Indulging in some fine bitter ale is one of my life's pleasures. For my fellow minded brew enthusiasts- the list of top brewers came out:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/24/pf/goodlife/best_beer/index.htm

In the top 3, two reside in Sandiego--

1. whats up with that? SD pay off the writers?
2. blazers-- looks like we need to toss a few back... the nerve-- last time u didn't even SD's claim to fame

for u lazy folks here's the top 10:
1. AleSmith Brewing Co. San Diego, CA USA
2. Three Floyds Brewing Co. Munster, IN USA
3. Stone Brewing Co. San Diego, CA USA
4. Westvleteren Abdij St. Sixtus Westvleteren Belgium
5. Hair of the Dog Brewing Co. Portland, OR USA
6. De Dolle Brouwers Diksmuide Belgium
7. Kalamazoo Brewing Co. Kalamazoo, MI USA
8. Pizza Port (Solana Beach) Solana Beach, CA USA
9. Dogfish Head Brewery Milton, DE USA
10. Fuller, Smith & Turner London UK

Porker is gonna be pissed that San Miguel did not top the list. Everyone know everything is better in AC !! :-)

ThreeFloyd's eh ? Gotta get me a couple of cases of that. Does Costco carry any of those labels ?

Dogfish Head ? No Thanks --I'll take Schlitz any day !

Everyone know everything is better in AC !! :-)

I guess this was another Poll where N>1 or where 1!=porker.

Wow, 3 of the top 10 in the world from San Diego and I havent been to any of them. Solana Beach is San Diego BTW. For my money, Karl Strauss, San Diego Brewing Company and Carlsbad Brewery are the best but I am not an afficionado of microbreweries now that Im on the South Beach diet and working out 3 hours a day. But I promise you DM, when you roll into town next time, I will take you to Karl Strauss near my office which has tons of hot honeys as well....lots of Japanese girls if you are willing to stoop to that level..lol

ahhhem-- you turn up your nose at any of those filly's comin' yur way and send 'em over to DM for some lovin'

I love my sushi and wasabe...

As a Brit and a bitter lover,I do find it extremelly unlikely that the 7 out of the 10 best bitter brewers or beers are in the States. No disrespect to the USA, but the voters could not have been to taste some real ale in the UK. I am even surprised to find much bitter over there, I thought "warm beer" was taboo.

IMHO Fuller, Smith & Turner should be No1. their ESB is superb and I have yet to find a beer anywhere else in the world that comes near, except a few other British beers. I understand some Belgium brewers being on the list, but would expect The Czech Republic to appear somewhere too ..... as for San Miguel, well apart from being a lager, I would not put it in anywhere near my top 10, probably not in my top 50!

WW-

I can only guess that the judges do not share the same affinity for a real bitter served properly.

Hell I was at an airport yesterday and the only beer with an smidgen of flavor to be had was a Sam Adams Light. As I tossed it back, two guys sitting next to me said, "you like that? It's a little bitter"

I almost coughed up my beer, but glanced down at the Mich Ultra water they were nippling.

As for San Miguel, one of the top 50? u are a generous soul SM is slightly above the category of rusty nails and water IMHO.

DM,

Seems we share not only the love of beautiful women, but "real beer" too. Just two of the wonderful vices this world has to offer. If you ever get over tho the UK I would be happy to share a pint or three of the warm stuff and I do not mean the pretend beer with the synthetic head.

PS

Yes I was being kind to San Miguel, just being a little diplomatic. No lager would get in my top 50!

Actually San Miguel does very well in head to head reviews vs. other Asian beers. As a matter of fact, San Miguel has won several awards for best Regional Beer(Asia) at the Great American Beer Festival and others in Asia. For me, I prefer Japanese beers(Asahi, Kirin, Saporro) above bitter ales as I like the crisp taste and the flavor. I dont' prefer my beer warm at all but do like flavor. If I had to make a top 10 of my favorite beers, not one of them would be from Europe. I'm just not into thick syrupy beers with tons of hops and malt and do not prefer bitter beer. I do like to Drink Boddington's when Im watching soccer at the local British Pub.

Here is my top 10

1. Steinlager (New Zealand)
2. Kirin (Japan)
3. Slo Brewing Company Ales (USA)
4. Asahi(Japan)
5. Saporro(Japan)
5. Beer Lao (Laos)
7. San Miguel (Philippines)
8. Sierra Nevada(USA)
9. Karl Strauss Amber Lager(USA)
10. Bohemia(Mexico)

blazers--

stick to women, your taste, or lack thereof, wanes greatly when it comes to suds.

Saying SM won a regional beer contest is like saying I won a swim meet in my bathtub.

WW-- I may be in/around london sometime this fall--love to toss a few back. I'll keep you posted.


cheers,

DM

DM
I'm sure you medaled in the breast stroke - but who was your competition ??

My San Miguel line was a joke obviously. I freely admit I would not know a bitter from an ale or lager. It's all beer to me. But warm beer is too much to even think about- sorry WW cannot share your enthusiasm here.

Now I definitely would be a much better judge in a regional pussy tasting contest.

Just have the beer girl put some more ice in your beer if it's warm

order order ...

It isn't "warm" unless your a penguin... The british lobby for standards states that it should be served roughly at "cellar temperature" or between 55-58F. So yes, relative to the travesty we usually find in American Bars and elsewhere, it could be considered warm, but that is an inaccurate misperception.


If anyone is interested, the Great British Beer Festival is coming in a couple weeks:

http://www.camra.org.uk/SHWebClass.ASP?WCI=ShowCat&CatID=1


for further reading...


The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) invented the term "real ale" in 1971 when it began its battle to revive a traditional style (pretty much unique to Britain) of brewing and dispensing that was threatened with extinction. According to CAMRA guidelines, and now the Oxford English Dictionary, real ale is "a name for draft (or bottle) beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide."

Sounds pretty simple, but serving a proper pint of real ale is much more of a challenge. English brewers rack beer into casks known as firkins before fermentation is complete, or prime beer in the cask with fresh wort or a sugar solution. No, casks don't have to be wooden -- only a few British brewers still use wood -- but casks don't have the internal workings of American kegs to muck things up, they don't draw beer from the bottom (where yeast will have settled), and they do have two holes vital to the conditioning process.

When the cask is sealed at the brewery, a wooden stopper called a shive is driven into a two-inch bung hole, and a wooden plug is placed in a smaller keystone at the end. In the past, one of a publican's jobs was to add finings to the cask; today, that is usually done at the brewery. Finings, traditionally Isinglass (made from the swim bladders of fish), cause the yeast suspended in the beer to drop to the bottom of the cask. Real ale in Britain is served "bar bright."

After a cask is delivered to a pub, it stands in the cellar for two to three days to allow the yeast to settle. Ideally, the casks will be placed directly in stillage -- that is, tilted at an angle and left undisturbed until the cask is empty. The shive hole is then knocked in and a soft spile inserted. The condition of the beer is affected first by the amount of remaining sugar content, then by the cellarman's skill in venting the beer.

After the beer is conditioned to the cellarman's taste, a hard spile is inserted. When the beer is served, the hard spile is removed so air can be drawn into the cask as beer is pulled through the beer engine. A beer engine, topped by a handpump at the bar, is actually a hydraulic system. The line to the handpump is attached to the tap, which is inserted though the keystone plug.

A properly conditioned pint will be nicely carbonated and should look as "bright" as a (lightly) filtered beer. Of course, the beer must be served at the proper temperature. Cellar temperature is not room temperature -- it's between 55 and 58 degrees F, and cool to the taste -- but it's also far from the 32 to 40 degrees at which most American bar's coolers are set.

The process is simple, but it is also an art. "There has always been a shortage of qualified people in the cellar," said Bill King, who was managing director at King & Barnes in Sussex before it closed and now operates a fledgling micro in the same area. "When it leaves our gate, only 60% of the job is done."

Just have the beer girl put some more ice in your beer if it's warm



Thanks for the vivid reminder of life in Batam

a wooden stopper called a shive is driven into a two-inch bung hole, and a wooden plug is placed in a smaller keystone at the end.

Sounds just like an Epi trip report !!

There is a new Brazilian beer here on the West coast. It's called Brahma. This beer tastes a little lighter, and smoother that Corona.

They have some real funny comercials here is a link to a site that has a lot of beer commercials.

http://home.tiscali.nl/beercollection/movies.htm

RG.

KM, Mongerx's question: Would any beer drunk in So Cal be anywhere near as tasty as a SM downed in AC?

pork-- u Do have a point there... SM association with pussy does raise it's stock significently!

Porker --Hell no !! I don't even drink beer here in LA as I don't like the taste , but at baseball games and AC bars it goes down pretty damn fine !!