Obviously you certainly can't enjoy food without the proper...refreshment. Share what you like and what you like it with. Starting off with a seasonal:

Avery Maharaja Imperial IPA--I live down the road from Avery, so I wait (very) impatiently for the first batch to come out every spring. If you like hops, you'll love this beer. if you don't...well...you should.

Being an imperial IPA, it's strong (~10% ABV) and very hoppy (read: bitter) but with a smooth finish. Being of British descent, it's perfect with a classic fish & chips. It also goes really well with anything that is rich but not too sweet. It's great, for example with pulled pork with a Carolina vinegar style sauce. And really, is there a better way to spend a summer afternoon that bbqing and drinking beer? A sweet sauce will make the beer taste too bitter.

If you can't find Avery near you, here are some similar beers which I would also heartily recommend. You ought to be able to find one of these:

Russian River Pliny the Elder (CA)
Oskar Blues Gubna (CO)
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA (DE)
Stone Ruination IPA (CA)
Southern Tier Unearthly (NY)
Three Floyds Dreadnaught (IN)

is there a national chain that carries these beers? how can i find them?

You can't beat a nice smoothie!

Whole Foods, depending on where you live, carries a lot of these beers. Otherwise check out any decent liquor store. Places that sell good wine usually have a good beer selection. There are places you can order from online, but the shipping is pretty spendy.

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA (DE)

I used to live right near Dogfish Head and they have an amazing selection of brews. I love it.

But for my drink, I like a Yuengling Traditional Lager. Being from Philadelphia, it easily became my brew of choice and is very good from either bottle or draft. It is great for a sunny warm day when you have hot dogs and hamburgers with some family and friends in the back yard. Very refreshing and has a good taste to it and goes down smooth.

There are also good brews such as Shocktop and Sweetwater.

Neat, I'll check this thread out later.

If you're interested:

http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=56404318&f=27

Yuengling is a very drinkable beer, especially in the summer. You are doing yourself a disservice, though, by drinking Shocktop. If you like German style heffe-weisses, try Flying Dog's In Heat Wheat (or something German like Weihenstephan or Franziskaner). If you like more of a Belgian wheat, look for Mathilda by Goose Island. You will be glad you made the effort.

Today's entry: Summer Rum Drinks

As the mint patch in the garden is going berserk, it's mojito time at my house:

Mojitos

Start with a simple syrup. I like to flavor this with mint for a littel extra flavor.
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Handul of mint leaves

Boil until sugar is dissolved. Let cool. remove mint leaves.

To make the drink, use a good light rum. We use Cruzan because one of the local restaurants recommended it, but any decent light rum will do.

Soda Water
Rum
Limes
Mint
Syrup

For the drink use ~ a 2:1:1 ration of soda water to rum to syrup. Plan on 1/2 lime and 5 mint leaves per drink. Adjust to your own taste. We tend to make a pitcher and hand out on the deck while grilling. Serve on the rocks.

This goes great with just about any summer meal, but I love it with Cuban steak. My favorite is adapted from Thrill of the Grill:

1 top round (~3#); season with salt and pepper and grill over a very hot fire to get a nice crust. I like this meal rare-medium-rare so figure ~5 minutes/side. When it's done, let the steak rest for ~5 minutes then dice and mix with:

10 Radishes, sliced thin
1 Red Onion, diced
1 Red and 1 Green Bell Pepper, diced
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1T ground cumin
1T Paprika
1-2 t Cayenne
2T olive oil
Juice of 2 limes
Salt and pepper to taste

For a real Cuban feast, serve with black beans and rice.

Dark & Stormy

This is the other rum drink I like, and it's really simple. For each drink, get a large glass and combine:

1 bottle Reed's extra ginger beer (there are other good ginger beer's out there, but Reed's is easiest to find; the Extra Ginger has a nice punch)
Juice of 1 lime (add the squeezed lime halves, too)
3-4 ounces on dark rum (I like Gosling's Black Seal; Guyanese Demerrara if I can find it)
Ice

Mix together and enjoy. This goes perfectly with jerk pork or chicken.

In the interest of diversity, today's choice is Riesling. If you don't know, Riesling is a white whine that ranges from dry all the way to sweet dessert wine. It's traditionally from Germany, but you can get good Rieslings from places ranging from France, Australia, New Zealand, California, Washington, end even Idaho.

My wife and I tend to like Riesling's that are a little on the sweet side, because they go really well with spicy foods (which we eat a lot). If you like spicy foods based around fish, chicken, or even pork, Riesling is a great choice. For example, it goes really well with Thai and Vietnamese curries or chicken enchiladas. Our current default Riesling is Selbach Kabinett. Kabinett means it's a lighter style Riesling--a litle sweet but not overpowering. It has strong flavors of peach and pear, and a cool fish on the label. ^ ^ Best of all, you should be able to get it for around ~$15, so it won't break the bank.

Other Rieslings we like include:

Selbach-Oster Kabinett, Germany
Blue Slate from Idaho (see? worth it just for the novelty, but actually pretty good)
Saint Chapelle, also from Idaho

Since I was just at the Avery tap room and they had a special release strong sour on tap, today I'm going with Belgian style sours.

Sours are--you guessed it--sour beers. They range from almost pure sour to sort of sweet and sour. The sour comes from a combination of the yeasts they use plus the aging process (oak wine barrels). They all have a carbonation more similar to champagne than normal beer. They tend to have a lot of fruity overtones, and that sour finish. These beers go well with rich food that isn't sweet (otherwise the sour will overwhelm the other flavors). Things like cheese plates, cheese fondue, even grilled cheese and mac and cheese are great. A bowl of French onion soup is perfect (as long as you don;t use sweet onions). My absolute favorite is Rodenbach. It is a Belgian red sour that balances the fruit and sour really well. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to find in the US. Others that I like--that are easier to find--include:

Duchesse De Bourgogne (Belgium)--really good; well balanced
Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour (Belgium)--a little too sweet, but not bad; cheap for a sour import; a good starter sour to check it out
La Folie by New Belgium (CO)--other end of the spectrum: seriously sour; expensive--only buy if you know you like sour beers
Temptation and Supplication by Russian River (CA)--both really good beers; blonde and brown respectively for something a little different
Avery Barrel aged series (CO)--they come out with a new sour every few months; if you stumble across any you should pick them up

Since I mentioned wheat beers earlier, I figured I'd come back to them. Wheat beers are great for summer drinking. They are not overly strong, so they go well wish grilled seafood. First, just don't drink Shock Top or Blue Moon. You might think that you like them, but it's only in relation to traditional poor American mass-produced crap. This beers are made by Coors and Anheuser Busch, and it shows. Any beer you need to put a fruit in to drink is not a good beer. Second, I'm not a huge fan of "American Style" wheat beers. There's just not enough flavor for my taste. Some of them are OK (Breckenridge's Agave Wheat, New Belgium's Sunshine Wheat), but by and large, if you want the distinctive flavors that come from European style wheat beers, you won't find it in these beers. As for good wheat beers, there are 2 basic types--Belgian and German.

German wheat beer--Heffeweiss--is probably more famous. They keep yeast in the bottle so it has a yeasty kick as well as an almost fruity spice. You can either stir up the yeast from the bottom for extra flavor or leave it there if you don't like cloudy beer. My favorites are Weihenstephan and Franziskaner. Both of these are German imports. There are a lot fo Amercan attempts at heffweiss, but most of them don;t stand up to the Germans. The one exception I've found is Flying Dog's In Heat Wheat. I grudgingly recommend it even though they moved out of Denver to Federick, MD to save on distribution costs...

Belgian wheat beer tends to be a little fruitier and spicier (as they are often brewed with orange peel and coriander) with sometimes a little more alcohol that heffeweisses. Hoegarden is the classic authentic Belgian, but there a number of good American versions, too. Goose Island's Sophie is really good--if not technically marketed as a wheat beer, as is Avery's White Rascal.