NOT the best beer, as in finest beer. BUT, the specific time in your life that remember having the best, or one of the best beers. Example- You were working all day outside in 100 degree heat. The day is done, you stop at a little corner bar with your friends and order one the beers on tap. It`s ice cold, the glass is sweating, you raise it to your lips, and the glass of beer goes down in two gulps. Pure refreshment. Example- You`re on a road trip. You`ve been driving for 13 hours straight , day and night in the heat, in car with no air conditioning. You reach your destination and there`s a ice cold beer waiting. It goes down smooth and quick, but you never forgot the feeling. ********************************************************************************************************************** Mine was years ago. When I was still working I had a outside job. Outside all day. And I lived in a old home without air conditioning. We were in the middle of heat wave. Day after day, night after night, hot and humid. I came home from a 11 hour day. I just couldn`t take it much longer. I told my wife I`m hopping on my motorcycle and going for a ride, just catch a breeze. I headed towards the lake hoping it would be cooler near the lake. I stopped on the way at a little liquor store to see if they sold single cans or bottles of beer. They had 24 ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon in cans on the very bottom of the cooler. I took one out and it was Ice Cold. I asked the clerk to double wrap it in a paper bag , to keep it cold. I was down by the lake in about 5 minutes. It was slightly cooler right on the shore. I found a picnic table in the shade under a tree. I took out the 24 ouncer from my saddle bag. It still was ice cold, when I popped the can open foam came out and ran down the side of the can. I I took a big swallow. It was great. Even though I polished it off fairly fast, I never forgot that beer.
Been many , but one was after a 12 hour day making sawdust and lifting 100+ plus redwood beams and had an Arrogant Bastard..one of the best in my life for sure.
After a Redsox win at Fenway Park my fiancee and I were in the Cask N' Flagon having some victory drinks. It was 2016 and one of my earliest IPAs on tap. Alpine Beer Company's Bad Boy, a potent eye-opener. After three of those Bad Boys we set the date and have been happily married ever since. Cheers.
Keep them coming! Those are the stories I wanted to hear. It`s not the Brand of beer that we remember, but that snapshot in our life.
Out for dinner with my wife on our 10th anniversary- (15 years ago) —great food, better company and the best that Tripel Karmeliet has ever tasted.
January, 2010. I was in Seattle at a bar and a friend (much more into beer than me at the time) told me to try Old Rasputin on tap. I had already had a few beers, but when this hit my mouth, I almost lost it. A eureka moment for sure!
These aren't exotic styles. First best beer (1969 -70) was Dortmunder Ritterbrau Light draft. Next is a can of Ballantine (Newark) XXX Ale about 72-3. Later I discovered a regular treat for 5 years, McSorley's Ale bottles from Ortlieb/Schmidt. On vacation in the 90s in Portland, I had a memorable Bridgeport cask stout at the their pub. Most recent best was Bluepoint ESB draft from the old brewery on River Av. Lately . . . maybe just jaded taste buds
Went on a backpacking trip with a couple good friends in the Enchantments in central Washington, one of the most beautiful areas I’ve ever had the privilege to go hiking. I think we spent a total of 3 days on the trip—you had to show up at the ranger station early to enter a lottery or you might have to scrap the trip, because only so many backpackers are allowed in each day (these days you can probably do all this online but back then it was still first come, first served). I think we headed over around 4 a,m. to make sure we’d be there when the ranger station opened. Part of the trail takes you from the lake where we were camping up over Aasgard Pass, which I believe is a climb of about 1,000 feet of elevation gain at something like 20% grade (I could look up the details but suffice to say, it’s steep). It was a wonderful hike but very tough—not the toughest backpacking trip I’ve done, but probably in the top five. We got back to the car after a long, hot, dusty hike back down to Leavenworth. Stopped in town for some beer and pizza. I had a Bootjack IPA at Icicle Brewing—it was probably super fresh anyway, but that wasn’t why it was so good. We were just so hot and thirsty and tired that probably almost any beer would have tasted great, but that beer under those circumstances hit the spot like almost no other beer before or since. In fact I believe my review is from that day.
A much younger me enjoying a draft Löwenbräu in a cafe above the Danube River in Budapest. Of course much of the memory is enhanced by the setting as well as my then Belgian/Hungarian GF I was sharing the view with. Earlier in the trip we experienced Brussel's Grand Place and enjoyed many amazing Belgian ales. We even started our journey in Cologne, Germany so you know where that part of the story is headed.
I’ve sung the praises of the Uberon (barrel-aged Oberon) that blew my mind, before I knew barrel-aging was possible, and of the cask conditioned Two Hearted that I still wish for. Amongst that Parthenon I’ll add the following: I made a stop in Albuquerque while headed out west. Loaded up on Elevated during my visit to La Cumbre, then up at sunrise to beat the heat and hit the road. I ended up covering what I had initially planned to be a two-day stretch all in one go, driving roughly 18 hours with only an occasional stop for gas. That night I should have passed out from exhaustion. Instead, I cracked open the Elevated I had chilled on ice and savored every sip of it.
The one in my picture. It's a 2014 St. Bernardus Abt 12. A beer group I belonged to on Facebook was located in Louisiana but came to Chicago in February 2020 and had a bottle share downtown. A guy actually carried this on the plane with him. It was THE best beer I've ever had.
One summer in grad school at Iowa, it was about 90 degrees out and brutally humid, and I was moving into a new house with new roommates. After a long, sweaty day of moving, my new roommate asked me if I wanted to split the one beer she’d brought from her place. Of course I did. Standing in the middle of our new kitchen, she popped open a Leinenkugels, tilted back her head, drank half, and handed it to me. I did the same. Best beer I’ve ever had.
Restaurant I worked at in Philly, we kept 12 packs of bud heavy hidden in the walk-in behind produce. After 10, we'd have "chefs' meetings" where we'd pound a beer real quick before heading back to the line to finish up the shift. By that time we'd have worked for at least 10 hours, done 3 turns, were coated in sweat and at each others throats. Standing in the walk-in and drinking a beer together literally allowed us to cool off so that we could get through the last couple of hours.
...my first real beer after coming back from Prince Sultan AB, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia circa 1996 -- 4404 (Provisional) Communications Squadron...I don't recall the beer brand or location (PHL airport - perhaps), but, believe me, that was my finest beer experience after living in (granted - air conditioned) tents in the middle of the Saudi desert for three months, working 12-18+ hour days, seven days a week, for three months...NA beer at PSAB just didn't cut it...
Sitting relaxedly, sipping an early evening Tecate, as we roasted plantain on an open fire, and watched the gentle waves of the Gulf break on the beautiful gold sand of Boca Del Rio, Vera Cruz, Mex.. We were camped on the beach about a mile from where the Mocambo had burned, and it was after a day of hand line fishing with Carlos, who lived in town, but sold bait and refrescos from a small hut on the beach, and now was enjoying the fire, and a Tecate, with us. Doubtful I ever again will have a beer as wonderful as that Tecate. I know I never have.
For years I begged Tommy Keegan, RIP, to brew that ESB at Keegan Ales in Kingston, since of course he had the recipe, and he always promised he would, but he never did
I haven't a thoughtful response (I will, in all honesty, tell you that the beer I'm currently having - whatever it might be- is the best I've ever had), but I really appreciate the spirit of this thread. This is what this website needs more of.
I was a little under age, but a friend of mine was a bartender at an English pub, he told me to come over to the pub and he’d give me the best beer ever. When he handed me a pint of draft Guinness, I was a little apprehensive about the black beer, but after the first sip, I was converted to a Guinness fan. I couldn’t believe that beer could be so rich and creamy, I think I asked if it had milk in it. These days, draft Guinness tastes pretty watery compared to the massive stouts practically every brewery makes, but I still love how easy it is to drink, It’s also by far the best beer for a hung over gut, way better that that clam juice shit.
My first Pliny. I wasn’t the craft beer drinker that I am now. 2011, before the “big boom”… I liked craft, but still mixed in a lot of BMC. That moment though. That moment… Hollingshead’s Delicatessen in my hometown of Orange, CA. This is before they finally got big screen TV’s listing their beer. Before you had to squeeze through people and look at tap handles, or just talk to the bartender. Either way, I sat my ass down and asked if they had any IPA’s. Senior just looked at me and kind of replied Old Foghorn Leghorn style: “Do we have any IPA’s? Do you want a Single, Double, or Imperial?” I went with a double. And the rest was history. The Candice Swanepoel of beers. Oh, baby!
