Buddy to Visit Atlanta - Local Help plz

Sweetwater and Terrapin are the biggest names. I'll leave it to the locals to get more specific.

 

Search the forum and you will find what you are looking for. Green's, L5P, Decatur in a nutshell.

 

Production Breweries in Atlanta area: Sweetwater and Red Brick
Brewpubs in Atlanta area: Five Seasons (3 locations but only 1 really in the city), Wrecking Bar, and Twain's are my favorites

Here is my personal opinion on bottle shops
Atlanta area Good Beer Stores from low priced to high: Green's, Ale Yeah, Hop City
Atlanta area Good Beer Stores based on quantity of selection: Hop City, Green's, Ale Yeah
Atlanta area Good Beer Stores based on quality of selection: Ale Yeah, Green's, Hop City

 

As far as bottle shops go, Hop City at 1000 Marietta Street, Atlanta is a must, as is Ale Yeah! 906 W College Ave, Decatur. Those have the best, freshest selection, as well as the most helpful and knowledgeable staff. Both are top notch in my book. Green's and Tower Liquour Stores may be more convenient, with a nice selection, but they can have some very old inventory.

If he is going to Decatur, I would recommend the Brick Store Pub and the Porter Beer Bar in Midtown.

Cheers!

 

Are you primarily looking for high ABV stouts, preferably Barrel Aged? If so, that might not be as long of a list as you hoped so you might want to give a bit more info on what you are looking for in terms of style preferences.

 

Without knowing what your friend likes, I hate to give many recommnedations, but here are the beers I like from the list of breweries that is in Georgia and not Wisconsin.

Port - Mongo, Hop-15 or Wipeout
Sweetwater - IPA (very underrated - awesome when fresh)
Boulevard - Tank 7, Double Wide IPA
Allagash - Black

Also, Ale Yeah! has Lagunitas Brown Shugga and Founder's Harvest Ale in stock (at least they did Friday). I would grab those before any of the others, save Mongo or Hop-15.

 

With that in mind...

Allagash Black
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (seriously doubt any Black Ops is around)
Clown Shoes Blaecorn Unidragon
Duck Rabbit - Rabbid Duck*, Porter*, Baltic Porter*, and Milk Stout* (some of these wont be around and what is might be infected as they have had issues, good beers usually though)
Great Divide Yeti series
Jailhouse Breakout Stout
Port - Santa's Little Helper (red label is barrel aged, green isnt), Old Viscosity, Older Viscosity, and Deliverance (prepare for sticker shock if you find the last 2 but they are cheaper here than anywhere else)
Red Brick - Chocolate Oatmeal Porter* and Vanilla Gorilla* (do not sit on these either as there have been infection issues with older bottles)
Sweetwater - Exodus Porter*, Dont think that Happy Ending or Festive are around yet
Terrapin - Don't think any of their stouts/porters are out yet

That should give you a good list to go through although I am sure I missed some. The * denotes 12 ounce bottles that are in 6 or 4 packs. Getting singles here is a bit tough, but Ale Yeah or Hop City would probably allow most of those to be bought in singles.

 

There's also some Red Brick 17th floating around still, and it's a barrel aged Brown Ale that aint bad at all.

If you want a true local, small craft stout.. Try out O'Dempseys Black Heart Stout. Comes in 4 packs, and it's a tasty brew for sure. Not BA, but it's good.

Tell him to go to 5 Seasons westside. They have bottles of a Wee Heavy aged in PVW barrels. $25 for a cork and caged bottle. Tell him to sit down too, because it aint leavin the building unless it's in his bladder.

 

People in Atlanta really need to check out Candler Park Market. Their craft beer selection is excellent and easily surpasses AleYeah. As far as BA beers go I know they have Port Brewing's Santa's Little Helper(bourbon barrel aged RIS).

Also Wild Heaven and Jailhouse are two relatively new breweries that are putting out some decent offerings.

 

Wild Heavens Eschaton is killer. But they don't bottle it so..

 

I'll second that you'd be hardpressed (very hardpressed) to find any Black Ops anywhere.
The Clown Shoes Blaecorn Unidragon is good but I prefer Vampire Slayer.
Jailhouse Breakout Stout is good stuff, a solid stout all-around. Highly recommended.
Sweetwater's newest Dank Tank just came out, Danktoberfest. I haven't had it yet, not really my style.
And with regard to Terrapin their Side Project #18 Liquid Bliss is supposed to hit stores this week. It's their peanut butter chocolate porter. I'm definitely giving it a try.

 

If you can find Burnt Hickory doing a tap takeover some where he needs to get a growler if there Graham Cracker Stout.

 

I've been in CP Market a handful of times, and whiile they had some rarer stuff that was already gone from shelves in other stores, I definitely did not find that their inventory surpassed Ale Yeah in any way, shape, or form. Certainly a good selection and would be a great place to walk to if one lived in Candler Park.

 

That Dank Tank was pretty meh IMO by the way...