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> I probably owe this guy more than a beer.

I suggest Dead Guy Ale :)

I suggest you educate yourself.

Left Hand
Rogue
Stone
Sierra Nevada This one has a space program too.
Terrapin
New Belgium
Lazy Magnolia
Southern Tier
Dogfish Head
Ommegang
New Glarus
Brooklyn Brewing Company
Avondale
Good People
Straight To Ale
Heretic

Just to name a few.

Black Butte Porter, Obsidian Stout, Stone Imperial Russian Stout, and Contorter Porter quickly come to mind as beating the pants off of imported Guinness, as does any of the offerings from either Rogue or Bell's (except for Bell's Cherry Stout which sucks--the sole exception for an otherwise world-beating brewery). Your locale probably has a microbrewery or craft brewer that can do the same.

Or he meant really good beer.

Then you haven't really looked

Real men drink real beer.

There's a rather good explanation for this. Not that I'm defending it, but rather explaining it to understand it and adress it at the root cause.

Prohibition was a scary time for Americans, particularly breweries - most of which went out of business. Prohibition was created by women marching in the streets, complaining that their husbands had become drunks in the saloons. Who could blame them - during the depression, there weren't many jobs to keep them occupied.

When prohibition was repealed, the breweries wanted to create beer that would appeal to women, so that they would become consumers and not vote again for prohibition. So they made their beers lighter, and specialized in the lager field that they felt was more approachable for those who weren't accustomed to drinking beer.

Sadly, America's beer development was stuck on training wheels until about the 80s, when certain individuals started experimenting with brewing their own. This launched a movement where people started becoming more interested in flavor rather than just getting drunk.

In case you haven't been to this side of the pond recently, there are many wonderful breweries that severly stomp on most European breweries which are stuck doing things the way they did around the time that America was discovered. I'd highly reccomend checking out some of these breweries:

• Stone Brewing Company
• Dogfish Head whose specialty is the 90 minute IPA
• Rogue, nearly everything they make is a champ
• Michigan Brewing Company
• Bell's Brewery

West Coast? Beer? Portland, Oregon

I'm heading up there this weekend for the Oregon Brewers Festival...any recommendations on other places to see and things to do, brewing-oriented or not? (Someone already mentioned the Spruce Goose is in McMinnville, which is a bit southwest of Portland and along the way to the Rogue brewery...)

I feel bad for all you people not living in the Pacific Northwest! Guiness, blah! Not bad if you don't have our huge selection of microbrews here!

Quality beer here!