I prefer my beer aged personally. I’ve found Doggie Claws starts to get really good at around two years. Fresh it’s good but a bit of a big, syrupy, boozy mess (still delicious).
Fred is definitely good fresh, but way better aged, same deal.
Ottos Old Fugget - of course I’ve never had it aged because it’s cask only at the brewpub, but I don’t think it needs age at all. It leans towards English old ale, it’s not overdone, it’s unbelievably delicious, and has an aged woody character right out of the fermenter.
Tröegs Scratch 4 for sure, same reason as Behemoth and Hog Heaven, high use of hops.
Old Boardhead improves at around 2 years, but the improvement is minimal, so drinking it fresh is not so different.
Also, I really, really prefer Old Crustacean fresh vs aged. It’s disgustingly bitter and coarse, but if you’re in the mood for that there’s nothing else good enough. I see slight improvement from 2-3 years, but then it goes downhill from there, and these days the old 12oz bottles tend to have a lot of oxidation.
LOL. You're crazy.
I started early. After a stint of college I bailed and worked at an bar in Manhattan for 3 years. Always on tap then: Bass, Newcastle, Woodpecker Cider, Augsburger (WI lager), and Guiness at the PROPER temperature-- meaning the keg was kept on the floor behind the bar and poured through a velocity-control tap for perfect black-and-tans. All kinds of bottled goodness too, like Samuel Smith's, Whitbread, Fuller's ESB (the only one imho), Harp, John Bull, etc. Still, even with the Guiness draught can/bottle thingies they have now, I prefer Murphy's stout in the same form. Cheaper and doesn't have the heavy bitterness of Guiness, richer malt taste.
Manhattan was great for German beers too (Berghoff anyone? Brauhaus up in Lincoln Village?), and between those influences and the emerging micros like Goose Island, I was downright spoiled. :smile:
Red Stripe is a righteous lager, as is the Chinese Tsingtao. I'd also put Foster's in there-- but over here the bottles are better than the big "blue tinnies".
If you drink beer and eat Thai food, you BETTER be drinking Singha at that table. Goes great with almost all Asian food actually.
Did someone say mead? If you like mead and happen to find yourself in Scotland/uk, take great pains to get yourself a bottle or five of Moniack Mead. It's the most pure-fermented-honey mead we've ever run across, and it's pretty cheap (<$20 US). Sadly, they don't export it to the states.
For mass-produced domestic beer, it's only Miller if I can help it.
Karl- Young's Oatmeal Stout is good stuff, and I agree about Sam Smith's not being quite up there. We rotated the Young's on tap occasionally.
CO has a ridiculous number of breweries. One that really stands out in my book is Avery in Boulder. Their common 6-pack offerings are at least on par with the rest, but it's really all about their bombers. They take the brew-craft seriously, do killer seasonal offerings, and many of these big bottles are 8-12+% abv. It's hard to make beer that strong that still tastes like beer, but they pull it off and then some. Their tenth anniversary beer (aptly named "10"), had ten kinds of hops, ten kinds of malt, and was a flat 10% abv. Over the course of an hour, that beer changed character in the glass like a really nice red wine.
Hi I'm fatty, and I'm a beer snob.
Now if somebody starts a scotch thread, look out! I have a kilt!
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