What is your favorite Premium beer? (I use the word premium loosely with some of these puppies.......)

None of the above!!

We seem to just drink big rock brewery stuff.

Ok my bad, I should have put a 'none of the above option'

I blame the heineken!!

I don't think many of them are premium beers.

I like:

in cans - Pride, Wells IPA, Abbot, Sam Adams

in bottles - Fat Tire, Abita Amber

on draft - Wellington, ESB

Really I'd like to have a pint of Young's Special but the 'orse and cart don't come this way. The OH drinks darker beers so we usually have some Wellington dark, Guinness, Caledonia 80/- and Fuller's Porter here.

In Nova Scotia its gotta be KEITH'S

I agree. IMO only Stella and Heiny are the premium beers, I just went of the beer store norm for a laugh and as I was bored.

Sam Adams and Abbot are good, never a fan of darker beers, bad memories of trying my dads bad tasting Highgate (Local Midlands Beer) at the social club when I was 13!

Slighly modified Labatt 50...................

Slightly Modified!? Sounds interesting????

Those are all bog-standard mass-produced beers. Something like this is premium:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22/34

We went through a phase of drinking it during meetings at work. Probably not our most productive times.

I have a friend who brings that to parties. He's an Assistant Professor of Dentistry by title and budget loophole exploitation but actually a post-doc researcher of medical stuff not related to teeth. So, chicken and egg, do academics drink that or does drinking that make you an academic? If I have one can I have tenure?

I'm still puzzled by a poll that has 'Bud' and 'Premium beer' in the same context.

For mass market beer I tend to drink 'Keiths' and 'Keiths Red' & occasionally Sam Adams. From micro's it's Quidi Vidi 1892 brewed in St John's. On draught my new favourite tipple is the Pale Ale from http://yellowbellybrewery.com/ who just opened in downtown St John's.

Sadly, the range of UK beers available at NLC stoes is limited to 'Old Speckled Hen' which is a bit strong for a session beer and something or other from Wychwood brewery which I don't really like either. Oh for the choice of the LCBO!

For draught beers in pubs/bars, I generally go for Keiths Red or Rickards Red. Big Rock brewery in Calgary do a dark ale called Traditional, but I find that a bit sweet.

For home consupmtion, I usually go for London Pride or Wells IPA. Luckily my local 'offy' stocks these, as the choice elsewhere seems to be very limited.

As a bit of an amateur but enthusiastic real-ale afficinionado, I'd quite happily pay a bit extra if I thought I was getting a proper beer - bottle-conditioned, small production batches, local market only etc. So, I'm not knocking the topic at all, but I'd like to understand the reasons aside from marketing why any mass-produced-under-licence lager like Stella can be considered a 'premium' beer?

If it costs more it's premium.

Their isn't really any other reason than marketing, so many “premiums’ are often mass market in their country of origin and sold overseas in a premium category
A other examples other than Stella which is really only down market in the UK and maybe Belgium but warrants premium almost all over the world would be the likes of Becks in Germany but premium outside, Heineken, Grolsch is quite mainstream in Holland but again sold by its Brand team as a premium beer as an export

Premium is often what the consumer wants to believe it is…

If Bud is a "gay man's beer", what does that make Bud Light?