When the warm weather hits, I tend to drink a bit more beer than I do in the cold A$$ New England winter months. That being the case I usually have a difficult time finding some of my favorite import beers, which led me to wonder what my fellow chiffer’s favorite hard to find beers are?
Currently my Fave’s hard to find beers are mostly Dark beers:
Kostrizer
Isenbeck
Xingu (Currently cooling in the freezer while I polish off the last cold Dos Equis)
Harpoon Munich style Dark (Which shouldn’t be hard to find where I live!)
I also like Tiger Lager, but that has recently become widely available.
So, how about you? What are your had to find faves?
Stone Ruination IPA. So called because once you’ve tasted it, your taste for any other IPA is ruined. Hard to find and expensive when you do, but so, so worth it.
Even harder to find is Stone Arrogant Bastard. Awesome stuff.
Edit: hell and blood, Dale, are we in Romper Room or something? The name of the beer isn’t “Arrogant Basmati,” it’s “Arrogant (word meaning ‘child of unwed parents’ that this forum idiotically renders as ‘Basmati.’)” Sheesh.
Geeze, when I first saw your post I was thinking it was was some sort of Rice beer. Like Great Divide Brewing Co.'s Samurai Ale or something. Glad you clarified. I’ll have to look of for some Arrogant Child Of Unwanted Parents around town and see if I can find it to try out.
I was conceived in the Northwest when Olympia, affectionately known as Oly, was the dominant beer and still tasted good. I was exposed to it prenatally as well as having it a part of my racial memory. The local artesian well water in Tumwater Washington was an integral ingredient in making it taste good, so their motto was “It’s the water.” Then it went to hell to keep up with the dumbing down of culture in general. Fortunately, beer companies realized people who still had good taste represented a significant market, so Olympia reinvented good tasting Oly and called it Medallion, my favorite beer of all time. Unfortunately, the company stayed a small local brewery, made some serious business errors and went under. (One of the more humorous ones was coming up with a light beer called Olympia Gold and including the phrase “All our water is personally passed by the inspector.” in its advertising campaign for that light beer.) Oly is still made as a side line by one of the big brewers and still says “It’s the water.” on the can, even though they do not even use the water that made it a good beer so long ago. The only way I will be able to taste Medallion again would be to take up home brewing and rebuild the flavor by memory, which is in the realm of possibility. I’m surprised no one has mentioned their favorite beer is something they make themselves.
Thomas Hardy’s Ale. I haven’t had it for 15 years and don’t know if it’s still being made. I know they stopped production in '99 but hear that they’ve started up again. I can still vividly remember the thick, smooth, creamy brew.
Last year after a gig, my band and I went looking for a late night meal and we ended up stumbling into the Stone Brewery. Appropriately, the building looks like a dark Satanic mill at night, sitting incongruously in the middle of a typical business park. But the interior is posh and modern and impressively non-micro for a microbrewery. Lots of big vats and tubes visible through the Bistro windows. Pretty neat.
Cruise on down to Florida. We’ve got it. I haven’t had it yet cause it’s expensive. But I love Old English Ales.
Down here we have a hard time getting Dogfish Head’s limited and specialty beers. Their current releases I keep asking our beer rep for are Palo Santo Marron, Immort Ale, and Chataeu Jiahu.
Great! As it happens my parents live in Florida and my birthday’s coming up. I think I know what I’m asking for.
It is expensive, and it’s definitely a sipping beer (or more accurately Barley Wine). Its high alcohol content - something like 15% - pretty much precludes a “six-pack on game day” attitude.
I live in a county where the county is the sole distributor of alcoholic beverages, so a lot of beers are hard to find. I have to cross into Virginia to find Belhaven, for example.
I don’t even know their status, but there are a couple of English ales I haven’t had in ages, Old Bedford and Vaux Double Maxim.
Medallion was a better beer than Oly, really, but now that I think back on it it, the best beer I ever had was something I had along the Rhine years ago. Medallion had a malty quality that was also in a close relative taste wise I also haven’t seen in years, Erlanger. All of those beers had a primal lager quality that was strongest in the beer I had along the Rhine but was also strong in a beer I had in an Italian restaurant once. There are a lot of good beers, but there is a basic simple beerness I want sometimes. It is as elusive as the proverbial good cup of coffee.
Aww Rod, you’re making me all nostalgic, I almost remember the Genesse Cream Ale of my youth as having tasted wonderful
I’m old enough to remember the original Oly (as well as RR of course), but don’t think I ever had the “improved” iteration, or should I say “Appellation”
There was a beer, the name of which I can’t currently remember, which was another Pennsylvania local (Bucks Co. area or close I think) beer that was really quite good and dirt cheap. But again, I’m remembering it as being good, I might hate it if I had one today Wish I could remember the name though…
If I had to make a guess on what the local Pittsburgh beer might have been. here are my guesses: Stoney’s, Schlitz, Iron City, or Fort Pitt. My Dad rarely bought the good stuff.
I had an aunt who grew up in Germany who thought a warm Iron City was the best she had in the USA.
Nope, Bucks County is on the other side of the state, near Philly, so it would have been something within a couple of hundred miles of Philly. Definitely wasn’t any of the one’s you mentioned. Had an unusual name as I recall…
Wish I could remember the name though…