Best All Around Brewery?

Consecration is a fairly dark beer , but you are right - Russian River uses mostly wine barrels.

As For Hills Farmstead, I would argue they don't play in the German spectrum very often or make standard Belgian beers. They are mostly a Saison, Pale Ale, Stout factory. And they rarely play in the sour side of things.

I don't even think you can say Hills Farmstead does everything well. The things the do, they do extremely well - but if you really think about it - they are fairly focused in their offerings.

Neither HF or RR do absolutely everything, but no brewery does...






unless we are talking about Firestone Walker.... man those guys are the tits when it comes to varying amount high quality styles.

 

I had to go with Prairie. Founders is the only other one available around here, but anything besides FBS, FIS & Backwoods is either terrible or way over hyped/priced for what it is.

If Boulevard had been on this list I would've voted for them without even hesitating, regardless of who else was listed.

 

Methinks a wee bit of oversight in not listing New Glarus.

New Glarus. Hands down.

From this list though? Probably Toppling Goliath or Firestone Walker.

 

Russian River

 

Of those, I went with FW.
If we're being real, New Glarus by a mile. Victory, Odell, or maybe Brooklyn would be next.

 

I'd like to throw bear republic in the mix even though I may not consider them the "best". My best would be lagunitas.

 

Jack of all trades

Firestone - AWA / Stouts
Bruery - Stours / AWA
Side Project - AWA / Saison
Sara - AWA / Saisons
Hill Farmstead - Stouts / Saisons
Goose Island - A little bit of everything

I base this on having more then 1 style they do

 

Stone was definitely an awesome experience... Felt like a beer resort

 

Sierra Nevada, which I see did not make your list. It took a while, but Sierra Nevada has become my favorite brewery, completely burying Founders in the process. Great flagship brew, do tons of styles well, and seasonals that I look forward to and love. Big barrel aged beers? BBA Narwhal is one of the best beers I've had in the style and BBA Bigfoot is fantastic as well. Also, they make enough of the stuff that it doesn't require the virgin blood of your first born to obtain a bottle. It's usually just sitting right there, on the shelf. Victory has probably moved up, becoming a close second. They've really turned it up a notch over the past couple of years and continue to keep the pedal to the metal.

 

If the poll was for best fruit beer brewery New Glarus without a doubt would win. They don't offer much in the way of imperial stouts, IPA's, or sours with the exception of their new R&D sour series.

 

Ah, another list with no clear answers, just a collection of opinions, and rationale, points, counter points. (many backed up by high ratings too) Many will agree, many will disagree, and a defacto winner will be crowned based on a sampling of maybe a few hundred, in which the argreements and disagreements will go on. ( I write this very tongue and check, but some truth to it too, but I know it's in fun and why were here) and now my opinion, lol.

I like a lot of these breweries, and I agree cutting a list down to 10, 20, sometimes even 100 is tough, were in a beer renansance after all, we truly are, and it's glorious! I think Avery could easily be on this list too, to toss in another ommision. I voted Founders, but could very easily could have voted Firestone Walker too. Both are great, really great, I enjoy offerings from both often.

But, the best all around, is Sierra Neveda, and I'm not even a hughe SN buyer, or drinker, but, here's why:

• Huge Distribution Foot print. Bottles are easy to obtain, and well priced
• Bottle Freshness dating
• Majority offerings are small bottle format
• Great pricing
• Variety of styles offered
• Innovator of sustainable brewing & technology (from solar panels, growing hops, extracting hop oils, spent grain to local farms, water reclamation, etc. t they Walk the talk here)
• Beer Camp

I could go on (gorgeous brewery, worth touring, $.050 tasters, they make food, mustard, etc with beer there)

But mostly, while some of their beers don't blow me away, I've never had a bad one from them either. Quality, consistency, variety, access, price (things that are often missing or complained about from other breweries are not issues with SN) so that would be my "Best all around"

 

Lagunitas!

They rank high for availability, price, formats, solid regular lineup, and very impressive special releases.

My 2 cons but i can see past crappy Julian dating that rubs off easy and because they are so widely disto'd you can run into some fossilized hoppy beers.

 

But they need to step up their ipa. It has become irrelevant.

 

people should check out kane and/or carton brewing co from NJ, read up

 

Great Lakes. They make good lagers, they make good ales. They don't make sours that I know of..but I'm one of the few who doesn't really like them anyway!

So yeah, that is my choice.

 

Carton Regular Coffee

 

yea I had that on tap recently and haven't really had anything like it before. and just everything else I've had was great

 

New Glarus or FW for me

 

I was up in Jersey City and my friend and I got the last two pours from the keg at a bar. I consider myself lucky.

 

I'm going against the grain and taking a swipe at the big boys of beer (Founders and Firestone)... I'm voting Stone!!

I was really drawn to Founders and Firestone, but it was the phrasing "all-around" that made me vote Stone... Firestone indubitably produces a superfine line of elegant ales, but their distribution here sucks (and it's not just NY), and they don't really do anything collaborative or experimental - which is fine, of course, but it removes them from being "all-around" best. And Founders is amazing - another strong competitor, and they do release some fancy-schmancy stuff - but their name automatically tacks a big price tag onto their more interesting products, and I can't recall a collaborative project that involved Founders, so those two points went in favor of Stone.

For me, to be the best all-around, you gotta have experimentation/variety, collaboration, availability, and affordability, as well as a strong core line of products. Stone hits on every point (IMO)