The top 100 beers in Houston

“So… What should I get?”

I love it when a friend, stumped by the craft beer list at a bar or restaurant, asks me to pick a beer for him. It’s a fun challenge (yes, I’m a nerd).

The great thing about it is that there are just so many options, and it’s really hard to go wrong. Sure, if you order a hop bomb for someone who hates bitter beer, then that’s probably the last time you’ll get asked for advice. But I love turning a Guinness drinker onto, say, Southern Star Buried Hatchet or Left Hand Milk Stout. Or getting a macro-lite drinker to taste their first Real Ale Fireman’s #4 or North Coast Scrimshaw. Or seeing a wine-lover’s reaction when they first taste a Duchesse de Bourgogne or Monk’s Cafe. Or….right, I could go on and on.

The fact is, we get a ton of great beer in Houston — not just decent beer, or good beer, but truly great, world-class beer. Sure, our dumb state laws prevent us from having access to even more great beer, but that’s a different rant for a different time. (Obligatory reminder to sign up for Open the Taps!)

So what’s the point of all this? Well, a Twitter friend — inspired by Alison Cook’s Top 100 restaurants in Houston — suggested that I compile the top 100 beers available in Texas. I couldn’t say no.

It sounded easy at first — and then my “first cut” yielded a list of nearly 300 beers. But after a few weeks of working on it — and a lot of, um, research — I’ve got a Top 100. A few caveats/qualifications/disclaimers:

-I originally wanted to do the top 100 available in Texas, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t. There are a bunch of Texas beers that we don’t get in Houston (or get here very rarely), and I couldn’t properly rank/rate them without having regular access to them. So that’s why you won’t see Freetail Ananke or Austin Beerworks Pearl Snap Pils or Deep Ellum IPA or Peticolas Velvet Hammer (or a bunch of others). I can’t wait for the day when all those breweries can and/or do distribute regularly in Houston, but for now I had to leave them out.

-I only considered “regular” releases — beers that are available year-round, seasonally or on a rotating basis. That means that I had to leave out a bunch of amazing one-offs — including delicious recent releases such as Lagunitas Sucks, Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse, Boulevard Love Child #2 and the Left Hand Fade to Black series.

-I also left out a long list of great beers that we got in Houston at some point but may not come back — whether because they won’t be brewed again, or may not be distributed here. Some examples:

• The Real Ale Mysterium Verum series, including WT3F?!, The Kraken, and Barrel-Aged Anniversary Ale XV
• Tripel Van De Garre
• Live Oak Old Tree Hugger Barleywine
• Harpoon Leviathan Triticus
• Bear Republic Racer X Double IPA
• Samuel Adams Utopias
• A bunch of the New Belgium Lips of Faith series, including Dunkelweiss, Cocoa Mole, Le Terroir and Eric’s Ale.

-Finally, I didn’t include “regular” beers that change their recipe/hop/barrel with every release. It’s a safe bet that every version of Anchor Our Special Ale, Duvel Tripel Hop or La Trappe Quadrupel Barrique will be worthy, but they’re each unique releases.

Are those enough disclaimers? Oh right, the most important one of all — this is all highly subjective, and should be taken simply as one nerd’s opinion. I consulted a few friends, but ultimately it’s a necessarily subjective list. I tried to push beyond my biases (I’m not a hop-head, I’m a sucker for huge stouts, I’m recently obsessed with Brett, etc.), but that can only go so far.

OK, enough of that. Here is my list of the top 100 beers in Houston:

• (512) Pecan Porter
• Abbaye des Rocs/Brasserie des Rocs Brune
• Anchor Porter
• Avery The Maharaja
• Avery Rumpkin
• Ayinger Brau-Weisse
• Ayinger Celebrator
• Ayinger Oktober Fest-Marzen
• Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye
• Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
• Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale
• Bosteels Deus Brut des Flandres
• Bosteels Tripel Karmeliet
• Boulevard Bourbon Barrel Quad
• Boulevard Harvest Dance Wheat Wine
• Boulevard Rye-On-Rye
• Boulevard Saison-Brett
• Brooklyn Sorachi Ace
• Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue)
• Chimay Premiere (Red)
• Chouffe Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel
• Deschutes Black Butter Porter
• Deschutes The Abyss
• Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA
• Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
• Dogfish Head Burton Baton
• Dogfish Head Indian Brown
• Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
• Duvel
• Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter
• Fuller’s 1845
• Fuller’s ESB
• Fuller’s Vintage Ale
• Gouden Carolus Cuvee Van De Keizer Blauw/Blue
• Great Divide Hercules Double IPA
• Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
• Great Divide Old Ruffian Barley Wine
• Green Flash Rayon Vert
• Green Flash West Coast IPA
• Jester King Das Wunderkind!
• Jester King Le Petit Prince
• Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
• Lagunitas New Dogtown Pale Ale
• Liefmans Cuvee-Brut
• Liefmans Goudenband
• Lindemans Gueuze Cuvee Rene
• Live Oak HefeWeizen
• Live Oak Pilz
• Malheur 12
• New Belgium La Folie
• North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout
• North Coast Old Stock Ale
• Ommegang Abbey Ale
• Ommegang Hennepin
• Orval
• Oskar Blues Old Chub
• Oskar Blues Ten FIDY
• Rahr & Sons Bourbon Barrel Aged Winter Warmer
• Real Ale Sisyphus
• Trappistes Rochefort 10
• Trappistes Rochefort 6
• Trappistes Rochefort 8
• Rogue Chatoe Rogue Dirtoir Black Lager
• Rogue Chocolate Stout
• Rogue Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout
• Saint Arnold Endeavour
• Saint Arnold Pumpkinator
• Saison Dupont
• Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout
• Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter
• Samuel Smith’s Yorkshire Stingo
• Schneider Weisse Aventinus Weizen Eisbock
• Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Unser Aventinus
• Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
• Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
• Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye IPA
• Ska Modus Hoperandi
• St. Bernardus Abt 12
• St. Bernardus Pater 6
• St. Bernardus Prior 8
• St. Bernardus Tripel
• Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale
• Stone Double Bastard Ale
• Stone Imperial Russian Stout
• Stone IPA
• Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale
• Stone Ruination IPA
• Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
• Unibroue La Fin Du Monde
• Unibroue Maudite
• Unibroue Trois Pistoles
• Van Steenberge Gulden Draak
• Victory Headwaters Pale Ale
• Victory Prima Pils
• Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
• Weihenstephaner Vitus
• Westmalle Dubbel
• Westmalle Tripel
• Young’s Double Chocolate Stout

As Tony Kornheiser would say: “That’s it! That’s the list!” I can’t wait to get feedback from everyone about it. Let me know what I missed, what I overrated, etc.

Here’s a Google Doc with the top 100, which includes links to ratings and descriptions of each beer, and can also be sorted by style, abv, etc.

And, finally, here are 32 beers that just missed the cut. Any one of these could have snuck onto the top 100 — and I bet you’ve got others, too.

• (512) Whisky Barrel Aged Double Pecan Porter
• Anchor Steam Beer
• Ayinger Weizenbock
• Boulevard Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale
• Brooklyn Lager
• Deschutes Hop in the Dark
• Deschutes Jubelale
• Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
• Independence Stash IPA
• Jester King / Mikkeller Drink’in The Sunbelt
• Jester King Boxer’s Revenge
• Karbach Bourbon-Barrel Hellfighter
• Karbach Weisse Versa Wheat
• La Trappe Quadrupel
• Lagunitas IPA
• Left Hand Milk Stout
• Live Oak Primus Weizenbock
• Ommegang Three Philosophers
• Oskar Blues G’Knight Imperial Red
• Rogue Dead Guy Ale
• Samichlaus Bier
• Samuel Adams Boston Lager
• Sierra Nevada Hoptimum
• Sierra Nevada Kellerweis
• Sierra Nevada Stout
• Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA
• Southern Star Bombshell Blonde Ale
• Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout
• Southern Star Walloon
• St. Peter’s Cream Stout
• Stone Cali-Belgique IPA
• Van Ecke Poperings Hommelbier

Honeymoon beers, part 10: Mystery beer

I saved the best beer of the trip for the last post. The thing is, I can’t tell you about it.

See, I made a deal with the person who offered me the beer. I would only get to drink it on two strict conditions:

1) That I not publish online what it was or where I drank it.

2) That I name my price, no questions asked.

I couldn’t have agreed to the deal any faster. The beer sounded top-notch, and it more than lived up to my stratospheric expectations. I can safely say that it’s one of the top 5 beers I’ve ever had, and I was really sad to see the bottom of the glass.

Trust me, I’m dying to write all about it. I even took full tasting notes.

But I have to hold up my end of the bargain. So this is the last I’ll say about it online. I’ll be more than happy to share details about it offline, though.

On that note, it’s time to wrap up this multi-part trip recap. Thanks for reading. Big thanks, again, to everyone who shared tips and advice before and during the trip, especially all the nerds on BeerAdvocate. And an extra special thanks to Mrs. Beernerds for letting me indulge my love of beer throughout the trip. She’s obviously a keeper.

One last thing: I’ve got the notes and the Google Maps I put together to guide my beer hunting in Bruges, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris. If you’re headed that way, let me know and I’ll be happy to share them with you. Leave a comment on this post, or e-mail me: beernerds at gmail dot com.

Honeymoon beers, part 9: Normandy, Paris, Au Trappiste, Frog & Princess

With five days in Paris giving us plenty of time, we took a day-trip to Normandy for what turned out to be a great tour of the D-Day landing areas. We had lunch at the café in the Reine Mathilde hotel in Bayeux, the town nearest Omaha Beach and the meeting place for our tour.

The restaurant didn’t have much to offer beer-wise, aside from two offerings from Pelforth, a brune and a spring seasonal. I had never heard of the brewery, but I figured it was worth a shot and ordered the Brune. It was pretty decent, sweeter and less complex than the best of the style — it seemed like more of an English brown than a Belgian brune — but still a good beer.

Pelforth Brune

Back in Paris the following day, we had a post-Louvre lunch at a restaurant/bar nearby, Au Trappiste. As its name implies, the place is Belgian-beer friendly. I started with La Trappe Quadrupel, another classic quad. I was happy to be able to drink one, even a fresh one, after the disappointment in Amsterdam.

La Trappe Quadrupel

I didn’t plan on a second beer, but near the end of the meal I noticed a chalkboard advertising their beer of the month, St. Feuillien Biere de Paques (the second Easter beer I had on the trip). I’ve enjoyed the couple of St. Feuillien beers I’ve tasted, so I didn’t hesitate to try their seasonal. It was quite good — bigger, darker, bolder and boozier than I expected for a spring beer (with lighter, refreshing brews such as St. Arnold Spring Bock in mind), but I enjoyed it.

St. Feuillien Biere de Paques

Our last night in Paris (and in Europe), we went back to one of my old haunts, The Frog & Princess, a lively brewpub in the 6th. Even though I wasn’t into craft beer yet, I hung out here a lot when I lived in Paris in 2002. I loved one of their dark beers (back when my favorite beers were Bass and Guinness), and it was a great spot to watch US sports on satellite TV (including NFL and MLB).

When we walked in this time, it looked completely empty, so much so that we weren’t sure they were open. Once we got inside, we noticed two people drinking at the bar, and two bartenders. There were 6 taps and one hand-pulled engine, and I asked the bartender about the latter, in French. We quickly figured out he was from the US (Philly, to be exact), so I asked him about the rest of the lineup in English. He gave me a sample of a couple of beers, before deciding to save us the trouble and giving me a full sampler (and not charging for it).

The 6 beers were:

-FNB (Frog Natural Blonde)

-Maison Blanche

-Ginger Twist

-Parislytic

-Inseine

-Dark de Triomphe

Frog & Princess sampler

None of them were anything special, but they were all decent for their styles. Parislytic seemed like an English brown, with some nice malty sweetness up front, and some disappointing metallic bitterness in the back. Inseine, on the cask engine, was a solid ESB, and Dark de Triomphe a good porter, with plenty of dark roasted malt and a decent body.

After finishing the sampler, I ended up drinking a pint each of the cask ESB and the porter. The bartender, who admitted that he didn’t know much about beer, said the cask ESB seemed to be a favorite with the brewers (who brew on-site 3-4 times a week) and with “beer connoisseurs”. He said their blonde and blanche were their top sellers, unsurprisingly, while the Ginger Twist was becoming something of a flagship brew. I didn’t taste much ginger, but it did have an interesting herbal/spicy bite.

All six beers had a low abv, with the Parislytic clocking in at 5.2%, Dark at 5.0% and the rest between 4-5%. None qualified as true session beers (none were below 4%), but it was still a nice change of pace after a trip full of much bigger and bolder beers.

Honeymoon beers, part 8: Paris, Taverne de Cluny, Sous-Bock

The last leg of our honeymoon was in Paris, probably my favorite city in the world. It was also the least beery city of our trip, which meant that our options on that front were limited. Still, we managed to track down a couple of interesting Parisian-style bistros/cafes that featured decent beer.

The first was La Taverne de Cluny, a few blocks from our apartment in the bustling 5th arrondissement. The beer selection was limited but solid, with a handful of Belgian classics leading the way.

I started with a bottle of a French beer I’d never heard of. Well, it’s probably fair to say that I haven’t heard of most French beers, and that there aren’t all that many. But I was intrigued by the bottle of Anosteke from the Brasserie du Pays Flamand, which was advertised as a hoppy seasonal ale. I assumed that this meant “hoppy” in the European sense, which proved to be the case, as it was a bright, saison-ish pale ale with a small but nice hoppy bite.

Anosteke 1

Anosteke 2

There weren’t any more interesting French beers on offer, so I stuck with the refreshing theme and opted for a bottle of Orval, the classic Trappist/wild ale. I’ve had both good and bad Orval (with the bad being so wild/funky that I find it nearly undrinkable), but this was a very good one: bright and thirst-quenching, certainly Bretty but not too much so, with just enough of a hoppy bite.

Orval

That reminds me that I noticed a couple of different places on this trip had two different listings of Orval on their menu: standard Orval, and Orval that was at least 6 months old. I was tempted by the latter, to see what kind of tricks the yeast plays when it’s had some time to age, but I never got around to ordering it. I’ll put it near the top of my list for the next trip.

The next day, we took a break from our sightseeing to get a couple of drinks at Le Sous-Bock, another beer-friendly restaurant/bar, this one in the 1st district, east of the Louvre. Their beer menu was long but relatively uninspiring, with plenty of basic European macro-lagers and even Budweiser (the US one) and Corona.

The one interesting thing on the French page was Oldarki (Biere au Patxaran), a beer from the French Basque country brewed with Patxaran, the traditional Basque plum liqueur. I’ve had Patxaran many times (my family’s Spanish roots include some Basque strains) and it’s quite tasty.

Sadly, this beer wasn’t. It tasted like any number of beers out there that have some sort of artificial additive mixed in with a mediocre base beer. It wasn’t undrinkable, just uninteresting and relatively unappealing. Seemed like a waste of a decent idea. Then again, there are plenty of great beers that feature really nice plum flavors, without having to resort to any post-brewing additions.

Oldarki 1

Oldarki 2

After that letdown, I opted to go back to a reliable favorite: St. Bernardus Abt 12, a classic quad and one of my favorites. It quickly and emphatically washed away the previous beer.

St. Bernardus Abt 12

Honeymoon beers, part 7: Amsterdam, De Beiaard, ‘t Arendsnest, De Molen

After a very long day of touristing around Amsterdam, I was happy to find that the restaurant we hit for dinner, Humphrey’s, had a beer I had never drank, Leffe Bruin, on draft. For a decidedly un-beery restaurant, it was a nice surprise, a tasty Belgian brown that went down very easily with a big, hearty meal.

Leffe Bruin

The following day, we took a break from more serious touristing for a quick lunch-and-beer at De Beiaard in the Spui square. De Beiaard is a chain of restaurant/bars, with this location perfectly situated between a busy square and one of the canals, making it a great people-watching spot as tourists and locals streamed by on foot, bicycle, scooter, tram, car and boat.

Their beer selection was decent, and one thing caught my eye, Hertog Jan Grand Prestige, a quad. I’m a sucker for quads, even ones I’ve never heard of or tried. It’s not necessarily the ideal style for a lunch beer, but I enjoyed it. We were also glad that we were practically on our way out when we noticed a small mouse dashing under a table across the room. That was our cue to leave.

Hertog Jan Grand Prestige 1

Hertog Jan Grand Prestige 2

That night, our final one in Amsterdam, we walked the half-dozen blocks from our hotel to ’t Arendsnest, a very well-regarded bar that prides itself on serving only Dutch beer, and a wide range of it. I came prepared with RateBeer.com’s list of top 50 Dutch beers, and was both thrilled and disappointed to see that the bar had many of them. Thrilled, of course, because I would be able to drink a couple of them, but also disappointed because I knew I couldn’t spend another week or two hanging out there and tasting a bunch more.

Despite the wide range of options, I ended up with two beers from De Molen, a brewery which practically owns the top of that list of great Dutch beers, and which seems to have fully embraced the idea of big and bold beers. I ended up drinking two of their beers, both big and delicious imperial stouts.

The first was De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis, which means Hell and Damnation. It was relatively fresh, bottled 9/16/10 (bottle #785, incidentally), and you could tell. Even though I really liked it, in all its thick, black, motor-oil glory, it was also very big and boozy (10% but tasted bigger). You could tell that a few years would help turn it from a very good beer to a great one.

De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis 1

De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis 2

I followed that up in the only way I could, with another huge stout: De Molen Hemel & Aarde (which means Heaven & Earth). The standard version is a 9.5% imperial stout which the brewery says is “made with the most heavily peated malt in the world from the Bruichladdich distillery”. Well, I didn’t drink the standard version. Instead, I ordered an aged version. Here’s the brewery’s description:

“And still we thought that we could do better! So we barrel aged this beer in Bruichladdich whisky barrels used for the first time in 1972. As a result an unbelievable complex beer with flavours like smoke, vanilla, coffee, chocolate, peat and wood. What’s not there? And the most surprising part is probably the great balance between these flavours. This is why it’s still very easy drinkable. But it’s no beer for those who are just discovering real beers.”

The aging boosts the abv up a tad, to 10%, but it tastes much bigger than that. Bottled on 6/7/10 (bottle #919), this has to go down as the peatiest imperial stout I’ve ever drank. I’m not a Scotch nerd, and on the rare occasions when I do drink Scotch, I think I prefer it less peaty. Still, this beer was delicious. The huge wave of peat up front quickly settled down, so that instead of overwhelming the beer it just led the way to tons of big stout goodness: vanilla, chocolate, smoke, all in a thick, mouth-coating package. It came in a small bottle, just 20cl (I think), which seemed the perfect size to slowly sip this monster. It screamed “cigar beer”, and I don’t smoke cigars at all.

De Molen Hemel & Aarde Bruichladdich Barrel 1

De Molen Hemel & Aarde Bruichladdich Barrel 2

A quick note about the bartender: he was nice and was working hard, but he was also quite clueless, which was disappointing for such a well-regarded beer bar. Both times that I ordered, he pulled out the wrong bottle from the coolers. Fortunately, he showed me the bottles before opening them, so I had a chance to correct him both times.

Also, before ordering the second stout, I tried to order off the vintage menu, which listed (among other very tempting things) 2003, 2004 & 2006 vintages of La Trappe Quadrupel. I asked for the 2003, and he pulled out a fresh bottle instead. I pointed to the vintage section in the menu, but he said they didn’t have any of those beers. I suspected that he just didn’t know where they were, but even if they were simply out of stock, it was disappointing. In the end, though, this was a relatively small annoyance at an otherwise great bar.

Sadly that was the end of our time in Amsterdam, with an early wake-up call and long day of train travel to Paris the next morning. What a way to go out, though. The next time I’m in Amsterdam, I’m going directly to ‘t Arendsnest, and I’ll make sure to have done much more research on Dutch craft beer.