Favorite beer

My uncle in Cali has a draft machine always stocked with a keg of Sierra Nevada. Great, great stuff.

And Stroh's might be the worst beer I've ever had.

 

I've started to get into Sun King, which is out of Indianapolis and starting to take off like gangbusters. In part, that's because unlike a lot of new beermakers, it's putting a full-court press on getting on tap in restaurants, and it's squarely aiming at converting Bud drinkers, rather than just going after beer snobs. Sun King has events going on all the time in Indy, as well as weekly tastings at its brewery.

The most radical thing about it, for craft beer types, is how it's packaged -- in cans, something that's really taken off recently among craft brewers. Cans actually preserve the beer better than even brown bottles, but most canned beer is packaged cheaply, which is why you usually taste the aluminum. Sun King puts a liner in its cans that eliminates the aluminum taste. Of course, I normally pour it into a pint glass (the cans are pint-sized), so no matter. Plus, being in cans, you can take it into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with you, no small matter locally.

What you get in stores is normally the Sunlight Cream Ale and the Osiris Pale Ale, which are the lightest beers they make, and probably the most commercially viable. If you drink your normal commercially brewed lager, or even a light beer, the Sunlight Cream Ale won't be a radical change, but you'll noticed more flavor and depth of taste. A great warm-weather beer (or one to take to the Indy 500). For a craft drinker like me, Sunlight Cream Ale is a good "light" beer. The Pale Ale -- being a pure ale (cream ales have lager mixed in) -- will be a more familiar taste to craft-beer drinkers.

I hope as the weather turns cooler Sun King releases some heavier beers.

 

I drink more Fat Tire than any other beer, but I'm also quite fond of Harp, Abita Turbo Dog and Stella Artois.

I used to love Newcastle until Sonner said it tasted like prune juice. Ruined it for me.

 

HAHA. As soon as I saw you had posted on this thread, I was hoping you'd bring up Newcastle.

Tastes like raisins.

Turbo Dog is the tits. As is Stella.

 

OK, I posted my love for a bunch of frou-frou high gravity beers. Now I come to you with a request of a different sort:

Buddy of mine is doing (at my constant urging for nigh on nine months now) a Bad Beer & Boxed Wine Boogaloo. The crappy beer must be from someone other than the Axis of Macrobrews, and you can't spend more than 8.99 on a twelver. The wine must be measurable by large quantities -- no fancy schmancy 750 ml bottles. Jug wine is acceptable, as is malt liquor (except Mickey's) and wine coolers (not the neo-coolers and alcopops such as Bacardi Breeze and Smirnoff Ice, nor alcoenergy drinks such as Joose and Sparks).

Most original entry wins a $20 gift card to the beer/wine superstore in town. Worst entry means you have to drink everything brought in. I may not be certain about the last part.

So what should I bring?

 

So are you looking for cheap but tastes good?

Or are you looking for cheap and tatses bad?

JaMarcus wants to know if cough syrup is allowed?

 

I'm looking for cheap and out of the ordinary. PBR, for example, is too obvious. I think there's a low enough expectation of the products being offered that taste doesn't really matter. I'm leaning towards wine because there's a wider array of disreputable choices, between the 5-gallon jug of chablis to the Cisco in the darkest corner of the seediest convenience store (my buddy says "bum wine" is acceptable, so Cisco would be in even at its smaller size). But I can be swayed.

 

You have looked at the Bum Wine website, right?

I would think a Cisco "fruit punch" would make for a wonderful entry. What about T-Bird mixed with a childrens drink like Kool Aid or Pedalyte?

There is always two buck chuck at TJ's.

 

That Indian beer is tough to find but it is great on a hot day.

Used to like Anchor Liberty Ale but that's tough to fin up here now.

Buddy of mine drinks Stock Ale and says there is a real Stock Ale underground of fans who know what bars serve it and what beer stores carry the most cases.

I should note my all-time fave beer was Charrington Toby, an English ale brewed in Canada by Molson's. In a bottle it was so-so, on tap at my local boozer it was heavenly. Sadly both the beer and the boozer are gone.

 

Crazy Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer
Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer

 

That Night Train's a mean wine.

 

MM, I'd suggest Steel Reserve. but I'd worry that somebody would actually have to drink it.