Top three favorite all time beers ?

[Mobyduck]

Question: Whats your all time three favorite beers.
Tastes change with time and age,nowdays i'm into gold/pale citrus ales,although i'm flexible and can happily sup milds,stouts and porters. But as it stands,
No 1 Dark Star Hophead
No 2 Dark Star American Pale Ale
No 3 Thornbridge Jaipur I.P.A.

Unbeatable as far as i'm concerned, but what do you think?:drinkup:

[Oggwyn Trench]

To be honest i would have a hard job to name my top three breweries let alone beers :confused::D

Back in the days when all we got around here was M&B , Ansells , Banks, Marstons and Wem my first pint of Bathams was a revalation .

Unicorn Heavens Gate was sublime and if pushed i would say it was my favorite ever , though how it would compare with todays modern ales i dont know .

I have a soft spot for the rarely spotted up here Donnington BB

I am lucky as my three main locals have on a bad day around twenty different beers to choose from and up to thirty two on a good one :notworthy::cheers: so i have a great choice and variety so i will have to say my favorite pint is the next one :D

[sheffield hatter]

To be honest i would have a hard job to name my top three breweries let alone beers ...so i will have to say my favorite pint is the next one :D

Couldn't agree more. However...

My very first pint of real ale was Boddingtons, which I was served accidentally by a bar person who mistook me for someone whose regular drink it was. This was in the days when this was a tip-top beer, not the emasculated bland smoothflow rubbish it is today. I still hanker after it.

Batemans XXXB however is still a great beer, and the bottled version is OK too.

I like anything from Tring brewery, but their first beer that I tried, the unforgettably named Side Pocket for a Toad, is still a favourite.

If you ask me again next week I'll name three different beers!

[oldboots]

To be honest i would have a hard job to name my top three breweries let alone beers :confused::D

That makes three of us but anything with Mallensons in the name would be one



Tastes change with time and age,

agreed but beers also change that's why another would be Gales HSB but only the pre 1980 version, and it's the beer that converted me to Real Ale.

On the other hand some beers don't change and Taylors Landlord is, to me, just such a beer and as good as it's always been.

[Old Blue]

Three beers spring to mind as having been clear favourites of mine during various periods of my youth:
St. Austell HSD
Firkin Dogbolter
Black Sheep Riggwelter

But I really wouldn't know where to start in picking a favourite nowadays, there are just so many potential contenders

[Strongers]

I’m not an ale aficionado and I’m just as likely to be seen with a pint of eurofizz, but at the moment my favourite brewery is dark Star with Old Chestnut topping the charts. This may be because it was the last beer I drank and is still fresh in the memory.

My first beer was London Pride as I lived in West London at the time. I still enjoy a decent pint of it and I love it when I stumble across a Fullers pub down here on the south coast.

[AlanH]

I find that my favorite beers tend to hinge on magic occasions rather than a regular beer. One that stands out was in the Robin Hood Inn (http://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pubs/26203/) in Manchester many years ago on our usual Friday lunch drink. The beer was plain old Marstons Burton Bitter. The beer was slightly cloudy but I thought I would taste it first. It was pure heaven in a glass! The landlord came dashing over and said he would change it as it was the end of the barrel. I grabbed my glass and said "Don't you dare!" The second pint from the new barrel was crystal clear and quite fine but the magic taste of the first had passed.
I agree with Oggwyn and sheffield about Bathems Bitter and the 'old' dull straw coloured Boddingtons Bitter (which I really miss).
If I have to choose a long term favorite, it will have to be Holts Bitter which gained a cult status in Manchester but is not to everyone's taste.

[Millay]

So difficult to do an all time top 3. I'm taking one from each of the Light, Brown & Dark categories and going for,

Oakham, Citra
Ringwood, Fortyniner
Exmoor, Exmoor Beast

Quinno started a Fantasy Beer Line-up (http://forums.pubsgalore.co.uk/showthread.php?3912-Fantasy-beer-line-up) thread a while ago where we had to pick a top 5 plus a couple of kegs and a cider. Have a go at that Mobyduck and tell us what you think.

We also had a Top 3 Beer of the Year thread for 2010 (http://forums.pubsgalore.co.uk/showthread.php?5211-Beer-of-the-Year-2010&highlight=fortyniner) picking our top known and new beers for the year.

This all brings back some memories

[ETA]

Difficult to determine what criteria to use - so I've gone for my most nostalgic:

Thiekstone's Old Peculiar
Gales's HSB (from the old Gales Brewery in Horndean - the stuff brewed by Fullers is a pale imitation)
Northumberland Secret Kingdom

[Farway]

Like others, really unable to pick a favourite, but for nostalgia can I chuck in Worthington E, Tiger [tops] and the one real ale is HSB

Oh, please can we stick to UK English spelling? Favourite, not favorite, good heavens, next it will be color not colour, sidewalk not pavement :evilgrin:

[Delboy20]

I'd have to say Carling, Stella and Fosters !!!

:whistle::D:whistle::D

[Al 10000]

The first three beers that came to mind when thinking about great beers were

1: Joseph Holts bitter, brown but not boring,had this in over 100 of their houses
2: Shipstones bitter,another brown beer but very bitter just like Holts bitter
3:Castle Rock Harvest Pale, Light refreshing and also bitter,i drink this on a regular basis

[Strongers]

I'd have to say Carling, Stella and Fosters !!!

:whistle::D:whistle::D

Good selection, but I prefer Carlsberg to Carling!:D

[Bucking Fastard]

There are a lot I could put down on a list,but if it is to be a top 3 here goes.

1 Marble Lagonda IPA . The King of Kings ,I could nominate virtually anything from Marble as my number 1.
2 Titanic White Star. Could drink it all night,have done several times.
3 Bathams Bitter. Converted me to real ale in '75 and their pubs are great places to sup ,the full package.

These are ales that I judge others by,I look forward to the time when I find three worthy successors.

[Wittenden]

For nostalgia: Fremlins
For pushing out the boat: Thornbridge Hall-Kipling
For being sensible: Larkins-Traditional

[Spinko]

Interesting topic! I have had to have a good think about this one. I have decided.

Thornbridge - Jaipur. Might not be what it used to be, but after I had a month not drinking and then sampled this, some time around December 2010 in The Grove Huddersfield, my word it set me on the trail for beer!

Burley St Brewpub - Laguna Seca

Maui - Big Swell. Freshest hoppiuest American beer there is, and it's a can, which means CAMRA are very very angry.

[Mobyduck]

Id go for the Stella

[Thuck Phat]

Much as I've tried to disagree and go for something different as number 1, I can't. So I'm with Mr Fastard on the Marble Lagonda IPA but have picked a couple of current favourites for 2 and 3.

1. Marble Lagonda IPA
2. Blue Monkey Ape Ale
3. Oakham Bishops Farewell

The Lagonda IPA has been a favourite for some years now so it'd take something fairly special to displace that but the other two will have changed by tea time.