What's your #1 rated beer?

I have two beers that I rated a 5, Founders Backwoods Bastard & BCBS. But I would give the edge to Backwoods Bastard.

 

Heady
Hill Farmstead Abner
Lawson's Double Sunsine
Kern Citra

it's a big drop after that

 

Heady topper is perfect

 

I would love to get my hands on XII.

 

BA Behemoth wick Cherries.

 

Alpine Bad Boy followed by Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Barleywine.

 

Good luck finding XII. I've only seen XV and XVI in my neck of the woods. Hell, if I found XII, I might buy it for myself!

 

Bell's Hopslam

 

Out of 118 beers so far, Samuel Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout.

 

Fresh Nelson. Perfect stuff.

 

moat water

 

1. Pliny the Younger 2. Heady Topper 3. Citra

 

Westy 12, CBS, and Fall-Zombie Dust, winter-Zombie dust, spring-zombie dust, summer-Zombie dust!

 

By rating, Blaecorn Unidragon. Gave it a perfect score. Haven't had it in a while, maybe I'll revisit that soon. Closely followed is Rochefort 8.

Off the top of my head though, the 2009 Black Tuesday I had for my birthday a few months ago was better. As was 2010 KTG.

 

Struise Black Damnation V: Double Black still counts as the best single beer I've ever had. Absolute perfection in technique and execution.

Black Damnation II: Mocha Bomb is the one I'd be willing to drink morning, noon and night though. Amazing stuff and I'm praying for a re-release so I can stock up.

 

Toss up between apple brandy hunaphu and westvleteren 8 and HotD Matt. If I could drink these three beers everyday I would be the happiest man in the world

 

Black Damnation serie by The Struise Brouwers.

 

Cuvee Delphine by Struise closely followed by an aged Beer Geek Breakfast by Mikkeller.

 

True, freshness could be playing a big part. For what it's worth, I've never had a Pliny in bottle that I even thought was in the top tier of all IPAs. I've had PtE from a growler from RR flown by checked baggage side by side against a bottle shipped FedEx from CA same time frame, and the bottled beer was in a lower class like it's a different beer, IMO, not just less good than the draft. Of course the bottled beer couldn't have been as fresh.

However, maybe it's the transit mode that makes the difference. I shipped Heady Topper to myself to share with family on vacation and it wasn't nearly as good as I expected. When I got home two weeks later, the cans left from the same case as that shipment were still like new. Cans and bottles perhaps don't kindly suffer being thrown around in a truck for several days.

Wish we could just get PtE and PtY on draft here in Massachusetts. We're so spoiled with good beer--spoil us some more.

 

According to my ratings:

Splinter Gold (when it was fresh)
Alpine Bad Boy
Surly Moes Bender
Cascade Sang Noir
Apple Brandy Hunahpu's