Rob71 and I seem to be on the same page here.
Here are five beers I love that are more or less widely available, depending on where you live.
Bell's Expedition Stout, an imperial stout
Hair of the Dog's Adam, which is this weird smoked barleywine sort of thing.
Rochefort 10, my favorite of the Belgian quads, even over the elusive Westvleteren 12
Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot, a barleywine
Deschutes's Obsidian Stout, which is a really easy-drinking stout, $8/6, widely available, and the only beer less than 9% or so on this list
Other favorites available in various places around the US:
Alaskan's Barleywine and Smoked Porter
Bell's Third Coast Old Ale, Hopslam, and Two-Hearted Ale
Cantillon's Classic Gueuze
Dark Horse's Tres Blueberry Stout, Plead the 5th Imperial Stout, and Double Crooked Tree IPA
Deschutes' The Abyss, Mirror Mirror, and Not the Stoic
Founders' Imperial Stout and Backwoods Bastard
Great Lakes Brewing's Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
Half Acre's Daisy Cutter Pale Ale
Hanssens' Oude Gueuze
Lagunitas' Sucks
New Belgium's La Terroir
St. Bernardus' Abt 12
The Alchemists' Heady Topper
Three Floyds' Zombie Dust and Arctic Panzer Wolf
Victory Brewing's Old Horizontal
Also, there are plenty of breweries within 60 miles of me, and for your everyday porters, IPAs, reds, those are my go-tos. My favorite locals, in case anyone is in west Montana, are Blackfoot River's Single Malt IPA, Bitterroot Brewing's Red Dread, Bayern Brewing's Doppelbock, and whatever is new on tap at Draught Works.
Life's too short to drink shitty beer, unless it's summer, you're floating down a river, and the shitty beer in question is a PBR pounder.