Falling For Beer
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Tucker and his wife are soon to be residents of Manhattan, KS. He is an avid baseball fan and homebrewer.
The original Daisy Cutter is a stunner, and this version manages to achieve the same heights—even if it does so differently.
Blackout Stout is a case study in how to layer roasty, bitter, and sweet flavors in an imperial stout.
Juicy Bits is a triple-threat of an IPA: it looks good, smells good, and tastes great.
Odell’s Isolation Ale is a rare sessionable winter warmer that trades cloying spice for easy-drinking balance.
Prairie’s Christmas Bomb! is a cinnamon-infused imperial stout that beats the hell out of after-dinner coffee and anxiety about work tomorrow.
Great Lakes Christmas Ale is nearly the perfect holiday beer.
The San Diego-based brewer's Nelson-hopped IPA stands out in every way.
The Berkeley, California brewery chucks straight-off-the-vine Chinook and Cascade hops into a golden sour base beer.
Weldwerks teamed up with Mikerphone and Great Notion to brew a maple syrup and Peruvian coffee infused imperial stout.
The Denver-based brewery, better known for its wild ales, has produced a standout.
This nearly 300-year-old beer is quaffable year-round, drinkable at nearly any temperature, and light enough to enjoy more than one pint.
The double IPA iteration of the classic boasts two and a half times the Centennial hops and a whopping 11.0% ABV.
Based on an award-winning homebrew recipe, Funkwerks Saison is a good, solid beer—but it could use a little more funk for balance.
Nightmare's imperial IPA Exposure—named after freezing torture—maximizes flavor and aroma through the use of cryo-frozen Citra and Mosaic hops.
Defiance Brewing Company’s flagship IPA Twisted Logik may be the best in a state that is becoming crowded with quality offerings.
Maybe it’s because Alaskan uses glacier-fed water from the Juneau Ice Field, but the beer tastes cleaner and crisper than most of the style.
The Ohio brewery's fruited wheat ale is a little light on the fruit.
Tree House’s IPAs and double IPAs are world-class, but don’t pass over one of the brewery’s earliest offerings in Lights Out pale ale.
Decadent Ales’ double dry-hopped double IPA Multiflora has the hop profile of a single IPA with the malty sweetness and ABV of a double.
SweetWater partnered with sunglasses brand Costa on Kick Plastic Pilsner to raise awareness about plastic waste in oceans and waterways.
Grisette is a tart, low-alcohol beer historically enjoyed by miners. Jackie O’s take on the style, Scrip, does justice to this overlooked brew.
You heard it here first: This tropical hop bomb DIPA from Toppling Goliath is even better than the brewery's beloved King Sue.
Are We Having Fun Yet? from Ohio-based Hoof Hearted Brewing is double dry-hopped fruit bomb "party pale ale."
This is an example of a beer with too much of a good thing.
It looks like sparkling water but tastes like a fruity IPA—perfect for those times when you want a beer without the booze.
There is something to be said for zigging when everyone else zags, and this collab does just that.
The Gadget, Urban Artifact's “Midwest Fruit Tart Ale,” features a literal ton of fresh berries per batch and a mouth-walloping sour flavor.
While Grimm turns out way more hits than misses from its Brookyn-based facility, one of those rare misses is its dark sour Shadow Work.
The newest beer in Perennial Artisan Ales's single hop series showcases the tropical fruit flavors of Mosaic hops.
Blackberry Farm's Classic Saison tastes like it should come straight from an ancient Belgian brewery, not poured from a can you bought at a grocery store.
Low-carb, low-calorie beers are on the rise, and Dogfish Head has entered the field with Slightly Mighty, a low-cal IPA.
Sierra Nevada’s Sierraveza is a good beer. It’s probably even good on the beach, but pretty much all beers hold up in that setting.
Omission's gluten-reduced IPA stays balanced with a hefty punch of Northwest hops, but it's more about what isn't there than what is.
Lagunitas has jumped on the low-carb and low-calorie trend with DayTime, a session IPA that clocks in at 98 calories.
The Kansas City contender in the new wave of low-cal, low-carb ales comes out of the gate ahead of the pack.
Denver-based Crooked Stave is better known for its stellar sour program, but its take on a hazy double IPA hit nearly every note I look for in a beer.
Before there was the hazy IPA, there was Hazed & Infused, Boulder Beer Company's unfiltered pale ale that has been in production since 2002.
Crisp, clean, and refreshing, Saint Archer's Mexican Lager begs for a wedge of lime and a sunny day.
I snapped up SweetWater’s Peach, Love & Happiness with no thought of how the brewery's best offerings are hop-forward. That proved to be a mistake.
Bucking the tropical and hazy trend, Great Divide's signature Denver Pale Ale is dank and sticky, leaning into a flavor profile that captures its roots.
San Francisco-based Almanac Beer Company's Dogpatch Currant brings the strong sweet and tart flavors of blackcurrants to a base of sour red ale.
Packing all the roasty and deep flavors of a stout into a light-colored beer is tough, and Fat Orange Cat Brew Co.'s All Cats Are Gray in the Dark proves why.
Bearded Iris takes an already brag-worthy double IPA and amps up the hops with an additional dose of Simcoe, Mosaic, Motueka, and Centennial.
Jester King's bottled-conditioned sour red all RU55 should be a challenging drink. Instead, layers of fruit, wood, and funk balance the tartness beautifully.
Toppling Goliath’s pseudoSue and King Sue are two of the best beers not only in the brewery's portfolio, but in the entire pale ale landscape.
For a beer to be called sexual, it’d better deliver, and Foothills Brewing's Sexual Chocolate sure does.
While the idea is to mimic the flavor of the campfire favorite, Off Color's Dino Smores falls more than a little short.
Mama’s Little Yella Pils from Colorado-based Oskar Blues Brewery is a light, crisp, and easy-drinking pilsner that also brings plenty of aroma and flavor.
Wicked Weed's Hop Cocoa misses the hot cocoa mark and delivers an entirely average hoppy porter instead.
Weighing in at 4.5% ABV, Firestone Walker’s Easy Jack IPA boasts the complexity and flavor of a much stronger beer.
The latest major entry in the Brut IPA category is a well-balanced beer from Colorado's New Belgium.
A light-drinking dunkelweizen, Spoetzel's Shiner Holiday Cheer somehow feels more in the spirit of the season than most winter warmers.
With Double Dunk, Prairie Artisan Ales has made an imperial stout aged on more than 700 pounds of Oreo cookies per batch.
Drinkers shouldn’t overlook New Holland’s toned down, but well-crafted oatmeal stout.
Founders Brewing Co. worked with Mahou San Miguel to craft a hoppy wheat lager called Trigo, the Spanish word for wheat.
This big, bitter double IPA is dry-hopped with five different hops and clocks in at 8.7% ABV.
Single-hop beers feature only one type of hop in the recipe, giving drinkers and brewers an education in the unique flavors and aromas of a specific hop.
4 Hands Brewing Co. rethinks the lunch room staple with its milky sweet Chocolate Milk Stout, using pounds of cacao nibs.
Few breweries hang its hat on a porter, and even fewer craft the style to be a flagship offering.
Skip the long line for the latest haze and head to the beer store for Half Acre's GoneAway IPA before seasons change.
Odell’s Oktoberfest does little to distinguish itself from the malty sweet märzens crowding the market every fall, but that isn’t an indictment.
The San Diego-based brewery crafted the beer to feature low bitterness and a minimal malt profile.
Burial's Bonedagger pairs a hop-heavy aroma with a wheat-prominent flavor for a unique take on the American pale.
AleSmith's Oktoberfest needs something to separate it from the pack of faintly German-style lagers appearing across shelves and tap lists each fall.
Great Divide takes its shot at the Oktoberfest style with an ambitious lager in Hoss.
Spices dominate Punkin Ale, but the flavor is more stale and medicinal than warm and toasty.
Sierra Nevada produces excellent German-inspired Oktoberfests year after year, and the 2018 version is no exception.
Mosaic hops promise big aroma, and Mosaic Promise delivers with huge blueberry and mango notes.
Loads of toasted malt pit an off-putting bitterness against the beer's more pleasing flavor notes.
At 18.0% ABV, Fruit-Full Fort is a sipper and a prime candidate for aging.
With Cloud Catcher, Odell establishes a new ceiling for the hazy IPA.
A trailblazer that unintentionally helped kick off the hazy IPA trend, Sip of Sunshine from Lawson's Finest Liquids is a whale worth chasing.
Despite brewing with all traditional German ingredients, Fader feels like a blend of the best of both German and American pilsners.
The Boulder-based Avery Brewing channels its aloha spirit with a Hawaiian-flavor-infused brew.
In Todd the Axe Man, Surly follows a time-tested recipe for IPA success.
Tiny Bomb is highly quaffable while remaining interesting, packing waves of flavor into a low-ABV beer explosion.
This unique take on the IPA style makes for a memorable flavor ride.
Naming a beer after a hop can be a risky move, unless the brewer is ready to fully commit.
Vallejo tastes like a beer you brew, tweak and brew again to make a great beer.
Maybe it is the name playing tricks, but the mint and ginger combination gives off grassy, herbal hints of citronella.
Meet 2018's World Beer Cup Gold Medal-winning American-style lager.
The Record Store Day collaboration is loaded with dragon fruit, yumberry, passion fruit, pear and black carrot juice.
A blood orange pale ale to convert even the most vocal fruit-beer-haters.
"Wolf Pup may be my new go to session IPA."
The amber lager is Blue Point’s flagship beer, derived from a combination of six types of grains.
Tart lemon and peppery coriander come together in this well-balanced beer.
Sierra Nevada taps into the haze craze with a mass-market, unfiltered IPA.
Founders' bourbon barrel-aged stout remains one of the best.
Under the right circumstances—paired with some sunshine—it’s a beer that is worth the gamble.
Welcome to the era of craft lagers.
This marijuana-inspired brew has become one of Lagunita's best.
Before there was a West Coast IPA trend there was Alpine's Pure Hoppiness.
Save room for Oskar Blue's pastry-like coconut porter.
Odell is one of the latest breweries to put its ABV-bombs in smaller bottles.
A worthy beer for the right moment.
It's always good, but was it great this year?
You might find this more often now. Who cares. It's great.
The party doesn't have to stop, it just has to mellow out.
It's been a while, but this is a masterpiece.
Nuanced, but bold.
Rye thank you I'll try this big, fruity DIPA.
Oatmeal stouts can be thin and lacking in flavor. Not this one.
Celebrate the hunt, with a beer unlike many others.
Don't sleep on Michigan's lesser known flagship IPA.
Breakfast anytime brings us all to the table.
Try a different sort of winter beer.
A perfect way to bridge summer's sessions and winter's stouts.
Those chunky bits floating in your beer... where they a good idea?
A great New England IPA from...Oklahoma?
Even the drawbacks don't stop the eighth Love Child.
Fresh grind technology = plus aroma, complex taste.
Just a bit of melon, while being true to style.
Even if you like pumpkin beers, and shandies, you may not like this pumpkin shandy.
New Belgium puts the pepper in the pumpkin.
A beer stuck between two poles.
Goses are a great summer beer.
It's a session IPA, but Founder's All Day IPA is big on flavor.
Even if you don't love chiles in your beer, you will probably love this beer.
It may not be the hip new beer, but Bell's Two Hearted is the classic that works in all contexts.
Bring this beer to your mixed-company barbecue, for them as much as you.
Peter Bouckaert left New Belgium to start this new project, plus short tidbits on other notable openings and closings.
Want to know about the most interesting new breweries opening up? Or old favorites shutting the doors? Here's our spring report.
Go drinking (and hiking and eating and walking) in the Forest City, you won't regret it.
