Your favorite top five beers?

Saison DuPont
Schneider+Sons Aventinus
Ola Dubh (especially from calvados casks)
Hair of the Dog Fred from the Wood
Westmalle Tripel

Lots more that are up there but aren't available widely so nobody would have tried them for comparison.
Honorable mentions: Logsdon Seizoen Bretta, Deschutes Mirror Pond, Upright 7, Scaldis Noel, St Bernardus Noel, Chimay Grande Reserve, Rodenbach Grand Cru.

Shiner bock

Rogue Dead guy

Sand creek brewing- lil ja's Sasquatch stout

Summit- great northern porter

Leinenkeugel- fireside nut brown

#1 Tilquin Gueuze
#2 Ommegang Grand Cru Rouge 2008
#3 Cantillon Gueuze
#4 Jolly Pumpkin Bam Noire
#5 North Coast Old Rasputin (Nitro Tap)

Hard to pick a top 5 but here are 5 of my current favourites.

Paulaner Oktoberfest Bier
Half Pints Humulus Ludicrous
Half Pints Little Scrapper
Unibroue Terrible
Tree Brewing HopHead IPA

and as a side note one of swmbo favourite beers is Tree Brewing's Thirsty Beaver

I really like that there have been at least a few people that have taken the word favorite to heart and openly admitted some possibly contentious beers. I saw Rolling Rock once, Bud Light twice (which almost made my list) and Far Tire with an admission that it isn't the best/most tastiest beer in the world. Guiness is another one that is clearly "better" than those three but is so readily available that it is boring to pick. Almost like saying Zeppelin four is the best Zeppelin album.

Lots of good brew listed here. And a lot of justification that this is not an easy list to make.

I like to pick a little from each style:

Stone: Arrogant/Lukcy/Double Bastard (Strong Ale)
Dogfish Head: Bitches Brew (Imperial Stout + Honey Ale)
Rodenbach: Grand Cru (Sour)
Deep Ellum: Wealth and Taste (Belgian)
Peticolas: Velvet Hammer (Imperial Red)

It'll probably change by next week, but as it stands today:
Devil's Backbone Vienna Lager
Hofbrau Dunkel
Lagunitas Lucky 13.alt
Magic Hat HEX Ourtoberfest
Kostritzer Schwarzbier

Augustiner Helles
Weihenstephan Original
U flecku
Andechs
Sam Adams Oktoberfest. It was pretty good this year.

Sierra nevada cask aged ovila
Deschutes abyss 2009
Deschutes dissident 2010
The commons bourbon little brother 2012
Russian River Compunction 2011

Pliny the Elder
Ballast Point Sculpin
Firestone Walker Double Jack
Knee Deep Simtra
Three Floyd's Zombie Dust

Racer 5
Nosferatu
Flower Power
Heady Topper
Union Jack IPA

(Can you tell I like IPAs?)

Top 5 magic elixirs in order of how well they satiate the hedonistic soul ….

1 - Moylan’s - Ryan O’Sullivan’s Imperial Stout
2 - DFH - 90 min
3 - Sierra Nevada - Pale Ale
4 - North Coast - Old Raspy
5 - New Belgium - Belgo

And for good measure …

Best of my creations – weighing in at 15.3% ABV - Holy Diver RIS

Anchor Steam
Fat Tire (draft)
Sam Adams Old Fezziwig Ale
Hell's Belle
Rasputin

5.) Great Lakes Lake Erie Monster
4.) Samuel Smiths Organic Chocolate Stout(recently eclipsed SS Oatmeal as my favorite stout)
3.) Sam Adams Oktoberfest
2.) Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA
1.) Stone 16th Anniversary IPA

I found it very difficult to nail down my top 5 because I have a lot of favorites.

Old Peculiar
Taddy Porter
New Castle Brown Ale
Old Rasputin
Guinness

1. Peche Mortel coffee stout - Dieu du Ciel Brewery
2. Boneshaker I.P.A.- Amsterdam Brewery
3. Weisse- Hacker Pschorr
4. Red Racer I.P.A.- Central City Brewing
5. Netherworld- Flying Monkey,s

When I look at what I didn't include...I could of made a few of these lists!

Slainte! T.

Green Flash West Coast IPA
Dogfish Head My Antonia Imperial Pilsner
Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
Hoppin Frog Hop Dam
Schafly Coffee Stout (on tap)

In no particular order at this moment in time:

Evil Twin - Imperial Biscotti Break
Cigar City - Tocobaga
Petrus - Aged Pale Ale
Rodenbach Grand Cru
Cigar City - Kumquat Berliner Weiße

I've seen Cigar City's Marshal Zhukov mentioned... and what's funny is here in Florida, or at least Orlando, the attitude that I've seen about that beer is 'meh'. Yet, the rest of America loves it, and it trades like liquid gold.

MachineShopBrewing said:

Where are you from?

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Kansas city. There is still an abundance of great beers you can find here. But a lot I am seeing on here I have never seen before.

Terrapin Wake n Bake
Founders Breakfast Stout
Lonerider Shotgun Betty
Terrapin Moo Hoo
Wells Banana Bread

1. The one in my hand
2. the next one in the cooler
3. the one behind the 2nd one
4 the one right behind the 3rd
5. the next beer in line, by this time I've lost count!!!


But on the serious side:

1. Labbats Blue! What can I say, it's just a good, easy drinking, readily available, fairly inexpensive beer.

2. Custom Brewcrafters Double Dark Cream Porter ! Try one and you will agree!

3. Great Lakes Edmond Fitzgerald porter! Another good example of it's style of beer.

4. Guinnes Black Lager! A little lighter and still fairly tasty!

5. Sam Adams Octoberfest! A good change up from the usual!

FFF Zombie Dust
FFF Dreadnaught
Bell's Hop Slam
Founders KBS
Stone Ruination

Deschutes - The Abyss (Imperial Stout)
Deschutes - Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale
New Holland - Dragon's Milk (Imperial Stout)
Unibroue - La Fin Du Monde (Tripel)
Houblon Chouffe - Dobbelen IPA Tripel

Does anyone want to filter this data and see what the overall HBT top five beers are?

So I had some time to kill and went through all of the data. Had to eliminate some data because of vague descriptions, too many entries, and people choosing their own beer, but here is what I came up with:

Top Five Beers:
1. Founders Breakfast Stout (8)
1. North Coast Old Rasputin (8)
3. Stone Arrogant Bastard (7)
3. Russian River Pliny the Elder (7)
5. Sierra Nevada Celebration (6)
5. Bell's Hop Slam (6)

Top Five Brewers
1. Stone (24)
2. Sierra Nevada (20)
3. Lagunitas (17)
4. Bell's (15)
5. Russian River (13)

I'll update this as more people respond.

unionrdr said:

Vague descriptions or too many entries? Why should too many matter? If the name of the beer was given,why would the description matter more than that? Explain...

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More than 5 entries are outside the scope of the OP. If someone wanted to start a thread on the best beers and have unlimited entries, it would take for-ev-er to calculate. Some of the entries were not enough to specifically identify which beer. For example: "Dogfish IPA," is that the 60 minute, 90 minute, 75 minute, continuosly hopped? No way to tell, so I threw those out. In the end, the data I threw out didn't really affect anything.

No order:

La Chouffe
Ska Modus Hoperandi
Avery Maharaja
Orval
BFM Douze

That was hard! So many left on the table...

Subject to change daily:

Widmer Nelson IPA
Island Blackbird Porter
Stone Sublimely Selfrrighteous
Lost Coast Downtown Brown
Deschutes Chainbreaker IPA

Deschutes - Super Jubel
North Cost - Old Stock
Oskar Blues - Old Chub
Southern Magnolia - Lazy Pecan
Franziskaner - Double

Russian River - Pliny the Elder (still hunting for Younger, hopefully I'll find it this year)
Deschutes - Red Chair NWPA
Firestone Walker - Parabola
McMenamins - Ruby
Founders - Breakfast Stout

NateLTB said:

Russian River - Pliny the Elder (still hunting for Younger, hopefully I'll find it this year)

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Call every bar you know of that has a RR account and ask if they're getting Younger. See if they'll tell you when if they are. Get there way early. It's tap only and the majority of the batch gets served at the brew pub, so not many accounts get it and they don't get very much if they do.

In no particular order

Oskar Blues - Dale's Pale Ale
Bells - 2 Hearted
Founders - Dirty Bastard
Yellowhammer - Tobacco Road
Straight to Ale - Unobtanium

Kwak (Bosteels)
Jever pils
Rochefort 10
Baltika Porter (cheap, big Russian bottles)
Yeti Imperial Stout (Great Divide)

Do all these American beers actually exist?

Great Divide - Hoss Rye Lager
Fullers - ESB
Oskar Blues - Old Chub
Gulden Draak
Funkwerks - Tropic King

God that was way too hard to come up with just 5!

Thomas Hardy's Ale, O'Hanlon's
Pliny the Elder, Russian River (or Younger, or Supplication)
Imperial Rebellion, Iron Fist
Trappist Westvleteren 12, Brouwerij Westvleteren
Tie between great FRESH IPAs like Green Flash's West Coast IPA, Ithaca's Flower Power, and a few others.

Please all try to find Fullers ESB. (Fullers brewery, Chiswick, London, England.)

In the L.A. and surrounding area it can be had from BevMo in 500cc bottles at cheaper prices than it is sold for in London. (How the hell do they do that?)

May I respectfully suggest you arm yourself with at least 3 bottles, (each) then once at serving temperature, drink them all during a lazy afternoon when you don't have much on, and then evaluate the "warm British beer" experience. I know it may seem strange to some, but it is vital that it is served at about 55 degrees, and not frozen to within an inch of it's life!!!

Anyone who follows this through to the letter should be amply rewarded with a big stupid smile, and malty tastes to die for!!!

Oh, then

Fullers London Pride,
Marston's Pedigree,
Courage Directors,
Fullers Golden pride (expensive)

North Coast - Brother Thelonious
Dogfish - 120 minute IPA
Maredsous - Belgian Dubbel
Great Lakes - Dortmunder Gold
Guinness Draught