Magnum P.I.

October 25th, 2013 at 1:03 PM ^

Lol, "us micro-brew drinkers." Not sure who you're speaking for, but Heineken is a pretty good lager beer among the large scale brewers. Beats the hell out of a lot of the microbrew lagers that people try to make. Making a good lager is hard.

There are other styles of beer aside from IPAs.

AriGold

October 25th, 2013 at 2:26 PM ^

in America tastes like shit, plain and simple...it may be better in Amsterdam, but the smell alone of Heineken is repulsive...most large-scale breweries beers suck compared to micro-brew...the ingredients and craft put into making micro-brews are night and day better than the shit that comes out of St.Louis' assembly lines

The analogy I use is simple: as kids we like fast-food, but our taste evolves to liking better foods...the same is true with beer, I started out drinking busch light and thought it was the best beer ever....then I grew up/graduated college and developed a taste for better beers (not just IPA's, I have 8 Founder's KBS leftover from last years tapping party and I love black beers and most seasonal beers along with IPA's)

Creedence Tapes

October 25th, 2013 at 2:23 PM ^

I love microbrews, but I don't always want to drink an Ale. It's great that there are so many microbreweries around now, but pretty much all I see from them are five types of beer.  IPA, Pale Ale, Porter, Stout or Weissbier. North Coast Brewing Company makes a really nice Pilsner called Schrimshaw, and a few others do too, but I don't see enough of that.

a2_electricboogaloo

October 25th, 2013 at 12:11 PM ^

Here's a rough ranking system I made using Michigan Beers:

5* Founders KBC (could be replaced with Bells Hopslam, Bells Expdition/Blacknote Stouts, Kuhnhenn DRIPA)
 
4* Short's Publican Porter (could be replaced with Bells Two Hearted, Founders Porter, Dragsonsmead Final Absolution)
 
3* Bells Oberon (Short's Huma Lupa Licious, Bell's Winter White, Founder's All Day IPA, Crooked Tree IPA)
 
2* Shorts Soft Parade (Bell's Midwestern Pale Ale, Founder's Pale Ale, Atwater Vanilla Java Porter)
 
1*  Darkhorse Raspberry Ale

IndyBlue90

October 25th, 2013 at 12:19 PM ^

5* Three Floyds' Dark Lord (or any of their other highly acclaimed beers)

4* Sun King Wee Mac (Brugge Tripel De Ripple or anything from New Albanian)

3* Anything from any of the local Indy brewers (Fountain Square, Figure 8, Triton, Daredevil, etc)

2* Anything from Upland

1* Anything from Scotties, Three Wisemen, or Granite City)

MgoBadFish

October 25th, 2013 at 11:29 PM ^

I actually think it needs to be bumped down a bit. Oberon was a serious thing when I was living in Kzoo until Bells started filtering it, I loved Oberon until about 2008-09. After that, I prefer a Shock Top if I'm I'm the mood for a summer beer. Otherwise, (I know everyone likes to hate on it because it's 'too popular') I really have never ordered up an IPA that I didn't like. Hopslam is the truth.

Huma

October 25th, 2013 at 2:23 PM ^

I would move the Huma up to 4 star, respectively. Soft Parade is probably 3 star as well since it is a really well made high gravity ale, but it is definitely targeted at a different audience (it's nickname is the "ye olde leg spreader" if you catch my drift).



Last, your list of 5 stars is very imperial heavy (and I agree those are all great beers), but when it comes to everyday beers I would put shorts autumn ale in that 5 star category. It is just such a fantastic hoppy and malty ESB.

befuggled

October 25th, 2013 at 11:55 AM ^

Gluten-free beer ranges from passable to awful, but there are a couple I have every now and then as a change of pace. I have not been able to get my hands on one of the beers that have allegedly removed gluten (such as Estrella Damm Daura).

A good, dry cider is also a nice every now and then. Most of the ones I can get are too sweet, though.

GRWolverineFan

October 25th, 2013 at 2:18 PM ^

Greens Tripel is good.  The Omission series by Widmer are passable (they use Clarex like Damm Daura).  Thus far the best I have found for my buddy who is gluten intolerant are from Harvester Brewing in OR (they have 2 IPAs), I would drink them without hesitation and I am not gluten intolerant.  They ship, but have your Amex Black ready.

GRWolverineFan

October 25th, 2013 at 5:33 PM ^

Clarex works very well at reducing gluten to FDA mandated "safe" levels for people with Gluten Intolerance (all Omission is tested at <20ppm, which is the standard from the Codex Alimentarius) but "safe" is hit or miss depending on the severity of your disease d/t the fact that it uses an enzymatic process to break down the protein chains in gluten.  It doesn't omit (like sorghum based beers) or remove the gluten altogether.  The Harvester Beers are Sorghum and Chesnut based which will always add a certain twang (drink a Bards to get a face full of the twang, worst beer EVAR) but they hide it enough for me to genuinely like them.  If you are a very brittle celiac, I would tend to stick with the ANZAC definitions for gluten free and stay away from any enzymatically reduced beers.

MDave

October 25th, 2013 at 11:46 AM ^

Fat Tire getting 4 stars is beyond my comprehension.  I can think of 20 ambers off the top of my head that beat the crap out of Fat Tire.  It is by far the most overrated beer in craft beer nation.  I understand it is made to appeal to the masses and convert macro fans, but still... 4 stars????

And to those that love Hopslam, cheers!  I would include Bells Expedition Stout and Three Floyds Zombie Dust in that group also.