beer company, they do everything very well.  Can't go wrong with any of their stuff.  Their Black Butte Porter in particular is a favorite of mine.  Also, we've found it to be the best porter to mix with Big Foot Barley Wine by Sierra Nevada when you want to make Porter Foot!

[stray]

I have two shrunken Brooklyn Brewery t-shirts, and no Brooklyn Brew. 

[WayAbvPar]

Teleku hit most of my favs...well done.

[Teleku]

Thanks.  Out of curiosity, what are some of your other favs?

[Engels]

Old Rasputin is great, but its hard to call its a 'regular' stout, in a sense. Its got that awsome tartness that most stouts don't have.

[Teleku]

Well yes, its a Russian Imperial Stout.  Those are quite different from say, a Dry Irish stout (like Guiness), or an Oatmeal stout.  I'm just saying of all stout types I've tried, regardless of style, its one of my favorites ;).  Here in Berkeley theres a couple of places where I can get it served on nitro tap from a keg.  Dear god is it great.

Speaking of great Russian Imperial Stouts, Stone Breweries Imperial Russian Stout is really really fucking great as well.  Grab it while you can, its only a seasonal release, so it wont be around to much longer I believe.

[UnholyB0B]

My Stout of choice has been Storm King from Victory Brewing Co. for the past two years. I couldn’t imagine life with out it. http://www.victorybeer.com/storm_king.html
The Golden Monkey is nice but I couldn’t drink it everyday. 

[Xerapis]

I hate beer.  Unless it's root.

[Teleku]

Well, you are in Korea  .

[Signe]

I don't like beer, either.  It tastes like fizzy ear wax.

[Xerapis]

Koreans hate root beer.

[Teleku]

Koreans hate root beer.

The comment was more aimed at the countries lack of good beer .

[WayAbvPar]

Thanks.  Out of curiosity, what are some of your other favs?

Some of my favs-

Fire Rock Pale Ale (Longboard Lager is decent too).

Mac & Jack's- pretty much everything they make.. I am a bit biased- AFTER I fell in love with the beer, I found out that Mac is my dad's cousin Malcolm! Now I stalk him from beer festival to beer festival and babble drunkenly at him. I am sure he loves it 

RAM Brewery. I like the Buttface, Blonde, and Pale Ale the best, but I think Total Disorder Porter is among the best names for a beer I have ever seen.

For larger breweries, I like Blue Moon and Sam Adams pretty well, and am a sucker for most Mexican beers.

[Righ]

Victory Festbier is here early this year. Buy it if you see it, this stuff seems to sell faster than most of the US 'Oktoberfest' brews. Like the Sam, it has a bready taste, with balanced malting, but it a bit more of a flowery hop taste and less spice, and the overall mix is more subtle, but still very flavorful. This is a great session beer, and not one to miss.

[Ozzu]

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale = 

I'm also a big fan of Sam Adams Black Lager.

[CharlieMopps]

[Paelos]

I love Fat Tire in Colorado.

[Abagadro]

This isn't beer, but I just invented (or at least independently thought up) a new drink:

Highball full of ice
Jigger of 10 Canes Rum (which is a great pure cane sugar premium light rum if you've never tried it)
Juice of Lime Wedge
Fill with Jones Berry Lemonade Soda
Stir

[stray]

Umm... I'm gonna have to try it. I like rum.

[bhodi]

[CmdrSlack]

Beers That Rule:

Two Brothers Brewing Their website is ass, and the website for their homebrewing shop is a link to a MS Exchange server, but their beers are the best. The fact that there's always a cask-conditioned offering at the brewpub is also nice. They do a fresh hop brew every year. In fact, once the wife gets home, I'm going to the brewpub to get our growler re-filled while she wrangles the kid for 30 minutes.

Capital Brewing in Wisconsin is also great. They have a wheat beer in cans (cans are FTW since they're easier to ship and result in a lower carbon footprint) and their seasonal Ocktoberfest and Autumnal Fire (a great doppelbock) are by far the best in the Midwest, if not the nation.

Another great one is Flossmoor Station, a brewpub that just started bottling some of its beer in bombers. You can only get it at a few stores in Illinois, but for those in the area, send me a PM and I'll tell you which retailers (I'm one of them) carry it.

Oh and I have to give some credit to Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. Not only do they make some darn good beers, but they make the best domestic, gleutin-free beer I've ever had.

I also agree with Teleku for the most part.

It just seemed that Midwest beers weren't being fully represented.

Oh yeah, there's those Three Floyds guys in Indiana as well, but fuck them, I can never get reliable stock on their six packs. Great beers tho.