I've started a thread about beers 3 or 4 different times on HW RS over the years.  I drink anything from Pabst to Guiness and most in between.

Beers I typically have in my fridges:

Coors Light (nice everyday beer) and either Sierra Nevada or Sam Adams (Boston lager)

Other beer I like a lot:

Anchor Steam (kinda tough to find), Pyramid or Widmer Heffeweisen, Pete's Wicked, Bass, Red Hook Double Black Stout (haven't seen it in a long time), Dos Equis Red, Pacifico, Negro Modelo

Beers that are overrated:

Corona, Heineken

Beers that I don't like:

Any beer brewed with fruit and most brewed with honey

The ones I've liked most they've stopped selling in my area.  I can't find a store in my area that still carries Pete's Wicked Ale.  In past years, I used to like St. Stan's Amber Alt Ale (the beer that made Modesto famous) and Boag's Premium Lager (from Tasmania), but the distributor stopped carrying them.  I like the Sam Adams Cream Stout, but I can't always find it.  I drink vodka more often than beer these days, but the beer I have in the fridge most often is Sea Dog Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale from Maine.  When you have a bottle open, the smell that wafts off it is the scent of walking through a blueberry field in August. 

Right now, Pacifico and Hoeegarden ...also been drinking Maudite lately, which I like.  Hitachino white is a great japanese beer.

I've had Sam's Cream Stout--good stuff.

 Is there a brand of vodka you prefer?  I have Absolut and Ketel One in my bar, but I drink vodka maybe once a month.  It's in there mostly for when I have peeps over.

Oh yeah, Grey Goose is good also.

 I'm a ketel one man, I think Grey Goose is very overrated. i don't like the aftertaste.  

It's a bit overpriced (if not overrated).

John_Doe:

 Is there a brand of vodka you prefer? 

Nah, I never drink it straight up, so I don't need the really good stuff.  Right now, I'm midway through a bottle of Three Olives.  I'd never heard of it before.  The bottle before it was Absolut.

i like Chimay Blue. I'm a big fan of Guiness all around. Smithwicks. Pilsner Urquel is good..Peroni is good. Hite, Sapora. I don't drink a lot of beer tho and since i live on a budget I usually drink Miller High Life when I do.

I stay away from Rolling Rock, Coors, Bud, MGD, Lite anything. I don't mess with Sierra Nevada either.

OFFBEAT:

Sapporo, Red Stripe and Newcastle!

 sup dude?! Newcastle is real good.

Most commonly I'll buy Budweiser.  I like Stella, Great White, Fat Tire, heffeweisen (sp), things of that nature.  I actually like Tecate too, but I might be the only one.

John_Doe you don't like that apricot beer (Pyramid I think is a common one)?  It's pretty good stuff.

^^^I've not tried it.  I've been afraid to, but since your other choices are fairly solid, I promise to give it a try and coment on it.

As for your other  choices, Fat Tire's ok, and Stella's pretty good.  Tecate, with lime and salt is the isht!  Way better than Corona.

John_Doe:

Tecate, with lime and salt is the isht! 

yup. Tecate is better than Corona..

 Guinness is good

Coors is my favorite light beer, Miller lite taste nasty

Coronas and XX is ok, I like XX better than Corona

 Icehouse is a good cheap light beer.  Give me a tall can of that and I'm fuckin with it!

 Stella, Fat Tire (especially from draught) Pyramid Hefs and Sapporo.

I was chillin in K-town on Saturday and had a couple Hite beers. That wasn't too shabby, either.
 

OK, I need to add Hite to the list of beers to try.  It's been mentioned 2x now.

The Extra Mile:

What were you getting into in KTown?

Went to eat at Manna for a friend's birthday.

Tried Red Trolley Ale on tap yesterday.  Real good flavor but unfortunately it was under-carbonated.  I need to give it a try from bottles.

Most commonly I'll buy Budweiser.  I like Stella, Great White, Fat Tire, heffeweisen (sp), things of that nature.  I actually like Tecate too, but I might be the only one.

 

John_Doe you don't like that apricot beer (Pyramid I think is a common one)?  It's pretty good stuff.

OK, I tried the Pyramid Apricot.  Pretty freakin' good.  And I don't normaly like beer brewed with fruit.

As for Fat Tire, that's a beer that's become really popular the last for years or so in SoCal.  I want to like it because the label looks so cool.   But I don't like it all that much.

The last week or so I've been on a serious IPA kick.  I was up in the Portland area last weekend and I got to try a bunch of the local India Pale Ales that were brewed locally (Amnesia and Terminator are two that come to mind).  So, so, so goooooooood.....  The only thing I can find in my local market is Long Hammer IPA (made by Red Hook), which is good, but nothing like a local North West IPA on tap.

I somehow forgot my old stand-by, Fuller's ESB.  Probably the only beer I would never not be in the mood for.

Had a Stone IPA this week on tap in a small Seal Beach Bar--GREAT!

But, am I the only one or have microbrews seemed more expensive lately?  Oh wait.  I'm not the only one.  From the LA Times:

After barely budging for several years, beer prices started to inch up in the second half of last year and are now rising at about a 4% annual rate, according to government statistics.

It's showing up in what brewers and distributors are charging for both domestic and imported beer, said Ken Hollingswood, owner of Hollingswood Delicatessen, a popular hangout for hopheads in Orange. He's had to raise the price of better domestic brews by about 15% and European beer by 20%.

"Those are big increases, and I don't think we have seen the end of it yet," Hollingswood said.

Prices for microbrews are rising faster than the mass-produced beers. That's because they come from small brewers less likely to hedge expenses with advance purchases of barley and hops than Anheuser-Busch and the other giants that control most of the market.

But even the big brewers aren't totally immune.

"Like all brewers, we are experiencing cost increases due to the rising prices of brewing ingredients," said Maureen Roth, spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch, the nation's largest brewer. She declined to comment on how that was affecting the company's prices, except to say that Busch has "aggressive cost-savings programs in place throughout the company designed to partially offset rising commodity costs."

Two ingredients -- hops and malted barley -- are behind much of the price increases.

Hops produce the chemicals that give beer its distinct flavor. Some varieties are used to bitter the drink. Others impart its floral aromas. Most commercially grown domestic hops come from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

After water, malted barely is the next-biggest ingredient in beer. It provides the sugars that turns into alcohol when the beer is fermented.

Barley prices have risen because of worldwide demand for grains, including wheat, corn and rice. Philip Sutton, owner of Skyscraper Brewing Co., a small brewery in El Monte, said the price of a 50-pound bag of malted barley had jumped to $22, or 57% higher than a year ago.

Hops prices are soaring even more. Sutton paid $3.40 to $4.70 a pound for hops a year ago. The least expensive hops he has found this year were $12.63 a pound, and he's paid all the way up to $22.45. But that's only if he can find them.

"The hops that we like to use just aren't available," Sutton said. That has forced him to substitute other hops in some of his beer recipes "and that makes a different beer. It's still good but isn't what we would ideally have," said Sutton, who has raised his prices 20% to 30%.

For many years, farmers didn't make much money selling hops. Back in 1996, hop farming peaked at an estimated 44,000 acres.

All that acreage, combined with the planting of higher-yielding varieties, created a giant surplus. That was made worse because the beer-making ingredients that come from hops can be easily stored for years. That drove prices down and pushed farmers out of the business, said Ann George of the Washington Hop Commission.

By 2004, acreage had fallen to a low of 27,742 but has grown slowly since, hitting almost 31,000 in 2007. That wasn't enough to stave off a hops shortage this year that is expected to last into next year. George estimates that farmers will plant 6,000 to 8,000 new acres this year.

The hops shortage is hitting the small, fast-growing craft brewers that have become the most dynamic part of the American beer market. That segment accounts for less than 4% of U.S. beer production but uses almost 10% of the hops, according to industry statistics.

Yeeeeshhhh......

4% is COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT SON.

TRY TO KEEP UP