Guest writer Jodie Chan is quite possibly the most hardline carnivore we have met. For her third report, she took one of Selectism’s managing editors, Jeff Carvalho, to a beer and butcher shop in Midtown East that is aptly named for her purposes: The Cannibal.

Unassumingly tucked between Park and Lexington on 29th street, The Cannibal describes itself as “a café and retail shop by day [where you can lay your hands not only on some of the most delicious animal parts the city has to offer, but also non edible stuff like bike jerseys and other cycling gear] and charcuterie/small plates joint by night.” Animal parts and 450 beers, did you say? I’m in.

Photography: Jodie Chan

Read about her virtues of bone marrow and survey some shots of various dishes after the jump…

Twisted Pine is a brewery with some funk in their trunk … or tank, as it were. Along with a recently released Carrot IPA, they bring us this brown ale enriched with the likes of wasabi, ginger and horseradish. The flavors all come through, no doubt, and most impressive, you can pick each one of them out at different points as the ale moves into your gullet. The spiciness also serves to undercut the 7.8-percent ABV, giving the beer a very light finish and the ability to quench summertime thirst.

Stumbled upon a six pack of Dixie in a well-curated liquor store in Denver, far from its home in New Orleans (in spirit, at least). The Dixie Brewing Company, active since the beginning of the 20th Century, was brought to a halt in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The facilities flooded then looted, the brewery is still closed, though the brand operates with contracted breweries crafting its recipes. A cheap, light lager that is “slow brewed,” Dixie Beer outdoes many of its price-competitors with a distinctly sweet and malty flavor. Perfect with pizza (and some good pale ale in between bottles).

While not billed as a Belgian sour, this red ale from Brouwerij Verhaeghe serves as a subtle introduction to the world of sour beers. While beer, for many, is an acquired taste all its own (usually acquired by-way of Keystone Light) sour ales are a procured taste even among beer lovers.

Tart, sour things with loads of fruit and more pucker, sour ales are intense. This Flemish red ale is like a tempered version of all that, with a rounded bitterness that leans comfortably into the spicy hops and overall fruitiness. A perfect primer for what is to come.

A lot of our favorite beers these days come in bombers and we do not always finish a bomber in a single sitting (we are getting to an age where we might only have one glass of ale with dinner). While plugging an open bomber with an old wine cork seems to keep it fresh, the convenience and coolness of re-capping it with the tool that just opened it is substantial. The folks over at Hermetus have designed this fancy bottle opener that is also capable of resealing the bottle it just opened—it just slides on over the open mouth and keeps it air-tight. Kaufmann Mercantile has them.

More looks after the jump…

The second in a limited edition series from Upslope Brewing Company, their Belgian Style Pale Ale pours a cloudy orange in the bejeweled goblet and goes down a bit like white chocolate. It is brewed with coriander, which comes through straight away, and the added Turbinado sugar gives it the mouth-feel of something indulgent. Cannot say this with much authority, but we think the Trappist yeast makes the glow of two cans in your belly rightly meditative—of course, the sedation might also come from the 7.5-percent ABV.

Label view after the jump…

The world of beer is wonderfully diverse, and getting increasingly so. As the late lamented drinks writer Michael Jackson said, “you’d not go to a restaurant and ask for ‘some food’, so why would you go to a bar and ask for ‘a beer’?” This highly personal selection of 15 beers to try before you die is thus deliberately eclectic—to pique interest if any are new to you, or elicit comment if you disagree (you will).  It is not an attempt to name the world’s best 15 beers, as I haven’t tried them all yet.

Given taste is necessarily subjective and influenced by context, every experienced beer drinker will have his or her own favorites unlikely to coincide with this litany, and unless you suggest lite-beer I won’t refute your choice.

Don’t please read anything into the order—like your children, it is surely wrong to love one great beer more than another.

See all 15 beers on the following page.

Trying to avoid hanging a lei joke on this IPA from Maui Brewing Co., as the blast of multiple hops tastes quite a bit like a mouth full of flowers. This is not so much a perfumed flavor as it is the embodiment of the natural scent of fresh blooms. So many IPAs get head-locked by the piney smack of huge hops, it is nice to sip one with a slightly different profile. Unsurprisingly, three of these made us long for a surfboard and some big breaks.

Chocolate, coffee and whiskey—quite the taste triptych from Stone in this Imperial Russian Stout. We don’t often find ourselves craving a stout, as they tend to be a bit too smooth and milky, but this big bolshevik upended that attitude. A swirl of haughty aromas (including ether-wisps of alcohol) piqued our senses and the big flavors mentioned above manhandled our taste buds like an angry wrestler.

“The style originated from Czarist Russia’s demand for ever thicker English stouts,” Stone tells us. “Expect our version of this mysterious brew to pour like Siberian crude and taste even heavier!” It hits all of those checkpoints readily, making for a great special occasion bomber. We absentmindedly paired it with pizza and the results were quite favorable, though we ended up wishing we had saved some to pour over bowls of vanilla ice cream.

More looks after the jump…

Another sublime pack of four canned pints from Crabtree Brewery in Greeley, Colo. This stuff is sort of like drinking chocolate covered velvet drapes. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a heartfelt recommendation, but we were quickly swept up in the majesty of the coffee-and-cacao nose on this and were washed on down the rabbit-hole by the smooth finish. Chocolate drapes is where we ended up. No complaints here. Well, one silly gripe: We will be happier when Crabtree starts printing their labels directly on the cans rather than shrink-wrapping them in place—they make funny sounds when we crush them against our foreheads.

Label shot after the jump…