Favorite Beer

I like just  micro brew's, no domestics, and not that fond of wheat beers.  Recently been mostly drinking IPA's like Lagunitas, Redhook, Sierra Nevada, Acme, etc.  Still drink plenty of Sam Adams, Heineken, Pacifico,  and a variety of high gravity ales   

Microbrews only here!!!

I was drinking Sam Adams Winter Lager last night. Loved it.
I tried Widmers BRRRRRR and didn't care for it.
During Halloween time The Placerville Brewing Company has a great pumpkin ale.
Their Strong Blonde and Tangerine ales are also very good.
Thanks for the thread as I just looked and am running low.
I am down to Pyramid Broken Rake, Pyramid Thunderhead IPA, Sam Adams Winter Lager, Fat Tire, Corona light ( GF ), Widmer BRRRRR ( For guests only  ),
and Fox Barrel Pear Cider.
I tried a Raspberry Brown by Lost Coast brewery that was very good.
I also like Brother Thelonius by North Coast brewery. It will kick your @ss.
Time to make a run for a few new selections.
I make an attempt at trying something new at least every two weeks.
BevMo here I come.

camping wheeling i have to go silver bullet, car camping blue moon, rolling rock, hef. at home i never really drink so it is ibc and mountain dew

I second the Sierra Celebration for this time of year.  Last year I tried the Alaskan smoked porter which is only released in limited quantities for the holidays (pints only).  Sounds strange, but try it if you see it around.  It is like a pork chop in a glass, I aged one bottle for the year and will pop it on the 25th as a present to myself!

Sierra Nevada Celebration

I am also a big fan of the celebration.

I usually drink just about anything, but my favorite all time beer is the Firestone 10. Here's the background on how it was made..

Firestone Walker’s “10” was released last fall as a limited-edition oak-aged strong ale commemorating the brewery’s 10th anniversary. It was composed of 10 separate batches brewed and aged over a 10-month period. Brewmaster Matt Brynildson sought input from local winemakers in developing the final blend.

8 of these and I am in heaven

I like Lagunitas IPA and Pliny The Elder as far as local beers go.  I recently began brewing my own and just finished a great IPA.  I used Cascade and Glacier Hops for a nice strong hoppy finish.  Alcohol came in just under 8% but it was really smooth drinking.  I'm going to start another brew this weekend.  It will be ready to drink in about 28 days.  There's a great store in Concord called More Beer and they have a web site morebeer.com.  They have everything needed to brew great beer, including some really nice ingredient kits to take some of the risk out of the process.  I think the next brew will be a Belgian style pale ale, like Fat Tire.  Not as hoppy as an IPA but still great taste.  It's probably not any cheeper than buying the stuff, but there's something really nice about making it yourself.  Sort of like home baked cookies vs packaged.

My favorite Beer is Free Beer  I drink whatever is Local but an ice Cold Corona on a Hot Day is tough to beat.

I've been stuck on Modelo Especial for some time now.

Last night, before reading this, I went out to BevMo for the very first time ever (shhhhhh, don't tell anyone I've been drinking some merlot too)... there was certainly a lot to choose from.  I decided to try some yellowtail. Haven't tasted it yet, it's been busy getting cold.

Excellent topic!

Sierra Nevada is my all time favorite but while in Italy I found Grimbergen blond at one of the bars and was blown away. Excellent beer but a little expensive at about 12 Bucks a sixer.

A low budget favorite is Bud Lite Lime.

 

Depends on the occasion for me as well, and I seem to go through phases where I'll drink different types regularly.
Lately, I've had a taste for Pilsners.
For Hefe Weisse, Duane hits the mark with Franziskaner.
I also like a rich doppelbock sometimes & have a taste for Märzen style or Octoberfest.
There's a Japanese brand called Hitachino Nest, sometimes known as "Owl" beer, that makes some excellent beers if you ever have a chance to try them.
My all around favorite special occasion beer is a Belgian Abbey Ale. Even between those, I can't pick a favorite. Affligem Tripel, maybe?  And a few US breweries are producing some excellent batchesversions of these styles. New Holland Brewing Co is one.

Microbrews are the new wine....they're getting to sophisticated for guzzlers like me.

Microbrews are the new wine....

I thought wine came in a bottle.. you might have to step it up a notch.

Being in a club will get you a 20% discount on ingredients.  Morebeer does have unbeatable prices on hops at the moment though.  I started with their carboy starter kit and most of my brews were morebeer kits until I joined the draught board and could get bulk LME for something like $1.50/lb.  According to my journal I've made 78 gallons since last Oct, and spent $372 on consumables, so it worked out to about 85c per 22oz bottle, not counting equipment and natural gas.  I've got maybe $200-250 in critical gear, saved a lot by using a 15g keg from craigslist for my brew-kettle.


My last batch was a fat tire clone, I followed this recipe in a 10g batch and fermented 5 with the california common yeast, and the other 5 with a west coast ale yeast:

Fat Tire Amber Ale (5 gallons, extract with grains)

Ingredients:

5 lbs. Laaglander plain extra-light DME
0.50 lb. crystal malt (20° Lovibond)
0.50 lb. crystal malt (40° Lovibond)
0.50 lb. carapils malt
0.50 lb. Munich malt
0.50 lb. biscuit malt
0.50 lb. chocolate malt
3 AAUs Willamette pellet hops (0.66 oz. at 4.5% alpha acid)
1.33 AAUs Fuggle pellet hops (0.33 oz. at 4% alpha acid)
2 AAUs Fuggle pellet hops (0.50 oz. at 4% alpha acid)
1 tsp. Irish moss
2/3 to 3/4 cup corn sugar to prime
Wyeast 1056 or BrewTek CL-10

Step by step:

Steep specialty grains in 3 gallons of water at 154° F for 45 minutes. Remove grains and add dried malt extract. Bring to boil and add 0.66 oz. Willamette pellet hops. Boil for 60 minutes and add Irish moss. Boil 10 minutes and then add 0.50 oz. Fuggle hops. Boil another 20 minutes, add remaining Fuggles and remove from heat. Cool to about 70° F and transfer to fermenting vessel with yeast. Ferment at 64° to 68° F until complete (7 to 10 days), then transfer to a secondary vessel, or rack into bottles or keg with corn sugar. (Try lowering the amount of priming sugar to mimic the low carbonation level of Fat Tire.) Lay the beer down for at least a few months to mellow and mature for best results.
All-grain option: Omit extract and mash 6 lbs. pale malt with specialty malts in 9 quarts of water to get a single infusion mash temperature of 154° F for 45 minutes. Sparge with hot water of 170° F or more to get 5.5 gallons of wort. Bring to boil and use above hopping and fermentation schedule.
OG = 1.050
FG = 1.011
IBUs = 16

Verdict, way, waaaaaay too much specialty malts, that was a full 6lb for 10 gallons and it came out like a malt-bomb heavy brown.  The flavor profile was in the ballpark though, I think if you went with 1/4lb of each instead of 1/2 you'd be pretty close.  The steam yeast worked out better than the ale yeast too, IMO, but I'm partial to those critters.  The last one disappeared tonight.    

A co-worker of mine that brews made a cider that was really good with this:
3 gal. pasturized apple juice (grocery store generic brand)
4 12 oz. cans of apple juice concentrate
2 12 oz. cans of cranberry juice concentrate
Pour the above on the sludge after racking off a batch of beer from the carboy.
O.G.= 1.060

After fermentation, sweeten with 2oz splenda (or lactose, whatever) prime with 1 can of apple juice.

It comes out bubbly like champagne and the ladyfolk dig it.    Best part is you get to skip washing the carboy for a batch and it's not much work to just dump that all in.  If you don't use the sludge from a batch of beer, the yeast will need yeast nutrient because apple juice isn't as balanced a diet as malt for the yeast.  I think I'm going to make something like that this weekend if the steam beer that's fermenting right now is ready to bottle.  That yeast is tasty, but I use it in the 50's to low 60's so it's kinda slow compared to ale yeasts.

Nice set up, p-spark. Some people can't stand it, but I love the aroma of beer brewing.