Malt extract & Recipe questions

My wife was going to buy me 3 kits from Morebeer for Christmas and the order was delayed. I live close to Grape and Granary in Ohio, but I believe that their beer kits come with canned Malt & DME vs 7lbs of Bulk LME with Morebeer. I want to put together 3 kits piecemeal and I am looking for some help.

Grape and Granary sells Briess LME in bulk (33#) for $69.00. Is this an okay LME? The kits that I had from Morebeer were the American Brown Ale, Porter and the Christmas Ale. Any recommendations on recipes and what type of LME should I get (light, amber, ?).

My favorite commercial brews are: anything Great Lakes (Edmund Fitzgerald is my favorite), Sierra Nevada Porter, I tried a few of the Octoberfest beers and liked most of them.

I know that this is a very vague request, but any help is appreciated.

I've had good results from the Briess LME. That's all I've purchased from my LHBS and haven't had any issues. I don't know if there are better LMEs out there, but the Briess will make you a damn fine beer.

As far as LME choice is concerned, I typically use light LME to make up for fermentables not provided from my partial mash and get color from the specialty grains. Here is a recipe for a good porter I brewed a while back:

6 lbs Amber DME
4 oz Chocolate Malt
4 oz Roasted Barley
1.5 oz Fuggles @ 60 minutes
.5 oz Fuggles @ 10 minutes
Ferment with Wyeast Irish ALe Yeast for 8 days, bottle and condition for 2 weeks. Make sure you use DME, not LME. The LME will most likely give you the extract twang everyone keeps talking about.