Part of the Plan

Live music was always part of the plan for Burial Beer founders Doug and Jess Reiser and Tim Gormley when they were conceptualizing their brewery, which opened in Asheville, N.C. in 2013. They built an outdoor stage at their main location in the South Slope area of downtown, and over the years have set about adding venues for enjoying both live music and their excellent beverages. Their Forestry Camp location across town opened in 2019, providing space for large outdoor concerts, and their 400-seat concert venue Eulogy came online in 2023, right next to the original brewery.

While Burial hosts a constant stream of popular underground and regional acts such as Deep Sea Diver and This Will Destroy You at Eulogy, this summer they’re hosting a series of concerts featuring larger indie acts at Forestry Camp, where they have capacity for 2,200 music fans. Future Islands played in May, followed by The Black Angels in late June and Washed Out in July. The live music continues in October with the annual Burnpile beer and music festival.

“We wanted different genres to actually stop in Asheville rather than going all the way to Charlotte or Nashville,” says Doug Reiser, who said they’ve hosted everything from rock & roll and bluegrass to jazz, hip-hop, and heavy metal. While he and Gormley are big fans of psychedelic rock, they recognize the need to host the range of styles their fans want to listen to, just as they need to brew what those fans want to drink. “You don’t just say, ‘Keep following my vision, my interests matter more.’”

Burial is one of many breweries that now operate as concert venues as much as they do traditional taprooms. While a solo musician playing covers on an acoustic guitar in the corner for tips is a common enough sight at brewery taprooms across the country, many breweries are going deeper, investing in staff, infrastructure, and scheduling to make live music a major part of their business model.

“We share our craft with other artists who have their own craft,” says Reiser. “I think that’s a crucial piece of stewardship that more brewers, winemakers, and anybody who’s part of the hospitality experience should understand and want to connect with.”

Collaborations Set the Tone

Three Magnets Brewing in Olympia, Wash.—a hotbed for music movements from riot grrrl to grunge over the years—got started hosting shows through a connection with a local record shop. Rainy Day Records reached out to them in 2021 to host a lawn concert for Michael Hurley, a Greenwich Village folk icon (who recently passed away), and an ongoing series was born.

Three Magnets has built its following around Self Care, their non-alcoholic beer line, and they named the series after their Scherler NA lager. Scherler Sundays now feature free live shows every Sunday afternoon in July and August, attracting cult acts such as Lavender Country and Swamp Dogg, and this summer they’re putting out a Scherler Beer vinyl release with live recordings from past events.

Three Magnets co-founder Nathan Reilly says they themed their series around their NA offerings both to show concerts can be fun even with non-alcoholic beer, and because they wanted to buck the trends for how non-alcoholic craft beer is marketed.

“The last thing I wanted to do was be a lifestyle brand,” he says. “We do have a genuine interest in music and a rich history collaborating with music. Our goal is just to do cool shit and hope other people think it’s cool, too.”

Beyond live shows, Self Care’s music collaborations have included a 24-pack of beer in which each can features a different image from legendary rock music photographer Charles Peterson (one of his shots of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was featured in the latest season of The Last of Us), and one-off beers with Doug Marsh of Built to Spill and solo artist Rae Isla. The Paramount Theatre in Olympia connected them with musician healthcare non-profit SMASH Seattle to brew NA beers for live shows.

“We were able to get [former Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service frontman] Ben Gibbard on the hook for a collab for that, which was just the awesomest thing ever,” Reilly recalls. Three Magnets has also released some standard-strength collaboration beers as well, including the recent Free Things Are Cool, an 8.3% stock ale brewed to commemorate riot grrrl producer, DJ, and promoter Diana Arens, who recently passed away.

At Burial, Reiser says collaborations with musicians are his favorites, because they’re more experiential than technical.

“Beer doesn’t mean 300 years of brewing traditions and sourcing materials to [musicians],” he says. “It means their favorite thing to do 30 minutes before they go play, or once they get back to the tour bus, or their celebration after they record. You get completely out of the realm of everything we know about brewing and it’s about the final drinking experience.”

A Rural Destination

Stone Cow Brewery in rural Barre, Mass., has been hosting live music since it opened in 2016. Until a couple years ago, these were intimate shows held on their two small stages at the taproom. Stone Cow also happens to be one of the largest dairy farms in the state, with more than 1,300 acres of land. One corner of that includes a natural amphitheater on a hill. In 2023, they built a large stage there for hosting concerts and music festivals.

“The back section of our property is a special place—it’s beautiful,” says co-owner Sean DuBois. “You have a view of Mount Wachusett from there. It’s the best place on earth to drink beer and watch music.”

In July, Stone Cow will host the Party on the Back Forty music festival featuring Shadowgrass, one of the most popular bluegrass bands in the country. This will be followed by the Fields and Forest Forever music festival in August, and a show with U2 and Fleetwood Mac cover bands in September. Stone Cow will set up its beer trailer onsite.

“We have almost unlimited capacity back there,” says DuBois. “We’ve been getting about 1,000 attendees per show, and we hope to break 2,000 for these.”

While Stone Cow is in a rural area—DuBois says there isn’t a single stoplight in the six closest towns—the brewery has become a weekend destination for folks from Boston, about an hour east. There’s even a playground onsite for kids while their parents enjoy music and beer.

Hitting the Right Note

While musical festivals are a great way to get folks onto a brewery property for a day, some carry more significance than others. On September 27, 2024, the remnants of Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina, devastating the Asheville area. Many homes and businesses were completely destroyed, more than 100 people in the state lost their lives, and thousands were without basic services—including potable water—for months. It hit just two weeks before Burial’s 12th annual Burnpile festival, which had to be canceled. Burial owners and employees spent weeks giving out free meals and drinks at the brewery.

On October 4, Burnpile will return, and Reiser says it will have extra significance for everyone involved.

“I don’t think we would have started Burial if we weren’t going to talk about the difficult, the darkness and the light,” he reflects. “This year’s Burnpile is literally days after the anniversary. What does additional programming in between the bands look like in order to make sure we celebrate the people who joined arms and put this community back up and running?”

It’s not a question Reiser and his fellow co-founders have answered just yet. Whatever they decide on, it will center the human connections the brewery was built on, which Reiser says have often been catalyzed by great music.

“I think people sometimes underestimate how important the ambiance of a proper third place is,” he says. “I got into beer because of the taprooms. I love that experience that draws us together and helps us find our best moments and sometimes helps us connect with people who will change our lives forever. Without the right tunes, it kills it.”

The post Pour the Beer, Cue the Band appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Only Scratching the Surface

Perhaps the best-known example of this practice is Scratch Brewing, a small brewery nestled into the wooded hills near Ava, Illinois. Since opening the doors in 2013, founders and brewers Aaron Kleidon and Marika Josephson (a third founder, Ryan Tockstein, has since stepped away) have worked with ingredients from the woods and fields around their brewery to create uniquely middle-American beers such as Dead Leaves (brewed with oak, hickory, and maple leaves) and Baby Basil (made with three different kinds of basil and local honey).

“We have tried really hard to express our terroir,” explains Josephson. “We wanted to share what it’s like to be in the woods in southern Illinois and be physically picking things out of the ground here.”

(See also: Brewers Publications Presents: Brewing Local: American-Grown Beer)

She and Kleidon haven’t stuck to just familiar foraged ingredients such as dandelions or pawpaws (though they’ve used both); instead, they are continually thinking outside the box of what can be used in a beer and how. Some of their most unusual beers are made using just about every anatomical part of the trees in their forest, including bark, branches, dead leaves, and nuts. Often, a beer will be brewed using as many of these ingredients from the same species as possible to create a complete flavor picture of that tree, from root to branch. In spring, they brew a series of beers using tree sap to replace 100 percent of the brewing water.

“We’re not having to physically eat [each ingredient], so it opens up a lot of possibilities,” says Kleidon of ingredients such as toasted hickory bark.

Scratch has recently started leading foraging walks in their forest to help visitors understand how the process works. They’ll make teas with the ingredients they find so guests can smell them on their own, and then they’ll taste beers made with those ingredients to draw the line from ground to glass.

No Truffling Matter

Christian DeBenedetti first learned about foraging for brewing ingredients on a forest hike led by Eric Steen, whose Beers Made by Walking series has introduced many to the practice. Before opening Wolves & People Farmhouse Brewery outside Newberg, Oregon, in 2016 on the site of the farm he grew up on, he began looking around the farm property for ingredients that could be fun to use.

DeBenedetti harvested his first yeast strain from the wild plum tree that grows in the meadow. Each year, he brews a beer using the wild mustard that carpets the whole farm in early summer. In the spring, he harvests Douglas fir tips from a tree 20 feet from the brewhouse door.

“One after another we started to see the potential in all these things that are close by,” he says.

One intriguing example is found in La Truffe, a table stout brewed with hazelnuts aged with white truffles that showcases the delicate flavors of these rare fungi.

“The Oregon white truffle is a really magical thing that has a whole culture around it of foragers and foodies,” he explains. He says the ingredient is so alluring because it’s never been successfully cultivated; it must be foraged.

Bringing Them into the Story

Not every foraged ingredient has a cult following like white truffles enjoy though, and educating consumers about unusual botanicals can be a challenge. Nia Ryan at Herbiery Brewing in Madison, Wisconsin, brews entirely without hops, replacing them with a range of both locally foraged and remotely sourced botanicals, and says one-on-one communication is often important for getting people to try these beers on their own terms.

“Most people are just curious, but some people approach them like ‘These aren’t beers,’ and they’re upset about it,” Ryan explains about beers made with ingredients such as sumac berries or lemon balm. “We always say we appreciate people who are passionate. We talk about herbs and spices that aren’t usually featured but bring really interesting flavors. Everyone’s usually pretty satisfied with that conversation.”

At Purpose Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado, industry veteran Peter Bouckaert agrees it’s often necessary to break down barriers before someone will accept a beer with unfamiliar ingredients.

“It becomes a bit difficult because people use IPA as a defense word when they go to a bar and they don’t find that right away at Purpose,” he says. “At that point we talk with them about food preferences, and we romanticize the ingredient and where we found it. We bring people into the story.”

While educating consumers is important, brewers are also often encountering a foraged ingredient for the first time. Experimenting is key to getting a beer dialed in. At Scratch, this starts with smelling and tasting the ingredient itself in its rawest form.

“We’ll make a tea and talk about it, or if it’s a leaf, we’ll chew on it a little bit, see what flavors jump out,” says Kleidon. “Then we work with what we have to emphasize the flavors that already exist.”

At Purpose, Bouckaert will brew a base beer, split it into one-liter pots, and essentially dry hop each with different ingredients—such as alder twigs or Colorado sage—to see how they perform.

“We are acting not as American brewers,” he says. “We are acting as chefs with our ingredients.”

Purpose often has jars of those ingredients behind the bar to show to customers.

The seasonal nature of foraging can complicate the education component, however. At Herbiery, Ryan points out that due to the time it takes to brew a beer, the foraged ingredient in any given beer is often no longer in season by the time the beer is being released. They plan to begin aging foraged beers to release the following year at the beginning of an ingredient’s annual availability to facilitate those conversations with guests.

Closing the Loop

Many more breweries around the country are working with foraged ingredients for limited release beers, including Fonta Flora Brewery in North Carolina and Little Fish Brewing in Ohio. Whether it’s just for an occasional seasonal beer, or as a guiding philosophy for the brewery, foraging offers a unique storytelling opportunity, and ties beer back to the land.

“Brewers can go online and order a pasteurized ingredient, and we don’t think that’s a bad way to make a beer,” says DeBenedetti. “But if you have the opportunity to go out into the woods and bring back something unusual, it really closes the loop in a way that is delicious and fun and low impact.”

The post Foraging For Beer’s Wildest Ingredients appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Taprooms have long been community meeting places, and now some are choosing to welcome that community bright and early by using their buildings as coffee shops and all-day workspaces.

The Virginia Beer Company | Williamsburg, Va.

The Virginia Beer Company recently made the decision to launch a coffee shop and breakfast menu, opening early in the morning in hopes of attracting a working crowd.

“We wanted to be part of the fabric of our community,” says co-founder Chris Smith. “If we want to reach a wider audience, this is a way to do that.”

The brewery is currently in the build-out stage for the coffee operation. Smith says he and the rest of the management team figured if they already had the building, they might as well get everything out of it they could.

“From a business perspective, the overhead is already mostly covered,” he explains. “We’re paying our lease on the building, the heat’s running, the lights are on. It’s incrementally not that huge of an increase.”

Smith plans to run the coffee shop/kitchen and beer service programs independently, with separately trained staff and points of service and a manager who is cross trained in both areas. The main challenge he foresees is figuring out how many staff members to have working in each area, particularly during the cross-over time period in early afternoon.

Living Waters Brewing | Nashville, Tenn.

Living Waters Brewing went all-in on the approach when they opened as both a brewery and a coffee shop in 2019. Beer and coffee sales are handled at the same bar counter, serviced by fully cross-trained staff. The business was founded by a brewer (Ryan McCay), a coffee professional (Gentry Wigginton), and a musician (Thomas Becker), with each managing the operational areas they specialize in.

The bar houses the beer taps as well as an espresso machine, coffee grinders, hot water towers, and all the accoutrements needed for both beverages. It allows for streamlined service but does present challenges.

“The needs of a coffee shop are not necessarily aligned with the needs of the taproom, so the distance from the taps to the customer space for things like milk fridges and ice makers is a problem,” says McCay. “We just don’t have a ton of space. We have to get pretty creative. I wouldn’t say it’s an ideal workflow.”

McCay says the biggest advantage of this format has been the versatility of staff in making informed recommendations for customers.

WeHa Brewing | West Hartford, Conn.

WeHa Brewing has also experienced challenges around the geography of its taproom and coffee shop, but the problem exists outside the brewery’s walls: the ideal locations for a taproom and a coffee shop are not necessarily the same. The brewery has a standalone building in a shopping center.

“Traditional coffee shops are in areas with higher foot traffic, where with breweries people go out of their way to travel to them,” explains founder Cody McCormack. “We have plenty of space [because of where we’re located], but we’re not in a high traffic area.”

WeHa has separate beer and coffee bars on opposite sides of the spacious taproom, but cross-trains employees to work at both, allowing for flexible staffing.

All three of these breweries are savvy to the differing ergonomic and aesthetic needs of the two sides of each business. In preparation for launching its coffee shop and cafe, Virginia Beer is adding more comfortable seating options for the morning crowd, while maintaining some longer, beer hall-style tables for beer drinkers. They’re also adding more electric plugs and better Wi-Fi service to accommodate the needs of the work-from-home crowd they hope to court. Living Waters serviced both crowds from the start and opted for a series of two-top tables to appeal to both.

“We definitely took some consideration in the aesthetic for the space,” says WeHa’s McCormack. “Half of the room has a more coffee shop vibe with couches and comfortable seating. The other side is more of a beer hall taproom with long tables.”

McCormack and McCay both note that despite their businesses’ efforts to provide distinct seating, visitors at all hours of the day end up sitting wherever suits their individual preference. That versatility is important when considering a trend both breweries have noticed: after working and drinking coffee all day, many people will stay for a beer before heading home. It can be difficult to figure out the vibe to satisfy both coffee and beer crowds during the early afternoon hours when both are present.

“The biggest challenge has been deciding when we change from coffee shop music to bar music,” says McCay. “You don’t want to put people to sleep in the afternoon, but you don’t want to be throwing heavy metal at them at 8 a.m.”

Seventh Son Brewing | Columbus, Ohio

The challenge of blending morning and afternoon vibes isn’t a problem at Seventh Son Brewing. They aren’t even technically open when folks are working from their taproom. The brewery was approached by Work From Here, an organization that matches home workers with hospitality businesses to benefit both. Work From Here promotes various workspaces on social media and coordinates schedules. The workers use Seventh Son’s taproom—a comfortable space with lots of plants and natural light—in the hours before it opens to the public. The Work From Here crew brings all the cords and office supplies needed for the workday, and Seventh Son provides coffee.

While there’s no direct revenue for the brewery from this arrangement, it still works to their benefit.

“I’d say about a quarter of them end up having a beer at the end of the day,” says co-founder Collin Castore. “It makes people comfortable in the space and some stick around. It’s not a giant change in revenue for us, but I think the goodwill it creates and the general atmosphere are good for us.”

These breweries aren’t alone. Casa Humilde Cerveceria in the Chicago area is planning a coffee shop as part of its new location in the south suburbs, and Alematic Artisan Ales recently brought an attached coffee shop online at its location in Huber Heights, Ohio. Half Full Brewery in Stamford, Connecticut, has built a space called Third Place that is intentionally designed for coworking.

Breweries around the country are catching on to the increased sales, resource utilization, and community-building a workspace or coffee shop add-on can provide. And any time of day you visit, you’re guaranteed a good brew.

The post Rise and Shine: Brewers Add Coffee & Workspaces appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Cooling Down

Hiking or camping in the dog days of summer can be a sweaty endeavor, and a lighter beer can be the perfect refreshing treat when you’re taking a break from activity.

Nocterra Brewing’s Trail Break Lager is a classic Munich helles with a twist—it’s hopped with Saphir for a pop of citrus on the finish. This 5.2% ABV lager from Ohio was inspired by one of the best-known hiking trails in the country.

“The can label is a very specific color of blue modeled after the blue blazes on the Appalachian Trail,” explains Nocterra marketing manager James Knott. “Most of the blazes are white if you’re doing a through-hike, but the blue blazes represent side hikes, which are often good places to take breaks. When I think of Trail Break, I think of the end of that long hike. You set up camp, sit around the campfire with your fellow hikers, and talk about your day and life in general.”

Our wild spaces are nothing without pollinators, and the best-selling Honey Kolsch from Rogue Ales in Oregon celebrates our buzzing companions with a kiss of wildflower honey in a crisp and gentle 5% ABV package. Sipping this beer outdoors reminds us that we share this earth with every living thing. Those flowers beside the trail are there because of pollinators!

Jade Mountain’s Shaolin Light Lager is brewed within sight of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, and its name is a reference to a unique climb taken by the founders. The brewery started out as a tea shop in southern China before moving to Colorado and launching the brewing operation, and still incorporates many Asian ingredients such as tea, Buddha’s hand, and squid ink. It’s this super light 4% ABV beer that has the brewers’ hearts, though.

“We did a lot of unintentional hiking in China,” says co-founder Sean Guerrero. “The Shaolin Temple is right on top of the mountain. The only way to get up there was on foot. Shaolin is our brewer’s beer.”

Warming Up

There’s something about a campfire that pushes a comfort button deep in the human brain. When combined with a perfectly toasted s’more, a fire is as cozy as it gets. But what if you want your s’more in liquid form?

High Water’s Campfire Stout from California is a 6.5% ABV stout brewed with graham crackers, molasses, vanilla, and toasted marshmallow. The beer won gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival in 2014 and 2016 and isn’t so strong that you can’t enjoy it on the warm summer nights outdoors.

Idawild Brewing in Idaho takes a similar approach for its 5.3% ABV Fireside S’mores Stout. Brewed with lactose, Tahitian vanilla, chocolate wheat, chocolate malt, and cinnamon graham crackers, Fireside was dreamed up on a camping trip to nearby Ponderosa State Park.

“We were camping and having s’mores and I was drinking a stout,” says co-founder and brewer Matt Nader. “That’s when I decided to brew a beer like this.”

If you want to combine the smokiness of the campfire with a light, crisp beer, seek out Live Oak’s Grodziskie. This Polish wheat ale brewed in Texas weighs in at only 3% ABV, but the 100% oak-smoked wheat malt packs the evocative character of the campfire right in the can.

Hitting the Trail

If you’re hiking or doing strenuous outdoor activity, you might want a break from alcohol altogether, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the flavor of good beer. Self Care’s non-alcoholic beers are brewed by Three Magnets Brewing in Washington. Self Care describes Scherler as the “Easiest Non-Alcoholic Premium Shitty Light American Lager,” but goes on to clarify they mean that in, you know, a good way. Pack some Scherler in your cooler or backpack and skip the buzz while still enjoying a familiar style.

Many breweries brew beers as direct tributes to the lands that surround them. Allagash’s From Maine with Love series is a great example. The beers in this series are adapted from pilot batches based on employee recommendations, so while every batch is a completely different style, all of them serve as love letters to the great state of Maine. No. 27, which came out this spring, is a lager loaded with botanicals.

“The idea is a remake of a beer called Spaghett,” says Brett Willis, head of communications, describing a cocktail made by adding Aperol and a squeeze of lemon to a popular macro lager. “No. 27 is a light lager with a bunch of botanicals added to it: rhubarb, red cinchona, angelica root, and gentian root. It’s a quintessential Allagash beer brewed with local malt and local flaked corn.”

Willis says a lot of folks at Allagash enjoy the outdoors, and the brewery gives back to help preserve wild spaces.

“One of the most tangible examples is the Appalachian Mountain Club,” says Willis. “They have a Dark Sky Park that is so non-developed, there is almost no light pollution at all. We help them with maintaining that designation.”

Short’s Spring IPL is brewed in partnership with Pure Michigan, and the brewery describes it as “a lager we hopped to heck.” The 5.1% ABV beer is brewed with all Michigan ingredients and serves each year as a reminder that summer is around the corner.

Recognizing Our History

No matter where you’re camping or hiking in North America, it’s important to pay homage to the land’s original habitants. While land acknowledgements seek to recognize the crimes of our colonial past, Shyla Sheppard of Bow & Arrow Brewing in New Mexico wanted to go further in bringing attention to whose land we live on.

The Native Land beer project is a collaboration that can be brewed at any participating brewery. This Mexican lager is brewed with heirloom blue corn at Bow & Arrow, but Sheppard has encouraged breweries to use corn native to their own regions when brewing their version. Wherever it’s brewed and enjoyed, the beer serves as a reminder of the original residents of the land, and our own responsibility to both the land and our fellow humans.

Head into the outdoors and enjoy one of these great camping beers the next time you’re in the wilderness!

The post The Great Outdoors: Beers to Enjoy while Camping appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Leave the visions of sugar plums to the little ones this year. For grown-ups, it’s all about those wonderful Christmas beers from independent craft breweries, and we’ve got a dozen classics lined up to get you into the spirit of the season. Put the kids in charge of decorating and kick back with one of these fantastic festive brews.

Great Lakes Brewing Co. | Christmas Ale

It’s difficult to explain the phenomenon of the annual Great Lakes Brewing Co. Christmas Ale release to people who don’t live in Ohio. At the brewery’s “First Pour” release event during the last week of October each year, a pint of Christmas Ale gets poured an average of every five seconds for 12 straight hours. That’s 70 kegs of beer in one day, and it’s only the beginning. Co-Founder Pat Conway says the beer has become an essential part of the season for Ohioans since first being brewed in 1992.

“When you taste it, you think of Christmas and the conviviality and warmth of the season,” he reflects. “It just seems to marry with the energy around Christmas.”

The beer is brewed with ginger, cinnamon and honey, and weighs in at a warming but gentle 7.5% ABV. The Great Lakes co-founder expresses what many Midwesterners feel about this Ohio Christmas tradition:

“When I take a sip, it’s like I’m wearing a sweater.”

Tröegs Brewing | Mad Elf

Belgian breweries often brew a special high gravity beer for the Christmas season, but strong Belgian Christmas ales from American breweries can be tricky to find. Fortunately, Pennsylvania’s Tröegs Brewing makes plenty of Mad Elf to go around. This Belgian quadrupel is brewed with cherries and honey, and the first batch in 2002 used 300 pounds of local honey from the Happy Beekeeper farm.

“That 300-pound order has increased to 25,000 pounds a year,” says Jeff Herb, who handles marketing at Tröegs.

Tröegs brews several variants of Mad Elf, including Naked Elf (the base beer without the cherries and honey), Wild Elf (a barrel-aged, mixed-fermentation version), and Mad Elf Grand Cru (a luxurious, limited edition version with Balaton cherries, wildflower honey and demerara sugar).

“We like to think of Grand Cru as our ‘Director’s Cut,'” says Herb.

(RECIPES: Traditional Christmas Desserts Made with Beer)

Revolution Brewing | Fistmas

Remember shopping malls? Revolution Brewing remembers shopping malls.

Rather than a conventional holiday party at one of their Chicago taprooms to celebrate their Fistmas Holiday Ale, the folks at the largest independent brewery in Illinois are hosting a mall crawl. Attendees of the Fistmas Bar Crawl at Woodfield Mall on the northwest side of Chicago will don elf hats and meander between the mall’s restaurants and bars sipping the titular spiced ale, and stops along the way will allow for gift wrapping and DIY Christmas ornament decorating.

Fistmas is 6.5% ABV and is brewed with ginger and orange peel. The beer has stayed more or less the same since it was first brewed in 2010, though it spawns a bolder taproom-only version called Fist of Krampus that changes year to year.

Bell’s Brewery | Christmas Ale

This legendary Michigan brewery is best known for its to-style classics, some of which helped define those styles in the first place. While beers like Two Hearted Ale have earned their status by standing firm on classic flavor profiles in a shifting beer landscape, Christmas Ale has changed with the times and received a significant update in recent years. While the beer was formerly a somewhat “timid” (as far as Christmas beers are concerned) 5.5% ABV, it jumped to 7.5% to better reflect consumer expectations for comforting holiday beers.

“Christmas Ale was revamped in 2017 to be a more rich, impactful and stronger beer for celebrating the holidays, stylistically inspired by non-peated Scotch Ales,” says Josh Smith, communications manager for Bell’s. The rich malt base and warming strength makes Christmas Ale a suitable companion for those cold Michigan Decembers.

(BEER TRAVEL: Plan Your Next Beercation)

Deschutes Brewery | Jubelale

This year marks the 32nd edition of Jubelale, even though Deschutes has only been open 31 years. That’s because Jubelale was the first beer the brewery in Bend, Oregon, ever bottled, all the way back in October 1988. That first year, founder Gary Fish hand-bottled the beer (with some help from his first employees) at his small brewpub. Production has grown a bit since then, but the recipe–based on traditional malty English winter ales–has remained the same.

Since 1995, the label art for each vintage of Jubelale has been designed by a different regional artist and inspired by Oregon winters. This year’s label by Mark Rada depicts birds in a forest, which Rada says represent the Jubelale artists of previous years, and a deer with robotic antennas, which speaks to being attuned to our environment.

“The earth is speaking to us here in Bend,” says Rada. Luckily for us, one of the languages it speaks is beer.

Sierra Nevada Brewing | Celebration Ale

Few beers are as iconically linked to the holiday season across the country as Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. This fresh hop IPA was first brewed in 1981 and the recipe has stayed the same for nearly 40 years, offering festive flavors of citrus and pine with a brisk hop bitterness that matches the cold winter air. Celebration includes plenty of fresh Chinook, Centennial and Cascade hops from the hop fields of the Northwest. Sierra Nevada spokesperson Robin Gregory says the arrival of those succulent hop cones is cause for its own annual celebration at the brewery in Chico, California.

“The fresh hops usually arrive at our dock in the middle of the night, and you should see our brewers,” says Gregory. “They are running around like kids on Christmas morning.”

Even for one of the largest independent craft breweries in the country, the excitement about great ingredients and great beer never fades.

The Lost Abbey | Gnoel de Abbey

The Lost Abbey of San Marcos, California, first brewed Gnoel de Abbey in 2017, but in just a few years, it’s already earned its place in this esteemed brewery’s venerated line-up. The beer isn’t spiced as many holiday beers are, but it stands out from the crowd due to its unusual concept. The brewery takes an imperial stout that’s been aging in bourbon barrels for over a year and blends it with a younger and lighter brown ale.

The resulting 8.5% ABV brew has the strength and roast of the imperial stout and the oak notes of the barrel but in a lighter, easy-drinking body, even at this formidable strength.

(MORE: Splurge-worthy Beer Gifts)

Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales | Noel de Calabaza

The sour ale pioneers at Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin put their own personal stamp on a classic Christmas-y style with Noel de Calabaza. They brew a Belgian dark strong ale, a style many Belgian brewers release as a holiday seasonal, and then put it in oak barrels for six months where it receives the signature Jolly Pumpkin mixed-fermentation treatment.

What emerges is a dazzlingly complex 9% ABV beer with richly layered malt and barrel character, some acidity and subtle funk, and notes of dark fruit and chocolate.

Boston Beer Company | Samuel Adams Winter Lager

Sam Adams Winter Lager is certainly one of the most widely available Christmas beers, and likely one of the first such beers many drinkers ever tried, much as their Octoberfest introduced many American drinkers to that German autumn style.

Winter Lager is a “warming bock with festive spices,” and while its 5.6% ABV is lower than many other beers on this list, its comforting malt flavors and spices make it a fine choice for a casual holiday party or watching a Christmas movie or football game on a December afternoon. The good folks at Boston Beer use ginger, cinnamon and orange peel to lend Winter Lager its festive character.

Victory Brewing | Winter Cheers

When you think of traditional winter or holiday beer styles, hefeweizen probably isn’t one that comes readily to mind. That uniqueness is exactly what makes Victory‘s Winter Cheers Hazy Wheat Ale stand out. While Christmas beers are often spiced, Winter Cheers gets its subtle clove spice from its Bavarian weizen ale yeast, which produces banana-like esters and clove-like phenols.

The beer is a little stronger than many hefeweizens at 6.7% ABV, and its high effervescence and balance of fruity and spicy yeast notes make it an excellent pairing beer for holiday dinners. It even has a nice kick of Citra hops to give it an American twist. You might not have thought of this style as a winter beer at first, but a few sips of this expressive Pennsylvania wheat ale will make you a holiday hefeweizen convert.

Warped Wing Brewing | Esther’s Lil Secret

Warped Wing Brewing from my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, brews a few excellent Christmas and winter seasonals, including a spiced amber lager called Holiday Special and a smooth and comforting doppelbock called Abominator.

The crown jewel of holiday brews from this Gem City brewery, however, is Esther’s Lil Secret, which releases in November each year and is brewed in collaboration with 90-year-old Dayton chocolate company Esther Price Candies.

The recipe for Esther’s Lil Secret changes every year and, true to its name, is a closely guarded secret until the annual “release and reveal” party at the brewery taproom. This year’s edition is a Scotch ale brewed with chocolate, caramel and sea salt.

“We wanted to mimic the flavors of Esther Price’s now-famous Sea Salt Caramel,” says Warped Wing co-founder Nick Bowman. The rich and layered beer is a secret worth keeping.

(READ: Affordable Beer Gifts)

Great Divide Brewing | Hibernation Ale

While most of the beers on this list are themed around Christmas, the big holiday is just the beginning of a long winter. For most of the country, there are months of cold weather ahead after the presents are unwrapped. Folks in Colorado know this better than most, and Denver’s Great Divide Brewing releases a beer to carry us through the long, cold winter.

Hibernation Ale is an English-style old ale, a hearty beer with rich, layered malt flavors and enough strength at 8.7% ABV to brace us through those dark, cold evenings. This beer has been brewed since 1995 and has won multiple awards. It’s perfect to enjoy as your Christmas Eve nightcap, but be sure to hold onto enough cans of this traditional English style to last till to crocuses begin to peek through the frosty soil in spring.

Published Dec 11, 2019.

The post 12 Beers of Christmas appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

This brewery focusing on fruited, canned sour ales had to find a way to get their esoteric brews into the hands of Ohio drinkers without taproom sales or a wide existing distribution footprint. And that meant shipping beer directly to customers.

“We were already working on this before the announcement came through,” says Urban Artifact co-founder Scotty Hunter.

As soon as they saw the virus begin impacting the West Coast weeks prior, they set in motion plans to ship beer if necessary. That allowed them to mail their first orders to Ohio residents just days after Ohio taprooms shut down.

(Related: What Can Brown Ale Do For You?)

Ohio has over 300 independent breweries, and they’re all scrambling to adapt to life without taproom or keg distribution sales. As of this writing, around 70 are offering home delivery within an immediate geographical radius. A handful, however, are shipping directly to customers across the Buckeye state, and it’s pointing a way forward for post-Coronavirus sales.

Cooperative Laws Help Brewers Weather Pandemic

“Ohio alcohol laws are relatively permissive compared to some other states,” explains Justin Hemminger, deputy director of the Ohio Craft Brewers Association. “Having the ability to deliver directly to customers—which was already permitted by the state [before coronavirus]—made this quick pivot possible for our breweries.”

In the small college town of Athens in rural southeast Ohio, that ability is a gamechanger for Little Fish Brewing.

“In a small town, we already have a tough time selling all the beer we make,” says Sean White, co-founder of the brewery specializing in mixed-fermentation and barrel-aged beers. “It seemed like we should be hitting every possible medium we could, so we started shipping immediately.”

(More: How To Support Our Local Breweries During the Pandemic)

While they’ve long packaged their mixed-fermentation beers, their IPAs, lagers, and other typical craft styles have generally been taproom-only pours. To ship those to customers, they had to accelerate an idea they’d only discussed before the virus.

“It was like, hey, let’s get that crowler machine we’ve been talking about,” says White with a laugh.

Customers can now order any Little Fish draft beer right along with the bottled rarities.

Logistics of Shipping Beer

Both Urban Artifact and Little Fish are working with UPS to deliver their beers around the state, but a Columbus-based craft brewery experimented with offering beer around Ohio on their own.

North High Brewing deputized their sales reps around the state to act as delivery drivers. Because several of those reps were stationed in other cities—Dayton, Cleveland—they didn’t have easy access to North High’s limited-edition beers, so only six-packs of the brewery’s core beers were available to be ordered in most locations.

“For Columbus customers, we basically said if it’s in our brewery, we’ll sell it to you,” says brewmaster Jason McKibben.

Inventory dropped pretty quickly around the state, and North High ultimately pulled back direct delivery to within their home market in the state capital.

“I had to basically put everything that was in tanks and ready to package into cans,” explains McKibben. “Our distributor has our cans statewide, so we decided to let them keep grocery stores replenished.”

Niche Avenues

Little Fish and Urban Artifact say that in addition to providing a revenue stream, shipping has also allowed them to get more difficult-to-sell products into the hands of curious drinkers.

“This is allowing us to move smaller batches of beer that are more niche and might only have 50 or 100 people who want them,” says Hunter. “People are ordering a lot of stuff they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise. We’re seeing a lot of shipments going to rural areas where we don’t have distribution.”

(Related: The Curb Economy: Craft Breweries Rise to Pandemic Challenge)

Both breweries believe they will continue shipping to customers in some form even after taproom restrictions are lifted.

“It will evolve, but we’ll probably see greater interest in remote beer clubs,” says Hunter.

At Little Fish, shipping has changed the brewery’s strategic planning.

“We were seriously pondering a satellite taproom in a metro area before this because it’s always been harder than we wanted to move our products,” says White. “It’s possible shipping lets us get where we want to be.”

As the closure has dragged on, other Ohio breweries have started shipping as well, including Branch & Bone Artisan Ales in Dayton and Jackie O’s in Athens.

“We were hesitant at first to start shipping because we didn’t want to disincentivize people from visiting us as a destination brewery,” says White. “I’m starting to get the inkling this might actually encourage people to come down here. I anticipate we’ll continue to ship beer forever now.”

The post Ale Mail: Craft Breweries Deliver Beer Direct to Customers During COVID-19 appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Some breweries are taking this link a step further with an unexpected agricultural addition: farm animals. Breweries are raising cows, goats, pigs and other livestock in order to revive the land, reduce waste and educate the public about the ecosystem that pairing livestock and lagers can create.

Jester King Brewery’s ‘Prince of Goats’

“Hi, I’m Peppy. People call me Farmer Peppy. Or just, you know, Prince of Goats.”

That’s Sean “Peppy” Meyer, the resident farmer and goat herder at Jester King Brewery outside Austin, Texas. When he was hired in 2018, his only stipulation was that he be allowed to bring his goats with him. Brewery founder Jeff Stuffings agreed.

“We all moved into the goat barn together for a year,” says Peppy, who lived with his 20 goats until this last summer. “I’ve since moved off the farm and have been reacclimating to humans. I’ll be moving back into a small trailer on the farm soon, because it’s kidding season. We’re expecting about 25 babies.”

Peppy thinks American farms lost something when animal husbandry became industrialized.

“If you want to have a sustainable program, then it’s a necessity to have animals. We replaced animals with machines, and it’s just been empty ever since,” he says. “It makes the job a lot easier when there’s mutual understanding and respect. The animals receive a better life, and we receive the products they yield, such as fertilizer and milk.”

(READ: Established Craft Breweries Plant Rural Roots)

Fresh Milk and Beer Sold Here

Speaking of milk, Stone Cow Brewery near Barre, Massachusetts, is operating a brewery on a working dairy farm that’s been owned by the same family for more than 80 years.

Molly DuBois’s grandfather bought the farm in 1938, and his descendants have been milking cows here ever since. Molly and husband Sean, along with her brother Will Stevens and his wife, Shayna, manage a herd of 200 dairy cows and operate a brewpub. There aren’t too many breweries where you can walk out with both a six-pack of beer and a pint of fresh, raw milk.

“There’s not a lot of money in wholesale milk,” says Molly. “We can get maybe .13 to .15 cents for a pint of milk at wholesale, but in the taproom we can get $5-$8 for a pint of beer. The brewery has saved not only our farm, but our way of life. We didn’t want to be the generation to stop milking cows here.”

Her husband agrees.

“Molly’s grandpa bought this farm from a family who had been farming here since 1749,” says Sean. “We have 1,000 acres that have been farmed by two families in 260 years. We inherited something we feel is pretty special.”

Pigs and Pils

Wooly Pig Farm Brewery in eastern Ohio sits on 90 acres of mixed pasture and woodland draped over a few small hills. The owners raise a rare Old World breed of pig on the property.

Founder Kevin Ely has taken frequent trips to Franconia in Germany during his brewing career. He first saw Mangalitsa pigs on a bicycle tour through the region years ago.

His sister-in-law, Lauren Malenke, is a large animal veterinarian. She was able to identify the shaggy Eastern European breed from his photos. Lauren and husband Aaron, along with Kevin and his wife, Jael, all noted the similarities in terrain between Franconia and eastern Ohio, and Kevin recalled how many rural and small-town breweries in Germany had raised pigs to help get rid of spent grain. They decided their new brewery should carry on the tradition.

Wooly Pig raises about 30 pigs, and Aaron is responsible for their care.

“We also have about 30 sheep, a couple horses and a llama,” he says “Oh, and a goat named Hoppy Phils.”

(VISIT: 2020 Great American Beer Bars)

Brewery Livestock Reduce Waste

At Wooly Pig, every bit of waste from the brewing process goes to feed the Mangalitsas.

“They do really well with basically all organic waste streams generated from the brewery,” says Ely. “Some other animals can be more finicky, but pigs are more robust and flexible. Seeing those old breweries in Franconia, as the spent grain was being shoveled out, it would be shoveled right into the hog barn.”

“Other farmers sourcing grain from breweries, they have to pick up several days at a time, and have vehicles and containers for it,” says Aaron Malenke. “I basically have it at my disposal.”

“We’ve built our brewery around being able to feed our pigs all of our spent grain, all of our weak wort, all of our spent trub and yeast, our spent beer,” Ely says. “This makes it viable for us to be doing what we’re doing on this farm without a wastewater treatment plant supporting us. And we’re eliminating the impact of vehicles and fuel.”

Wooly Pig is tailoring the size of its animal herds to the amount of waste the brewery is producing. If the brewery grows, they’ll expand their livestock program to match it.

While cows can’t tolerate quite as much spent grain as pigs can, Stone Cow is dividing its grain among the herd of 200, which is otherwise grass-fed.

“Spent grains are amazing to put in a cow’s diet,” says Sean DuBois. “They produce more and better-tasting milk. You’ve extracted the majority of the sugar, and you’re leaving them with all the good stuff.”

At Jester King, spent grain goes to a local Wagyu beef farm, but Peppy has another plan for how animals can reduce the environmental impact of trucking.

“We’re getting mules. It’s going to be so badass,” he says. “They’ll help with transportation by hauling stone and other stuff. Hauling kegs. Unlike vehicles, they won’t compress the soil.”

Breweries Raise Livestock, Revitalize Land

Peppy is just as passionate about the role of livestock in reviving mismanaged farmland and prairie.

“The majority of America was once a prairie developed by bison, and we essentially exterminated them,” he says. “It’s up to us to move these domestic animals through now.”

Prairie grasses grow up into the sun but also down into the soil, he says. When animals eat the foliage above ground, it stimulates the grasses to expand their root structure, which provides a setting for a rich ecosystem of microorganisms in the soil and prevents erosion. The plants and the soil sequester carbon.

“Take away the animals and the roots die, and all that carbon blows off in the wind,” he says. “If you take away that mammalian presence, it just falls apart.”

By carefully managing the grazing pastures for his goats and, soon, sheep, Peppy can help redevelop land that was damaged by industrial agriculture for decades.

There’s another obvious agricultural benefit to pairing livestock and brewing: free fertilizer.

“Every week I harvest three wheelbarrows of manure from the goat barn,” says Peppy. “That’s gone into our planting beds.”

While feeding spent grain to livestock removes carbon emissions from waste management and transportation, the benefit goes in the other direction as well at Stone Cow. The barbecue restaurant attached to their taproom serves grass-fed beef and vegetables grown right on the property.

“You’ve heard of farm-to-table,” Sean says. “We like to say we brought the table to the farm.”

Additionally, Stone Cow’s food is cooked over wood responsibly harvested from their land.

“It’s a pleasure for me to be able to go out before the sunrise and pick some cauliflower and then that evening see people drinking our beer and eating fire-grilled vegetables,” Molly DuBois says. Stone Cow hopes to begin making cheese with their milk soon as well.

Ambassadors for Responsible Farming

All three breweries see their four-legged charges as a way to educate beer lovers about responsible farming practices.

Peppy corrals the curious among Jester King’s couple thousand visitors each weekend to teach them about the regenerative agriculture of the animals.

“I’ll stand on a table and yell the farm tour call,” he says. “‘You want to come learn about farms? Also, there’s really cute goats.’ And that’s when everyone stands up and is like, ‘Hell yeah, I want to drink a beer and pet a goat.’ Then I’ve got 50-100 people for an hour. I try to explain as much as possible about agriculture and how we got separated from the land.”

While much of this education is purely informative, Peppy also lets folks touch and interact with the goats.

“It’s fun to watch the larger goats interact with children in such a delicate manner,” he says. “They sense it’s this little human, and they have to be gentle.”

The Wooly Pig team uses its livestock to help educate the public as well.

“The pigs really do make this place family-friendly,” Malenke says, echoing thoughts shared by the Stone Cow crew. “People want to see the new piglets. They want to feed squash to the llama. That all helps. Most people haven’t been on a real working farm. It’s not just a petting zoo.”

The brewery also hosts a kids’ weekend every summer with additional animals from neighboring farms. It all helps drive home how natural it is for farming and brewing to be linked (and for families to be present for both). Even other farmers can learn from this.

“We have farmers who come into the brewery all the time who are raising pigs, and they’ve never seen a Mangalitsa, and they’re not used to seeing pigs on pasture,” says Ely.

(TRAVEL: Visiting Fairbanks, Alaska, for Craft Beer)

Brewery-Raised Livestock ‘Living Their Best Lives’

At Wooly Pig, Kevin Ely is as passionate about raising animals in a responsible way as he is about brewing authentic German lagers.

“We’re raising these animals in as respectful a way as possible,” he says. “Lots of space, ample feed and clean water, shelter. They’re living their best lives. It’s an integral part of how we manage to operate our brewery and farm in a remote space.”

“Lots of space, ample feed and clean water, shelter. They’re living their best lives.” Kevin Ely, Wooly Pig Farm Brewery

“We need to find a way that these animals are treated with honor,” says Peppy. “Historically, this was known to be a sacred being.”

The brewery’s founder is onboard with Peppy.

“We want to develop an ecosystem that can be a model for the state, the country, even internationally,” Stuffings says.

“We work hard as hell, but it’s special,” Peppy says with a laugh, before adding a thought that could apply to all three trailblazing breweries: “This place is a massive rebellion against the mundane.”

The post Livestock and Lager: Breweries Raise Animals and Agricultural Awareness appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

“If conquest had gone the other way, we’d have 150 different categories for chicha and one for European beers,” says Belstock, co-founder and brewer for Denver’s Dos Luces Brewery. Dos Luces specializes in the indigenous Central and South American beer styles of chicha and pulque. Most beer drinkers haven’t even heard of these styles—and if they’ve heard of chicha, it’s likely connected to sensational stories about the role of mastication in the beer’s production.

Chicha is made with corn, and until about half a century ago, the starches in that corn were converted into fermentable sugars through the enzymatic work of human saliva. That’s no longer the case, but Belstock still gets asked if he chews the corn for his beers. His typical response epitomizes his sardonic sense of humor.

“No, but I’ll spit in your beer for a dollar.”

Reclaiming America’s Ancient History

Dos Luces Brewery was founded not only to preserve the heritage of chicha and pulque, but to establish both as distinctly American styles. The brewery was founded by Belstock and Sam Alcaine, professor of fermentation science at Cornell University. It opened in Denver’s South Broadway neighborhood in 2018.

“Our mission is to change the way people think about beer,” explains Belstock. “We want to use American ingredients and styles from before European conquest and make them a part of everyday beer culture in the United States.”

Belstock spent over a decade working for Coors and then Miller followed by three years at Boulder Beer Company before starting Dos Luces. His interest in ancient American beers initially came from his father.

“My goal eventually is that if you walk into a great beer bar with a lot of taps and they don’t have a chicha and a pulque on draft, they’re doing it wrong.”

“My dad was living in Peru in the late ‘60s while serving in the Peace Corp, and he drank a lot of chicha and told me about it when I was growing up,” he explains. “When he was having a beer, he’d pour a little out for [Incan goddess] Pachamama, which is the tradition in Peru.”

Alcaine is the son of Salvadoran and Cuban immigrants, and, as Belstock explains, specializes in “fermenting things that are not intended to be fermented.” The two tried their first pulque together when they found a can in a liquor store in Chicago while both were working for Miller.

“It was pretty bad,” Belstock says with a laugh, but it got the wheels turning.

Pulque, a Priestly Aztec Drink

Pulque is an ancient Aztec drink brewed with corn and sap from the maguey plant, a type of agave. The drink was a sacred beverage in Aztec culture.

“Pulque was reserved for the priesthood and for special ceremonies,” explains Belstock. “It was considered a gift from the gods. If you were about to be sacrificed, you got two cups of it before you went.”

Despite being brewed for thousands of years, pulque nearly went extinct in its homeland. The Austrian colonists who took over Mexico during the American Civil War actively disparaged the drink and made it all but illegal. Fortunately, the drink has seen a resurgence over the last five years in Mexico.

“Pulquerias have been popping up in Mexico City the way craft breweries have here,” says Belstock.

In addition to the Colorado blue corn malted for Dos Luces by nearby Grouse Malt House, the brewery uses maguey sap from Villa de Patos farm in Mexico. To harvest maguey sap, the farm cuts a hole in the bottom of the plant and collects the sap overnight. Over about 30 days, this will yield enough sap for one batch of pulque at Dos Luces. This slow collection process brings a good deal of native microflora along with it, and the brewery has harvested its house bacterial culture from the sap.

Chicha, the Peruvian Homebrew

Malted blue corn forms the base of the brewery’s Chicha as well, and the malting process provides enzymes that make it unnecessary to use human spit to brew the beverage. Chicha is an ancient Incan beer from Peru, and while it had a ceremonial role much like pulque, it wasn’t reserved for the elites.

“It’s never been that uncommon to brew chicha in the home,” explains Belstock. “It was much more of a common person’s drink.”

That homebrewing heritage protected chicha from the extinction pulque nearly suffered.

“Chicha never really went away,” reports Belstock. “It’s just been limited to the mountains primarily and made mostly in people’s homes. Since the time of the Inca, you would put a flag in front of your house indicating that you had chicha available for sale.”

While historical chicha used the notorious chewing method for acquiring conversion enzymes, techniques have modernized. Belstock says even traditional homebrewers in Peru are using sprouted or malted corn now.

From Ancient Beverage to Modern Beer

Belstock is passionate about helping people appreciate the long history of chicha and pulque, both of which are a bit sour and mildly spiced.

“With both of these beverages, the history goes back at least 3,000 years based on pot shard evidence,” he says. “But the Inca and the Aztec don’t go back that far. There were cultures that predated both of those cultures that made beers from corn and maguey, respectively.”

While that history is rich and worthy of attention, he stresses the importance of not treating these styles as mere historical artifacts or quaint diversions.

“When we treat these as curiosities and historical anachronisms, then that pigeonholes them. It makes them interesting other things rather than being part of our culture, which they should be.”

Making these beers part of our American drinking culture requires public education, and that often happens one drinker at a time. A lot of people who walk into Dos Luces have never heard of the beer styles they produce.

“We have a lot of people who come in and just see the word ‘brewery’ and don’t know what we’re doing,” says Belstock. “They’ll come in and say, ‘I’ll have the IPA.’ Well, we don’t have an IPA, but let me tell you about what we do here. There are a few who will walk out at that point, but most people who try it do like it.”

He says the experience people have inside the taproom is generally superior to those tasting the beers elsewhere, because the education component is so important. He also leads educational tasting classes to increase public understanding of his beers.

“My goal eventually is that if you walk into a great beer bar with a lot of taps and they don’t have a chicha and a pulque on draft, they’re doing it wrong,” he says.

Dos Luces has also collaborated with other Latinx-owned breweries likes Atrevida and Border X to bring attention to these and other Latin American brewing traditions.

Doc Luces: Two Lights

Belstock’s chicha is named Inti after the Incan god of the sun. His pulque is named Metzli after the Aztec god of the moon. Those two lights, or “dos luces,” are guides for this brewery making ancient beers for a modern audience.

“Those are the two lights in our name, but we also like to say the light of the past is showing the way for the light of the future,” Belstock reflects. “We’re taking inspiration from the past to create something entirely new.”

The post Two Ancient American Beers Light a New Path at Dos Luces Brewery appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

On top of all that, Ohio is beautiful. Rows of crops hem in country roads in the summer months, and in fall and winter, the harvested fields open up views that stretch to the horizon. One entire border runs along Lake Erie, and another runs along the Ohio River, the second largest river in the country by volume. Our streams, forests, and state parks provide varied and beautiful scenery for a driving tour.

Combining Ohio’s brewed treasures with its natural wonders makes for a fantastic road trip (with a designated driver, of course). I’ve lived in Ohio for nearly 30 years and been drinking beer for half of them, and I am still discovering new things to love about this state. Hop in the car, pick some tunes, and take in Ohio through these 18 craft beers.

Dayton

I live near Dayton in southwest Ohio, and I firmly believe we have one of the most underrated beer scenes in the country. The Dayton metro area of about 900,000 people has around 20 breweries with more in planning, and the best beer coming out of the Gem City is awesome. We’ll start our Ohio tour with one of Dayton’s newest and most exciting breweries.

Branch & Bone Artisan Ales | Violet Perception

Branch & Bone burst onto the Dayton scene in June 2018, and are already brewing some of the best and most exciting beers in the state. They specialize in new wave IPAs, mixed-fermentation barrel- or foeder-aged sours, fruited session sours, and silky smooth stouts and coffee beers. One of the first beers they offered when they opened but the visually stunning Violet Perception, a Berliner-style weisse made with butterfly pea blossoms, ginger, and lime. This purple brew is tart, tropical, and crisp, and offers the perfect way to ease into the brewery’s esoteric but impeccable lineup. Grab a table in the small but smart taproom (they fill up quickly on weekends) and enjoy these beers in perfect tasting glassware (even flights come in tall, fluted tulips).

Warped Wing Brewing Company | 10 Ton Oatmeal Stout

Dayton’s biggest brewery is also one of its best, with seasoned brewmaster John Haggerty turning out a mix of standards that disappear by the pint and barrel-aged rarities to be savored in snifters. While the latter might garner more buzz (and are certainly excellent), one of Warped Wing’s finest beers is available year round. 10 Ton Oatmeal Stout is named for the gigantic industrial crane that still spans the brewery interior from the building’s former life as an iron foundry. This 7% ABV seducer is bigger than old school oatmeal stouts, but soft and gentle, with subtle fruitiness from the English ale yeast and golden naked oats.

Yellow Springs Brewery | Handsome Brown Ale

Just east of Dayton is the eclectic small town of Yellow Springs, and the eponymous brewery produces an array of unique and worthwhile beers. Brown ales don’t get a lot of buzz these days, but Handsome is just about a perfect offering in the style. Roast and hoppiness are slightly elevated, but balance each other out. The smoked version of this beer earned the brewery a Great American Beer Festival medal in their first year of operation, and if you’re lucky enough to find it on tap while you’re there, certainly grab it. Take your pint to the leafy back patio along the Little Miami Scenic Trail and enjoy the Ohio weather (which will likely change while you’re sitting there).

Other Dayton-area beers to try: Carillon Coriander Ale, Mother Stewart’s Witbier, Dayton Beer Company Jalapeño Face, Eudora Le Cheval Magique, Fifth Street Jo Jo’s Midnight Stout

(Related: 12 Craft Beers That Taste Like … Beer!)

Columbus

A one-hour car ride east from Dayton along I-70 will land you in the state’s capital. The bustling city has more than 50 breweries and numerous fun little neighborhoods. Here are the highlights.

Columbus Brewing Company | Bodhi

Did you know some of the best double IPAs in the country come out of a 30-year-old brewery in central Ohio? Columbus Bodhi won bronze at the Great American Beer Festival in 2014, and its big brother Creeper won gold the same year. Bodhi is likely the better known of the two, appearing on numerous national best-of lists over the years. The Citra-hopped wonder is big, juicy, and smooth, belying its hefty strength. After being a production brewery decades, CBC recently opened a taproom just west of downtown. Head in and try these amazing IPAs.

Wolf’s Ridge Brewing | Clear Sky Daybreak

Thankfully, the days of coffee beers all being 10% ABV stouts are over. Wolf’s Ridge makes one of the best pale, lower-alcohol coffee beers to be found with Clear Sky Daybreak. Based on the cream ale style popular as a gateway beer for craft brewers around the state, Clear Sky Daybreak uses coffee from Columbus roaster One Line, and has an incredibly fresh coffee aroma in a light, 5% ABV package. While you’re there, be sure to dine in their wonderful restaurant, and try their elegant Red Legacy Flanders red ale.

Pretentious Barrel House | Magnanimous

Pretentious Barrel House exclusively produces barrel-aged sour ales, and they do a damn fine job of it. Founder Joshua Martinez has a gift for blending, and Magnanimous is a masterpiece. This beer won Best In Show at the Ohio Craft Brewers Cup in 2019. The brewery’s base dark sour ale spends 13 months in red wine barrels and has a fascinating balance of bright citrus, cherry, oak, chocolate, red wine, and perfectly calibrated acidity. If you make beer this good, you’re allowed to be a little pretentious.

Other Columbus-area beers to try: North High Cover Crop Beer, Land-Grant 1862 Kölsch, Seventh Son Humulus Nimbus

(Related: Feel at Home In This Ohio Brewery’s Airbnb)

Southeast & East

The rolling hills of rural eastern and southeastern Ohio serve as the western gateway of the Appalachian mountains. Tucked into the valleys and draped over the rises of this vibrant stretch of land are numerous small town and rural breweries producing beers both rustic and refined. While you’re in the area, be sure to do some hiking in Hocking Hills State Park and enjoy the region’s natural beauty.

Rockmill Brewery | Petite Saison

Rockmill Brewery brews what I hold to be among the best Belgian-style beers this side of the Atlantic, and they brew them in one of the most gorgeous brewery settings I’ve ever seen. A half-hour southeast of Columbus, their restored 18th century horse farm draped over a hilly property outside Lancaster is as idyllic as they come, with ample shade, a pond, and plenty of grassy spots to lay out a picnic blanket and drink their incredible beers. The brewery’s Petite Saison is the platonic ideal of a table saison; it’s dry, spritzy, and peppery, with subtle stone fruit esters. Drink glass after glass and watch the Ohio sun cross the sky. Just be sure to be down by the pond for sunset, with beer in hand.

Jackie O’s Brewery | Who Cooks For You?

Name a beer style, and Jackie O’s probably brews it. This incredibly prolific Ohio brewery in the charming college town of Athens makes IPAs, mixed-fermentation sours, barrel-aged behemoths, sessionable craft classics, and just about everything else, and does them all well. Who Cooks For You? (named after the onomatopoeia for the call of the barred owl) proves an established brewery can beat the new kids at their own game. This hazy pale ale is…well, it’s perfect. The body is soft and fluffy but defined, and the citrus and tropical hop flavor is held in the ideal center by malt sweetness and hop bitterness. Try this beauty and countless others at either of Jackie O’s three pub locations around Athens.

(More: How Do You Build a Strong Brewery? Jackie O’s Focuses on Home)

Little Fish Brewing Company | Smoked Helles

On a hillside property along the frayed, green hem of Athens sits one of the best brewers of mixed-fermentation beers in the country. Little Fish makes more excellent foeder-aged beers than I can list, and they’ve installed a koelschip as well. My favorite beer from them, however, couldn’t be farther from those flavor profiles. Their Smoked Helles is one of the best smoke beers I’ve ever tasted. It’s like a late summer campfire on the beach, the cool sand beneath you, the kiss of dry driftwood smoke in the air. Get a pint, settle in on the brewery’s beer garden overlooking the Kanawha River Railroad and a verdant pond, and enjoy the perfect August night inside your glass.

Wooly Pig Farm Brewery | Rustic Helles

Nestled on a ragged hillside near the Tuscarawas River, Wooly Pig Farm Brewery is modeled after the rural lager breweries of Franconia and northern Bavaria in Germany, where founder and brewmaster Kevin Ely has spent time. His rustic lagers are some of the best you’ll ever taste without a plane ticket to Germany, and sipping on large mugs of unfiltered helles, schwarzbier, or Pilsner straight from the lagering tanks while wandering the working farm property is like being transported to the Continent without leaving the state. Be sure to say hello to the namesake Mangalitsa pigs while you’re there!

Other eastern and southeastern Ohio beers to try: Portsmouth Brewing Company Red Bird Ale, Sandy Springs Meet Virginia, Lockport Gateway Cream Ale, JAFB Wooster New Stout

(More: Change is a Constant for Breweries That Stand the Test of Time)

Cleveland

This industrial powerhouse on the shore of Lake Erie hosts Ohio’s oldest and largest independent craft brewery (more on that below) and dozens of more recent additions pumping out fantastic beer. You’ll start your tour just southwest of the city, and then head to the historic Ohio City neighborhood in the heart of Cleveland.

Fat Head’s Brewery | Alpenglow

The most award-winning brewery in Ohio just can’t seem to do anything wrong. Fat Head’s continued their medal-grabbing ways at the Great American Beer Festival in October, winning three medals. You should definitely try those beers, along with their legendary Head Hunter IPA and Hop JuJu Imperial IPA, but my favorite of their beers didn’t win at GABF in 2019. That’s okay, because it won GABF gold in 2017, 2016, and 2014, and silver in 2012, along with World Beer Cup gold in 2018. Alpenglow just might be the best weizenbock out there, with a big banana and clove character, a rich malt foundation and a dry enough finish to keep it drinkable.

Great Lakes Brewing Company | Edmund Fitzgerald

One of the best and most decorated robust porters in American craft beer needs little introduction. Named for the ill-fated steel freighter that dove for the bottom of Lake Superior in 1975, Edmund Fitzgerald’s namesake was closely tied to Cleveland’s history. After being brewed for nearly 30 years, the beer is pretty tied to the city now as well. The Great Lakes brewpub in the historic Ohio City neighborhood has a beautiful mahogany bar where Eliot Ness once sat (and, if legends are true, was once shot at) and a fantastic food menu. Just be sure to save room for plenty of Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, as well as some taproom-only rarities.

Market Garden Brewery | Prosperity Wheat

Right around the block from Great Lakes sits Market Garden Brewery, who has seen several beers decorated at GABF, most recently their Prosperity Wheat. This hefeweizen is pretty much perfect, with assertive weizen yeast and a delicate balance between the lightly sweet wheat and pale malt and the dry, delicate finish. This beer also won Best In Show at the inaugural Ohio Craft Brewers Cup in 2018.

Other Cleveland-area beers to try: Noble Beast Murder Ballads Baltic Porter, Saucy Brew Works B.F. Hefe, Collision Bend Sixth City Alt, Willoughby Peanut Butter Cup Coffee Porter

Northern & Northwest

Heading west from Cleveland, skip the Ohio Turnpike and drive west along Lake Erie on Route 20 and Route 6 toward Toledo – it is one of the most scenic drives in the state. You can stop along the way to admire Ohio’s own Great Lake and watch freighters crossing the expanse from Detroit to ports east. Before you reach Toledo, you’ll cross a bridge across Sandusky Bay to your first northwest Ohio brewery.

(More: Form & Function: Brewery Visits with an Architect)

Twin Oast Brewing | Red Sun Saison

Twin Oast Brewing has one of the most idyllic properties of any brewery in the state. Located on a rural spread on Catawba Island (it’s actually a peninsula, but was once an island) jutting out into Lake Erie, Twin Oast Brewing is part of an active fruit farm, and much of the produce makes it into their beers. Enjoy the beautiful pastoral property with a Red Sun Saison in hand. This visually and aromatically lovely beer is the perfect match for the agrarian surroundings.

Father John’s Microbrewery | Dark Night of the Soul American Stout

Dr. John Trippy just wanted to save an old Methodist church built in 1867 in the small town and Bryan southwest of Toledo, as the building was falling into ruin. A brewery was never in the plans. But once he’d restored the stately structure, he had to find something to do with it. In 2012, he opened a brewery and restaurant in the former house of worship that now nourishes the body along with the spirit. Check out this gorgeous building filled with relics from all faiths, enjoy a hearty meal, and contemplate the eternal over a pint of Dark Night of the Soul. At the end of the night, you can stay in at the Stoned Goat Inn, an Airbnb lodging Father John’s operates in the former church parsonage.

Other northern or northwest Ohio beers to try: Laxton Hollow Lord Badger Bitter, Moeller Brew Barn Frogtown IPA, Maumee Bay Total Eclipse Breakfast Stout, Earnest Brew Works Crunchy Hippie

Cincinnati

Take a three-hour drive down I-75, or a more scenic and leisurely one down U.S. 127, and conclude your Ohio tour in the state’s largest metro area. Cincinnati might have the most robust and varied craft beer scene in the state, with over sixty breweries in its expansive and eclectic urban enclaves.

Urban Artifact | Paperweight

You’re not done with churches yet! Urban Artifact occupies a beautiful former Catholic church built in 1873, and their beers are among the more unique in the state. They’ve carved out a niche for themselves by specializing in shelf-stable, heavily-fruited sour ales. Their flagship line is the Midwest Fruit Tart series, which utilizes a rotating cast of fruits to create approachable sour ales that offer bridges to fans of wine and mixed drinks while still satisfying the palates of sour beer fans. Paperweight is brewed with an obscene amount of apricots and offers a remarkable fresh fruit flavor balanced out by the beer’s moderate acidity and 7.7% ABV strength.

MadTree Brewing | Happy Amber

Amber ales never get any love, but a well-made example can really be perfect in the right moment. MadTree’s 2.0 taproom is big and has the beer list to prove it, with 32 of their beers on at all times. There are plenty of great options at one of Cincinnati’s showcase brewery destinations, and you should definitely get a flight to try some of them. But don’t sleep on Happy Amber, a beer that won gold at GABF in 2018 as the top Extra Special Bitter in the country (albeit one with a distinctly American hop character). It’s endlessly drinkable and shows what this style can be in the right hands.

Brink Brewing | Hold the Reins

From one of Cincinnati’s largest breweries, we head to one of its smallest, but one whose stature far exceeds its barrelage. Brink Brewing in the College Hill neighborhood on the north side has won back-to-back Very Small Brewery of the Year awards at GABF, and has never failed to medal in its three years of existence. You won’t go wrong with Moozie Milk Stout, which has casually won consecutive golds at GABF, but I recommend the 4.6% ABV Hold the Reins English Mild. The beer has won three straight GABF medals, including two golds, and it’s just…well, perfect. A small beer from a small brewery, but it’s one of the best in Ohio, and the perfect way to finish out your beer tour of the state.

Other Cincinnati-area beers to try: Fretboard Vlad Pilsner, Fifty West 10&2 Barleywine, Listerman Team Fiona, Taft’s Gustav Vienna Lager, Christian Moerlein OTR Ale, Rhinegeist Café Ink

The post Around Ohio in 18 Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

One of the most popular ingredients for nostalgic, beer-y experimentation is peanut butter. Peanut butter has been a favorite in candy bars, cereals, desserts, and everyone’s favorite lunchbox sandwich for decades, and it was popularized in craft beer with offerings like Willoughby Peanut Butter Cup Coffee Porter and DuClaw Sweet Baby Jesus, both of which were mentioned often when I polled Twitter about the best peanut butter beers for this article (if Twitter wasn’t around in your era, it’s where we all go to yell at each other in the shortest sentences possible).

We’ve talked about peanut butter beers here before, but there are constantly new and noteworthy examples popping up, so here are some of the best new(ish) peanut butter beers out there today.

Garage Brewing | Peanut Butter Chocolate 

“As many breweries know, these days we have to walk down the path of innovation and creativity on a daily basis,” says Garage Brewing brewmaster Guy Bartmess. His brewery’s Peanut Butter Chocolate is a milk stout that shines on the merits of the beer’s two very popular title ingredients.

“We’re not the first people to put these two flavors together by a long shot,” he acknowledges. “Nonetheless, we’ve put a lot of work into balancing these two flavors. You can always create a beer that might be a curiosity to a customer. We wanted to create a beer that would be that go-to beer when people reach for a dark, rich, and decadent beer.”

The 7.1% ABV stout represents a lot of work on the part of the Garage Brewing team to achieve a true peanut butter flavor.

“Without revealing any secrets, let’s just say that it isn’t made the easy way,” says Bartmess.

Mast Landing Brewery | Gunner’s Daughter

Mast Landing Brewing in Maine employ a nautical theme for their beer names, and marketing director Parker Olen says the name of their best-selling beer, Gunner’s Daughter Peanut Butter Milk Stout, has an ironic high seas origin.

“It derives from an old nautical punishment,” he explains. “Something that used to be quite terrible is now something very pleasant and enjoyable.”

The founders tasted a similar beer when they were still homebrewers and decided to recreate it at Mast Landing.

“We wanted to get as close to the flavors of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in beer form as possible,” says Olen.

The brew was intended to be a one-time special release, but popular demand led to it being a year-round can offering. The brewery also releases a 10% ABV Imperial Gunner’s Daughter during the colder months.

(READ: Peanut Butter Beers You’ll Crave)

Rusty Rail Brewing | Fool’s Gold

If you were expecting the largest brewpub in Pennsylvania to play it safe with their distribution beers, you were wrong. Rusty Rail Brewing’s best-selling beer is a true weirdo, though a delicious one: an imperial peanut butter hefeweizen called Fool’s Gold.

Brewery director Guy McCarty says the brew team wanted to brew a peanut butter beer but didn’t want to brew the typical porter or stout. They decided to play on the flavor of a popular improvised childhood snack by combining the banana esters from Hefeweizen yeast with peanut butter.

“We knew it was a relatively out-there concept to do an imperial peanut butter hefe, so we released it draft-only as a one-off,” says McCarty of the 8% ABV beer. “It shocked us how awesome the final product tasted.”

(Recipe: Sea-Salted Peanut Butter Brownie Bars)

Liquid Mechanics | Peanut Butter Porter

Davin Heldin, “Captain of the Ship and Head Paper Filer” at Liquid Mechanics Brewing in Lafayette, Colorado, says his brewery doesn’t just want to make a sweet peanut butter beer. That’s why Liquid Mechanics Peanut Butter Porter is a beer first and a peanut butter beer second.

“Our goal is to create a beer that still tastes like beer, but with a hint of roasted peanut, not necessarily peanut butter,” he explains. “Subtlety with this beer is important to us. We want the peanut flavor to enhance the experience of drinking an imperial porter, not have the flavor of an imperial porter enhance the experience of drinking peanut butter.”

The beer came about as a collaboration with Justin’s Nut Butter, an organic peanut butter company from Boulder, Colorado. It was originally sold as a Valentine’s Day special release, but is now available year-round.

“We wanted the base for a peanut butter beer to have chocolate notes and mild roast,” explains Heldin. “Chocolate so that we could get close to having it taste like a dark chocolate peanut butter cup without adding any actual chocolate, and mild roast so that the peanut flavor tasted more like peanuts than peanut butter.”

Trillium Brewing | Peanut Butter PM Dawn

The peanut butter version of Trillium Brewing’s beloved PM Dawn coffee imperial stout was originally brewed to celebrate the Boston brewery’s 5th anniversary, but it has since returned as a small batch offering.

It’s the coffee here that really makes this beer unique. Trillium adds slightly less of their signature cold brew Italian roast coffee from Barrington Coffee Roasters than they do in the standard version, and the resulting synergy between nuts and beans will perk up even the most jaded of stout drinkers. The silky brew evokes images of peanut butter chocolate milkshakes or peanut butter toast with coffee.

We won’t even blame you if you have it with breakfast.

(More: Craft Beers for Margarita Lovers)

Mother Earth Brewing Co. | Sin Tax 

Kamron Khannakhjavani, director of marketing for Mother Earth Brewing Company in San Diego, gives credit where it’s due when asked about the origin of his brewery’s Sin Tax Imperial Peanut Butter Stout.

“The idea was spawned when fellow San Diego brewery Karl Strauss brewed a Peanut Butter Cup Porter,” explains Khannakhjavani. “We cranked up the ABV and chose a similar, yet differentiated style in imperial stout that we were confident could stand up to so many big flavors.”

In the collaborative spirit of independent craft brewing, the folks at Karl Strauss helped out with the big beer.

“Obviously respect for those that had produced something similar before us came into play when making the decision,” says Khannakhjavani. “So we consulted Karl’s co-founder Chris Cramer as well as their highly respected brewer Paul Segura and they provided tips on how to create a well-balanced offering. We adopted that to create a complementary yet different beer from theirs. Peanut butter has a distinct, rich flavor so we knew it had to be paired with something robust with enough viscosity and complexity to be complementary.”

He also says Sin Tax is a great table companion for a classic PB & J sandwich (the brewery even does a fruited version of the beer periodically) or barbecued dishes.

WeldWerks Brewing | Peanut Butter Medianoche

The highest ranked beer on Untappd from last year’s Great American Beer Festival wasn’t a hazy IPA or a barrel-aged sour. It was a peanut butter beer.

WeldWerks Brewing in Greeley, Colorado, is well-known for their line of Medianoche imperial stouts, and in 2018 they unveiled Peanut Butter Cup Medianoche. This decadent 13.1% ABV stout was first aged in Woodford Reserve Double Oaked and Breckenridge Distillery bourbon barrels, which were then blended together. Peanut flour was then added, as well as 15 lbs. per barrel of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

Medianoche releases are ultra rare and highly coveted, but if you have the chance, don’t pass this one up!

Lakewood Brewing | Peanut Butter Temptress

When Lakewood Brewing of Garland, Texas, stopped making the peanut butter version of their popular 9.1% ABV Temptress milk stout last year, they heard about it from fans right away. According to Wim Bens, founder and president of Lakewood, the brewery received some spirited phone calls from fans after the peanut butter beer sold out.

“We actually had someone call the brewery and say, ‘I heard you had a hard time making that beer. Figure it out!’” said Bens in a recent press release. They decided to make more this year, and used about a ton of peanuts to make it happen.

Temptress milk stout tangos with a lot of different fun ingredients in its Seduction line of variants, including mint, raspberry, and coconut, though peanut butter has seemed to be the most popular. Grab it before it’s gone—we wouldn’t want you to leave an angry call on poor Wim’s voicemail.

(Graphic: Gold Medal IPAs 1989-2018)

Listermann Brewing | Nutcase

Listemann Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio, is known for brewing unusual beers, including Chickow! imperial brown ale brewed with hazelnuts, but they’re no strangers to peanut butter either.

“Peanut butter is one of those comforting flavors of American childhood, a time when things felt simpler, possibly magical, when the world was new to you,” says Listermann head brewer Jared Lewinski. “All of those feelings were what we hoped to evoke when someone drank a Nutcase. We had a great porter base, and then we added lots of peanut butter character.”

Never content to keep things normal for too long, the Listermann team have cranked out numerous variants of Nutcase, including fruit versions to play on familiar peanut butter and jelly flavors. They’ve also brewed an Imperial Marshmallow Fluff variant.

Jared Brewer, manager at Listermann, says they originally brewed Nutcase as a joke when the world was supposed to end on December 2012 according to the Mayan calendar.

“Our co-owner Dan Listermann was very against us making a peanut butter beer,” he jokes. “We made one for the end of the world so if it did end, we would get to try this beer out.”

Fortunately, we’re all still here, and Nutcase isn’t going away either.

Garrison City Beerworks | Moral Sweatshirt 

With tens of thousands of beers being brewed by craft breweries in the U.S., coming up with memorable beer names can be tricky. Andy Gray, co-owner of Garrison City Beerworks in Dover, New Hampshire, came up with the odd name for his brewery’s peanut butter stout entirely by accident.

“The name was kind of an inside joke,” he says. “The staff was talking music one day and I walked in when Earl Sweatshirt came up, and I was convinced there was a rapper named Moral Sweatshirt. We decided that had the makings of a good beer name.”

The brewers had enjoyed several peanut butter stouts from other breweries, including the Mast Landing beer highlighted in this article, and wanted to put their own spin on the idea.

“We wanted to make something a little thicker, more velvety, and capture the best parts of the peanut flavor,” says Gray. “The base is chock-full of cacao nibs, the perfect complement to peanut butter. We wanted something drinkable, but smooth.”

The brewery does variations on the 7.5% ABV peanut butter beer from time to time, including one with banana and one with strawberry.

“There will be more to come, as there’s a ton of sweet flavors that pair well with PB and bring back visions of childhood,” says Gray. “How about s’more with PB?”

The post New and Noteworthy Peanut Butter Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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“Funding was really hard to come by,” explains Lay, who is also the head brewer. “Grants had dried up. It was hard to get money to support the work we were doing, and we would go out for beer after work and commiserate. One of us mentioned how great it would be if our beer money could be helping these organizations.”

That casual comment hatched an idea that grew into a truly unique brewery model.

With Lay as the head brewer, Lady Justice Brewing began selling beer in 2016 as a low-profit, limited-liability company (L3C), a business designation that allows a company to funnel its earnings directly and efficiently toward charitable causes.

“One-hundred percent of our profits over cost go to Colorado organizations that support women and girls,” says Lay.

Lady Justice settled on a unique way for selling those beers, since the brewery doesn’t yet have a permanent taproom. Inspired by Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives around the country in which individuals buy subscriptions for meat, eggs, or produce, Lady Justice releases beer through their CSB (Community Supported Beer) program. Members are able to pick up their packaged Lady Justice beer on monthly release days. The brewery recently concluded a six-month partnership to pour their beer in the taproom of fellow woman-owned Denver brewery Factotum, and are currently planning their own permanent home.

(READ: Drunk Driving Accident Inspires Craft Beer Non-Profit)

Beer Sales Benefit Organizations Who Help Women and Girls

Lay, Power, and Cuesta use the revenue from beer sales to help women and girls in Colorado through innovative benefit programs. Before each three-month CSB series, the team selects and announces the organizations or individuals who will receive donations from the subsequent round of giving so fans know exactly whom they’re supporting. Donation requests were initially selected through grant application process, but the format is less formal now to remove barriers to application.

Lady Justice has been able to help over 40 non-profits through the program, including Warm Cookies for the Revolution, a group that highlights women in political movements, and Rocky Mountain Immigration Advocacy Network, which offers legal advocacy for immigrants in Colorado.

It’s been the young people receiving help from Lady Justice who have really captured this power trio’s hearts though.

“My favorite youth grant was given away in 2018,” reflects Lay. “A 17-year-old girl was part of Su Teatro Cultural & Performing Arts Center, which focuses on Hispanic culture. They were going to be doing performances in Scotland. One of the reasons she gave for wanting to go was to show her seven-year-old cousin that you could be proud to speak with an accent and to have brown skin. We all cried when we read it, and we gave her the money to go on that trip.”

So far in 2019, Lady Justice has given funds to Girls Rock Denver and Queenz of Hip Hop, organizations that teach confidence and camaraderie through musical education for girls in the Mile High City, as well as a group that encourages young people to vote. They have also provided textbooks for a high school civics class that wanted to attend a conference but couldn’t afford the materials.

(READ: How Long is My Crowler Good?)

A Permanent Home for Lady Justice Brewing

“My cat doesn’t make noise until I get on the phone,” says Lay as we talk in June with the feline’s yowls audible in the background.

Lay has some free time this summer, as Lady Justice’s agreement to pour their beer at Factotum ended in mid-June. Lady Justice is currently looking into funding to build a permanent production and taproom home. In the meantime, they will continue to pour at festivals and will likely pursue guest tap opportunities with other breweries.

“The three of us have felt pretty good about building out a space that is essentially a community space that happens to make and sell beer,” says Lay. “A space where people can gather and meet, a space where anyone can feel welcome entering. We want to be able to offer space to folks in the community who want to teach classes or [hold events].”

The brewery initially launched through a crowdsourcing campaign, an option they’re considering as they look toward this next phase. They’re also looking into more conventional funding options.

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

“We’re really excited to find a place of our own and build up physically the sort of community we’ve had,” she explains. “We want to have the ability to make and sell as much of our beer as we can.”

They’re not alone. The Denver community is eager for the trio to have a permanent home. Some of that excitement is for the consistent access it will provide for drinking Lay’s beers, such as People Power Red IPA, or Astral Aviator, a blood orange pale ale with butterfly pea flowers and glitter. More than anything though, Denver is excited for the community and civic activism the location will afford.

“The excitement around Denver has been that they’re ready for us to grow bigger and faster than we expected,” reflects Lay. “Everybody that we talk to is really excited to see what happens next. It’s sort of this fun place to be at where we get to dream as big as we want and see what comes of it.”

The post Lady Justice Brewing Dreams Big, Supports Women-Based Causes appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

The scene is depicted on a 9-foot by 16-foot mural hanging over the bar at Rabid Brewing in Homewood, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago. Hand-painted by artist Annabelle Popa, the mural’s merging of mythologies both historical and invented perfectly captures the aesthetic both of Rabid and its founders, husband and wife team Tobias Cichon and Raiye Rosado. This oddly seamless blend of wonder and irreverence was displayed also in the pair’s late October nuptials several years ago.

“We had a backyard wedding in costumes,” chuckles Rosado. “My groom had horns and goat-skin chaps.”

The pair first discussed opening a brewery while on their honeymoon, and on October 2017, Rabid Brewing became the first craft brewery in Homewood. Their small taproom features chalkboard walls to encourage visitors to add their own tidbit to Rabid Brewing’s evolving mythology.

(Related: Stories Behind 10 Strange Beer Names)

That mythology isn’t confined to the taproom art. Cichon is currently writing a fantastical backstory for the brewery to market Rabid’s beers. The brewery primarily focuses on big, juicy IPAs and burly but graceful stouts. The liquid offerings get in on the imaginative fun with names like Dwarves of Doom, Lilliputian Warfare, and Shadowstepper.

‘We’re going back to the liquor store’

While Cichon handles most of the brewing, it was actually Rosado who got him into good beer in the first place.

“When Raiye and I first got together, I brought home a 12 pack of [a macro brew] and she looked at me with the most distraught face and said, ‘No, put that down, we’re going back to the liquor store,’” Cichon says, laughing. “We went back and purchased a few different beers. She taught me how to appreciate it.”

While the story shouldn’t sound remarkable, the pair are both amused and aggravated that it catches so many male craft beer fans off-guard. The story has helped open some minds, but Rosado says she’s continually frustrated when she encounters people with lingering attitudes against women in beer.

“She taught me how to appreciate it.” Tobias Cichon, Rabid Brewing

(Find: A US Brewery Near You)

“It doesn’t matter sometimes what is between my ears,” she says. “It’s hurtful. It’s hard.”

Rosado appreciates the camaraderie of meeting and working with other women in the industry.

“Getting involved with the Pinks Boots Society has helped,” she says. “That’s been phenomenal. Just the friendship with the other women to say, ‘Sometimes, this sucks.’”

Rosado does some brewing at Rabid, and she brings in women from the community to help out with these periodic “Bitches Brews.” She says most of these women have never brewed before, and the ownership they display over the finished product is exciting.

“They can be sitting in the taproom next to someone who orders the beer, and they’ll say, ‘I helped make that beer, that’s my beer.’”

Rosado hopes eventually to brew beers that include ingredients from her Puerto Rican culinary heritage as well.

Feast of the Goat Queen: Beer and Rebirth

Every May, Rabid hosts the Feast of the Goat Queen, a beer release party that is intended to be the antithesis to bro-centric beer fests.

“It’s kind of a fertility festival, a celebration of life and rebirth,” explains Rosado. “We have a goat queen in costume and she has a court of goat princesses.”

The family-friendly festival includes live baby goats, fire dancers, hoopers, and live music.

(Related: Tales from an Old Army Fort: Oozlefinch Brewing Rises Off Virginia’s Coast)

Both Cichon and Rosado are artists, and they host a weekly open mic night that encourages folks of all talent levels to bravely share their work.

“Yes, some really polished acts show up, but I treasure it because it’s a workshop night. You get applause for being great, and you get applause for being not so great but for making that attempt,” reflects Rosado. Both she and Cichon participate on these nights. “You’re here to be part of the story.”

Rabid Brewing as the Community’s Living Room

Diversity and inclusion are central to Rabid’s philosophy as a business.

“A lot of people meet here who wouldn’t meet any other way,” says Rosado. “There’s a broad range of faces on any given night, and they’re all hanging out together. Men, women, different ages, different colors, different belief systems. Sometimes they can’t agree on a whole lot, but they agree they like this beer and they like this place.”

“I’ve had evenings when I’m behind the bar and it’s me and 10 women,” says Cichon. “That’s a neat thing to see.”

(Travel: Beercationing in Michigan? Don’t Overlook Detroit)

Rabid Brewing’s bar top and tables were reclaimed from long-gone neighborhood bars in Homewood, and a given Saturday finds an eclectic but warm mix of people filling those seats. Some are there for Sumo Saturdays, when grand sumo matches are projected onto the brewery walls. Some are there to laugh with the small tribe of friends they’ve curated in the welcoming taproom. All are there to enjoy Rabid’s bold but accessible beers.

Step inside, grab a piece of chalk, and write yourself into the Rabid Brewing story.

The post Rabid Brewing, a Reflection of its Imaginative Founders appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Mifflinburg is a small place to be home to such a big brewpub, but Rusty Rail has invested in the future of this central Pennsylvania town of 3,500 people by reviving its past.

The massive three-story structure Rusty Rail calls home was built in 1911 for the former Mifflinburg Body Works, a company that manufactured wood bodies for Model T trucks.

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After hiring contractor Rich Shrader to handle the renovation (he’s now the brewpub’s general manager), Rusty Rail embarked on a two year project to turn their century-old manufacturing building into a craft beer destination for locals and travelers alike.

And what a project it was.

“That was quite the experience,” jokes Shrader. “We used a lot of local carpenters, local craftsmen, and a lot of Mennonite workers who have a history in this town, who understand the old buildings and how to work with them.”

Preserving the Building’s Legacy

When Henry Ford created the assembly line, this major local employer lost its main customer. After building military vehicles during World War II, the building was taken over by a cabinetry company who occupied it until 2007. Brothers Paul and Eric John bought it to use for their own cabinetry business, but they didn’t need anywhere close to the complex’s quarter million square feet. They wanted to use the rest of the property to preserve Mifflinburg’s history and create something the community could be proud of. They settled on the idea of a destination brewery.

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The John brothers and Shrader wanted to preserve the legacy of the building by restoring or repurposing as many of the original materials as they could.

“A lot of the brick in this building is unique and you can’t get it anywhere else,” explains Shrader. “All the flooring and the beams, we’d pull all that out and collect it and then we’d look at it and say, what can we use this for?”

The rail ties from the old tracks were milled down and used for bar tops, while chains from the old assembly line were used to make handrails. Corrugated metal from the factory’s original industrial ovens was used for partition walls.

“If we had choices to make during the renovation and we went to the owners, they would usually say, ‘What would be as close to what would originally have been here as possible, and will it be here a hundred years from now?’” reflects Shrader.

Rusty Rail as a Destination Brewery

During the heyday of the Body Works, a spur line of the local railroad ran straight through the center of the factory to unload truck chassis for the wooden bodies to be mounted on, and then the finished trucks would be loaded back on the rail cars to be taken away to dealerships. Rusty Rail has been able to preserve this part of the building’s history by fully restoring and displaying several Model T trucks that were built in the facility.

One was found three blocks away in an old barn, having never left the area. Another was purchased at auction.

(Seek the Seal: Brewers Association Independent Craft Brewer Seal)

“I told the woman who was selling it, whose father had owned it, that I was going to restore it and display it in our building, so any time she wanted a reminder of her father, she could come there and look at it,” recalls Shrader.

One of these old trucks has been repurposed as a brewery event vehicle for festivals and town parades, and is retrofitted with working beer taps.

The large main floor of Rusty Rail’s brewpub includes distinct dining areas and a music stage for concerts. Walls behind the bar area extend to the second-floor ceiling and feature large murals by local artist Jef McGreevy. The second floor has its own separate bar and kitchen, and features arcade games, shuffleboard tables, and 1923 Brunswick pool tables.

The expansive facility has become a popular destination for weddings. In addition to event space, the brewery has an events coordinator and a wedding planner on staff. Rusty Rail hosts 40 to 50 weddings a year, and they remodeled the top floor of their building into eight rustic luxury suites to give couples and their wedding parties a place to stay as they celebrate.

“We recently had a wedding booked from Hawaii,” says Shrader. “We ended up doing a Skype interview and tour of the facility and they booked their wedding here off of that.”

Fool’s Gold Imperial Peanut Butter Hefeweizen

While it’s easy to focus on the grandeur of Rusty Rail’s historic building and the bustling events it hosts, the beer is no less impressive. Visitors can expect a diverse range of styles, including Fog Monster hazy IPA and Wolf King Warrior Imperial Stout. Perhaps their best-known beer is Fool’s Gold, an imperial peanut butter hefeweizen. The 8% ABV beer combines subtle peanut butter with the banana notes of German weizen yeast to evoke memories of a popular childhood snack.

(Visit: Find a US Brewery Near You)

“We take pride in being ahead of the beer trends in our local area and introducing the local population to new beers,” says brewery director Guy McCarty. “We feel like we have a really unique product with Fool’s Gold that no one else is making.”

Rusty Rail’s facility allows the brewery to create a diversity of experiences under one roof. There are all-weather and outdoor patios, a restaurant, multiple bars, a game room, and lounge space. It’s like taking half a dozen different taproom concepts and melding them together in one grand, historic space. Mifflinburg might be a small place, but Rusty Rail Brewing has put this former industrial town on the craft beer map.

The post Old Manufacturing Building is Now Pennsylvania’s Largest Brewpub appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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After the fire trucks left, Amanda and her mother-in-law spent all night putting the remaining flames out with a garden hose and dragging salvageable barn wood from the ruins.

“Coming home from work every day and seeing a big pile of rubble was so heartbreaking,” says Amanda. “We forgot about the brewery for a while.”

It took a few years longer than planned, but the Conrads eventually opened Sandy Springs Brewing Co. in a storied building in the small town of Minerva in November 2017.

(More: Jobs, Stable Growth Headline 2018 Craft Beer Growth Report)

Salvaged barn wood, much of it scorched from the fire, decorates the taproom. It’s become the gathering place for this rural town.

The Brewers Quarters at Sandy Springs Brewing

Not everyone who steps inside Sandy Springs Brewing is from the area, however, and Andy and Amanda want to make their space inviting for travelers. So they started a hotel, and it’s right upstairs.

The Brewers Quarters is a studio-style hotel room listed on Airbnb. The “BQ” features exposed brick and warm wood surfaces, much like the taproom. Visitors get a full growler of any Sandy Springs beer installed on a kegerator in the room when they check in (after showing a valid ID, of course).

The Conrads, along with business partners Ross and Renae Blair, purchased and restored the upper floor of a building adjacent to their taproom so visitors could enjoy an evening of drinking beer in the taproom without worrying about the ride home.

(More: New York Farm Breweries are About Local Agriculture, Not Location)

The idea came to Andy and Amanda while they were traveling around the West in their RV after graduating college. The pair headed west to look for work in a dilapidated 1998 Chateau motorhome they’d bought purchased cheap.

“We were poor like all college students,” jokes Amanda. “We got a flat tire that first night. The side panel ripped off while we were driving down the highway.”

Still, Amanda says they wouldn’t do anything differently about the three years they spent on the road.

“We went to any small town and brewery along the way. We loved how those breweries revitalized those towns,” she recalls. “A lot of the places we went out west we never had to worry about drinking and driving. At Rogue in Oregon, the campground is by their parking lot.”

Gummy Worm Pale Ale

The Conrads brew on a 5-barrel system inside a building that once housed Minerva’s first gas station. No theme organizes the brewery’s beer offerings, which range from the regionally popular cream ale style to imperial stouts, IPAs, Belgian blondes, German-style lagers and more. The taproom seats around 50 people.

(Map: Find a Brewery Near Me)

A small kitchen provides an eclectic list of sandwiches, flatbreads, and other light dishes, and 16 house beers are kept on draft. The bar also has an infusion tower, with a different beer and flavor addition weekly, like chili peppers or fresh roasted coffee. They even take customer requests.

“When we ran our pale ale through gummy worms, we had a line out the door,” laughs Amanda.

The top seller is Lost Gold, an easy-drinking pre-Prohibition cream ale named after a local legend of treasure buried by retreating French troops in the 18th century.

“It goes back to younger days when we were just starting to drink beer,” explains Andy of the gateway style popular throughout the state. “Cream ale was one of my earliest memories of trying a beer that was different.”

(Style Spotlight: American Cream Ale)

Meet Virginia, an 11% ABV imperial stout with dark chocolate, is a big beer named for a taproom regular with an equally big personality.

“She’s 75, and she’s so outspoken,” explains Amanda. “People will come in and she’ll be at the bar, and she’ll say something to them that can sometimes catch them really off guard. We’ll laugh and say, ‘Meet Virginia.’ We love her to pieces.”

Virginia is an ordained minister who used to preach at Andy’s childhood church. She comes in every Friday with her best friend, an atheist.

“She’s a celebrity now,” says Amanda with obvious affection.

While breweries in hip urban neighborhoods tend to get a lot of attention, craft beer is establishing itself in small towns across America as a vital part of those communities as well. Sandy Springs Brewing has brought hazy IPAs, imperial stouts, and gummy worm pale ales to Minerva, and the locals can’t get enough. If you make the trip to this tiny town, the Conrads will have the Brewers Quarters ready for you, and their eclectic cast of taproom regulars will make you feel right at home.

The post Feel at Home In This Ohio Brewery’s Airbnb appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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The Brewers Association’s 2018 style guidelines describe the style as having low to medium hop aroma, medium to medium-high bitterness, and moderate levels of caramel, chocolate, and roasted malt character. While those provide some boundaries, they leave much to the imagination of the brewer creating a new example of the style, and brewers do indeed interpret American Brown Ale in wide a variety of ways.

Homebrewing Roots

As with many modern craft beer styles, we have homebrewers to thank for American Brown Ale. Scott Birdwell, the owner of DeFalco’s Home Wine and Spirits Supplies in Houston and a pioneer in the early homebrewing movement, fondly remembers the early brews that laid the foundation for the beer style. The first whisperings of the new style came to him from some California homebrew shop owners at a conference in the early 1980s.

“They were telling me about some brown ale recipes that were kicking butt and taking names out there in California, but getting hosed at the national homebrew competitions,” recalls Birdwell. At the time, the understanding of brown ale was taken from the classic English versions, which were much milder beers than these new homebrewed versions. “These were really nice beers, but, frankly, didn’t fit the style guidelines in use at the time. These new brown ales were too assertive. The bit of roastiness was forgivable, but the hop bite and bouquet were a deal-breaker for the brown ale category.”

(Relate: A ‘Stirring Tale’ Behind the Father of Homebrewing’s Famous Spoon)

Birdwell began adding a “California Dark Ale” category in homebrewing competitions back in Texas, and before long amateur brewers nationally were crafting beers known as “Texas Brown Ale.” Soon, commercial beers like Pete’s Wicked Ale and Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool brought a slightly toned-down version to store shelves. Birdwell says that at point the Texas Brown Ale became the American Brown Ale.

But what is modern American Brown Ale? The answer can be tricky to nail down.

So What’s a Brown Ale?

“Brown ale has always been a little nebulous,” says author and beer historian Randy Mosher. “I think ABAs reflect that American penchant for disregarding conventions and forging ahead with bold, inventive interpretations.”

Historically, brown ale began as a loose collection of brown, top-fermented beer styles in England that eventually coalesced into the porter style in the 17th century. The style had become an afterthought in its own country by the time a few intrepid homebrewers rediscovered the style on the other side of the Atlantic two centuries later.

(Style Spotlight: American Brown Ale)

I asked some professional brewers who have had success with the style to offer their expertise on what American Brown Ale is and isn’t.

Avenues for Experimentation

Yellow Springs Brewery in the eponymous small town near Dayton, Ohio, opened in April 2013, and current head brewer Jayson Hartings started as a production worker just months after the brewery launched. The brewery made Handsome Brown Ale one of their first beers.

(More: Wisconsin Brewers Bring Old, Rare and Unusual Beers Back to Life)

“I worked very closely with the head brewer at the time, Jeffrey McElfresh. He preferred a more bitter charge for that beer,” recalls Hartings.

“We brew Handsome with American 2-row malt, and it’s pretty clean. There’s no real English biscuity character,” comments Hartings. “There’s a touch of Munich malt and some English pale chocolate malts. It has a little of the roasty chocolate and coffee notes in the balance but there’s none of that roasted barley character. There’s a good amount of Columbus hops in there. We’ve been accused of Handsome being more of a brown porter. It’s got some pretty bold flavor for a brown ale.”

So what’s the difference?

“It’s a real swim-line,” admits Hartings. “If we made a porter. It would not be that different.”

The use of American hops is one defining factor.

“Columbus has a real pungent depth to the hop,” says Hartings. “Handsome is a very American brown. It’s got the American hops, the boldness, the bite. It drives that style pretty much to the limit.”

He mentions Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale, which that brewery refers to as a “Dark IPA,” as an example of a beer further pushing the hoppy boundaries of American Brown Ale.

(Related: Dogfish Head Makes a Statement with New 60 Minute IPA Packaging)

“I love the English styles of brown ale,” he reflects. “But the avenues for experimentation [for American Brown] open things up a bit. It’s just the evolution of it, people are trying a lot of different things with it. That’s a good reason we’ve seen diversity within the style.”

Jason Salas, brewery operations manager at New Holland Brewing in Holland, Michigan, thinks that need to experiment is driving the divergence from classic flavor profiles. His brewery’s own brown ale, Cabin Fever, is a seasonal release that doesn’t hew too closely to the style guidelines.

“I think it’s maybe approaching the boundaries of what a brown ale technically is,” says Salas. “We wouldn’t be sending this into a brown ale competition. It’s more roasty, like a stout.”

At Hi-Wire Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina, head brewer Luke Holgate has taken a more classic approach to American brown ales with his Bed of Nails Brown Ale.

“I really wanted to do a nod to the traditional brown ale,” he says. “Keep the roast character out of it and not make it a light porter.”

Holgate builds malt complexity with Special B malt from Castle Malts, which produces dark fruit, cherry, and plum notes, as well as with an astonishing amount of crystal malt.

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“Any traditional brewer would look at me like I’m crazy for the percentage of crystal malts we use in Bed of Nails. About 30 percent of the grist is varying degrees of crystal.”

“I think brown ale is underserved, but I feel like there’s a lot more diversity now,” reflects Holgate. “I really feel like 5-6 years ago it was just a light porter that was aggressively hopped. You can brew a more English brown ale now.”

Holgate sees this variance within the style as indicative of the broader market.

“It’s just kind of the reality now. IPA was so popular it made sense to split it up into different categories.”

Will the Real American Brown Ale Please Stand Up?

So which of these is a real American Brown Ale?

All of them.

The style sits at the intersection of easily definable flavor bookends. It can have moderate hop bitterness and flavor, but not as much as IPA. It can have moderately rich maltiness, but not as much as bock beer. It can have moderate roastiness, but not as much as stout. If you draw a circle around American Brown Ale, it’s easier to label the borders than it is to label the center.

American Brown Ale’s flavor profile doesn’t immediately seem precarious or transitive, but if you significantly elevate or diminish any of its major flavor descriptors, you tilt its entire flavor profile in a new direction. If you make an IPA more or less bitter or hoppy, you get a more or less bitter and hoppy IPA. If you adjust the roast on a stout, you get a more or less intensely roasty stout. Shift these attributes on American Brown Ale, and you slide into a different style altogether.

Scott Birdwell, who was there at the style’s inception, sees sharper distinctions between the style’s origin and its present interpretations.

“These days, we still refer to Texas Brown Ales,” he says. “They’re extreme American Brown Ales: O.G. at least 1.060 and 40 IBUs. But that may just be me.”

His final words highlight the central difficulty of defining this modern classic. American Brown Ale, more so than many styles, is exactly what each brewer thinks it is.

What does that mean for us as drinkers? Craft beer is all about exploration, but we often pigeonhole ourselves when we go to a taproom, not venturing from flavors we know we like. When you order a brown ale today, you have a loose idea of what it will taste like based on the style guidelines, but there is much room for the brewer to do something unexpected. It might sound counterintuitive to think of ordering a brown ale as an adventurous choice, but the style offers more room for surprises than you might think. Be brave, order a brown ale, and see how the brewer has interpreted this fascinating style.

The post The Evolving American Brown Ale appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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It’s not surprising then that so many craft breweries use railroad names and images, since those same words and truths have defined the world of independent brewing in this country. Why not take a road trip this summer (with a designated driver, of course) to some of these craft breweries themed around the history and romance of the railroad?

(More: 10 Beertography Tips from the Pros)

Titletown Brewing Company | Green Bay, Wisconsin

Titletown Brewing Company occupies a former Chicago and North Western Railway station that was built in 1898. The depot was a once a major stop for the railroad’s Lake Shore Division, and stories abound of famous persons who embarked to or from the beautiful brick station house with its still extant four-story clock tower.

While passenger service to the depot ceased years ago, Titletown’s depot taproom does sit beside a busy freight track. “We’re still on a Canadian National (CN) freight line and see anywhere from 10-15 trains a day,” says brewery president and founder Brent Weycker. “Our bartenders blow a train whistle every time one goes by.”

(List: A Beer Geek’s Travel Checklist)

The depot was the location for Lon Chaney’s final silent film, “Thunder,” about a railroad engineer seeking redemption after a tragic train wreck, and also served as the embarkation and arrival point for several significant Green Bay Packers trips in the team’s early days nearly a century ago, according to Weycker.

While waving at the CN trains, enjoy a Loose Caboose Belgian IPA or a 400 Honey Ale, named for the Peninsula 400, a legendary passenger train that used to service the station.

Railroad Brewing Company | Avon, Ohio

“We don’t puke railroad collector items,” says Railroad Brewing’s Dave Lengyel, who wears a variety of hats for the brewery in Avon, Ohio. “We embrace railroad design.”

Railroad-derived or -inspired items are tastefully implemented throughout the taproom about half an hour west of Cleveland. Purse and coat hooks are forged from railroad spikes, as are the handles for the brewery’s twelve taps. The taproom’s custom-built 30-foot light fixture is made with railroad track, and you can rest your boots on a railroad track footrest at the bar. A large community table in the shape of Ohio is made from railroad ties.

(Find: A US Brewery Near You)

While enjoying these accoutrements, sip on one of several train-themed brews, including Trainwreck IPA, Crooked Rail Maple Brown Ale, or Coal Train American Stout. Red Caboose is the brewery’s flagship amber ale made with Nugget and Amarillo hops.

Railroad Brewing is located just a mile from the former Lakeshore Electric Railway that ran into downtown Cleveland, and after checking out the brewery, you can view an original station and electric train car in Avon.

Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery | Flossmoor, Illinois

While Chicagoland is a mecca for craft beer fans today, Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery has been around longer than most of the area’s nearly 200 breweries. The brewpub was founded in 1996 in the charming downtown of Flossmoor in the city’s south suburbs. Local residents Dean and Carolyn Armstrong didn’t want to see the town’s former train station, built in 1906, deteriorate and be demolished, so they purchased and renovated the structure and opened a brewery restaurant.

The beautifully restored station still sits directly beside a busy set of five train tracks and sees regular freight, Amtrak and Metra traffic. Train-loving diners and drinkers sitting at the bar or the outdoor patio can feast on the near-constant rail action along with Flossmoor’s excellent pub fare. The bar area also features operating model trains running on tracks near the ceiling.

Flossmoor Station focuses on quality and drinkability for their award-winning beers, most of which carry railroad-themed names, like Station Master Wheat Ale, Gandy Dancer Honey Ale and Rail Hopper IPA. Their beers have garnered numerous awards, and in 2006 the brewery was honored as Best Small Brewpub at the Great American Beer Festival. Hop aboard a Metra train from downtown Chicago and climb off at this gorgeous brewing destination.

McMenamins Roseburg Station Pub & Brewery | Roseburg, Oregon

McMenamins operates dozens of brewpubs and boutique inns around Oregon, but their Roseburg Station location in the small town of Roseburg in the southwest region of the state will be of most interest to rail fans. The brewery and restaurant is housed inside a former Southern Pacific rail station built in 1912 that has been lovingly restored to its former glory.

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The taproom station features the original vaulted, 16-foot ceiling, tongue-and-groove fir wainscoting and marble molding. Pictures of the town’s railroad history cover the walls. You can even download a PDF tour guide for the photos and a written history of the town’s railroading past before you go.

An outdoor patio provides a peaceful setting to enjoy the brewery’s beers, like Terminator Stout or 33rd State IPA. At least, it’s peaceful most of the time. As the brewery’s website warns, “When a train passes by –hold on to your beer!”

Steamworks Brewing Company | Durango, Colorado

Durango, Colorado, was founded in 1879 by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, and the town’s history is intimately connected to the iron horse. Trains still run through this small Western mountain town, including one of particular interest to beer lovers. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad & Museum offers numerous excursions aboard their historic train pulled by a restored steam locomotive, and one special ride offers local craft beer. The Durango Brew Train takes passengers on a stunningly scenic train ride through the mountains while they enjoy beers and talk with brewers from Colorado craft breweries, including Durango’s own Steamworks Brewing.

(Learn: Beer & Food Course)

The Steamworks taproom is just a couple blocks from the museum, and several of their beers pay homage to the town’s rail history. Steam Engine Lager has earned six Great American Beer Festival medals over the years in the American-style Amber Lager category, including golds in 1997, 2000, 2006 and 2007. Night Train Dark Lager just earned a World Beer Cup gold in April in the Dark Lager category.

Old Rail Brewing Company | Mandeville, Louisiana

Over a century ago, Mandeville was a lumber town, and trains were needed to haul the area’s pine and hardwood away. A branch line from New Orleans snaked up to Mandeville on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and while the rails are gone, the path it followed it is still there and has been converted into St. Tammany Trace, a walking and biking trail. Old Rail Brewing sits along this trail, allowing runners, hikers and bikers a convenient watering hole after a day enjoying a path once followed by lumbering steam locomotives.

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Old Rail tips a hat to the path’s former use with beers carrying names like Hobo Helles, Pullman Porter, Cow Catcher Milk Stout, and Rusted Rail Ale. Rail-minded visitors will enjoy seeing these beers drawn from railroad spike tap handles while kicking their feet up on foot rests made from old train rails.

Ghost Train Brewing Company | Birmingham, Alabama

Like many American cities, Birmingham went through a rough patch in the 1970s and 1980s, but the creative, resilient spirit of the city is being felt again with thriving food and art scenes, and craft brewers are part of that rejuvenation. One icon of the city’s former splendor that was lost at the outset of those grim decades was Birmingham Terminal Station, a hulking Byzantine structure that was demolished in 1969. Ghost Train Brewing pays homage to the lost building, which co-founder and brewer Taylor DeBoer calls “Birmingham’s most beautiful ghost,” with Terminal Station Brown Ale, which sits at a sessionable 4.5% ABV.

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Other beers in the Ghost Train lineup serve as tribute to the railroad’s history in Birmingham as well, including Switchman’s Stash IPL and Dark Ride Belgian Style Strong Ale. All the Ghost Train beers can be enjoyed in the brewery’s loosely railroad-themed taproom, which was the former location of Cahaba Brewing.

Rusty Rail Brewing | Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania

Rusty Rail’s painstakingly restored building is big. Really big. It started life in 1911 as the Mifflinburg Body Works and manufactured parts and bodies for automobiles, carriages, and, during World War II, military equipment. The building’s industrial past has been lovingly attended to throughout the sprawling brewpub space, with antiques and reclaimed materials used everywhere possible. This includes several fully restored antique Ford trucks, the parts for which were once manufactured in the building.

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Rusty Rail takes its name from the spur line that once ran to the factory, bringing materials in and taking finished parts out. Old rail spikes have been fashioned into door handles, and many of the brewery’s beers carry train-themed names, including Rail Spike IPA and Train Wreck Imperial IPA. Trail’s End Pale Ale references the former rail line that has now been turned into a walking and biking trail running straight to the brewery.

The entire brewery experience is a tribute not only to the history of rail in the region, but to the industries the railroad serviced and made possible. According to their website, Rusty Rail’s taproom is the largest brewpub in the state, and if you love history (and beer), you need to check it out.

Caboose Brewing Company | Vienna, Virginia

One of the landmarks of Vienna, Virginia, is the “Red Caboose,” a former Washington & Old Dominion Railroad caboose that proudly sits in the middle of town on the former W&OD train line, now a biking and walking path. Caboose Brewing tips their cap to the town’s railroad past and the town’s pride in its big red icon by naming their brewery for the caboose, which sits less than half a mile from the brewery along the trail path.

Caboose Brewing’s taproom features railroad artwork and pours multiple beers with train names, including Boxcar Brown Ale, Sidetrack Saison, Crazy Train Tripel, Gandy Dancer Schwarzbierand Vanilla Hobo Stout.

If you come to Vienna on the right day, you might even get to watch some train action of the miniature variety. The Northern Virginia Model Railroaders have an elaborate model train set-up in the town’s former train depot, and periodically host open houses to showcase their meticulously crafted layout. Keep an eye on their open house schedule so you can check out their trains in action, and then stop in at Caboose Brewing to taste beers inspired by the region’s railroading history.

All Aboard

Trains might not be as prominent in American life as they once were, but many folks are working to preserve our railroad legacy – and judging from this list, quite a few of them love good craft beer, too. While you can get to any of these breweries in a car, you can even take a train to a few of them (or get reasonably close). Whatever your means of transportation, head out this summer to celebrate two testaments to American innovation: railroads and craft beer. All aboard!

The post 9 Train-themed Craft Breweries appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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But what about the classic flavor of, well, beer? You know the one — the flavor of the easy-drinking lager you enjoyed before you woke up to the wonders of craft brewing. A flavor you perhaps still pine for on occasion?

Never fear. Beer tasted like beer long before it tasted like a pastry, a latte, or a milkshake, and a new movement of crushable lagers is sweeping through the craft beer world, making beers that taste like beer cool again. Of course, if you ask the country’s craft brewers themselves, most of them will tell you it never stopped being cool, so shed your lager hang-ups and enjoy one of these beer-flavored craft beers!

(READ: 2018 Summer Craft Beers: IPAs, Lagers, Fruit Beers and More)

Urban Chestnut Brewing Co. | Zwickel | St. Louis

Few brewmasters in the U.S. have a pedigree for brewing classic German-style lagers quite like Urban Chestnut‘s Florian Kuplent. The Bavarian son apprenticed at a small artisan brewery in his homeland before moving on to posts at respected breweries elsewhere in Germany and in Belgium, England, and the U.S. He earned a master’s degree in malting and brewing science from the University of Munich-Weihenstephan, and even worked for a time at the world’s largest brewery (hint: their American headquarters is in the same city at Urban Chestnut). When Kuplent decides to brew a smooth but full-flavored lager, you can bet it’s going to be awesome.

Zwickel is the flagship beer for Urban Chestnut’s Reverence series, a line of beers that pays homage to long-standing European brewing traditions. This unfiltered and unpasteurized lager has a naturally cloudy appearance and a pillowy mouthfeel, accompanied by gorgeous and slightly rustic bready malt tones with a finishing kiss of German hop bitterness. Zwickel has won plenty of awards, none so prestigious as the involuntary “oh my god” I uttered the first time I tasted it at The Heorot in Muncie, Indiana.

August Schell Brewing Co. | Schell’s Deer Brand | New Ulm, MN

August Schell left Germany for America in 1848 and, like so many 19th century German immigrants, landed in the Midwest. He and his wife, together with other immigrant families, founded the town of New Ulm, Minnesota, and in 1860 he began construction on his brewery. Six generations later, that brewery still in the family, and is still producing some of the best German-style lagers in the country.

American adjunct lagers have their roots in brewing practices honed by German-Americans over a century ago when they adapted the crisp lagers of their homeland to the unique conditions and ingredients of North America. Many craft brewers produce a “pre-Prohibition lager” in tribute to those early days of brewing innovation, but Schell’s version has actually been around that long. Schell‘s Deer Brand is made with 70 percent barley malt and 30 percent corn, yielding a light 4.8% ABV lager that enjoys an unbroken heritage back to the first evolution of this distinctly American style.

(READ: Untold Stories from Craft Beer Founders)

Warped Wing Brewing Co. | Trotwood Lager | Dayton, OH

Warped Wing brewmaster John Haggerty trained as a brewer in Germany many years ago, and his brewery in Dayton, Ohio, now produces everything from explosively hoppy IPAs to elegant wine barrel-aged saisons. They’ve begun to carve out a niche for themselves however with a line of highly quaffable lagers, with two permanent lager brands and four seasonal lagers.

The beer that made it happen is Trotwood Lager, named for an erstwhile local manufacturer of tin-can camping trailers. It was never intended to be released on its own when it was first brewed.

“A couple of years ago we made a radler using grapefruit juice,” explains Haggerty. “When we made the base beer the brewing staff were drinking it and thought that we would like to make the base as its own stand-alone brand. At the time, we really didn’t have a pathway to bring that to market.” A few months later, the brewery purchased and restored a 1956 Trotwood Trailer as their event vehicle, and Haggerty got his chance to release Trotwood Lager on its own. The light, 4% ABV all-malt lager was expected to be a one-off release for the summer, but it quickly became their best-selling brand.

“Brewers like these beers [because] it’s a show of your technical chops,” observes Haggerty on the popularity of craft lagers among brewing professionals. “You have to have your sh*t together in the cellar in order to make it happen.”

Night Shift Brewing | Nite Lite | Everett, MA

Quick: which beer styles come to mind when I say “Night Shift Brewing?” Big, juicy IPAs and barrel-aged delicacies, right? You’d be forgiven if your first answer wasn’t light adjunct lagers, but welcome to 2018.

Night Shift made a splash a few months back with a marketing campaign explicitly aimed at challenging macro breweries at their own game. Nite Lite is a 20 percent corn lager that the brewery describes up front on their website as being “simple, as light lager should be.” Even the font on the cans and the supermarket-friendly 12-packs are reminiscent of some of the macro brands, though the Lite Brite-inspired Night Shift owl logo tells you some independent craft beer “mischief” is afoot. Nite Lite is unfiltered and unpasteurized, and unwilling to allow Big Beer to own the light lager category.

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Arches Brewing | Unseasonal Lager | Hapeville, GA

Arches Brewing operates near the Atlanta airport, and travelers come through their doors constantly. “I see it all the time where two people will come into the brewery, and one of them is a craft drinker and one of them is not,” says founder and brewmaster Jamey Adams. “What do I give both of them that they’ll both appreciate?”

The answer is usually Unseasonal Lager, the brewery’s flagship amber lager that combines Old World brewing techniques and New World hops. The beer is double-decocted and brewed with a single base grain, and a subtle change in mash temperature yields a slightly darker, fuller beer in the winter and a lighter offering in the summer.

While the beer is available year round, the lager-focused brewery offers a rotating cast of eight seasonal lagers, and they recently launched Lager Lab to educate beer lovers about what makes these beers unique.

After moving to a 20 barrel system, Arches was trying to figure out what to do with their old three-barrel system. They decided to use the smaller set-up to brew more hard-to-find historical lagers as part of their educational efforts.

“When I walk into a brewery, I don’t ask for an IPA,” Adams says, bucking the trend around craft beer’s most popular style. “I don’t think that’s going to show me their range. I think a lager can do that.”

Wibby Brewing | Lightshine Helles | Longmont, CO

Ryan Wibby, co-founder and brewmaster at Colorado’s Wibby Brewing, is another brewer on this list who trained in Germany, the promised land of lagers. He does recall an assignment at VLB Berlin however that directly equipped him for his eventual career producing classic German lagers with ingredients from this side of the Atlantic.

“When our class was challenged to create a traditional German lager using American hops, I realized that there was a great opportunity here,” recounts Wibby. “Combining traditional German brewing technique and style with the creativity and innovation of the American craft beer movement proved to produce delicious beer.”

Wibby has put what he learned to good use at his namesake brewery with Lightshine Helles, a clean, classic Munich Helles lager hopped entirely with Centennial hops. Much like Warped Wing’s Trotwood Lager, Lightshine also serves as the foundation for a radler. Lightshine Radler is made with house-made raspberry lemonade and is available in cans from April through October.

(READ: Breweries Worth a Detour)

Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. | Original Lager | Cincinnati

Christian Moerlein was one of thousands of German immigrants who settled in Cincinnati during the 1800s, and one of dozens who started a brewery there. His brewery eventually became one of the largest in the country, but didn’t survive the purge of Prohibition. Fortunately, the Christian Moerlein brand has been revived (along with dozens of other Cincinnati heritage brands) by Greg Hardman, who purchased the Moerlein name in 2004 and opened a new craft brewery and a lager house in Cincinnati in 2012.

Moerlein Original Lager, a new release for 2018, pays homage to a beer of the same name brewed by the original Christian Moerlein in the 1850s. The Vienna-style lager is brewed with German noble hops and comes in at 5.2% ABV.

One of the highlights of visiting the Moerlein production brewery is the opportunity to tour the 1800s lager cellars from the building’s former life as the John Kauffman brewery. This window back into the history of lager brewing offers perspective to the current craft lager trend. In Cincinnati and countless other American cities, beer that tastes like beer is nothing new.

Bierstadt Lagerhaus | Slow Pour Pils | Denver

“I love lager. Like really love it,” says Ashleigh Carter, head brewer and co-owner of Bierstadt Lagerhaus in Denver. That love is evident in the set-up for her brewery, which produces lagers exclusively.

“Making traditional-to-style beer these days is unique,” she continues. “No twist, no little spin; strict adherence to the styles we undertake. We designed a brewery to make lager and lager only and the majority of what we make is Slow Pour Pils and Helles.”

Slow Pour Pils comes by its name honestly. You better be patient when you order it at the brewery’s taproom bar. It’ll be a few minutes before it arrives in front of you in the brewery’s signature art deco-inspired glassware.

“We pour it traditionally [with] multiple steps and it takes about 4 minutes.” Carter explains. “This is to really take the time to build the head and soften the carbonation in the beer. It not only looks beautiful but serves to enhance the delicate flavors of the Pils.”

(READ: How the Pilsner Beer Ruled the World)

Dovetail Brewery | Dovetail Lager | Chicago

When you’re looking at beers that taste like the popular perception of beer, a brewery offering a libation simply called “Lager” is a good place to start. Chicago’s Dovetail Brewery is one of the most respected lager- and European-focused breweries in the Windy City, but when it comes to brewing a beer to please every palate, they keep things simple with Dovetail Lager.

At 4.8% ABV and 22 IBUs, Dovetail Lager is clean and easy to drink, but doesn’t skimp on flavor. Founders and brewers Bill Wesselink and Hagen Dost met in Munich while completing their Master Brewer Certifications at the Doemens Institute, and their passion for classic brewing techniques and styles informs their flagship brew.

Prost Brewing | Keller Pils | Denver

With a name like Prost, you better be able to make some excellent German beers, and this Denver brewery whose name is German for “Cheers!” delivers the goods. Prost Brewing produces a full line of classic German lagers and ales (and nothing else), several of which have taken home Great American Beer Festival® hardware.

Their Keller Pils is an unfiltered, naturally carbonated version of their Prost Pils, and won GABF gold in 2013 in the Kellerbier or Zwickelbier category. The 4.6% ABV beer is cloudier than the brewery’s mature Pils, and slightly less effervescent, with a soft texture and an assertive 37 IBUs of German hop bitterness from Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops.

If you love beer that tastes like beer, you can’t go wrong with anything from this German-inspired brewery in the Rocky Mountains, but the Keller Pils will have you believing you’re in a sun-dappled German beer garden.

(TRAVEL: These New Breweries Leave a Big Impression)

Mission Brewery | California Craft Lager | San Diego

When I asked Mission Brewery‘s lead brewer Jeremy Castellano what went into deciding to brew California Craft Lager, his answer was pretty simple: it’s just too sunny in San Diego to be drinking strong IPAs all the time. “As San Diegans, we get nearly 360 days of sun per year, and while the plethora of great IPAs brewed in this city is truly a blessing, they’re not always the best for enjoying a hot summer afternoon,” laments Castellano.

Boo hoo, right? (Just kidding, Jeremy.)

“We decided to brew a lager that we’d be happy to drink in the yard, at the beach, or while camping,” he continues, and this 4.2% ABV, 20 IBU would certainly be easier to throw back in the southern Cali sun than an 8% ABV, 100 IBU hop grenade. When reflecting on the emergence of craft lagers however, Castellano credits IPAs and other big ale styles for laying the groundwork.

“I think the current craft lager movement has been a long time coming, but couldn’t have happened without flavorful ales leading the way,” he says.

Rather than brew a Mexican- or German-inspired lager, Mission experimented with various adjuncts, yeasts, hops, and fermentation details to settle on a beer Castellano describes as “balanced, smooth, easy-drinking and probably the favorite beer of our brewers.”

Chuckanut Brewery | Kölsch | Bellingham, WA

There’s no way I could write an article about “beer-flavored” craft lagers without mentioning Chuckanut Brewery, a revered producer of classic European styles. To keep things unexpected however, I’m choosing a Chuckanut beer that’s technically an ale, not a lager. Kölsch is a beer style from Cologne, Germany, that is brewed with ale yeast at a slightly cool temperature and then lagered, yielding a clean, brilliantly clear lager-like brew.

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

To call Chuckanut’s Kölsch “award-winning” is like calling Lebron James “athletic”: technically true, but vastly understated. Check out how this beer has fared at the Great American Beer Festival in recent years: gold (2011), silver (2012), gold (2015), gold (2017). Add a silver (2012) and gold (2018) from the World Beer Cup and a smattering of other national and regional awards and you can trust this 4.5% ABV beer is as good as they come, proving a delicate ale style in the hands of a gifted brewer can be as crisp and crushable as a classic lager.

The post 12 Craft Beers That Taste Like … Beer! appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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Now that I’m a certified grown-up, my afternoons of imagining dinosaurs trampling my dandelions usually involve a beer in hand. Judging by the wealth of beers with dinosaur names and artwork, I am not the only adult who still loves these “terrible lizards” (which is what “dinosaur” means in Greek, which I would have been eager to tell you a good decade and a half before I could legally consume any of these beers).

Sit back, imagine a Stegosaurus munching on the neighbor’s hosta plants, and enjoy one of these dinosaur-themed craft beers.

Pseudo Sue | Toppling Goliath Brewing | Decorah, IA

One of the most buzzworthy dinosaur beers out there almost wasn’t a dino beer at all.

“PseudoSue was originally named pseudoTsu because it was a reimagining of our Tsunami Pale Ale,” explains Clark Lewey, president of Toppling Goliath. “I liked the sound of the name on the brew data sheet but not the spelling.”

(MORE: Hailstorm Brewing: Inside a GABF IPA Gold Medal Winning Brewery)

Lewey was fascinated by Sue, the massive Tyrannosaur skeleton at Chicago’s Field Museum, and a simple respelling led to the sharp-toothed can art hopheads know and love today. Also? Lewey’s mother is named Sue, so the change earned major brownie points with mom.

The art for this single-hopped Citra pale ale has gone through numerous changes over the years. “As each brand refresh and update has taken place, the art has become bolder and more focused on the face of the T. rex,” says marketing director Sarah Hedlund. With a purple and green T. rex roaring this beer’s merits, what else do you need?

Concrete Dinosaur IPA | Right Brain Brewery | Traverse City, MI

Have you ever driven down a forgotten highway that had clearly seen more traffic in earlier decades and spotted one of those old tourist trap dinosaur parks crumbling into a field or forest? The dinosaur models are usually poorly sculpted, but they carry so much nostalgic charm.

The folks at Right Brain Brewery pay homage to these prehistoric memorials with the art for Concrete Dinosaur, a brown rye IPA with a big ol’ Brontosaurus on the can. It was actually a different kind of concrete dinosaur that gave the beer its name though. When the brewery floor was being finished, an overpowered sander provided the inspiration.

“The masons left a rough blotch [on the floor] in the shape of a Brontosaurus,” explains founder Russell Springsteen. The Mesozoic mistake gave art designer Andy Tyra the inspiration for his amusing label design, and the beer has since won a silver medal in the Rye Beer category at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival.

Megalodon Blonde | Fossil Craft Beer Company | Colorado Springs, CO

This Colorado brewery has a Stegosaurus skeleton as the background for their logo, but no actual dinosaur beer appears on their menu. Their Megalodon Blonde, named for a giant species of shark that existed at the time of the dinosaurs, is close enough.

The massive size and vicious reputation of this ancient predator is actually a bit of a joke on the part of Fossil Craft Beer Co. “I think we settled on ‘Megalodon’ because the fear that people have of sharks and the size of the Megalodon are almost ironic to how approachable this beer really is,” explains owner and brewer Josh Mater of his 4.7% ABV blonde ale. “We consider it something that we could drink all day even at the beach, and that is when we started looking at aquatic animals to represent it.”

Tricerahops | Ninkasi Brewing | Eugene, OR

This esteemed brewery in Eugene, Oregon, knew they needed a big beer if they were going to name it for a dinosaur. They settled on a double IPA and named it Tricerahops after the three-horned favorite of many a dino-loving child. This deceptively smooth hop monster is bursting with classic West Coast hop flavor and aroma from Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, Summit, and Palisade hops.

Tricerahops actually took its name from a vehicle Ninkasi co-founder and brewer Jamie Floyd built with friends for the Burning Man festival. It was first brewed to be poured at the Great American Beer Festival in 2007, well before seemingly every craft brewery was putting out a big, bold imperial IPA. That doesn’t make this beer prehistoric though, and the hop character is as fresh as can be.

Tooth & Claw | Off Color Brewing | Chicago

The mischievous folks at Chicago’s Off Color always have amusing beer labels. Their mascot is a tiny mouse and you can find the little fella popping up in strange places on every label. In the case of Tooth & Claw, one of several collaboration beers between the brewery and the Field Museum of Natural History, the rascally rodent is riding on the back of a skeleton of Sue the T. rex. Despite the name, Tooth & Claw is more mouse than monster—at 5.0% ABV and 35 IBUs, this crisp Pilsner isn’t going to gobble you whole (though their 10.5% ABV Dino S’mores stout is best approached with a little more caution).

(READ: Untold Stories from Craft Beer Founders)

“In the case of the collaboration with the Field Museum, they’re serious academics and they take their work and their exhibits seriously,” explains Off Color’s Ben Ustick. “As such, they did not want to have a cartoonish representation of Sue on the label, but preferred to instead work with our illustrator and designer to ensure an anatomically correct depiction.”

While the beer is available across Off Color’s distribution footprint, it is perhaps best enjoyed in the Field Museum’s excellent cafe, The Field Bistro, for which is was first brewed.

Ichthyosaur “Icky” IPA | Great Basin Brewing | Sparks, NV

Ichthyosaurs were aquatic reptiles that prowled the prehistoric seas around the time of their better known land-based cousins, the dinosaurs. These toothy predators had plenty of bite, but Great Basin Brewing’s IPA emphasizes hop aroma and flavor over a bitter, chomping finish. “Icky” IPA comes in at 46 IBUs, but packs plenty of flavor.

Some of the largest Ichthyosaur skeletons ever unearthed were dug up within a reasonable drive of the brewery’s two brewpub locations in Reno. These aquatic terrors reached lengths of 50 feet and swam the former inland seas of central Nevada over 200 million years ago. Icky IPA is better enjoyed a bit younger than that, so Great Basin recommends grabbing some fresh six packs at the brewery and heading to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park to enjoy the beer around fossils of its namesake.

T-Rex Tripel | Fossil Cove Brewing | Fayetteville, AR

Fossil Cove Brewing takes its name from a fossil-laden inlet on Beaver Lake, the brewery’s water source near Fayetteville, Arkansas. According to the taproom manager Andrew Blann, the king of Fossil Cove’s beers is the T-Rex Tripel.

“The T-Rex Tripel has a perfect balance of sweetness, fruity banana and subtle pepper notes that blend for an incredibly drinkable experience,” says Blann. “We release a barrel aged T-Rex Tripel each spring—T-Rex on Peaches—brewed with fresh Ozark peaches aged in bourbon and wine barrels.”

UC Davis Masters Brewing Program graduate Ben Mills founded Fossil Cove in 2012, and the brewery has an eclectic feel. That attitude is echoed in Nick Shoulders’ prehistoric can art. “His style is outside the box, colorful and a little funky,” explains Blann. I think we can agree if a T. rex wants to be colorful and funky, you let it.

Allosaurus Amber | Vernal Brewing | Vernal, UT

Tyrannosaurus rex is the meat-eating dinosaur people are most familiar with. The T. rex is popularly viewed as the king of prehistoric predators, even though it wasn’t the biggest of its kind, and certainly not the only one. There were many other apex predators in the Mesozoic era, and one that was almost as big as the T. rex was Allosaurus.

(TRAVEL: 5 Epic Craft Beer Road Trips)

Vernal Brewing in the fossil-laden state of Utah pays homage to this oft-neglected prehistoric killer with their Allosaurus Amber Ale, a medium-bodied copper-colored brew with a caramel malt foundation and floral hop flavors.

We sometimes forget about amber ales in the shadow of their flashier, hoppier cousins, but they’ve been here since the birth of American craft beer and have never stopped being delicious. Grab an Allosaurus Amber and read up on T. rex’s kid brother (who could still have eaten you in one bite).

Pterodactyl Deathscream | Burnt City Brewing | Chicago

There is absolutely nothing subtle about this beer. Not its name, not its packaging, and definitely not the liquid itself. Pterodactyl Deathscream from Chicago’s Burnt City Brewing is double dry-hopped with Citra, Simcoe, and Ekuanot hops to give this 9% ABV double IPA a volcanic eruption of tropical hop aroma and flavor.

Burnt City’s can designs are visually loud, and for something with “deathscream” in the name, that makes total sense. This isn’t the brewery’s only prehistoric-themed offering. Megalodon DIPA is dry-hopped with Ekuanot and Mosaic and is closely related to our flying friend here, and Burnt City’s Oktoberfest features a mechanical therapod wearing a German Alpine hat on the can.

For you purists out there, yes, I know Pterodactyls weren’t actually dinosaurs. Don’t tell that to the leather-winged beast on the can though—he looks kind of cranky.

Inner Dinosaur | Conshohocken Brewing | Conshohocken, PA

While many dino-loving brewers probably got some early inspiration from “Jurassic Park,” Andrew Horne of Conshohocken Brewing in Pennsylvania got the name for Inner Dinosaur Rye IPA from an unlikely cinematic source: “Step Brothers.”

“There is a scene where Dale’s dad is telling the boys to be true to themselves and he recounts how he used to pretend to be a dinosaur when he was younger,” explains Horne. “It’s a really stupid and funny way to say ‘Be yourself.’ I took that as ‘Make the beer you want to make.’ Don’t lose your Inner Dinosaur.”

(DISCOVER: Find a Brewery Near You)

The beer is an unfiltered IPA that shows off the spicy, sweet and tangy characteristics of flaked rye. For this unique take on a classic style, Conshohocken designed a can that displays a sense of quirky nostalgia.

“The inspiration is a shirt I wore as a kid,” Horne says. “It was blue with a dinosaur on the front and just said ‘Brontosaurus’ in green font.” They designed the can to match the shirt and slapped the crew’s favorites dinos all over it.

Dankosaurus | Cedar Creek Brewery | Seven Points, TX

Ah yes, the mighty Dankosaurus, that familiar favorite of many a dino-obsessed child. It wandered the Jurassic swamps and jungles reeking of pine, citrus, and stone fruit from its diet of exclusively Apollo, Bravo, and Eureka hops. Its fellow dinosaur friends often said it was “pretty bitter, but approachable and pleasant nonetheless.”

Okay, so dinosaurs couldn’t talk, but fossilized hops have been found dating to the end of the Cretaceous period, so it’s at least possible a few dinosaur species nibbled on the ancestors of our favorite lupulin-laden flowers.

Cedar Creek Brewery in Seven Points, Texas, doesn’t get credit for discovering a new dinosaur species with their Dankosaurus IPA, but this 6.8% ABV, 65 IBU treat does offer the timeless fascination of classic West Coast hop aromas and flavors.

Who knows, maybe one of these days a craft beer-loving paleontologist will dig up a new dino and name it for her favorite drink!

The post Beerosaurus: 11 Dinosaur-themed Craft Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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I’ve rounded up a group of breweries for whom good food is just as much a part of their mission as good beer. Some of these brewpub all-stars cook up classic Belgian-inspired beer cuisine, some serve up dishes inspired by far-off lands like Nepal and Japan, and the country’s only Michelin-starred brewery offers fancy small plates that will have you dabbing your mouth with linen and holding your pinky out when you sip their culinary beers.

With more than 6,000 operating U.S. breweries, this list isn’t fully exhaustive. So many U.S. craft breweries and brewpubs are stepping up their food game. But whatever your preference, these 11 spots have more than enough great options to get you salivating (and planning a road trip).

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

Brewery Vivant | Grand Rapids, MI

While touring France and Belgium before opening their farmhouse brewery, Jason and Kris Spaulding were amazed by how beer-friendly the local fare was.

“What blew us away was just common sense to the brewery people we met,” explains Jason.

The Spauldings applied what they learned when they opened Vivant inside an old funeral chapel in 2010. Their French and Wallonian inspired menu is assembled largely from Michigan-grown ingredients, and features plates and boards that favor sharing. Jason especially recommends the bone marrow board, which he pairs with Farm Hand, Vivant‘s flagship farmhouse ale made with house yeast and Michigan wheat.

“It is unfiltered and slightly tart with a mild hint of pepperiness that matches up with this dish in wonderful ways. Every time I order that dish it takes me back to that Northern French countryside,” reflects Jason. “I hope we have that same effect on people when they have it here.”

(CHART: Beer & Food Pairing Guide)

Moody Tongue Brewing Co. | Chicago

Not many brewmasters are trained chefs with Michelin-star restaurants on their résumés, but that’s not the only thing that makes what Jared Rouben is doing unique. Moody Tongue‘s swanky but comfortable taproom showcases only two foods: oysters and chocolate cake.

“I wanted to introduce a salty component and a sweet component,” explains Rouben. These two flavor paths allow for a plethora of pairing options with Moody Tongue’s culinary beers.

Rouben suggests either the Aperitif Pilsner or the Steeped Emperor’s Lemon Saison with the fresh bivalves. The chocolate cake is a 12-layer extravaganza in which each layer features different flavors intended to pair with different beers. Rouben credits Shannon Morrison, with whom he graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, with introducing him to the pairing possibilities of sweets.

“Sweets you only get to enjoy at the end of the meal when you’re full,” explains Rouben. “Shannon opened my eyes to having sweets at the beginning of the meal,” Rouben explains.

With layers featuring espresso-coated cheesecake, toasted coconut, and other decadent combinations, this mountain of chocolate is a meal unto itself.

The Answer Brewpub | Richmond, VA

An Bui’s Vietnamese restaurant and beer bar Mekong in Richmond has landed near the top of CraftBeer.com’s Great American Beer Bar list multiple times, and when Bui decided to open his own brewpub in 2014, it lived up to the high bar he had already set.

Bui’s brewpub features a range of authentic Vietnamese dishes like a bánh mì sandwich or the Vietnamese fish sausage. Dishes often have amusing names like Pork Yu So Crazy or Ra Ra Ramen. Of course, if you want even more Vietnamese options, The Answer is right next door to the award-winning Mekong, with its 56 taps.

While The Answer focuses on IPAs, they also produce quite a few infused beers using a process called The Andall (a play on Dogfish Head’s famous randall device). Beers featuring coffee or tropical fruits are common, and a few are even turned into beer slushies.

(INFOGRAPHIC: Easy Tips for Pairing Beer and Pizza)

Brewery Bhavana | Raleigh, NC

Siblings Vansana and Vanvisa Nolintha, both of whom immigrated from Laos as young persons, co-founded Bhavana with brewer Patrick Woodson in early 2017. Bhavana weds Belgian-inspired beers with Chinese dim sum cuisine, small bites that are intended to be comforting and easy to share.

While Silk Road-era Chinese dumplings and Belgian abbey and farmhouse styles might not be an obvious pairing, it’s one that diners have caught onto in this growing southern city.

“There was a lot of conversation in the beginning about whether people would actually drink Belgian beer with steamed fish, or crab-fried rice, or shumai. It was a risk in terms of the pairings, but looking back, if we remove the perception of what’s proper, it’s actually a really complementary pairing,” explains Vansana. “So much of what I love about Patrick’s beer is the nuance. Nothing is overwhelming, and it really honors the harmony and balance of flavor. That’s exactly what dim sum is. It makes sense now.”

Day Block Brewing Co. | Minneapolis

Pairing good beer with good pizza isn’t a profound concept, but few brewpubs do it better than Day Block Brewing in Minneapolis. Residing in (and named for) a building built in 1883 that’s been everything from a hospital to a furniture store to–if local stories are to be believed–a house of ill repute, Day Block pays tribute to their home’s history by naming beers after past tenants.

Day Block uses only local, organic ingredients and make all of their dough, bread, and pizza sauce from scratch to create a plethora of unusual Italian pies. The Banh Mizza recreates a popular Vietnamese sandwich in pizza form, while the Leviathan aims to burn those pesky taste buds out of your mouth with ghost peppers and jalapeños. The Argentinian Vegetarian features a smattering of diverse wild mushrooms, while the ‘Merica Pizza offers breakfast sausage and scrambled eggs.

All of these pies pair beautifully with Day Block’s easy-drinking beers like Stadium Blonde or Day Block Citra Pale Ale, though some of the more heavily spiced pizzas might require the 8.5% ABV Belgian golden strong.

(READ: Everything You Need to Know About Pairing Beer and Cheese)

Sato Brewpub | Buffalo, NY

In the basement of Buffalo’s oldest skyscraper sits this Japanese-inspired brewery and authentic Japanese restaurant. Brewer Josh Smith spent 13 years in Japan before opening the brewery with his wife, Satomi, who grew up in a family of restaurateurs in Japan. Satomi is now the executive chef at Sato (as well as two other restaurants the couple run).

Sato Brewpub specializes in traditional and modern Japanese comfort foods, with many small plates that allow for sampling a wide variety of dishes, such as grilled meats or Okonomiyaki fries.

“Ramen is our specialty and at Sato Brewpub we have all chicken bone broth-based soups,” explains Smith. “The green curry ramen is a little bit of a Japanese and Thai fusion with a little heat, so the beers go well with it.” He recommends pairing it with Our Rabbit in the Moon, an amber ale that’s brewed with genmai-cha (Japanese green tea and toasted brown rice) and Sato’s house Belgian yeast.

La Cabra Brewing | Berwyn, PA

This brewpub in a Philadelphia enclave has been racking up recognition of late. La Cabra was named one of the 10 best brewpubs in the country by Hop Culture in 2017, and local magazine Country Lines gave them the Best of 2017 Dining Award. There’s more, but suffice it to say this place is worth checking out both for their beer and their Latin fusion cuisine.

Executive chef John Hearn combines Latin influences with classic American gastropub fare. Fancy small plates like crispy octopus and foie gras tart share the menu with upscale pub staples like grilled ribeye and a variety of tacos.

The dishes are paired with an eclectic and constantly rotating board of beers, including petite saisons, a roggenbier, an English bitter, and barrel-aged sours. There’s no telling what brewer Dan Popernack will have waiting for you when you step into the low lighting of this stone-walled pub, and the potential food and beer combinations are intriguing.

(TRAVEL: 8 Farm Breweries to Visit This Year)

Engrained Brewery & Restaurant | Springfield, IL

The farm-to-table movement is growing rapidly, but it’s far more than a fad for this central Illinois brewpub. Founder and brewer Brent Schwoerer focuses on sustainability and local and natural ingredients for his restaurant menu.

“Every year we grow our local produce offering as we discover more farmers embracing regenerative agricultural practices,” says Schwoerer, who adds that the kitchen also utilizes a whole animal approach when it purchases pork and beef. “This model helps us keep our pricing lower so that we can offer affordable farm-to-table prices for everyone.”

Despite the robust food options on the menu, the cheese curds are Schwoerer’s favorite dish.

“Two miles down the road from my family’s small dairy farm where I grew up was another dairy farmer who turned their operation into a creamery making cheese,” says Schwoerer. “We currently sell about 100 pounds of fresh curds a week from my childhood neighbor.” The curds are battered in Engrained‘s Munich Helles, and are best paired with this delicate but flavorful beer.

Spice Trade Brewing | Arvada, CO

Spice Trade Brewing has been housed in the Yak & Yeti restaurant since the Arvada location opened in 2008, and actually shared a name with the local chain until rebranding in early 2017. Yak & Yeti operate four Colorado locations where they serve award-winning Indian, Nepalese, and Tibetan cuisine. In Spice Trade, the restaurant now has award-winning beer to pair with it.

Head brewer Jeff Tyler revels in the challenges and opportunities his brewpub’s cuisine affords him. “It works so well together because there are so many unique flavors found in Nepalese cuisine that can be used in beer or can pair well,” says Tyler. “We have access to a wide variety of interesting spices and ingredients that we are constantly testing.”

The restaurant’s owner has a secret family chai spice recipe, and Tyler uses the blend in his chai milk stout which won silver in the Herb and Spice Beer category at the Great American Beer Festival in 2013.

The brewpub hosts regular beer dinners to combine Indian and Nepalese dishes with the beers these cuisines have influenced. Tyler especially recommends pairing the spicy tandoori lamb cooked in a coal-fired oven with his Sichuan Saison brewed with Sichuan peppercorns, Chinese 5 Spice and orange peel.

(READ: Great American Beer Bars 2018)

Stone Brewing | Escondido, CA

You don’t need me to tell you a visit to Stone Brewing should be on your beer bucket list, but the reasons why include more than just beer, beer — and beer. Stone’s World Bistro and Gardens in Escondido (with another location in Liberty Station in a former naval mess hall) serve some incredible food to go along with their iconic beers, and they do it in beautiful indoor and outdoor spaces with rock gardens, flowing water and lots of plants.

Speaking of plants, Stone owns their own farm where they grow many of the ingredients for their menu. With appetizers like tiger shrimp ceviche and honey Sriracha quail knots, you might be full before you get to the main course, but you’ll want plenty of room for the salmon chraimeh or the Peruvian style chicken. Or maybe you want the pan roasted barramundi or the pork katsudon?

By now you’ve figured out I’m reading you the menu, but can you blame me? Wash these goodies down with Stone Brewery classics or a brewpub-only rarity like the 2013 Old Guardian Oak Smoked Barley Wine.

Band of Bohemia | Chicago 

I’ve saved the country’s only Michelin-starred brewery for last. Band of Bohemia has earned a Michelin star for several years running, an elusive honor like no other in the restaurant world. Chef Ian Davis has multiple Michelin-starred eateries on his résumé, and brings a diverse array of influences to Band of Bohemia.

Davis isn’t the only elite chef in the house though, as owner and brewer Michael Carroll is a former chef as well. Carroll uses culinary ingredients to create beers that are complex sensory explorations, such the Jasmine Rice lager or the Bruja wheat ale with orange zest, chicory, roasted beets and rye.

Once Carroll begins brewing a new beer, he gives Davis his tasting notes, and the executive chef has until that beer is ready a few weeks or months later to create dishes that will work with it.

From small plates like carrot lasagna and milk braised suckling pig to entrées like duck mafaldine and lamb saddle, Band of Bohemia is raising the bar for what brewpub grub can be.

The post 11 Breweries and Brewpubs with Impressive Menus appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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“We talk a lot about hospitality and what it means to meet people where they are,” says Vansana. “I think really welcoming them as if we are hosting a gathering. The way growing up in Laos there were always travelers coming through the house and there was good food on the table — I think it really gets back to that basic idea of why we host. The possibility of empathy when we really host and share. All of that is only possible because there’s an invitation.”

And that kind of hospitality is central to Brewery Bhavana, which he co-founded in early 2017 in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his sister, Vanvisa, and close friend Patrick Woodson.

“I think I’m getting way too emotional,” he says with a chuckle.

(READ: This Brewery Will Serve You a Tarantula Burger — But Only If You’re Lucky)

Brewery Bhavana is such an unexpected amalgam of ideas that it seems impossible it could work as a business until you’ve met the people behind it. Bhavana is a Belgian-style focused brewery, a dim sum restaurant, a fresh flower boutique and a bookstore.

A Community Living Room

More than anything else, though, it’s a community living room. It’s a space where Vansana and his team show uncommon warmth to locals and travelers alike.

“We believe in our offerings. We believe in Patrick’s beer. It’s really emotional and personal and important to why we do what we do,” Vansana explains. “Our dim sums are made with so much love, and they carry stories. That is the backbone of why we believe in this experience.”

Vansana and Vanvisa also run Bida Manda, a Laotian restaurant next door to Bhavana.

When Patrick Woodson and his wife, Aubrey, returned to Raleigh in 2013 after two years overseas in the Peace Corps (“We call it our two-year honeymoon without power and water,” he jokes), they didn’t expect to find an authentic Laotian restaurant in this southern city. They made a point to visit.

(TRAVEL: Plan Your Next Beercation)

Their last stop on their travels had been in Luang Prabang, the Laotian town where the Nolinthas had grown up. After meeting and sharing stories that first evening at Bida Manda, a friendship developed. Soon the daydreams about starting a brewery and restaurant together became a reality.

Unexpected Beer and Food Pairings

Dim sum might not be the first food you think of when you think of beer and food pairings, but the small bites and comforting flavors are a natural expression of Bhavana’s welcoming spirit. The dumplings originated in China’s history, along the Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes. As travelers and merchants would pass through small towns, residents would prepare welcoming snacks. Eventually this cuisine spread to bordering Laos.

“Dim sum surfaces randomly because of people traveling and moving,” explains Vansana. “When we were thinking about the menu at Bhavana, we realized we needed to make sure the food component is as sacred and special to me as beer is to Patrick.”

“We felt it was important that everything we offer here was a true expression of who we are as people. Dim sum represents a moment in time where people for a lot of reasons happened to coexist in one place. That’s exactly where Raleigh is right now,” he says.

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“That’s where creativity and empathy and relationships blossom, even though we are so different. If we are really attempting to make Bhavana a living room for this community, that invitation is important,” Vansana adds.

Brewery Bhavana’s Careful Cultivation

Dim sum is characterized by delicate subtlety, a quality echoed in the nuance of Bhavana’s beers. The brewery produces the full roster of Belgian-style beers, an array of farmhouse beers that often incorporate botanical ingredients, a few sours, and new wave craft favorites like double IPA. Every beer displays a restraint and a reverence for craft belying the brewery’s age.

Patrick Woodson’s beers live at the intersection of tradition and innovation.

Each beer bears an agricultural name — Till, Sow, Bloom. The patience it takes to bring life out of the soil — Bhavana is Sanskrit for “cultivating” — is evoked in the complex flavors Woodson and his team coax from their tanks, barrels and foeders.

Brewery Bhavana has the largest independent cooperage in North Carolina, featuring 170 wine barrels, 40 bourbon barrels, and four large foeders at the brewery’s production facility about a mile from the restaurant.

“Wide Gamut of Options”

Bhavana’s large downtown “living room” is gently divided into three sections: a chic but inviting bar with a marble backsplash and sleek chrome tap handles, a sun-dappled space for the bookshop and flower boutique and a bustling but comfortable dining room with tarnished brass tables and low lighting. 

When my wife and I dined with friends one evening, our server took the time to walk us through the somewhat intimidating dim sum menu. The small bites are ordered like sushi rolls, with the intent to share. Their delicate textures and flavors wed perfectly with Woodson’s multi-faceted beers.

“We try to focus on balance and nuance,” explains Woodson, who holds a degree in fermentation science from Purdue University. “When we talk about a lot of the options we have with dim sum, not a lot of them are aggressively spiced. It’s about the hand of the maker in creating the same beautiful thing every day. We don’t push to say, ‘This beer goes with this dish.’ We want to have a wide gamut of options.”

The Bhavana team has created something rare and enticing in this space — the chance to connect with others instead of merely brushing shoulders in close quarters as in so many taprooms.

“We get asked a lot about why this concept happened, but there never was a concept,” Vansana says as he tries to explain what Bhavana means to him and the people he works with. “It was about responding to relationships and the things we loved.”

The post Cultivating Community with Brewery Bhavana appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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“Every single beer has a story that I wrote behind it,” he explains. “Shotgun Betty has a story. Sweet Josie Brown has a story. All these characters, we gave them stories to make them larger than life.”

As I sat with Vohra in the small but airy Hideout on a sunny day in early spring, I sipped from a curvy vase of Shotgun Betty, a southern German-style Hefeweizen that won silver at the Great American Beer Festival in 2016.

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The beer is named for a vigilante in a fictional Western town Vohra has created and populated with eccentric characters. Every beer is named for a character or event in the town, and they all fit together to form a single mythology. The brewery hopes to soon create comic books that tell the stories of these characters and use them as taproom beer menus.

Story Behind Lonerider Brewing

Vohra’s got quite a story himself. “I’m a guy from Delhi, India, running a west Texas-themed brewery in Raleigh, North Carolina, making a German-style hefeweizen. It all makes sense,” he says with a wry chuckle.

The “lone rider” idea is more than just a tribute to Vohra’s favorite film genre. He looks at the craft beer industry as being full of individuals who see themselves as outlaws.

“If you walk into a crowded room, and you ask, ‘Who here is a conformist?’ I don’t know how many hands are going to go up. There’s a little bit of outlaw in all of us. We took that and ran with it.”

Mottos like “Ales for Outlaws” or “Posses are for posers” on the brewery’s cans and on posters throughout the Hideout drive home that outlook.

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Despite the rebel motif, Lonerider focuses on finely executing classic beer styles. “I would put our hefeweizen against any in the country and say, if you drink a good hefeweizen, drink ours,” Vohra says. “We [brew] what might be confused with perfect representations of classic styles. Wild Wests are classics. I always say we’re Clint Eastwood, not Roy Rogers.”

That commitment to timeless quality has paid off in numerous awards. In addition to the Shotgun Betty medal, Sweet Josie Brown snared a gold at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival while Deadeye Jack Porter grabbed a silver the following year.

Philosophy of Craft

With his focus on the outlaw spirit of those old spaghetti Westerns, it’s not surprising Vohra has a lot of thoughts on what it means to be an independent craft brewer. Above all else, he believes a commitment to quality and community are at its core.

“I used to say that there’s going to come a time when the term ‘craft beer’ doesn’t mean anything,” reflects Vohra. “It’s not going to mean anything, because anyone can say they’re making it. In our industry, I think the question is more, what is the direction and the ethos of the company? Sometimes you have to make decisions that are for the best of the company, the best of the employees, the best of the craft beer community. To me, that’s what running an independent craft brewery is. You’re not always driven by profit line.”

(READ: The Pesky, Costly Life of Stray Beer Kegs) 

As we sat in The Hideout, both of us sipping on Vohra’s clean, classic beers, he spoke to what it means to stay true to your passions while still maintaining a sustainable business in a crowded beer market.

“It’s about certain key principles,” he explained. “The first is, you never compromise the product. You never compromise quality. So you and your team know the beer and the quality is paramount. You don’t start making a beer and think, it’s got to stay below this price point. What you do is you say, I’m running a business and I’m going to charge an appropriate amount for this. But you make the best damn beer you can. If the passion is not there, the business will ultimately fail, because you don’t really care about what you’re doing.”

Local Focus is Key

Vohra focuses on personal connections above all else when reflecting on what new breweries need to do to succeed.

“Figure out your community,” he says. “Focus much more locally, and on how you integrate well into that community, rather than trying to bust out in distribution. Those days are kind of gone. It’s not easy anymore,” he cautions.

Life is never easy for outlaws. But when you’ve got Sumit Vohra’s community mindset — not to mention Lonerider’s killer beers — life sure can be fun. Maybe posses aren’t for posers after all.

The post Lonerider Brewing Serves Up Ales for the Outlaw in All of Us appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Many craft brewers are honoring chocolate’s liquid ancestry by brewing Mexican hot chocolate-inspired beers with cacao, vanilla, peppers, cinnamon and other spices. Since many beer styles brewed with dark malts already have some chocolate flavors (as well as complementary flavors like caramel or coffee), styles like porter and stout can beautifully evoke this ancient beverage’s appeal while adding further complexity.

American Imperial Stout is most often employed because of its dessert-like decadence and ability to stand up to strong spices. But with a careful touch, lower strength dark styles like a robust porter and American Stout can also receive the south-of-the-border chocolate treatment.

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11 Mexican Hot Chocolate-Inspired Beers to Try

Mexican Hot Chocolate | Aslin Beer Co. | Herndon, VA

“The idea of Mexican Hot Chocolate came from one of Richard’s favorite cakes to make during the holiday season,” says Aslin Beer co-owner Andrew Kelley of co-owner Richard Thompson. Kelley, Thompson, and third partner Kai Leszkowski homebrewed the dessert-inspired beer first, and their successful experiment turned into their Mexican Hot Chocolate Imperial Stout. Aslin, which is named for the maiden name of the three sisters the partners are married to (brownie points, boys), conditions this big beer with Madagascar vanilla beans, cinnamon, nutmeg and three different kinds of chili peppers. “All of this is balanced by the sweetness and roast of our 10 percent base state,” says Kelley.

Mayan Sunrise | Latitude 42 Brewing Co. | Portage, MI

Latitude 42 brewer Scott Freitas tasted a few Mexican chocolate-inspired beers at the Great American Beer Festival years ago and knew he wanted to brew one at his Michigan brewery. He settled on brewing a 7% ABV American Stout for the base, and added Ancho, Guajillo, and Habanero peppers and cinnamon bark to get the perfect level of spice and complexity.

“What makes this beer unique is the balance of all the peppers,” says Freitas. “You don’t want it to be too hot, or not spicy enough. It’s a delicate line.”

Aztec Gold | Gizmo Brew Works | Raleigh, NC

Gizmo Brew Works is known for quirky, small-batch beers, and their 9.2% Aztec Gold Imperial Chocolate Stout got its start as an extremely small batch indeed–the beer was the winner of a homebrewing contest between employees. The beer became the first in the brewery’s Inventor Series, a group of 12 high gravity beers that Gizmo rotates through on a monthly basis. Aztec Gold is brewed with local cacao nibs and Madagascar vanilla beans, and is named in honor of the belief that cocoa was so prized in Aztec culture that it was sometimes used as currency.

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Mexican Chocolate Stout | Copper Kettle Brewing Co. | Denver, CO

Copper Kettle owner and head brewer Jeremy Gobien speaks with obvious reverence of his beer he says is inspired by the cacao drinks used in sacred Mayan religious ceremonies. “Unlike other chocolate-themed dark beers, we intentionally created a beer with a relatively dry body,” says Gobien. “To this starting canvas, we added layers of spices including cassia cinnamon and a blend of three Central American chili peppers including Ancho, Guajillo and habanero, and then finish with high-quality cacao. The resulting experience is complex and layered.” While cinnamon is prevalent when you first sip this 7% ABV stout, Gobien says the chili heat soon kicks in. “After a few seconds, the subtle burn on the habanero begins to blossom and combine with the cinnamon flavors.” Gobien explains this beer is “designed for beer lovers looking to challenge their definition of what beer is.”

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Xocoveza | Stone Brewing | Escondido, CA

Stone Brewing’s coveted Xocoveza stout was never intended to be part of the brewery’s permanent rotation of seasonal beers, but beer lovers wouldn’t take “No” for an answer. The beer was first brewed after winning the popular California brewery’s homebrew competition in 2014. While it was meant to be a one-time specialty brew, the beer proved so popular, the brewery decided to add it to their annual line-up as a winter release. The beer’s name is a portmanteau of the “xocolatl,” the word for the Aztec cacao drink on which the beer is based, and “cerveza,” the Spanish word for beer. In addition to the usual cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, and peppers, Xocoveza’s complex flavor is aided by coffee and nutmeg. And as if the drink wasn’t legit enough as is, Stone even sources organic cocoa beans to make their own 100 percent cacao bars to use in the brewing process!

Mexican Cake | Westbrook Brewing | Mount Pleasant, SC

While Westbrook Brewing is perhaps best known for low alcohol, esoteric European beer styles like Grätzer, Lichtenhainer, and especially gose (not to mention a solid IPA), they also released one of the first Mexican hot chocolate-inspired imperial stouts to gain cult status. Mexican Cake was released for the brewery’s first anniversary in 2012, and has become one of the most coveted beers in the country. Brewed with cacao nibs, cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans, and habanero peppers, a small batch of this 10.5% ABV beer even makes it into rare Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrels.

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Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout | Cigar City Brewing | Tampa, FL

If you’re reading this site, you probably don’t need me to tell you what Hunahpu is. The legendary spiced imperial stout from Tampa’s Cigar City is released once a year on Hunahpu’s Day in March, a celebratory festival held at the brewery. This 11% ABV behemoth brewed with cacao nibs, Madagascar vanilla, cinnamon, and two different peppers takes its name from Mayan mythology. The Hunahpu family of heroes overcame great odds to “defeat the Dark Lords,” according to the brewery’s website. Read into that rivalry what you will.

Mayan Mocha Stout | Odd Side Ales | Grand Haven, MI

While the Odd Side Ales folks make imperial and barrel-aged versions of their Mayan Mocha Stout, it’s nice to be able to add a (somewhat) session strength beer to this list. At 6.5% ABV, Mayan Mocha is brewed with Dutch chocolate, coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, and habaneros to achieve a smooth beer that balances dessert flavors with subtle heat. Not every Mexican chocolate beer has to hit you like a luchador wrestler, and Mayan Mocha proves it.

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Mexican Morning | Conclave Brewing | Raritan Twp., NJ

Conclave Brewing takes this concept even further down the ABV scale. Mexican Morning is only 5.9% ABV, and since it’s based on the brewery’s Espresso Milk Stout, it could be the perfect brunch beer. Spiced with the usual potpourri of cinnamon, cacao, vanilla, and arbol peppers, Mexican Morning would go well with fried chorizo and eggs and a chocolate concha for the perfect Mexican breakfast. 

Mexican Achromatic | Weldwerks Brewing Co. | Greeley, CO

Steampunk-themed Weldwerks Brewing Co. has been on a hot streak recently, picking up medals at the World Beer Cup, Great American Beer Festival, and Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer in the last 18 months. But whereas many Mexican chocolate-inspired stouts aim for heat as well, this brewery’s 10% ABV Mexican Achromatic eschews peppers for a complex blend of earthier spices, including Vietnamese and Mexican cinnamon sticks, Indonesian cassia bark, Madagascar vanilla beans, and Ghanan cacao nibs. A healthy proportion of oats in the mash and an extended boil make this stout chewy, full-bodied, and unbelievably smooth.

Oaxaca Mole Milk Stout | Benchtop Brewing | Norfolk, VA

Inspired by local restaurant’s version of the popular Mexican mole dish, the folks at Benchtop Brewing crafted a unique take on this substyle of beer by seeking to evoke the flavors of the savory chocolate entrée rather than liquid cocoa. The brewing team added piloncillo sugar, star anise, toasted almonds, cinnamon, cacao nibs, and Ancho, Guajillo, and mulato peppers to their 4.8% milk stout to create a sessionable mole-inspired beer that is smooth, full-flavored, and complex.

The post Mexican Hot Chocolate Beers: Chocolate, Spice and Everything Nice appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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Whether it’s Halloween or Friday the 13th, sometimes, it’s fun to scare ourselves silly for no good reason. See if your personal phobia is on the list below, and track down the beer we recommend with it.

Arachnophobia: Fear of spiders | Eye Be Use Imperial IPA

A fear of spiders seems to be wired into the human psyche. While not everyone has a paralyzing fear of them, it’s tough not to get the heebie-jeebies at the thought of one of these eight-legged creeps crawling on you.

If you don’t have enough spider-related terror in your life, Spider Bite Beer‘s Eye Be Use Imperial IPA can help. Spider Bite got its name after co-founder Larry Goldstein walked through a spider web while trying to think up what to call his new brewery. He hates spiders, and the thrashing around he did after his mishap made his business partner laugh so much they decided to go with Spider Bite.

Eye Be Use plays cleverly on the measurement used to determine how much hop bitterness is in a beer, and while the beer is big at 9.6% ABV, it’s balanced enough that it’s nothing to be afraid of. One look at those gigantic arachnid eyes staring from the front of this bottle is enough to give most folks the willies. If you see a spider as big as the one on the bottle though, run the other way.

Ophidiophobia: Fear of snakes | Snake Hollow IPA

According to the book of Genesis, people have good reason to be scared of snakes: the devil himself took on snake form and got humanity kicked out of paradise. Of course, ophidiophobes don’t need any help from the Bible to be scared of these legless reptiles–one look at their lidless eyes and flicking tongues is enough.

The folks at Potosi Brewing in Potosi, Wisconsin, know a thing or two about snakes. The area was once known as Snake Hollow because of the prevalence of rattlesnakes in the area, so Potosi decided to name their flagship IPA after the old nickname. At 6.5% ABV and a clean 65 IBUs of classic American hoppy goodness, a snake bite never sounded so good.

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Astraphobia: Fear of lightning and thunder | Thunderball Stout

We can all get a little nervous when dark clouds pile up outside and the lightning and thunder crack so close it sounds like the sky is splitting in half, but for some folks, the fear runs much deeper.

The mother of Eudora Brewing‘s owner and head brewer Neil Chabut narrowly avoided being swept away by a tornado when she was young, and she’s been terrified of storms ever since. The first time Chabut (pronounced shub-YOO) brewed this 7% ABV oatmeal stout, he was homebrewing in his garage as a storm broke loose outside. He decided to name the brew in honor of the appropriately dark weather, and kept the name when he opened Eudora Brewing in Kettering, Ohio, in 2013.

“Thunderball is unique because it’s fairly roasty and sharp, but smooth and silky at the same time,” says Chabut. Sounds like the perfect comfort drink for when you’re huddling under a fort made of couch cushions until the storm passes.

Claustrophobia: Fear of small spaces | Rugged Coalminer

There’s something about tight spaces that fills some of us with anxiety. Whether the close confines make you think of the grave, or you just feel trapped, close-quarters are a nightmare — which would make coalmining a truly hellish job.

Illinois might not be the first state you think of when you think of coalmining, but Lincoln’s birthplace actually has a rich mining history, and still has several active mines. Scorched Earth Brewing in Algonquin decided to honor hardworking miners with a robust porter featuring mining tools and the legendary mineshaft canary. Rich and chocolatey, Rugged Coalminer won gold at the 2017 L.A. International Beer Competition in the Robust Porter category.

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

Aerophobia: Fear of flying | Sky High Rye

Evolution did not equip human beings with wings, so it’s safe to say we don’t come pre-programmed with a tremendous comfort level soaring through the sky thousands of feet above the ground. While most people are comfortable with air travel, some folks never do get over their fear of airplanes, much less jumping out of one.

Arcadia Ales founder Timothy Suprise had no such qualms as an Army Reserve cadet in college. He attended jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. Decades later, long after he’d founded Arcadia near Kalamazoo, Michigan, he was talking with some customers who were avid skydivers, and they took him up for a few jumps. The experience provided the perfect name for the brewery’s new Simcoe-hopped, West Coast-inspired pale ale, Sky High Rye. There are no parachutes required to enjoy this crisp and well-balanced pale ale–you can keep both feet firmly planted on terra firma if you prefer.

Ornithophobia: Fear of birds | Northern Hawk Owl Amber Ale

Birds might not sound all that scary if you don’t suffer from this unusual phobia, but that’s probably because you never watched Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” during your formative years. I did, and while I’m not spooked of our avian friends, I can certainly understand why someone would be after that harrowing experience (I have a particular ornithophobic friend who refuses to get out of any car door that faces a tree).

Right Brain Brewery in Traverse City, Michigan, understands too, so they named their amber ale after one of the most fearsome, feisty feathered fiends (we’ll see if my editor lets that stand) in the state, the Northern Hawk Owl. Right Brain owner Russell Springsteen says, “This is an owl to be feared, as it is small, quick and clever and may get caught in your hair if you have mouse a nesting in there.”

Note to self: remove all nesting mice from hair before visiting Michigan to try this easy drinking amber.

(DISCOVER: Fall Seasonal Beers)

Agoraphobia: Fear of crowds & public spaces | Mosh Pit

While most of us prefer not to be jostled around in a crowd, if you suffer from agoraphobia, it’s about a lot more than discomfort. When a person with this phobia feels trapped in a crowd or perceives a public space to be unsafe they can experience panic attacks and great anxiety.

If this describes you, you probably want to avoid that swirling human maelstrom of the rock music scene we call the mosh pit. San Diego’s Acoustic Ales gives musical names to many of their beers, but it’s their Mosh Pit red ale that will get an agoraphobe’s heart beating faster. Floral hop character, smooth caramel malt and a touch of spicy rye make this beer a much safer option than jumping around wildly with a bunch of strangers, though the beer’s ABV does have an ominous tone: 6.66%.

Cynophobia: Fear of dogs | Cerberus Trippel

If you find your neighbor’s friendly, furry companion to be a source of terror, you probably want to avoid Akron’s Thirsty Dog Brewing altogether. While most of their canine-themed beers have humorous names like Barktoberfest and Old Leghumper, there’s nothing funny about their limited edition Belgian Tripel known as Cerberus. Named after the gigantic, three-headed guard dog who stood watch at the gate to Hades in Greek mythology, Cerberus isn’t to be trifled with. Cerberus might not be as frightening as its namesake, but at a sizable 10% ABV, you’d still be wise to show it some respect lest you find yourself rolling over and playing dead too early in the evening.

Thanatophobia: Fear of death | Permanent Funeral

The good people at Three Floyds Brewing in Munster, Indiana, aren’t much for subtlety. They’re known for big, bruising beers with grim bottle art and outrageous names, so we’ve saved them for the biggest, baddest fear of all, the one we’ll all have to reckon with sooner or later: death itself. There’s no coming back from Permanent Funeral, a 10.5% ABV, 100 IBU imperial IPA brewed in collaboration with band Pig Destroyer, whose members are friends with the Three Floyds crew. Named after a track on Pig Destroyer’s album Book Burner, the beer is about as subtle as the band’s thrashing, grinding brand of metal. This hop monster thinks your fear of the grave is just adorable. Whether you laugh in the face of death or shake in your boots, nothing sets the mood for Halloween like a Permanent Funeral.

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The post 9 Beers to Match Your Personal Phobias appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

But what is a Mexican-style lager in the first place? The category does not explicitly appear in the Beer Judge Certification Program or Great American Beer Festival style guidelines. Tracking down the roots of this summer quencher requires a brief history lesson.

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Roots of the Mexican-style Lager

Modern Mexican lagers find their origin in the late 19th century when German and Austrian immigrants began brewing the beers of their homeland in Mexico. When Austria’s Maximilian I declared himself emperor of Mexico in 1864, he brought his nation’s newly beloved Vienna lager with him. The beer proved more popular in Mexico than Maximilian, who was executed just a few years later. The Vienna lager became the dominant beer in Mexico entering the 20th century.

The Viennese lager is widely regarded as an original lager style. The beer shared its name with the Austrian city where brewer Anton Dreher first brewed it with an isolated lager yeast, revolutionary for its time. The combination of the new lager yeast and the invention of high-temperature-controlled malting yielded a reddish beer, from the Vienna malt that was clean tasting due to the yeast. As the taste for lighter-flavored beers spread throughout Mexico and the rest of the world in the 20th Century, the character and color of these traditional lagers changed with the times. Today, Vienna-style lagers vary quite widely in color and body, a development that can be seen in today’s import offerings.

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Craft Brewers Put a Spin on Mexican-style Lagers

Both traditional and modern versions of Mexican-style lagers have been embraced by small and independent craft brewers here in the United States. If you’re planning a Cinco de Mayo party, check out one of these Mexican-style lagers brewed north of the border.

Ska Brewing | Mexican Logger

Ska’s cleverly named Mexican Logger was the first of the American craft Mexican-style lagers, launched in 1999. The Colorado brewery has made quite a success of this 5.2% ABV beer, winning a silver medal at GABF in 2015 in the American-Style or International-Style Pilsener category, and winning bronze in the same field in 2016. Co-founder Dave Thibodeau explains the founders used to be closeted Pacifico drinkers, which lead to their development of an American version of the classic summer style. “With Mexican Logger,” he explains, “we took a style we loved, one-upped it a bit, and threw a craft spin to make it our own.”

Oskar Blues Brewery | Beerito Mexican Lager

Just one year old, Beerito has already become a national favorite for those seeking an all-day summer beer with a Mexican flair. While it boasts the lowest alcohol level on this list at 4% ABV, it’s certainly not low in character. Oskar Blues, the brewery that created Ten Fidy, Old Chub and Dale’s Pale Ale, wasn’t going to skimp on flavor. Aiming for a light beer with deep complexity, the brewery achieved it with a carefully chosen grain bill comprised of German and Colorado-grown malts that produce toasty, nutty flavors complemented by plum and honey notes and crisp German hops.

Great Lakes Brewing Company | Grandes Lagos

Cleveland’s venerable Great Lakes Brewing Company is known for brewing classic European lager and ale styles. Its beers are characterized by refinement and quality rather than daring experimentation, so it was surprising to everyone when it announced in early 2016 a new year-round brew would be a Mexican-style lager brewed with hibiscus flowers. The new 5.4% ABV brew is the more extroverted cousin of its esteemed Eliot Ness Amber Lager, a classic Vienna lager. Where Eliot Ness showcases class, Grandes Lagos goes for charisma, offering lightly tart and sweet floral aromas and flavors from the hibiscus and a charming soft pink glow.

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21st Amendment Brewery | El Sully

Named after 21st Amendment co-founder and brewmaster Shaun O’Sullivan, El Sully was inspired by the popular Mexican beers O’Sullivan drank while growing up near the beach in Southern California. It started out as a draft-only brew at the San Francisco taproom before making the jump to cans in 2015. This 4.8% ABV quencher uses German Pilsener malt for a clean, refined base, with just a bit of flaked maize to lighten the body. A Mexican lager yeast strain produces subtle spicy, herbal notes. O’Sullivan said he likes to tell people, “El Sully is what Modelo dreams of when it goes to bed at night.”

Tractor Brewing Company | New Mexican Lager

Brand-spanking-new in 16-ounce cans for May 2017, New Mexican Lager pays tribute to Tractor Brewing’s border-state heritage. The artwork for the cans features a New Mexico landscape and was created by Albuquerque artist David Santiago, who has designed a number of the brewery’s labels. At 5.6% ABV, this lager is designed to be light enough for the dry weather of the Southwest, while having the body to stand up to hearty borderland cuisine. The brewery claims the golden brew is neither Mexican nor American, but an homage to both traditions that is distinctly New Mexican.

Anchor Brewing | Los Gigantes

Mexican beer and the great American pastime come together in the newest offering from the Bay Area’s esteemed Anchor Brewing. Los Gigantes Mexican-Style Lager is a collaboration between the brewery and Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants franchise and marks the second beer to come from the partnership. The first crack of the bat is the sound that signals summer’s arrival for baseball fans and Anchor hopes this 4.5% ABV refresher will taste just like that. Anchor’s first beer offered in 16-ounce. cans, this light lager is brewed with pale malt and flaked maize and seasoned with Cluster and Tettnang hops.

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Flying Dog Brewery | Numero Uno Summer Cerveza

Edgy East Coast brewery Flying Dog got the idea for this lager brewed with agave nectar and lime peel from one of its employees, who suggested the brew at the company’s annual retreat. Originally released as Agave Cerveza in 2014, the beer was intended to be a limited seasonal offering but did so well it was added to the year-round portfolio the next year as Summer Cerveza. Brewmaster Ben Clark says more than one-third of the malt bill is comprised of flaked maize, leading to “a crisp, refreshing beer.”

Lone Tree Brewing Mexican Lager

Colorado’s Lone Tree won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2015 in the American-Style Lager or Light Lager category for Summer Siesta. The first-ever cans of the beer (rebranded in 2017 as Mexican Lager) should be rolling down the canning line as this article goes to publish. Head brewer Josh Wast says the beer is brewed with Pilsner and six-row malt and “a huge amount of flaked corn.” Sitting at a comfortable 5.3% ABV, the beer is fermented with a very clean lager yeast and finished with German hops for a crisp, refreshing take on this south-of-the-border style.

Lucky Star Brewery | Ojos Locos Mexican Lager

Travel to Miamisburg, Ohio, to try this draft-only lager (the brewery is planning to bottle it soon) and you just might get the most authentic Mexican drinking experience on this list, because Lucky Star’s taproom is modeled after a Mexican cantina. Authentic tacos, quesadillas and house-made salsas provide appropriate culinary pairings for this 4.8% ABV lager. Ojos Locos is brewed with a Mexican yeast that dries the beer out, leaving an easy gateway beverage for the macro beer drinkers who come in asking for their favorite national brands, says owner and brewmaster Glen Perrine. This clean fermentation profile is accentuated by Saaz hops for a crisp beer that is best enjoyed on Lucky Star’s “Pink Party Patio” when weather allows.

Epic Brewing | Los Locos Lager

Inspired by the audacious Mexican restaurant Los Chingones (Google it) not far from Epic’s Denver brewery, Los Locos Lager is truly unique. The sunny brew features sea salt and lime, making this beer perfect for a day at the beach. Los Locos was initially intended to be a limited collaboration with Los Chingones and was first only available at the restaurant, but Epic brewers soon realized they had a winner on their hands, canned it, and made it available across their distribution territory.

Indeed Brewing | Mexican Honey Imperial Lager

When this Minneapolis brewery first received a shipment of Mexican orange blossom honey, the sticky ingredient wasn’t intended to headline one of its beers. But according to Indeed’s head brewer Josh Bischoff, “We were so impressed with the characteristics of it, we decided to brew a beer to showcase it. Since the honey is from Mexico, the beer snowballed from there and created itself.” This beer clocks in at 8% ABV, and isn’t at all what you expect from a typical Mexican-style lager, providing what the brewery describes as “a citrus and floral fiesta,” one probably better suited to toasting the close of your Cinco de Mayo party than kicking it off.

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Taking advantage of a helpful 2013 Ohio law, Warped Wing opened with a full production and canning facility from day one and began self-distributing to retailers right away. That boldness has paid off.

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A Craft Beer Scene that Was Missing the Beer

Though Dayton is now home to more than a dozen breweries, it wasn’t long ago there were no breweries at all. The first opened in 2012, ending a 50-year brewing drought in the city.

“When we were well into the planning stages, there were no breweries in Dayton. We looked at it as an opportunity,” says Warped Wing’s president and co-founder Joe Waizmann. “As we had traveled during our time in the beer business, we had seen that a city the size of Dayton without a brewery was an anomaly. Dayton had a fairly fertile craft beer climate prior to our opening. This was kind of the exclamation point.”

“The craft beer consumers have been here for a while now, but the scene didn’t have that local piece, that civic pride,” said co-founder Nick Bowman. Waizmann and Bowman had nearly 50 years of beer sales experience between them when they approached brewmaster and co-founder John Haggerty about the possibility of opening their own brewery. Joined by CFO Mike Stover, the four men answered Dayton’s need in a big way.

A History of Innovation

Though Dayton is much smaller than regional neighbors like Cincinnati, Columbus and Indianapolis, the blue collar city has a rich history of industrial innovation. Dayton is perhaps best known as the home of brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, the inventors of the airplane, who once operated a bicycle shop in the city. Warped Wing’s name is a reference to a design feature of the Wright brothers’ first plane that allowed for controlled flight.

The Warped Wing team has incorporated their pride in their city’s inventiveness into much of their design and branding. One of their flagship beers, Ermal’s Belgian Style Cream Ale, is named in honor of Ermal Fraze, a local resident who invented the pull-top can in 1959. Their bestselling Trotwood Lager is named after Trotwood Trailers, a local company that manufactured unique camping trailers in Dayton for over 60 years.

(MORE: Should You Bring Your Dog to Breweries?)

“Dayton has such a rich history of innovation that not a lot of people know about,” explains Bowman. “We’re very proud to be here in Dayton, and hopefully that comes through in the artwork, packaging and branding.”

That pride can be seen not only in their steampunk-influenced can designs by regional artists John Pattison and Tom Post, but in their brewery taproom itself. Warped Wing is housed in the former home of Buckeye Iron and Glassworks Foundry. Built in 1938, this hulking concrete industrial structure is the perfect representation of Warped Wing’s hard work and innovation, as well as their commitment to downtown Dayton’s history (and future). The building’s large garage door at the front of the taproom, which is kept open in nice weather, looks out onto downtown. At sunset, this is the best seat in town. High above the taproom hangs the foundry’s original 10-ton industrial crane, which has lent its name to the brewery’s luscious 10 Ton Oatmeal Stout.

The theme of innovation is also expressed in the most important part of Warped Wing’s business: the beer itself. John Haggerty, Warped Wing’s seasoned brewmaster, brought over two decades of professional brewing experience to this project, and his talent is seen in the combination of creativity and refinement that characterizes Warped Wing’s beers. Rather than brewing to strict style guidelines, Haggerty lets the pursuit of flavor guide his recipes into unique, style-bending brews. Even in Warped Wing’s unique collaboration beers with local chocolatier Esther Price or nationally-recognized Dayton bourbon drinkery The Century Bar, balance is key.

“It all comes back to flavor,” says Haggerty.

Grow Deep or Grow Wide?

Though Warped Wing is the largest brewery in Dayton’s burgeoning craft beer scene, the founders don’t have immediate plans to begin distributing to other states.

“People want to measure our success based on our distribution footprint and how many states we’re in. I don’t care,” says Haggerty. “For us, it isn’t a race. We’re focused on Dayton, Cincinnati and Columbus, places we can get to and have personal relationships with people.”

“There are two schools of thought when it comes to growth: we can go deep right where we are, or we can go wide,” explains Waizmann. “Our philosophy is to go deep.”

Warped Wing could make the jump to regional distribution if they wanted to, but they’ve instead decided to stay true to their local craft beer community, get to know people and have a lot of fun in the process.

“It’s rather simple for us,” says Bowman, reflecting on his brewery’s future. “We all agree our vision is not to be the biggest. We just want to be the best.”

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