3 Breweries for the rest of your life.

Hill Farmstead
Other Half
Kane

 

1. Troegs - Love their year round selections
2. Founders - There is almost always a specialty in distribution that I am excited about. Also like a couple of the year rounds
3. Three Notch'd (Charlottesville, VA) - Need to have one local micro in the mix. Definitely my favorite in that category. Always coming up with something new. Tap room releases almost every Thursday. Oh and the beer is fantastic!

 

1. Unibroue - they do no wrong XD
2. Le Castor - I could live on their yakima IPA
3. Dieu du Ciel - Eveerything from Aphrodisiaque to Moralite is delicious.

With that said this is a sad reality as I would never be able to drink a beaus or sierra nevada or trappist ale again. sad days.

 

Firestone Walker their core beers are good and vintage series even better.

Founders solid throughout the lineup and good variety.

The Bruery not a fan of all their beers but the ones i like i love.

 

Founders, Stone, NEBCO.

Hard to leave Sierra Nevada out though. Like previously mentioned in this thread, not sure how many other breweries are as consistent with all their offerings (Founders might be close).

 

Victory
DFH
Alchemist

 

Hill Farmstead.
That's it.

 

Founders
Bell's
SN

 

pipeworks for their take on stouts and strong ales

mikkeller because I didn't want all American breweries and they get real creative

deshutes because of their diversity in different styles.

 

Tree house
3F
Cantillon

 

Sierra Nevada, Founders and Lagunitas. All three always have something out there that I enjoy and can find without driving for hours just to find it.

 

Three Floyds - my favorite hoppy beers
Founders - my favorite stouts
Against the Grain - local guys doing interesting stuff.

 

Tree House - They have a portfolio of consistently excellent beers and they are starting to venture into other styles. They make the highest rated stout and American IPA on this site and they have other beers that are equally as great.

Hill Farmstead - They have the best saisons that I've ever tasted and they are probably the most well rounded brewery when it comes to producing different styles of beer.

Cantillon - Because they're great at what they do and TH and HF would cover the other styles.

 

Alesmith
Firestone Walker
Tree House

 

Firestone Walker solid core offerings INCREDIBLE barrel program
Ballast Point delicious IPAs and you cant go wrong with V@S
Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. Delicious beers and barrel offerings can usually find something of theirs I want to try or enjoy greatly

 

Hill Farmstead- Farmstead makes some of the best beers in every single style that is brewed at the facility. We are talking benchmark beers for each respective style as well as unique and creative takes on specific beer styles. The prices are very reasonable for such high quality craft beer.

New Glarus- This was the first brewery that got me into craft beer. The year around line up and seasonals are better than any other brewery concerning variety of styles, quality, and price point. Only brewery that can thing of is Hill Farmstead which may meet or exceed this expectation. Lets not forget about the R&D series and the fruit beers that are claimed to be the best in the world by many craft beer experts and craft beer drinkers alike. Its awesome to have a brewery of this caliber less than an hour drive away from where I live.

Toppling Goliath- They brew the best stouts in the world. The one exception is rover truck...

Honorable mentions(the other breweries that I was debating about in my head): Allagash, 3 Fontienen, Cantillion, Crooked Stave, Casey, and Jester King.

 

Country Boy
Jackie O's
Three Floyds

All local, or relatively local, favorites that very rarely miss. Between the three, I could always get a world class beer of any style.

 

La Cumbre (abq, NM)
Half Acre (CHI)
Firestone Walker

 

Harvey’s
Schlenkerla
Batham’s

 

For me
Cigar City- solid line up and enough great seasonal or limited releases
Funky Buddha- it is Funky Buddha
The Bruery- Love Black Tuesday and the variants also need that high ABV brew to age

 

In 1980 three breweries was about all there was - they may have had slightly different packages but they all tasted the same. I could never go back.

 

In no particular order:

Toppling Goliath (for stouts and PA/IPA/DIPA)
FFF (all around)
Russian River (PA/IPA/DIPA and sours)

 

Fremont Brewing
Three Floyds
Firestone Walker

 

Bell's
Founders
Old Dominion

Reasonably priced, always available, and just as good if not better than some of the whale makers.

 

Dogfish
Sierra Nevada
Stone

 

Tree House
Hill Farmstead
Goose Island (for BCBS & all variants)

 

Lagunitas, O'Dell, Sierra Nevada

 

Hill Farmstead singlehandedly could provide me with great satisfaction across most styles, but I'd probably go broke.

Firestone Walker IF I can get everything fresh from their lineup AND can easily obtain their boxed beers (Sucuba, Stickee Monkey, Parabola with ease. Neither situation is a current reality however.

Let's add Weihenstephaner because I like most everything they make as well and are reasonably priced.

 

Russian River, love their barrel aged wild ales, Pliny and Blind Pig.
Firestone Walker, their vintage series beers are world class, I enjoy all their year round offerings and seasonal beers
Founders, they brew some world class stouts

 

Beer Advocate in a nutshell in this response.

 

Tree House, Hill Farmstead, Firestone Walker.

 

Bell's
Founder's
Great Lakes

 

Reading everyone else's posts, I can see that I'm a victim of geography as a lot of those aren't available around here. That said, if we're talking package breweries, then

Dogfish Head
Breckenridge
Founders

Had Saranac on there first but the last couple of variety packs were a bit of a letdown after loving everything for a few years. I think most places fall into the trap of trying to produce too many varieties and they end up missing the mark by going to distribution before they've got the right formulation to make themselves stand out.

Shit...left out Troegs.

And if we're including brewpubs where growlers are your only means of getting it home, I'd include

Selin's Grove Brewing Company
Turkey Hill Brewing Company

Hmmm...then again, Guinness or Murphy's Stout would be glaring omissions. Not to mention Lancaster Brewing Company Milk Stout.

It's too soon to think about things like this - I'm only 55 and there's so many beers to try.

 

Cantillon
Orval
3 Fonteinen

 

Founders and Bells from my hometown.
Adroit Theory from my current town.

 

Russian River
Firestone Walker
Rare Barrel

 

Yeah, Pat61, Miller Genuine Draft was a departure from "standard." At least there were Little Kings and Genesee Cream Ales.

Thanks to my brother-in-law's stepfather, I had some opportunities before I was 18 to try Beck's and Beck's Dark, so knew there was something out there worth pursuing.

 

Hill Farmstead
Clown Shoes
Lagunitas...or Russian River LOL...

 

highest rated but not if you would count the amount of reviews so kind of bizarre how they are rated love to try them though