"Whoa, this is a tough one - there's so many excellent beers available today! Best I can do is narrow it down to a few favorite breweries. Let's see....
Green Flash
Alesmith
Great Divide
Two Brothers
Lagunitas
Lost Abbey
Russian River
Flying Dog
Southern Tier
The list goes on and on and on. And...
homebrewing beer (more of a way of life than a hobby really), hiking and snowshoeing, snowboarding, muay thai kickboxing, reading (big time fantasy geek), movies and films, traveling as much as possible, motorcycles...
That's an impressive list. Pumking is especially awesome. At the beer store I work at we went through 5 kegs of that in record time this release. And sold every bottle we could get our hands on as well. Something we discovered, it blends amazingly well with stouts. 50:50 with an imperial or...
Assuming you haven't already been, I'd like to suggest you fellers pay a visit to Rahr and Sons Brewing the next time you find yourselves in the Fort Worth area. Excellent ales and lagers. I just did a tour/tasting over xmas. Good stuff!
Most of them put out a range of beers including stouts, porters and other darker ales.
Alesmith makes a phenomenal imperial stout, Speedway Stout.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/396/3833
Green Flash - also puts out an excellent stout (two actually)...
Well, I highly recommend you check them out then. Green Flash, Alesmith, and Lost Abbey are actually out of San Diego. Whereabouts are you from in SoCal (I'm originally from San Diego myself)? Lagunitas and Russian River are NoCal breweries, Great Divide - Denver, Two Brothers - Illinois...
Whoa, this is a tough one - there's so many excellent beers available today! Best I can do is narrow it down to a few favorite breweries. Let's see....
Green Flash
Alesmith
Great Divide
Two Brothers
Lagunitas
Lost Abbey
Russian River
Flying Dog
Southern Tier
The list goes on and on and on...