Best beer

Hoptimum is about 10%ABV -- go easy! O'Dell's Mercenary another fine big pale, tho perhaps not as good as Hoptimum. Founder's is making a lot of good big beers (the exception being their unfortunate Hazelnut Coffee flavred offering).

John

The best beers are homemade.

I brew a bit, and I don't know about this. People say my beers compare favorably to commercial samples (most recently, Rockadanny, a Bacwoods Bastard copy tasted against the original). A lot of this, I think, is a freshness effect.

Remember, a lot of the commercial folks were once the best homebrewers. I went to graduate school with Paul Phillippon, and drank his yummy homebrew; now he's the man behind Duck Rabbit, "The Dark Beer Specialists," and brews even yummier commercial beer. (Duck Rabbit is has growing distribution, based in NC, keep an eye out.)

My2c,

John

Well Rockadanny, I think it's your friends. With all respect, of course. ;)

To use your example, it should be pretty straightforward to brew an APA in the league of Founder's Centennial (a very good, but not great, APA). Not saying way better, or even better, but most certainly competitive. I've done this reliably, and I'm pretty casual brewer. (Other styles, like Lagers, are harder.)

IMHO, the most common cause of "amateur" homebrew is cloudy, sludgy beer, that just doesn't taste clean. The cure is patience: enough time in vat for particulate to settle out (and the clean beer to be "racked" off).

After that diatribe, another recommendation:

Schlafley's Tasmanian IPA, with all Australian hops. Pretty local to ST. Louis, but worth a look.

John