Favorite National Beer

[Alfred G]

What's yours?

[LStaff]

Sierra Nevada Celebration

[CanadaGirl]

In case another Canadian is on this thread, I'm chiming in ;)

I pick Rickard's, no contest. Generally the Red, but I like all of them.

[Delucacheesemonger]

Dogfish, now we are done

[Jim Dorsch]

Which one of the billion DFH beers do you refer to?

[Delucacheesemonger]

Many qualify, my fav is the raison d'extra and right behind raison d'etre

[JessKidden]

Dogfish Head's distribution doesn't quite make it to "national", either:

"We currently sell in less than 30 states...As you can see, we don't yet have distribution throughout the entire United States," according to their website http://www.dogfish.com/company/distri...

[Davydd]

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a good go to beer when all else choices fail. It is not great but it is not bad either. It is just plain dependable and above quality. You could say the same with Sam Adams and Anchor. Usually one of those and Guinness might be around or on tap when a bar or restaurant is usually pushing the national brand bland American lagers and lights. I'm not a fan of Blue Moon or Yuengling.

[Jim Dorsch]

I think Sam Adams Lager and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale are both great, without a doubt. Extremely well made beers.

[crewsweeper]

Anchor Steam and Liberty Ales are nationally distributed and are still very fine brews.
Yuengling has a solid presence in th eeast and at least parts of the midwest, not sure about the West Coast.

[JessKidden]

Yeah, Yuengling's not close to being "national" - there are craft brewers one tenth their size with a larger distribution area.

"Currently we distribute our products over a fourteen state area plus the District of Columbia along the eastern seaboard." http://www.yuengling.com/faq/ AL DE DC FL GA MD NC NJ NY OH PA SC TN VA WV (Altho' with their move inland in the last few years, "seaboard" might no longer be accurate with the addition of Ohio, Tennessee and Alabama).)

Yuengling's an old-line, pre-craft era brewery, competing head to head with A-B and M-C in most areas as far as price point/segment goes. It's hard to do that on a national level with breweries in only two states (PA & FL) against the coast-to-coast chains of the two large US companies.

[The Professor]

Definitely the Sierra Nevada brands, as well as Sam Adams.
There are others I enjoy, but these are the ones I usually reach for if I run out of homebrew.

[BelgianBeerMistress]

Ommegang. Done.

[al b. darned]

I'd vote for Sam Adams. I don't know how far Otter Creek distributes, but they are also in the running.

[Sandwich_Sister]

1 DogFish Head (90 minute IPA)
2 Redhook (Long hammer IPA)
3 Sierra Nevada
4 Sam Adams Boston Ale
5 Blue Moon

[TongoRad]

Oh, what the hell, I'll go first...

Sierra Nevada's 'national', isn't it? If so then my fave would be one of the following:
Stout
Celebration
Porter
Bigfoot

probably in that order, too.

[mkel34]

I'd have to agree with SN and would add the anniversary and pale ale to the list. Celebration is by far my favorite beer they offer. The second national brand would have to be Boston Beer (Sam Adams): the lager, black, octoberfest, boston ale, old fezziwig, imperial pilsner and double bock are all above average beers that I always have space for in my fridge.

[Jim Dorsch]

How about if you go first?