Your favorite Microbreweries and beers from the USA
 

Microbreweries keep poping up left and right what are some of your favorites?

LAGUNITAS BROWN SUGGAH 9.99%

On the label is the following:

We believe this Special Ale is Something Unique. Feeding Brown Cane Sugar to otherwise Cultured Brewery Yeast is a'kin to feeding Raw Shark to your Gerbil. It is unlikely to ever occur in nature without Human Intervention. And it looks weird besides. But it has happened and now it's too late.

These are the bigger ones here in Colorado I have on a regular basis. There's a TON more smaller ones, but I don't have beers from them quite as often.

Odell Brewery - http://odellbrewing.com

New Belgium - http://www.newbelgium.com

Breckenridge Brewery - http://www.breckbrew.com

Left Hand Brewery - http://www.lefthandbrewing.com

Great Divide Brewery - http://www.greatdivide.com

Avery Brewery - http://www.averybrewing.com

Wynkoop Brewery - http://www.wynkoop.com

btw: Colorado is a great state to live in if you're a beer lover. Denver has been nicknamed "The Napa Valley Of Beer".

My all time favorite beer is from Maine:

Shipyard Export - http://www.shipyard.com/taste/

Best pale ale ever, IMO :)

Abita Beer: http://www.abita.com/brews/ I believe they are getting picked up more and more across the country.

I brew my own. There're several levels of sofistication for home brewing. Places like austinhomebrew.com, midwestsupplies.com and others have complete equipment kits and ingredients all set to go.

Shipyard is awesome

So it Catamount

My new favorite IPA by Odell.

Hey Tom, I always wondered about the level of involvement for home brewing, and is it worth the effort. Any recommendations?

Great bear. Also like Gearys

http://www.gearybrewing.com/pages/home.php

Bell's Brewery

I'm not a beer lover like some of you but I'll give a local shout out anyway to http://www.potosibrewery.com/

Pretty good, good restaurant, too.

Sure it's worth it for me. I like the hobby aspect of it and the results are satisfying and money saving too. Plus no bottles to carry back and forth to a store. Just wash and reuse them.

Best recommendation I could give I think is to check out homebrewtalk.com's beginners beer brewing section. There are step by steps in the pinned topics and just tons of wisdom. It's a huge community.

I use typical home equipment kit which basically consists of a fermenting bucket and siphoning, measuring, bottling equipments. Most importantly, cleaning and sanitizing solutions.

You can make incredibly simple brews that are basically just like making orange juice from concentrate, adding yeast and waiting a few weeks for it to fermement. I go a step up from that and do what are called "partial extract" brews. Which involves steeping grains, adding hops and such.

Here is a video series that covers pretty much exactly the way I do it currently. I'm actually working through a batch of this stout right now and it's pretty damn good. https://youtube.com/watch?v=NDjUfUuv90k

Current favorite brews are Arrogant Bastard and Ruination IPA by Stone Brewing out of California. Rogue Brewery in Oregon make some great beer too. Three Floyd's Dreadnaught IPA is another favorite but can't get it very often, it's hard to find. Dogfish Head is good too, and if you like home brewing they have a new series out called Brewmasters.

My neighbor grows hops in the summer, the trellis covers his deck and they get quite a bit come harvest time.

Tom, if you are brewing frequently I would seriously suggest looking in to kegging. I have been brewing for 11 years and recently went that route and I will never bottle again. Only one thing to clean and sanitize. No bottles to store. It only takes about 5 mins to keg compared to the 45 for bottling.

Cool captain.g, yeah I would be kegging if I went through the beer faster. I actually only drink about a pint each night, so bottles are ok for now. You're right on the time, it does take 45 minutes to bottle a full batch and cap them. I got a couple cases of ez-cap pint bottles which are nice. I do need to brew a batch soon or the pipeline could run dry!

Raven Beer ! Good Lager

http://www.ravenbeer.com/

Baltimore Based

I don't care just hand me the beer and I'll drink it!

Mac & Jacks(African Amber) best beer I have ever drank..

Allagash is my new favorite. Check out the Allagash Curieux. It's awesome.

http://allagash.com/curieux.htm