Your five 'go to' beers

For me:

  • Orval: easily available at the local bottle shop and always perfect to drink, even after a whole bunch of boozy imperial stouts
  • Karmeliet Tripel: hated by many, but it’s an absolute guilty pleasure, especially in combination with some cheese and mustard
  • Kees Export Porter: this one does vary a bit, according to availabilty at the local bottle shop. A base RIS, thats not too roasted but carries a bit of marshmallowy sweetness
  • BrewDog Punk IPA: supermarket IPA. Also varies at times, but at least punk IPA most of the times is fresh due to high turnover
  • I would love to pick a fresh Keller or a good smoked beer as my #5, but unfortunately these are not readily available. So in that case, it might even be just a regular macro pilsener. Fresh from tap, pilsners in the Netherlands are great, especially in local watering holes where turnover is high. Heineken beats most others.

I have a selection of inexpensive quality Belgian beers that I keep coming back to. Easy to find and better and cheaper than even local garbage brewers.

  1. De la Senne - Taras Boulba or Zinnebir
  2. Blaugies - Saison D’Epeautre or La Vermontoise
  3. Orval
  4. Boon - Oude Geuze
  5. De Ranke - XX Bitter

Another go to thing is to order a mixed box from Landbierparadies and see what the Beer Fairy brings me.

1 Like

Nice user pic

3 Likes

Hi Lemmy!

1 Like

Assuming I would drink the same beer more often and all of them were readily available in my area, those could be the five of mine:

Duvel: My go-to beer in the Netherlands to get drunk, cheap, tasty, superbly sessionable and refreshing at that abv.

Schneider Hopfenweisse: Lovely stuff, should really retry this one.

Saison Dupont: An instant classic, just so much better than many modern examples of the style, refreshing and a low price tag as well.

Schlenkerla, preferably one of their Bocks, but the Märzen is sufficient as well: Always a joy, never boring, pairs so well with hearty German food.

Uerige Alt: Actually the only one of the five I’ve drunken regularly in recent months. Pretty hoppy, even for a an Alt, with a nice malty backbone, not too pricey and easily available the closer you get to Düsseldorf.

Good selection. I’d enjoy drinking all five of those in a night!

Guinness on draft
Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale
Anything by Scofflaw
Dragon’s Milk
and when all else fails, Sam Adams Boston Ale

1 Like
  1. SNPA

-All others in no particular order.

Left Hand Smoke Jumper
Alesmith Speedway Stout
Odd13 Superfan
Denver Beer Graham Cracker Porter
Ouray Box Canyon Brown

1 Like

I can think of 4 right off the top of my head, all classic favorites and well priced…Deschutes Fresh Squeezed and Obsidian Stout, Ayinger Celebrator, and North Coast Rasputin (never pass it up on nitro). I would drink Trillium daily if I had better access, but I’m on the wrong side of the country.

3 Likes

There’s a few local ones I like to try to buy often, but I’ll try to limit those in this particular list to only one…

  • Guinness Draught - generally my go-to beer when at a bar or restaurant without a good beer selection. Everyone is always surprised when I keep drinking them.
  • Anderson Valley Highway 128 Blood Orange Gose - My go-to Summer beer that hits both the light sweet fruity notes, sharp citrus notes and a little bit of that tartness. It’s also pretty sessionable.
  • Optimal Wit - refreshing white ale from a local brewery. I think they really hit the mark with the spices in this one.
  • Anchor Our Special Ale - My go-to winter beer.
  • Devils Backbone Vienna Lager

Grapefruit Sculpin is a close runner up.

1 Like

Got a little story about my rating of this beer. At least in Switzerland it is not so easy to get your hands on Anderson Valley, but the name rings a bell. When I visited the US last year I happened to have dinner in a slightly-upper-class restaurant somewhere in the Bay area, and obviously I sought after the beer menu to find some hidden gems for my Eurobeer palate. Found the blood orange gose and ordered it with my main course. When I got my drink, I was a bit surprised that (a) I was not served a bottle or can with the glass and (b) it was slightly stronger than your even not-so-ordinary beer, and certainly not a gose. It turns out the waiter misheard my order for a blood orange martini and served that instead. After pointing it out, the waiter apologized, got me the gose and erased the martini from the bill. Good times.

And yes, I would drink that gose again if it were easily available to me.

3 Likes

But would you drink that martini again?

1 Like

Yes, but I’m not sure I’d pay the regular price for it!

I wouldn’t be a serious member of ratemartini.com tbh

I’m trying to find out what SNPA means. Please tell!

You’re not trying particularly hard if you’ve not even thought of using the search facility for an answer: https://www.ratebeer.com/search?beername=s+n+p+a

2 Likes

Thanks, Phil!

Keep in mind that some of us are not very computer literate. I spent 5-10 min putzing on the site before finding you to ask. Shortly after, it occurred to me to search outside of Ratebeer, which got me to the 4th meaning on the Free Dictionary … Sierra Nevada was indeed important to my craft beer history. I lived in RI and mostly drank local brews (Trinity IPA is one of those hair-on-your-chest hop things), but I always had the holiday brew from SN and Anchor Steam. Around 1990 I got Old Nick Barleywine imported from UK.

Cheers,
Peter.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Nice thread!

Schlenkerla Märzen. This was my gateway beer to craft-beer world and I still love it as the first time I tried it. My all time favourite beer, still. And on top of that, very cheap. (0.90 euro in supermarkets)

Berliner Berg Pale Ale. I like to drink it local. And in my opinion this is the best pale ale in Berlin. Being brewwed here is always fresh, which is a plus.

Spandauer Havelbräu. Freshness is very important to me. And living 200 meters away from a brewery helps a lot :slight_smile:

Wernesgrüner 1436. Ok, this is a commercial one, but one that I like. A no frill czech style pils. Perfect with pizza or wurst.

Maisel and Friends Citrilla. A well balanced, citrusy and fresh wheat ale. I enjoy it a lot, especially when I just want to drink something sessionable

Thanks, Stefan!