The atheistforums.org beer thread.

[Jackalope]

My like beer and probably tried over 100 different ones before going to AA (really)

There are no bad Aussie beers. If there were,it would be what they call "Fosters" overseas. Still better than Singapore's 'Tiger Beer', truly the worst I ever had to endure.

There aren't many Aussie beers imported into the US that I am aware of. Many people like Foster's (I have no idea what it's called over there), but it isn't a style I care for much. It's better than the American industrial stuff for sure.

I haven't been fortunate enough to be able to sample many Aussie beers, but I know that per capita Aussies drink plenty of beer, and it's rumored to be good. (Note to self: shop around for some Aussie beer).

Pretty sure I've had some good American beers,I just can't think of any right now.

Unfortunately, only a very small fraction of U.S. beers are available outside the U.S., and most of those are the big names (none of which are anything to write home about).

All nationalism and jingoism aside, when it comes to variety of craft beers, portions of the U.S. are a beer-lover's paradise. Nearly any style you can think of is brewed here by our many small craft breweries, and we have many other styles that we can call our own. All inspired by the most excellent brewing traditions elsewhere, of course, my point is that we're not content to just emulate - there is a lot of innovation going on here. Post-prohibition brewing in the U.S. resulted in the common swill that most people think of when they think U.S. beer - the craft brewing revolution started in the 1980's and while the swill still outsells the good stuff by a wide margin, good beer is catching up slowly but surely.

Unfortunately, much of the country is still thinking that the piss-flavored fizzwater that the big breweries produce is something that is fit for human consumption. In those areas, if it doesn't come in 18 packs of cans, probably nobody's heard of it. Around here, in most pubs you'll see craft beer taps vastly outnumber the dreck - and I know more than a few pubs that do not, and will not, have Bud, Coors, Miller, etc on tap, in bottles, or cans, period.

The last I heard, there are something like 1700 breweries in the U.S. - the vast majority of which are fairly small. I would guess that there are easily 5,000 and perhaps more than 10,000 varieties of beer commercially produced in the U.S., most regionally or on even smaller scale. Some are only served in the pub where they are produced. While there certainly are some craft breweries producing inferior products, the majority seem to take pride in what they make, with varying levels of success.

The most consistently great beer is in the UK.(I love full ales) The almost- best of the lot is Guinness,but of course that's Irish.

My favourite of all is a Yorkshire drop called 'Old Peculiar' with an alcohol content of about 12%

Old Peculier is an old favorite of mine. The U.K. as a whole certainly does produce some very fine ales. I'm a hobby home brewer, and many (most?) of my favorite recipes are inspired by U.K. brews. England, Scotland and Ireland all produce some very fine beer.

I'm also partial to many of the beers produced by Germany and Belgium. Though I'm sure they have their own brand(s) of swill, the Belgian products imported into the U.S. that I have tasted has a unique character all it's own.

There's really too many labels for me to pick a favorite - I lean towards ales with a good hop/malt balance and those with more malt character than hop. Around here, IPA is all the rage, the hoppier the better - but find American IPA to be overly hopped so as to overwhelm the malt. I enjoy the German Marzens and Bocks, a wide variety of English ales from mild up to strong ale, and I particularly enjoy Porter - mostly the UK style, though there are many US-style Porters that are very excellent as well (though, frankly, many of those are closer to the UK- than US- style). For situations that demand a moderate, very drinkable session beer, I like the more complex pale ales - Mirror Pond from Deschutes is one of my favorites, though it is not sold everywhere - the brewery is fairly local to me. Their Black Butte Porter is very excellent, on par with many of the good UK porters, IMO.

If you happen to see any beer made by Rogue, Widmer, Bridgeport, MacTarnahan's, or Deschutes - those are our (reasonably) local beers that are fairly widely distributed. Most are very good to excellent.

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Seriously, these monks create what is probably the best beer in the world. Hopefully, they don't give it to the altar boys.

They do at that, and are good enough to sell it to the rest of us. Each monastery produces it's own style(s), so there's no one style of "Trappist" beer. It's all good, and most of it is quite expensive - a 750ml bottle of Chimay is US $10.00-$12.00, and worth it.

As far as I know, they don't boink the altar boys either - I'm not sure that they even have altar boys.