We tasted four beers: Troegs Dreamweaver, Founders Dirty Bastard, Legacy Hoptimus Prime, and Alewerks Grand Illumination.

Troegs Dreamweaver - A light wheat beer from a respected brewhouse. Banana on the nose, clove in the taste and otherwise nicely balanced.

Founders Dirty Bastard - A Scotch Ale. You get the traditional butterscotch/caramel flavors out of this. A nice example of the style without being overdone. 8.4% alcohol makes it on the smaller side of what we tried tonight.

Legacy Hoptimus Prime - The big winner of the evening. A Double IPA this is a big beer (9% alcohol) with lots of hops. A touch of grapefruit in the nose, but not on the palate. Superbly balanced without too much syrupy sweetness like some brewers use to balance off the hops. The grain still comes through in the taste. Very well done.

Alewerks Grand Illumination - This is a barleywine in every sense of the word. 11.2% alcohol, big hops, big sweetness, big everything. I've never been a particularly large fan of barleywine but this is as close to a good beer I've ever seen in this style.

I've had this one a couple of times. It was my first scotch ale and it took me a while to warm up to it. Great brewery overall.

Troegs makes really good stuff but I think its still pretty regional. Dreamweaver is a good for a wheat (which I don't like) but their other beers are also tasty.

From Harrisburg PA

Founder's is a great brewery. Not a big fan of the DB though.
I too don't like barleywines all that much. Hard to get down.
Troegs is all around, a great brewery

Haha, I didn't even realize Legacy was on the last from my own Reading PA.

Their stuff is usually OK but not much above average IMO. Seems like they almost try too hard to be "unusual" instead of just make good beer. The Hedonism isn't bad though

[quote name='Zooty' date='9/13/09 3:04pm' post='2933102']
Troegs makes really good stuff but I think its still pretty regional. Dreamweaver is a good for a wheat (which I don't like) but their other beers are also tasty.

From Harrisburg PA

Love their Sunshine Pilsner - but its seaonal and the season is almost over

Founders comes out of Grand Rapids.

(For the skylive world tour a few years ago, I brought a six-pack of the Dirty Bastard over to Chicago specifically for Chavez.)