Favourite Obscure Beer

Would just like a few opinions. Since the Eastern European brands have taken off in off-licences around the country, we've been spoiled for choice in our beer palate. Erdinger no longer seems exotic. Beers with ridiculous volumes and unpronouncable names have entered our consciousness, and since beer and football are inextricably linked, I was just wondering if any brands in particular have made an impression on the good people of foot.ie. I'll offer my few cents...

Estrella Damm - Barcelonian goodness, outstanding when ice cold.
Tyskie - Polish, 5.6%. Goes down far too easily.
Baltika - Russian, clean, sharp and thoroughly satisfying.
Zelta - Latvia's finest.
Franziskaner - Cloudy German Weissbrau. Delicious, but very, very heavy.
Sing Ha - Thai beer, fairly light, goes down easy.
Valentin's - Like Franziskaner, but not quite as nice. Has a tendency to make pungent hurricanes flow from one's intestine.
Cobra - Chinese, and ridiculously smooth. Probably not obscure though...

Any thoughts, disagreements, further recommendations?

Supreme feet says, enjoy obscure beer sensibly. :p

i love threads like this

Karlovacko - a Croatian beer (introduced by my Croat in laws) is the finest beer i have EVER tasted. Great flavour and quite strong. It is available in Dublin as far as i know.

Bohemian - cheap as chips, a Saskatchewan product. Not the greatest tasting but named after the Big Club so its my regular over here.

Kokanee - another Canadian beer. I could drink this all night. Light taste but deceptively strong. Canadian beer is so much better than American pish.

Is Galway Hooker obscure enough to be listed? A fine Irish beer.

Zlaty Bazant, from Slovakia, is so easy going it's scary. Same as a lot of the Czech beers.

Cobra isn't Chinese, by the way. It's marketed as Indian, but is actually British.

Have nowhere near the oddball beer experience of some of the heads on here, having neither the time nor the tendancy towards alcoholism that appears to be required ;) , but some of the very nice beers I've come across while moving about are below. I'm aware that all of them are wildly popular, and populist, in their own regions, but I don't care. :p

Estrella - good shout Feet, good enough to be a primary reason for emigrating.
Cisk Export - from Malta, same as above. Probably my favourite of all.
Nastro Azzuro - tipple of choice when in Italy, see it all over the place here too. The red label Peroni is not bad either.
Zwettler - Viennese beverage I took a real shine to when over there a while back, and will again soon... nice and malty!

Cooper's Pale Ale - Australian beer that comes in three different types (red, yellow and green label), one is the nicest beer available, the other two are muck (green label is what you're after)

To be pedantic, Cooper's comes in a range of different coloured labels, but the red, green and yellow are the most popular, especially here. The green one is, as you say the Pale ale, and a fine drink it is. The red is a Sparkling Ale, which is in no way sparkling, and the yellow is the stout, which is not bad.

Kilkenny on draught. Well it's obscure isnt it? Can never find anywhere that sells it on tap in Dublin. Chang beer is lovely too, think its Thai?

Red Stripe - Jamacian honey mmmmmm...........

No idea how popular they are in Ireland, but 'Tsingtao' is a decent beer from China, and 'Ba Ba Ba' is a good Vietnamese beer.

Tsingtao is finding it's way on to off-licence shelves alright.

Bottle of Guinness - (Old fizzy stuff) Ice cold. Underratted.

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Originally Posted by osarusan

No idea how popular they are in Ireland, but 'Tsingtao' is a decent beer from China, and 'Ba Ba Ba' is a good Vietnamese beer.

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Tsingtao is common enough in chinese places. I've never seen 333/ Ba Ba Ba in Europe nevermind Ireland. Saigon beer can be got in the Vietnamese neighbourhoods in London, Paris and Brussells

Beer Lao is my favourite Asian beer, not very common in Ireland but you can find it in some Asian supermarkets.

You can't beat a bit of rượu rắn in the morning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_wine :)

I guess for real obscurity, the winner is always Westvleteren. One of only half a dozen or so trappist breweries, the monks only brew enough beer to survive. There are three different beers, 6%, 8% and 10%, signified by different coloured caps, as there is no label on the bottle.
The only place you can (legitimately) buy the beer is if you drive up to the monastery, or in a café across the road. Availability is only notified by a small sign outside the monastery, or by phoning up, and getting a recorded message. You can book a crate of beer over the phone, drive up to a hole in the wall, and collect your beer, strictly one crate per car.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Norm

Bottle of Guinness - (Old fizzy stuff) Ice cold. Underratted.

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Off the shelf, if you don't mind, sir.

Oh I forgot ' Delerium Tremens' mad Belgian beer its around 12%, it has pink elephants on the bottle. Guaranteed to give you the DT's.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stann

Have nowhere near the oddball beer experience of some of the heads on here, having neither the time nor the tendancy towards alcoholism that appears to be required ;) , but some of the very nice beers I've come across while moving about are below. I'm aware that all of them are wildly popular, and populist, in their own regions, but I don't care. :p


Nastro Azzuro - tipple of choice when in Italy, see it all over the place here too.

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An absolutely superb beer. About the only beer I'd drink with a meal.

Baltika 5 is a corker too.

Lasko - Slovenian lager. Lovely stuff.

Castlemaine is fairly decent. I also like Tiger, even though the taste is a bit flat.

Warsteiner or Warfeiner as it says on the label is a lovely German beer thats only a euro a bottle!!

Warfeiner? Take a closer look the next time. It's a long, narrow S and a small T, but no F.
One of the nicer 'budget' beers.