It’s no secret that Michigan, with nearly 350 craft breweries, is perennially mentioned as a primary destination for beercations. It’s usually Grand Rapids and its 40 or so craft breweries that puts it at the fore. Bell’s in Kalamazoo is not just beloved statewide, but it’s a national institution. Short’s (in Bellaire to the north), New Holland (in Holland to the west), and Jolly Pumpkin (in Ann Arbor to the southeast) are merely a few more that make Michigan a top-tier destination for craft beer lovers. So it’s a bit of a head-scratcher that the Great Lakes State’s most populous city — Detroit — isn’t mentioned in the same breath.

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

Craft Beer Art Sprouting Up

Detroit keeps finding a way to live up to the slogan written in 1805, which is, “Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus.” It means “We hope for better things; it shall arise from the ashes.” The Motor City is famous for its auto-industry industrial past. Michigan remains the top state for auto manufacturing and assembly. The state has also been known for artistry. Motown Records put Detroit’s musical arts on the map in the 60s. And the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) was founded in 1885 and remains integral today. Just as many of the city’s wall-to-wall murals welcome you to this neighborhood or that, purveyors of the craft beer arts are sprouting up.

Suburban Detroit’s Beer Scene

Though the brewery population is only in the single-digits within city limits, it has long been a metropolis where denizens spread out to the suburbs. So it’s here where we’ll start exploring Detroit’s beer scene. Baffin Brewing in St. Clair Shores and Dearborn Brewing, though 25 miles apart, both greet customers with equally jaw-dropping displays of Mug Club mugs.

Since opening in 2015, 902 people have joined Baffin’s mug club. The only way to earn one of the ceramic mugs that meticulously line the room is to drink your way in. On your 150th pint, you’re automatically part of the club whose members include Detroit Red Wings hockey players. You can bling your own mug or have a local artist custom paint it. Odds are good one of those 150 pints was fruited IPA Mango Unchained, their best-seller. Baffin’s taplist has several fruit beers — mostly Michigan grown fruit and complemented by Michigan hops. But visit around Fat Tuesday as I did and you can try their once-a-year pączki stout. Pączki are Polish jelly doughnuts, pre-Lenten cultural touchstones for Michiganders. And yes, the beer is made with 40 pounds of mushed up pączki — from New Palace Bakery in neighboring Hamtramck — in the mash.

(CRAFT BEER ROAD TRIP: Michigan Breweries Along I-94)

Mug Club Galore

The cost of joining Dearborn’s mug club is $200. Considering it includes a hand-blown glass tankard from Dearborn’s Glass Academy, which sells for $175, it’s no wonder hundreds have opted in. The glasses are wildly distinctive and range in volumes (generally 18-22 ounces) so choose wisely. Equally exceptional are the beers that fill them such as SMaSHmere pale ale. It’s a single malt/single hop beer using citrusy, melony, Michigan-grown Cashmere hops. There’s also Dirty Mimosa, a double IPA fermented with white wine yeast. The Chardonnay flavors give brut IPAs a run for their money. Since they don’t serve food, and given that Dearborn’s population has become 40 percent Arab, bringing in food from nearby Lebanese or Yemeni restaurants is a great option. Model IPA would go great with kafka (spiced lamb), and manakish (think herb topped flatbread) calls for a glass of Norwegie Board, a kveik yeast farmhouse ale.

Hardware Store Turned Brewery

Also outside Detroit proper in Warren is Kuhnhenn Brewing, established in 1998 inside a hardware store. As hardware sales slumped, the Kuhnhenn brothers who ran the shop added homebrewing equipment and supplies. They don’t have to worry about that now since the brewery has become a destination. Beers like DRIPA, a double rice IPA which once garnered gold at the World Beer Cup, keep ’em coming back. Strong beers are the order. And if among their 20 taps they have Cherry Eisbock (a fruit lager that tops 15% ABV), don’t miss the opportunity.

While Kuhnhenn’s success came organically, over in Ferndale, Urbanrest Brewing has served its community since 2015 by brewing organic beers. Instead of Detroit’s famous coney island hot dogs or the local style of pizza (it’s square), hungry patrons can expect modern, healthy fare from mobile caterers. Circa 2010, an IPA that’s a throwback to decades past, is popular; Urbanrest’s Dry Hopped Saison is made using locally grown Saaz and Crystal hops. And it is fragrant and spicy enough to please ardent IPA-only folks.

Detroit’s Beer Scene is Thriving

As far as Detroit’s beer scene in the city proper, Atwater is by far the largest producing and will soon open a tasting room at the airport should you neglect to visit the actual brewery while in town. Rare is the brewery that can have a Vanilla Java Porter as its flagship. But for a brewery founded in 1997 with the intent to deliver the type of Bohemian Pilsner the city lost when it lost the Stroh’s brewery, it quickly adapted to produce the types of beers local beer drinkers wanted. Atwater is heavily involved in charitable work, too, working with several nonprofits that largely tie to Detroit’s next generation such as Detroit PAL, Cornerstone Schools and Kids on the Go, promoting education and sports for citywide youths. It doesn’t hurt that Atwater also has amassed four Great American Beer Festival medals.

Smaller Scale Scenes

On a much smaller scale, Batch Brewing in the Corktown neighborhood — so named for the number of Irish immigrants from County Cork — makes delicious, small batch beer — and food. Since launching in 2015 as a giant step up from homebrewing, Batch brews a range of beers that appeals to drinkers across the style spectrum as well as the generations, from Grandpa Beer (a cream ale) to Rainbow Colors Blended (a double milkshake IPA with mango and passion fruit) to an English-style porter brewed exclusively for the hotel neighbor, Trumbull & Porter.

A new Funk Room for wild ales is opening soon. But what also put Batch on the map is the creation of the Feelgood Tap. Designed to have breweries and beer bars — three dozen across the whole state so far including Eastern Market Brewing in Detroit’s Eastern Market neighborhood plus nearby Dragonmead Microbrewery — raise the price of any given tap by a buck for a month and then give those collective dollars to Michigan nonprofits benefiting community, culture and wellness. To go the extra mile, Batch’s Feelgood tap beer of the month donates $2 per pint.

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Breweries Named for the Motor City

Concluding with a trio of Detroit-named breweries, beer travelers will want to check out Detroit Beer Co., Motor City Brewing Works and Brew Detroit. Detroit Beer Co. opened in 2003. It benefits by being a short walk from home games for the Lions, Tigers, Pistons and Red Wings. Though it has a sports pub vibe, customers walk past the sunken level brewhouse upon entering. In addition to the popular cream ale and altbiers (responsible for three of their five GABF honors) and a series of IPAs, they also brew a peach gose. And they have been known to put experimental gruits on tap.

Motor City Brewing Works, the city’s oldest operating craft brewery, opened its doors in Midtown’s Cass Corridor in 1994. It’s morphed into a posh destination for many things Made in Detroit. Shoppers can leaf through vinyl or catch a show at Jack White’s Third Man Records, pick up bespoke watches and bags at Shinola, or, oh yeah, enjoy some of the sour and farmhouse ales made famous by Jolly Pumpkin at this Detroit outpost, each within a stone’s throw of each other. Motor City Brewing is charming inside and out with a beer garden in the front and two-level pizza-centric pub indoors. There are seasonals and experimental batches galore. But beers such as Ghetto Blaster, probably the only 3.8% ABV English-style mild ale among any American brewery’s list of flagships, are so popular that it’s additionally brewed and canned under its alternating-proprietorship at Brew Detroit back near Batch.

“It’s a Michigan Thing”

Founded as a contract brewery with just one customer in 2014, Brew Detroit is a 100-barrel brewery. It has a bunch of fermenters up to 400 barrels in size and also features a tasting room on site. No slouch, this is the Detroit brewery that medaled at last year’s GABF with their Mexican-style (well, International-style Pilsner) Cerveza Delray. Joe Thorner is the man at the helm. He is a brewmaster with more than 40 years experience beginning with Detroit’s once-mighty Stroh’s. Owner Pabst has resurrected that brand. But Stroh’s Bohemian Pilsner today is brewed under contract by Thorner and his crew. All manner of lagers and ales can be found in the spacious taproom replete with arcade and classic pub games. But to really get the local flavor, get there on the first Thursday of each month to play in the euchre tournament. It’s a Michigan thing.

The post Beercationing in Michigan? Don’t Overlook Detroit appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

As the great American philosopher Fred Eckhardt declared, “Listen to your beer.” And since beer speaks to people, at least those smart enough to listen and thoughtful enough to hear it, it speaks of hops growing on the bines, amber waves of barley blowing in the field, or yeast hitchhiking on the breeze.

Brewmaster Matt Van Wyk’s beer obviously sings to him. He, along with brothers Brian and Doug Coombs, are the composers behind Alesong Brewing and Blending in Eugene, Oregon. And while they create a wide range of barrel-matured beers from earthy saisons to viscous imperial stouts, no doubt it’s the emphasis on vinous, wild ales that is music to sour beer lovers’ ears. But if their newest Great American Beer Festival (GABF) medals are any indication, they could almost rename the brewery WineAlesong.

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Alesong hat-tricked at the 2018 GABF competition with two “Terroir” beers deep-rooted in wine grapes. The third medal was for a beer style more familiar to beer devotees—a Brettanomyces-fermented ale dry hopped with new-school Mandarina hops from old-world Bavaria.

Having launched in 2016, Alesong instantly struck gold in the Brett Beer category with Citra-laden Touch of Brett. It struck bronze in 2017 with Touch of Brett Mosaic. This year’s Mandarina hopped iteration also earned bronze, thus three-peating in the Brett Beer category. But the beer that scored silver in the same category, Terroir Pinot Gris, was also from Alesong! What’s more, Terroir Pinot Noir earned yet another silver, only this time in the Experimental Beer category.

“We are on a mission to find the best ways to use grapes with beer,” says Van Wyk, whose first foray into wine beers came in 2013 when he and Brian Coombs worked at Oakshire Brewing, also in Eugene. There’s an expression that says, “Grapes make wine; people make beer.” That idiom wasn’t prepared for someone like Coombs. After Oakshire, he worked at a nearby winery so it’s only natural that he loves blending and blurring the lines in his wine-inspired beers.

(Related: 2018 Great American Beer Festival Competition Winners Announced in Denver)

“The point of the Terroir series is to showcase not only the grapes grown in (the Willamette Valley), but also showcase our abilities in processing them. There are many ways you can use grapes in a beer,” adds Van Wyk, pointing to juice, whole clusters, various skin contact time, and when to age in oak or stainless. “And there are a host of things we can do during the aging process to accentuate flavors, colors and aromas. We’re trying to highlight all of those things, including the oak character, a valuable part of a wine’s personality.”

Wine Beers Take Root

Brewers who experiment with wine’s raison d’être are sparse, yet Alesong’s hardly the only brewery (or blendery) getting its grape goop on. Delaware’s Dogfish Head Craft Brewery was among the first American breweries to muddy – er, musty the waters — dating back to the 1990s with Midas Touch brewed with grape must and continuing today with beers such as Sixty One (think 60 Minute IPA plus one extra ingredient: grapes) and another found in six-packs, Mixed Media, which is 51 percent saison, 49 percent fermented Viognier must. On the opposite coast, Craftsman Brewing in Pasadena, California, was equally aiming off center when brewmaster Mark Jilg conceived of Cabernale—yes, Cabernet wine accented ale—in late 2002. Jilg says he figured “all those bright tannins could dry out a malty red beer in a fun way.”

In Denver, a new brewpub focuses exclusively on wine-beer-hybrids or, as Alex Liberati of Liberati Osteria & Oenobeers calls them, “oenobeers.”

“I’m obsessed with oenobeers,” says the Italy native who also operates a beer shop in Rome. “Oeno” is Latin for wine. In Italy, these drinks have their own acronym: IGA. They’re not as pervasive as IPA, but Italian Grape Ales are made, by Liberati’s estimate, at 20 percent of Italian craft breweries to varying frequency.

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“An oenobeer is produced with grapes or grape products (must, pomace) and has nothing to do with wine barrel aging,” says Liberati. “You encounter challenges that you normally wouldn’t in brewing, such as tartaric acid, malic acid, wild yeasts, molds, bacteria, etcetera.” But because he indicates IGA is exclusively an appellation for Italy the way spontaneously-fermented Lambics hail only from Belgium and the Senne Valley, he’s pushing for his neologistic moniker, which can be brewed the world over. “There are no barriers here in the world of oenobeers, the space for exploration is unrestricted.”

It’s worth noting that Brasserie Cantillon, Brussels’s vaunted Lambic brewer and blender, has been making Saint Lamvinus—a wild ale with Merlot and Cabernet Franc grapes—since 1995. It’s the beer Van Wyk and others reference to dismiss any notion that wine beers are a fad for brewers just looking to use a new ingredient to move one more one-off beer.

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“I’m not a ‘beer brewed with chicken burgers’ fan,” declares Liberati. “I love traditional styles. Oenobeers are not my reply to that ‘make it weird’ trend.”

That said, he doesn’t view these beers in the vein of other traditional fruit lambics or fruit beers such as kriek or framboise. “Cherries and raspberries are puny fruits in comparison to the excellency of grapes!” Liberati’s Italian passion bubbled to the surface. “Grapes are truly a very unique fruit, with challenges and possibilities like no other. Oenobeers definitely do not have any place in the fruit beer style. They have a chapter of their own. To make oenobeers in the correct way, one must master brewing and winemaking.”

Grapes of Mash

Interestingly, Liberati does not preach soil or sense of place as a chief requirement for oenobeers. “Italian Grape Ales are surely an expression of terroir, but I don’t think oenobeer needs to be. We use grapes from all over the world, testing continuously to see what we discover.” In Texas, a state not synonymous with wine country despite being the fifth largest wine-producing state, Jester King Brewery and New Braunfels Brewing also make beers in this style.

Breweries farther afield notwithstanding, it comes as no surprise that most examples hail from ones situated in established wine regions. Alesong is surrounded by vineyards. In the middle of the Santa Ynez Valley along California’s central coast, Firestone Walker Barrelworks first used grapes in beer in 2013 with Mikkeller named “Little Mikkel,” but nearly a quarter century before Firestone Walker Brewing launched in 1996, the family founded Firestone Winery.

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And for Firestone Walker Barrelworks’s master blender Jim Crooks, wine beers are absolutely about terroir. Their Feral Vinifera series of wine grape experiments is dispersed among several barrels aging myriad beers co-fermented with mostly white wine grape varietals: Sauvignon Blanc, Chennin Blanc, Muscat. Crooks’s barrels are equal parts playground and classroom. He doesn’t come from a winemaking background, but he’s surrounded by grape growers and winemakers. The grapes come from Andrew Murray Vineyards, but the expertise was derived from Andrew Murray himself. “Andrew was blown away (by the results),” says Crooks. “His winemaking terminology was like opening a new vocabulary to us.”

Hence the oaky tannic depth and flinty minerality of Feral Vinifera #4, which earned a gold medal at the 2017 Brussels Beer Challenge and took home the Comac Trophy honoring the most notable “international revelation.” Jumping from the world stage to the American one, Barrelworks’s Feral Brut is the beer that bested Alesong’s Terroir Pinot Noir in the Experimental Beer category last GABF. To be fair, Feral Brut is more of a beer-champagne hybrid than beer-wine since it was laboriously fermented using the Méthode Champenoise, but since it’s from California, it’s actually a sparkling wine-beer hybrid.

Ongoing Wine Beer Projects

To encourage this type of experimentation, Firestone Walker put on the inaugural Terroir Project Festival in the Santa Ynez Valley (at a nearby winery, no less, instead of their own brewery or barrel facility.) First-year invitees included Sierra Nevada, Jester King and Side Project. Each had to make a beer using grapes grown within 100 miles of the respective breweries.

It’s safe to say that with two wins for wine beers at GABF including sharing the podium in the Experimental category, Alesong is on Firestone Walker’s radar. And there’s plenty more where those “Terroir” series beers came from (not that every drop of grape juice goes into that line). Visions is their tart ale primed with Muscat juice, making it a touch sweet and since it’s carbonated, it’s every bit as delectable as frizzante Moscato. What happens with the Chardonnay grapes as well as the Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah is still TBD. “We seem to have more grapes available to us than tanks,” quips Van Wyk.

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So whether the industry lands on a style name such as wine-beer-hybrids, wine-inspired beers, oenobeers, or graperific-grapey-grape ales, for now and the foreseeable future, this young sub-style will age like a fine wine as Category 19, Experimental Beer. It’s immeasurably defined as “any beers that are primarily grain-based and employ unique and unusual techniques and/or ingredients.” The guidelines further define them as “beers which represent a combination of two or more existing categories and exhibit distinctive characteristics of each of those categories.” If we consider beer as one category and wine as another, breweries like Alesong are hitting the nail on the head.

“Terroir Pinot Noir utilized many processes used by winemakers in producing world-class wines, rather than just adding grape juice to a beer,” states Van Wyk. “We have a few more variables to balance. Because there are four (or more) different ingredients in beer and (often) multiple fermentations, and then the grapes, and the wood, there are just more things to concern yourself with. In the end, we are basically complementing beer with wine.”

The post In Vinocervisia Veritas: The Rise of Wine Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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A couple years later, when Seattle’s Georgetown Brewing earned gold with their Gusto Crema cream ale, the B.A. ended porter’s and stout’s 15-year reign as the de facto base style and bifurcated Coffee Beer with a second field specifically for coffee porters or stouts. Sure, those are still the go-to base beers for brewers introducing a caffeinated punch, but it’s now lighter and brighter beer’s time to rise and shine as coffee’s beery best friend. Here are some examples that are either available year-round or are available this winter.

Coffee Cream Ale (4%) | Kiitos Brewing | Salt Lake City, UT

The 2018 gold medalist in the Coffee Beer category, which garnered an impressive 92 entries (19 shy of Coffee Stout or Porter), is another riff on the coffee cream concept. Using whole, unground Guatemalan beans from a local roaster, a bold roast flavor — but not a dark hue — impacts Kiitos‘ sweet-ish beer with eye-opening earthiness that won’t scare off those afraid of the dark.

Balinator (7.5%) | Carton Brewing | Atlantic Highlands, NJ

While Carton has already developed a rep for its Jersey-style coffee cream ale called Regular Coffee (“regular coffee” in the Garden State implies milk and two sugars so the beer is heavy on the lactose), this is one irregular doppelbock. Of course coffee goes with toast but how about in a toasty beer? In lieu of ever adding hops, Carton adds Fair Mountain Coffee’s Bali Blue Moon beans that impart vanilla and chocolate notes, partially to replace and partially to replicate those Hallertau flowers. When early-boil hops would’ve been called for, Carton used green beans. When aroma hops would’ve entered the whirlpool, they added ground dark roast coffee. And instead of dry hopping with fruity varietals, the doppelbock is dry-beaned with medium-roast beans.

(MORE: Discover Seasonal Beers)

First Call (6.5%) | Modist Brewing | Minneapolis

If a lighter colored and lighter bodied ale is no longer a stretch for coffee beers, avoiding ales altogether still is. First Call starts with something in between a Czech pilsner and a Vienna lager then douses it with Two Cousins Espresso from nearby Wesley Andrews Coffee. The Brazilian beans lend berry notes and nuttiness, so this really is more of a breakfast beer than one for last call.

Transformation Chamber (2.33%) | Modern Times Beer | San Diego

With this coffee mild ale at under 2.5% ABV, it could practically be your first cup of coffee of the day. Modern Times takes coffee beers so seriously, they launched an in-house coffee company side — so it’s no wonder they make loads of java brews and that, increasingly, more fall beyond stouts and porters. This is still a dark mild that features brown malts and roasted barley, but the general dose of their own Ethiopian Amaro coffee embellishes the coffee and toffee character, guv’nor.

Handlebar Abbey Ale (7.2%) | Telegraph Brewing | Santa Barbara, CA

If all monastic breweries made dubbels like this, there’d be some woke monks. Telegraph infuses it with cold pressed coffee from Santa Barbara’s Handlebar Coffee Roasters, thereby cutting the acidity. The result is very much an abbey-style ale and the Trappist yeast throws plenty of clove, honey, and spice with a malt body that furthers the date sweetness so as to make this perfect for sipping at a European-style Christmas Market.

(MORE: Single Origin Coffee Stouts)

Jaguarundi (7.2%) | Dry River Brewing | Los Angeles

The brewery on the banks of the LA River (hence the name Dry River) calls this a sour dark stein beer with coffee and cacao. Not only does it feature Mexican beans (extracted not by toddy but via ice drip) sourced by El Cafè in Dry River’s Boyle Heights neighborhood, but it includes Mexican cinnamon and vanilla, too. The flavor profile is far from a venti mocha and tastes more like it was brewed with cascara, the cherry-like fruit around the coffee beans instead. It’s rich and complex with a powerful acidic bite more resembling a kriek or Flanders red aged in red wine barrels.

Naughty Sauce Golden Milk Stout (5.4%) | Noble Ale Works | Anaheim, CA

Rounding out our selections from California, this is a stout in name only. Naughty Sauce from Noble Ale Works replicates a milk stout’s creaminess by using milk sugar, oats, and is served nitrogenated. But instead of using roasted barley, it sees three pounds of coffee beans from nearby Portola Coffee Lab. Add golden stout to the list that starts with jumbo shrimp of things that sound paradoxical yet taste incredibly delicious.

Golden Coffee Pale (6%) | pFriem Family Brewers | Hood River, OR

Pale ales aren’t usually described as being golden (although this one actually pours more copper) — and they certainly aren’t usually bursting with java. The hop-smiths at pFriem stick a landing too tricky for some coffee IPAs out there in that it favorably marries the citrus and tropical fruit and nutty flavors of both Coava Coffee’s Kenyan coffee and Washington Ekuanot and New Zealand Motueka hops. The result is closer to overripe or fermented passion fruit than a bitter shot of espresso.

Holler Mountain Triple (9%) | Cascade Brewing | Portland, OR

The blenders at Cascade, purveyors of Northwest-style sour ales, experiment with fruits, spices and ingredients galore. It was only a matter of time before they tested the sour waters with coffee, courtesy of hometown juggernaut Stumptown Coffee, and their citrusy Holler Mountain blend of African and Latin American beans. They added a sampling, not a smattering, of cold brew to the base beer after aging a year and a half in a foudre. The lemony-tart result is akin to a bright shot of Italian espresso served with lemon peel.

(COOK WITH BEER: Coffee Stout Truffles)

Dark Helmet (5%) | Stone’s Throw Brewing | Little Rock, AR

When brewers enter the pop culture space, walls crumble and brilliant beer names arise. The sequel to Stone’s Throw’s classic German schwarzbier, The Schwartz, is Dark Helmet. This light-bodied yet black-colored lager (thanks to Blackprinz specialty malts) receives Guillermo’s Roastery’s Espresso Blend at the end of the boil. The resulting beer is crisp and bitter and will send you into ludicrous speed mode.

When many brewers, it seems, release coffee beers in fall or winter because the assumption is that roasty stouts or porters only bode well in the colder months, these beers flip the script by staying perfectly appropriate as a chilly, seasonal release but eschew the stout or porter part. During this season when houses bring out strands of bright lights, bring these bright, light coffee beers into your home.

The post Discover the Lighter, Brighter Side of Coffee Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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But let’s get back to adult beverages. Kentucky’s oldest distillery, Buffalo Trace, predates its oldest (surviving) craft brewery, Bluegrass Brewing Co., by 201 years (1792 and 1993, respectively). And even though its distilleries outnumber its breweries by about 75 to 55, this is absolutely destination-worthy for today’s beer lovers.

As one would imagine, fantastic bourbon-barrel aged beers abound, but Kentucky craft breweries make some mean IPAs. And for some true local flavor, try hunting down a pint of Kentucky Common, one of the rare indigenous American beer styles. Here’s a great route to explore the breweries of Bourbon Country.

(READ: Epic Craft Beer Road Trip: Pacific Coast Breweries)

Louisville

It’s fitting that the state’s largest city is home to around 16 percent of the population as well as 16 of its breweries. It’s a great place to start the tour.

Bluegrass Brewing Co.

In a state known for strong whiskey, it’s only fitting that the elder statesmen of breweries garnered back to back Great American Beer Festival (GABF) gold medals for its strong (12.5%) barleywine, Bearded Pat’s. Bluegrass Brewing Co. is the state’s winningest brewery at GABF. One of the most popular beers at the pub is the Bourbon Barrel Stout, weighing in at a comparatively modest 8% ABV, and ages in smooth Four Roses barrels then amps up the smoothness by serving it on nitro.

Goodwood Brewing

Branching off from Bluegrass Brewing Co. in 2015, Goodwood is all about wood — and the excellent limestone water from deep aquifers — but mostly wood. Sometimes it’s the wood that’s been used to age bourbon but sometimes it’s white ash, the very same found in famous Louisville Slugger bats. Louisville Lager is aged on said chips. Hemp Gose is the only beer that features not wood but a great wood substitute and is a nod to the state’s largest underground cash crop even ahead of above-ground tobacco. Walnut, spruce, poplar and more help grow their forest of beer offerings.

Mile Wide Beer Co.

The only Great American Beer Festival medal for Kentucky in 2017 went to Mile Wide for McPoyle, a nitrogenated milk stout. But clearly patrons come for the IPAs. There are generally five different ones on tap ranging from Idlewild Session IPA to Moxie, billed as a Northwest Double IPA and while it features a lip-smacking array of hops from around the Pacific Northwest, some German Mandarina Bavaria snuck in, too.

Against the Grain Brewery 

Against the Grain is among Kentucky’s best-known breweries generating worldwide acclaim for beers like Citra Ass Down (an IPA that’s, as is easily deduced, bursting with Citra hops) and Bo & Luke, an imperial stout that gets every kind of barrel treatment from bourbon (natch) to that concord grape wine found in Kiddush cups, in case Bo and his cousin Luke ever crash a Bar Mitzvah. The number of beers coming out of this brewery is mind-boggling and the best way to sample through them is at the pub over a large plate of house-smoked barbeque.

Monnik Beer Co.

It’s good to get out of the downtown core and this brewpub is a gem for those in the Schnitzelburg neighborhood. The 15 house taps at Monnik Beer Co. range from new Brut IPA (“As Different as You Are”) to Old Mutton Chops, a barrel-aged version of their brown ale, King George. Sometimes you’ll find beers with a culinary flair featuring cardamom or ginger and they serve as deft compliments to the Dutch-inspired menu that includes the best bitterballen this side of Amsterdam.

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Lexington

In central Kentucky farther from the urban center, Lexington is surrounded by horse farms. The charming city encircled by New Circle Road boasts an incredible beer scene largely comprised of this two-mile brewery crawl.

Alltech Lexington Brewing and Distilling Co.

Alltech is a multifaceted company founded by Dr. Pearse Lyons who passed away in 2017. Dr. Lyons, who earned his master’s and Ph.D in malting and brewing, moved from Ireland to Kentucky to create this biotech firm using the powers of yeast to promote healthy animals from fast horses to thirsty people. Their flagship, Kentucky Ale, is a hybrid of Irish red and British pale ales, while Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, introduced back in 2006, sees that base beer Kentuckified by aging in the bounty of local barrels. The barrel-aged beer offerings have multiplied (coffee or blackberry, for example), and there’s even a spin-off brewery and distillery (Dueling Barrels in Pikeville deep in Appalachia), but there’s something wonderfully straightforward about the original that layers vanilla and oak notes on a golden beer to highlight where these paths converge.

West Sixth Brewing

The brewery and taproom in downtown Lexington is the ideal spot to sip Kentucky’s best-selling IPA or the weekly firkin release. An added treat is a weekend retreat with the whole family to the West Sixth Farm in Frankfort (almost halfway back to Louisville and 10 minutes from Buffalo Trace) to sip said IPA among their micro hop yard. The bar has 10 West Sixth beers on tap, enough to explore nearly 10 acres of the farm per round.

Blue Stallion Brewing

Blue Stallion Brewing is a communal gathering spot that offers a comfy patio on which to enjoy their approachable beers. Of course you’ll find some IPAs but the emphasis is on traditional German lagers plus some British and Belgian ales. So hoist steins of their sessionable pilsner or Munich Dunkel and then treat yourself to a hefty dopplebock given a Kentucky kick via bourbon barrel aging.

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

Cincinnati Metro

Even many Ohioans perceive Cincy less as southern Ohio and more as northern Kentucky. The cities on the south side of the Ohio River that serves as the natural state border aren’t merely perceived of as Kentuckian, they are Kentucky.

Darkness Brewing | Bellevue

The nano-sized brewery means Darkness gets to keep its homebrewing roots alive with myriad experiments and riffs including its session-strength (4.8%) Anomaly series of dark ales. Sometimes the beer gets hit with unique hops, sometimes it’s a favorite coffee. But what makes this a don’t-miss Kentucky brewery is Bellevue Common. This is a Kentucky Common Ale made with all state-grown ingredients including the malted barley, corn and rye.

Braxton Brewing | Covington 

Up in Cincy proper, Graeter’s Ice Cream is an institution perhaps on par with Cincinnati-style chili (served on Coney hot dogs or spaghetti!). So when this homebrew-inspired brewery (that feels like an inviting man-cave because it’s housed in a former garage) opened, Braxton Brewing got to work collaborating with the creamery to create flavors such as Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip Milk Stout. Another stout called Dead Blow and dubbed a “tropical stout” made with dates, goes into Graeter’s Stout & Pretzels ice cream. For a Kentucky Common-esque beer, try Storm golden cream ale.

(VISIT: Great American Beer Bars 2018)

A Few Kentucky Craft Breweries Off the Beaten Path

Kentucky earns its rural reputation. The financial centers in urban areas are far outnumbered by pastoral towns even if said towns with breweries are few and far between. They’re still worth getting off the interstate to check out.

Jarfly Brewing | Somerset

Located 75 miles due south of Kentucky (and 40 miles north of Tennessee), Jarfly, a sobriquet for the every-17-years-cicada, is a charming pub in downtown Somerset occupying a space that’d been a family-owned furniture store for 150 years. Instead of handcrafting chairs and sofas, Jarfly handcrafts familiar styles with artistic flourishes. The Kentucky Common Ale is gilded with jalapenos. The black IPA is given the bourbon barrel treatment. Not to be overlooked, the cheeseboard features all Kentucky-made cheeses, and this may be Kentucky’s best kept secret.

Dry Ground Brewing | Paducah

Some folks think “Paducah” is a fictitious name for a place in the middle of nowhere. But it’s a real place, not in the middle of Kentucky but on the border of Illinois. The name is an homage to the Great Flood of 1937 when the Ohio River flooded, and with it, the Coca-Cola bottling plant built by Luther Carson. Carson built his replacement facility at the first place with dry ground. Today, Dry Ground Brewing occupies the back end of the former soda plant with its Art Deco architecture still preserved. Uncle Luther, an excellent ESB, keeps the past alive, as does ’37 Flood IPA. Pro tip for parents: There are board games available but if your kids are up for sleuthing, they might find a toy car hidden in holes or cavities in the building’s old brick walls.

St. Arnulf Alery | Cadiz

My first taste of bona fide moonshine was homemade blueberry bourbon. I mention this only because a beer like Hexagon, a milk stout with blueberries aged in bourbon barrels, is more authentically Kentucky that you might think. The blueberries on the 350-acre farm — replete with caves and springs as their water source — that St. Arnulf Alery calls home go into the beer. Raspberries grown on the farm also make their way into the beer that’s brewed over a wood-fired kettle like it’s the Middle Ages. In fact, the Cascade and Chinook hops that go into their beers: also farm grown, though they use some 21st century hop varietals and brewing know-how, too.

Ultimately, while the Commonwealth may not have as extensive a history when it comes to craft brewing as some other states, it’s far from the fictionalized place where everyone just drinks bourbon neat or sloppy moonshine. (But it is true that only tourists drink mint juleps.) Despite over half the counties having some sort of blue law restrictions on alcohol sales and over a quarter of the counties are completely dry, the Bluegrass State is as charming and creative a place to enjoy the modern wave of American, independent brewing, bourbon-aged or otherwise.

The post Exploring Kentucky Craft Breweries in Bourbon Country appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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Having said that, if your summer road trip plans include this top-to-bottom stretch of jaw-dropping scenery, check out these 15 Pacific Coast breweries along the way, all conveniently located close enough to the beach to hear the waves crashing.

(TRAVEL: 5 Epic Craft Beer Road Trips)

Pacific Coast Breweries: California

Bagby Beer Co. | Oceanside, CA

Brewmaster Jeff Bagby of Pizza Port fame launched his eponymous brewery in San Diego’s North County a Frisbee’s throw from the beach. Need proof that this craft brewery caters to the hop geeks? Sip on pints of Dork Squad, Nerd Herd, Doofus, and Dinkus. That said, Bagby Beer Co. offers a world of pitch-perfect beer styles to discover beyond IPAs including German roggenbiers, Belgian-style blonde ales and Czech Pilsners.

Newport Beach Brewing | Newport Beach, CA

An hour north in Orange County where breweries are nearly as ubiquitous as surfboards and strip malls, this became the OC’s second craft brewery in 1992 and this neighborhood joint has kept up with the times. Sessionable beers rule the draft board and many take on the tropical flavors befitting the palm trees towering over the pub including a blood orange IPA, a blonde ale infused with coconut, and a kettle soured beer with pureed mangos.

Riip Beer Co. | Huntington Beach, CA

Surfer-dude pretty-boy Hansel, the Owen Wilson character in “Zoolander,” put it succinctly: “I grip it and I rip it.” Get “riiped” at this smaller spot on the OC coast that knows how to please locals and national beer judges alike as evidenced by their silver medal for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in the almighty American-style India Pale Ale category. Typically shortened to “Super-Cali,” this IPA is indeed supercalifragilisticexpi-delicious and pops with bitter orange zest and other citrus notes atop a biscuity malt bill that still packs a 7.2% ABV punch.

(TRAVEL: Epic Route 66 Craft Beer Road Trip)

Beachwood Brewing | Long Beach, CA

For a brewery with an outsized reputation, a visit to Beachwood Brewing is sort of two breweries in one since there’s the brewpub that boasts one of Long Beach’s longest beer lists (crowd fave juicy IPAs include Thrillseeker and Melrose while stouts include Udder Love and Kilgore Stout). Sour beer lovers can then pop right around the corner into The Blendery where a nonstop parade of fruited sours (including the “Careful” line, like Careful with that Peach, Eugene, and Careful with that Pluot, Eugene, to give you the gist). All said and done, Beachwood has racked up more than a dozen GABF medals in the past five years.

Topa Topa Brewing | Ventura, CA

North of Los Angeles and below the Topatopa Mountains you’ll find Topa Topa Brewing where head brewer Casey Harris, who cut his teeth researching hops and writing recipes for Stone Brewing, creates over a dozen fresh beers on tap. The small tasting room offers a sunny patio where you can enjoy the various hop delivery vehicles as well as a few coffee-infused beers. Can’t make up your mind which to go for? There’s Howler Coffee IIPA.

Telegraph Brewing | Santa Barbara, CA

Surrounded on three sides by wineries (and one side by the beach that’s five blocks away), Telegraph Brewing is the brewery that put the “American Riviera” on the beer map. Their IPA is a benchmark of the West Coast style and California Ale is an earthy, yeasty Belgian-style pale ale. But for beer nerds and wine lovers alike, the Obscura series of wild ales makes Telegraph Brewing a destination. The sour beers, often aged in area wine barrels, sometimes get a boost from local citrus or stone fruits such as Gypsy aged on plums.

The Libertine Pub | Morro Bay, CA

Libertine Brewing’s ambitious beers are often made using the steinbier brewing method, which employs superheated rocks plucked from the bay. Launched as a tiny brewpub in tiny, charming Morro Bay, Libertine operates a larger brewery and tasting room inland in San Luis Obispo now but this waterside brewpub and music venue remains terroir-minded. The gose uses Pacific Ocean water for the requisite salinity. This cozy, entrancing joint offers dozens of taps ranging from session IPA to saison with several devoted to their in-demand, wild, barrel-aged creations.

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales | Capitola, CA

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales, dubbed “SARA” by those in-the-know, is a small brewery with a larger-than-life reputation. Most formidable for beer lovers is West Ashley, a pinot noir-aged saison with apricots. Each visit is a game of chance since you never know what they’ll have available, but if you come across Westly, which they could’ve called Westlier since it’s apricotier and oakier than West Ashley, do not miss your chance.

North Coast Brewing | Fort Bragg, CA

The North Coast Brewery Taproom’s clams are steamed in Blue Star Wheat and one pint will make you as happy as one of those mollusks. Old Rasputin (or “Old Raspy”) Russian Imperial Stout is so iconic, Russian River Brewing’s Vinnie Cilurzo swore off ever making an imperial stout out of respect. Not only can you catch some great live jazz at the pub, North Coast also supports jazz via their Brother Thelonius Belgian-style Dark Ale benefitting the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz for jazz education.

(READ: Farm Breweries to Visit This Year)

Pacific Coast Breweries: Oregon

7 Devils Brewing | Coos Bay, OR

Carmen Matthews and Annie Pollard had mused about opening their own brewpub as homebrewers before they’d even met and got married. Now 7 Devils Brewing with a seven-barrel system has given this Oregon southern coastal town the community hub it craved. Families, including four-legged “children,” dine out in the eco-friendly rain garden. For a true taste of terroir, try the Ebb Tide Oyster Stout, a velveteen dry Irish stout made with Coos Bay oyster shells.

Rogue Ales | Newport, OR

Having racked up more than 30 GABF medals since launching in 1988 (well, since it first medaled in 1990, really) Rogue is one of the best-known American craft beer brands worldwide and it all starts here in the marina of the Yaquina Bay. Legendary brewmaster John Maier‘s greatest hits include Dead Guy, Shakespeare Stout, and that nuttily delicious Hazelnut Brown Nectar, but it’s their Rogue Farms-to-beer concoctions like 4 Hop IPA, 5 Hop (and up to 10 Hop) that show they keep forging new paths just as they did 30 years ago.

Pelican Brewing | Pacific City, OR

There are Pacific Coast breweries near the beach, but Pelican Brewing is the only one I know of that’s on the beach. As you gaze at Haystack Rock offshore or watch the dory boats, wiggle your toes in the warm sand while sipping imperial pints of Kiwanda Cream Ale on the patio, named for the Shore Pine-topped Cape Kiwanda that ameliorates the view. It’s not just the view, though. Pelican has garnered more than three dozen GABF medals across myriad categories. If you find it, dive into their 2018 World Beer Cup gold medal winning Queen of Hearts (Saison du Pélican aged in gin barrels) in the wood- and barrel-aged category.

Ft. George Brewing + Public House | Astoria, OR

OK, so Ft. George Brewing + Public House is a bit inland, but it is right off Highway 101 where it crosses from Oregon into Washington state and the view of the mouth of the Columbia retains its coastal aesthetic. Although their Festival of Dark Arts celebration of mega stouts makes beer lovers swoon in February, summer’s ideal for sitting on the patio and quaffing Vortex IPA bursting with Amarillo, Simcoe and Centennial hops for a huge trop-hop bomb that smells as good as it tastes. In fact, in a state rife with hop maestros, sample all the IPAs because Fort George bitters with the best of ’em.

(MORE: Great American Beer Festival 2018 Ticket Sales Announced)

Pacific Coast Breweries: Washington State

North Jetty Brewing | Seaview, WA 

You, the readers of CraftBeer.com, recently voted North Jetty Brewing the best beer bar in Washington state. Far from the beer temples of Seattle, this southern Washington joint on the Long Beach Peninsula offers 12 beers from its 10-barrel system and a chill environment in which to enjoy them. The CDA, er, American-style dark ale will never die in Cascadia so enjoy Simquinox, a beer as dark as a winter’s day featuring Simcoe and Equinox hops. The local favorite, Leadbetter Red, is a malty Scottish ale that clocks in sub 5% ABV.

Blackbeard’s Brewing | Westport, WA

Although it’s 177 miles from the northwest corner of Washington state, Blackbeard’s Brewing is actually the northernmost brewery along the U.S. Pacific Coast. Where the Chehalis River flows into Grays Harbor, it’s no surprise the beers in this serene fishing town often feature pirate or seafaring named beers like Shiver Me Citra and Cannon Ball Cream Ale. But even more than Blimey Blueberry Wheat, it’s the strawberry blonde ale that’s plundered most frequently.

Yes, it’s a long drive. It’s literally a cross-country trip, just one from south to north (pro tip: you could easily do this in reverse.) Either way, when you end up in Seattle or San Diego, there are several dozen excellent Pacific Coast breweries to check out at the bookends, but not a single one comes with quite the same view.

The post Epic Craft Beer Road Trip: Pacific Coast Breweries appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

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Here are several standout Louisiana strawberry beers that have beer lovers talking.

(READ: 2018’s Great American Beer Bars)

Berry Good: 7 Louisana Strawberry Beers

Strawberry Harvest Lager & Strawgator | Abita Beer | Covington, LA

Abita president David Blossman thinks about it and then pegs 1998 as the year this Covington, Louisiana, brewery first brewed their most popular seasonal offering, Strawberry Harvest. It was made to celebrate the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival located a half hour from the brewery north of New Orleans across from Lake Ponchatrain. Abita now sells 200,000 cases of this strawberry beer, which is released between March and June. No longer does Blossman cold-press the Louisiana-grown berries himself; Abita sources juice from a local vintner who makes strawberry wine. It’s added to the lager–made with pilsner and wheat malts–post-fermentation and filtration giving Strawberry Harvest a slight yellow not pink haze and huge berry aroma. There’s also the bigger, bolder Strawgator, a fruited riff on Abita Andygator helles doppelbock, which adds a fresh strawberry juiciness that’s right on the nose and belies its 8 percent alcohol.

Strawberry Ale | Covington Brewhouse | Covington, LA

According to area brewers, neighboring Covington Brewhouse was likely the second brewery in the state to release a strawberry ale and this one is available year-round. Strawberry puree is added to their cream ale to keep this offering exceptionally light and fruity making it pair well with barbecue.

(READ: Glitter Beer Sparkles as Spring’s Craft Beer Trend)

Strawberry Canebreak | Parish Brewing | Broussard, LA

Founder Andrew Godley acknowledges, “I don’t know exactly how people around the country respond to strawberry beer, but I do know that here in Louisiana the consumers love it. Our strawberry beer seems to capture many customers who are outside of the traditional craft segment and aren’t purchasing IPAs, for example.”, “but it was clear,” says Godley, “based on the customers who visited our taproom and only would drink the Strawberry Canebrake that we had a fan favorite.” Available from February through May, this one’s got the sweetness of shortcake but the crisp and light qualities of a sunny-day sipper.

Strawberry Alarm Hop IPA & Tart Side of the Teche Strawberry Sour | Bayou Teche Brewing | Arnaudville, LA

First there was the fruit IPA, punnily named (as many Bayou Teche Brewing beers are) Incense and Peppermints for the psychedelica band Strawberry Alarm Clock. As one of the three Knott brothers who founded the brewery on the edge of swampland near Lafayette, brewmaster Karlos tells us this beer was brewed for an audience thirsty for strawberry beers and includes “a ton” of fresh fruit from a nearby wholesaler. He says a kiss of habanero added to this spring seasonal is meant to brighten it up. It’s only available in four-packs at the taproom. The same goes for the brewery’s brand new release in their Tart Side of the Teche series (cue smirks from Pink Floyd fans), Strawberry Sour. Brewed with lactose, oats and wheat, the pureed fruit is added during secondary fermentation and complements the sour mash by delivering a pucker punch.

Incidentally, I learned from Karlos that a bar in New Orleans called Cooter Brown’s that has offered dozens of craft taps for ages, hosted the Strawberry Showdown last spring and among all the widely distributed and one-off entrants, Bayou Teche’s Magical Brewery tour won the showdown. The French farmhouse ale aged in Sauvignon Blanc barrels and pitched with Brettanomyces, Pediocaucus and Lactobacillus saw berries added on the hot and cold side, and the result, according to a biased Knott, made the competition “not really fair.” They will be releasing 22-ounce bottles soon.

(READ: Their Farm Brewery is Totally Off-the-Grid)

Strawberry Milkshake IPA | Urban South Brewery | New Orleans 

It’s a given that one modern-thinking brewery would give the hazy and milk sugar dosed IPA (“milkshake IPAs”) the strawberry treatment. Boasting Citra, El Dorado, Simcoe and Denali hops and finished with vanilla, this small-batch, brewery-only release was a big hit. So much so that the New Orleans brewery is releasing this strawberry beer’s sequel in late March. “I’m personally a big fan of eating fresh strawberries and mango together,” says founder Jacob Landry. Strawberry Mango Milkshake IPA will feature more hops, more vanilla, and more fruitiness.

My Funky Family | Wayward Owl Brewing Co. | New Orleans

Starting with a Kristallweizen–a crystal clear weisse–base, this wheat beer is fed a steady diet of berries during its barrel fermentation with Brett Brux. Owner Justin Boswell says what emerges a few months later is a dry, funky beer where the fruit character has mostly fermented out, but the beer retains a hint of sweetness in the nose and on the palate. Boswell tells us they’re going to brew a special taproom batch with additional strawberries in the brite tank.

(MORE: Seasonal Beers)

Strawberry Catahoula Common | Gnarly Barley | Hammond, LA

In Hammond, just outside Ponchatoula, where they can hardly devote any tank space to anything other than their Jucifer IPA (it’s juicy!), they make an easy-drinking California Common style beer called Catahoula Common. The strawberried version buried in fresh fruit is a fan favorite, including among other brewers of Louisiana’s strawberry beers.

The post Louisiana Loves its Strawberry Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Hops, assuredly, are a brewer’s preferred bittering agent and have been for the past 500 years, but foraged herbs have performed that function for over 1,000 years. In this modern era of rediscovering that beer is the ideal accompaniment to a great meal, more small and independent craft brewers are turning to their spice cabinet and herb gardens to conjure up culinary beers with savory palates to complement various dishes.

During this autumn season when we’re quick to reach for a delectable Märzen or serve a pumpkin beer at the Thanksgiving table (because who can wait for dessert to enjoy some pie), perhaps seek out one of these small handful of sage-infused beers to match the flavors in the turkey brine and/or stuffing. It’s a wonder how well this herb, itself with its distinct varieties, plays well with various beer styles.

(READ: Awesomely Affordable Gifts for Craft Beer Fans)

Triple White Sage | Craftsman Brewing | Pasadena, CA

The oldest American craft beer to utilize sage that I could find is Craftsman, where owner/brewer Mark Jilg has been foraging for native white sage in Pasadena’s nearby San Gabriel foothills since the late ’97 or ‘98. “If you spend time in that environment,” says Jilg, “particularly in late August into October it’s the predominant aromatic plant. Just before sunset. That was the inspiration.” Jilg decided an esthery Belgian tripel made sense to build this beer on. “I really like using ingredients that I pick off of the plant because there’s a certain inherent genuineness of going into the wild. We only pick a basketful, a few pounds, usually the day before we brew. We then use the sage-like an aromatic hop addition at the end of boil.” The end result, is a big 9 percent beer built on pale malts that play up the herb and the fermentation. Yet it’s comparatively dry and while it presents a fragrant bouquet, it still leaves nuance for pairing with the rich dishes you’re likely to find in a Thanksgiving spread. Pick up a growler as it’s draft-only.

White Fuzz | Hollister Brewing | Goleta, CA

Some hundred miles up the coast from Pasadena, Hollister brewer Eric Rose has used Craftsman’s beer as an inspiration for a few different beers incorporating farm-fresh white sage, which Rose feels is the perfect and most interesting variety for Belgian-style beers. Because there’s a farm that maintains a single acre of this native white sage and clips the tips as maintenance, Rose gets those oily clippings and uses them in this hazy, golden beer as fragrant as a walk through Santa Barbara’s Rattlesnake Canyon.

(VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery)

Sagefight Imperial IPA | Deschutes Brewing | Bend, OR

For such a rare ingredient in beer, as expected you don’t find it in many Great American Beer Festival winning beers. But Deschutes from the high desert of Central Oregon has earned two medals—silver in 2013 and bronze in 2014—in the Indigenous Beer category. Imperial IPAs are practically indigenous to the Bend brewing scene, and this one is packed with both sage and juniper berries creating a perfumey mélange botanicals. For the IPA lovers who are more interested in hops over other herbal notes, this is the happy medium hiking through a field of sagebrush with your favorite hoppy beverage in hand.

Utah Sage Saison | Epic Brewing | Salt Lake City, UT

Utah Sage Saison from Epic Brewing, incidentally, is the other GABF-winning sage beer (bronze in the Herb and Spice Beer category in 2012). Brewed in, and exclusively for, Utah, this bready and rustic saison imparts the aroma of Simon and Garfunkel’s hit since it also features rosemary and thyme, and the herbal quality of this farmhouse-style beer makes it a winning combo with lighter or vegetarian fare at the table.

(READ: 10 Crave-Worthy Peanut Butter Beers)

White Downs | Brasserie Saint James | Reno, NV

This artistic saison from Brasserie Saint James transitions away from the above’s autumnal roots into winter squash. This Nevada brewery elected to use roasted butternut squash in the mash to flesh out the body and mouthfeel letting the white sage—harvested at nearby Great Basin Co-Op—become the workhorse as it’s added to the boil for maximum pungency. After more than a year in red wine barrels, where it develops its tartness though the fermentation-derived spice and funk remains, making it an exceptional complement to turkey or just about any fowl or fauna for that matter.

Sweet Potato and Sage Saison | Ardent Craft Ales | Richmond, VA

Sweet Potato and Sage Saison from Ardent Craft Ales includes fistfuls of sage from nearby Victory Farms as well as sweet and earthy tubers found in Thanksgiving’s renowned casserole. The sage does the heavy lifting of this lighter, dry beer custom-made (and available by the growler) for thirsty pilgrims in the first American colony.

Saison Savoureuse | Tahoe Mountain Brewing | Truckee, CA

From their Récolte Du Bois series, Tahoe Mountain’s Bretted farmhouse ale began not in response to the current sour trend but as eventual owner and brewer Aaron Bigelow’s homebrewed love letter to his wife back in 1995. Said wife, more of a wine-drinker than a beer-lover, discovered an affinity for vinous, oaked, wild ales. This saison incorporates hand-rubbed Dalmatian sage that’s steeped into a concentrated tea (befitting the Bigelow surname) that’s then poured in after 16 months of aging in French oak red wine casks. The result is a tinge funky, a tinge tart, and wholly ideal for a family meal (Thanksgiving or Independence Day as it’s available year-round).

(LEARN: Explore 75+ Craft Beer Styles)

Colorado Wild Sage Brett Saison | Crooked Stave Artisanal Ales | Denver, CO

Also available year-round, and now in cans no less, is Crooked Stave‘s prodigiously food-friendly wild saison, with a bright, Brettanomyces-led tartness complemented with lemongrass, is herbal and earthy. The herbs are sourced throughout Colorado’s Rockies. While there’s a pleasing hint of lemon pepper in the finish making it one you wish you could brine the whole bird in, it’s the sage that carries the day.

Dreamland Sage | Black Project Spontaneous and Wild Ales | Denver, CO

One of the most difficult to come by beers on this list since it’s released biannually, Black Project‘s Dreamland Sage’s rarity is due to being coolship-inoculated and blended solera-style. That also makes it twice as rewarding. It begins as a golden sour ale aged in wine barrels. The sage, harvested from a community garden a few blocks away, is added by the fistful and dry-saged in the keg.

Ovila Abbey Saison with Sage | Sierra Nevada | Chico, CA

Twenty miles away from Chico’s famous Sierra Nevada brewery redolent with hops you’ll find the reticent monks of the Abbey of New Clairvaux. Brewed in the monastic old-world-style, this saison features malty notes befitting our daily bread as the foundation for a vibrant bouquet of native white sage grown on the abbey’s grounds. Wild grass and citrus peel notes seep through. While monks are recognized for their pious wisdom, the idea to pluck the monastery’s fresh herbs took real sagacity.

The post Thanksgiving in a Glass: Sage Beers You Should Try appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Here’s the thing about Portland, Oregon: It’s home to 650,000 people and 65 breweries (we’re talking city limits, not greater metro). That’s one brewery for every 10,000 Portlanders. Part of the reason these two abutting hoods are flush with small and independent brewers is that Portlanders love variety in our beer, love supporting homegrown businesses and love to visit them by foot or bike.

Incidentally, divvied up among this embarrassment of riches are five GABF medals; that means within this wonderfully walkable route, you won’t just get to try a lot of beer — you’ll get to try a lot of award-winning beer.

(MORE: Walk This Way: A Beer Lover’s Guide to the Denver Highlands)

Grixsen Brewing Co. | 1001 SE Division St. #1

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A block away from two of Portland’s best beer bars and bottle shops is this walk’s newest brewery, Grixsen, which is actually still in its soft opening. The name is a portmanteau of the owners’ surnames: Kurt Gritman, DJ Moxley and Scott Petersen. Grixsen is one of a small handful of Portland breweries that doesn’t brew IPA. Having said that, the kölsch has a hop kick to it as does the dry-hopped saison, while among the malt-head pleasing offerings the brown ale leaves a delicious bitter chocolate finish.

Baerlic Brewing Co. | 2235 SE 11th Ave

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Two blocks away, Baerlic — olde English for “of barley” — is a back-to-fundamentals brewery. The brewers do have the propensity to add oats to nearly every grain bill, but the results are tasty, quaffable beers. Invincible IPA is, as expected, the best-seller. It’s a bit English-ier than most local versions built on Munich malts (and oats!) but grapefruity hop notes emerge. Cavalier Cream Ale is the second most popular call and the Basmati rice in there makes it smooth and refreshing. Speaking of refreshing, try to grab the Lacto-forward lemony tart Nice & Easy Gose.

Ground Breaker Brewery | 2030 SE 7th Ave.

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Ground Breaker Brewery and Gastropub is America’s first 100 percent dedicated gluten-free brewery. With beers made from chestnut flour and oats (not sorghum), I swear the beers are actually tasty to regular beer lovers’ palates even if the target demo are Celiacs and those leading a gluten-reduced lifestyle. The IPA is often evolving but its current iteration, IPA No. 5, took silver at the 2015 GABF. A new Tepache Ace, which is a radleresque mix of IPA with fermented pineapples, is simply mouthwatering as is Chef Neil Davidson’s menu.

Lucky Labrador Brewing Co. | 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

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The Lucky Lab is the epicenter of the cluster and is vintage Portland. The back patio is seriously composed of a muttley crew where the old school English ales flowing. It’s one of the few places you can find an ESB. Hellraiser ESB is rife with toast ’n toffee while Super Dog IPA is a big, fluffy IPA with a wet nose and offers lots to love, especially for fans of citrusy-pithy hops and ample malt body.

(MORE: Do’s and Dont’s of Your First GABF)

Green Dragon/Buckman Botanical Brewery | 928 SE 9th Ave.

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Walk five minutes due north of Lucky Lab and you arrive at the Green Dragon. The pub was bought by Rogue of Dead Guy fame and today boasts 56 taps, where at least four are devoted to the in-house nano Buckman Botanical Brewery. As indicated by the name, instead of hops, these beers generally focus on herbs, spices, teas, or fruit such as Chamomellow Pale Ale or Ginger Beer. If you’re looking for extra antioxidants, try the light and sour Kombeercha.

Cascade Brewing Barrel House | 939 SE Belmont St.

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Directly across the street is the world-renowned Cascade Brewing Barrel House. While the highly-coveted sour beers aren’t brewed on premise, wholly unique “Live Barrel” blends are tapped each Tuesday. You may end up wearing more than you drink if the tapping doesn’t go well. There’s no end to the creative blends but Apricot and its pit-meat cousin, Noyaux, are always great calls if you love wild ales. You can also find bottles to go including vintages. Perhaps you’ll find the 2009 GABF gold medal winning Bourbonic Plague or a 2013 Kriek if you can never have enough sour cherry.

The Commons Brewery | 630 SE Belmont Ave.

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Bank west and two blocks later arrive at The Commons Brewery for a deep list of Belgian-inspired beers, not to mention the Cheese Annex, courtesy of cheese monger extraordinaire, Steve Jones. The Commons excels at light, eminently drinkable farmhouse ales. Once again, no IPAs here. Starting with their flagship Urban Farmhouse, the fruity and peppery esters make it simple yet elegant. Myrtle has a tangy twang thanks to a Lacto ferment with part of the lemongrass kick coming from Meridian hops, while Flemish Kiss comes out of a foeder with a mellow funk and fruit cocktail finish.

Hair of the Dog Brewing Co. | 61 SE Yamhill St.

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Farther west just before reaching the Willamette River unleash yourself at Hair of the Dog. Alan Sprints is respected by young brewers around the world today, but has been brewing bold, brash beers since 1994. His “beers are individuals just like people,” Sprints once told me. “Don’t judge them based on what something else tastes like.” Michael, a sherry-aged Flanders Red, honors the late beer writer Michael Jackson, while Fred, a peppery strong ale that masquerades as a Belgian-style double IPA is an homage to Portland’s late, beloved Fred Eckhardt.

Base Camp Brewing Co. | 930 SE Oak St.

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Darting northeast from there, Base Camp ushers its love of the great outdoors into its adventure-themed tasting room. Their flagship In-Tents IPL (India Pale Lager) is fragrant and toasty thanks to resting on house-toasted oak. Celestial CDL (Cascadian Dark Lager or what outsiders might call an India Black Lager) is roasty and more dank than In-Tents. But when it comes to dark beers, S’more Stout stars biscuit malt in the role of graham crackers, roast malt conveys the chocolate character, and that sweet, vanilla gooeyness comes in at the finish. Glasses are garnished with mini marshmallows toasted to order.

Burnside Brewing Co. | 701 E. Burnside St.

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Rounding out the tour of the inner southeast Buckman brewer’s row is Burnside, a place popular among imbibers for its easy-drinking Couch Lager and equally sessionable Lime Kolsch. Sweet Heat, a wheat ale with apricot puree and spicy peppers, can be even more intriguing when pairing with food. I like Sweet Heat with the Kentucky-inspired Hot Brown open-faced sandwich or the Mexican-style chilaquiles with pork verde. The food here is almost an equal draw, as it’s at the top of the Portland-wide belief that brewpub menus can be as inspired as the beer (which is important, because it takes a lot of fuel to walk to this many breweries in one condensed area).

The post Walk This Way: A Beer Lover’s Guide to Portland, Oregon’s Buckman and Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

“Kriek” is simply the Flemish word for cherry, and these spontaneously fermented beers are brewed with the fruit — pits and all. Kriek sits alongside raspberry-infused framboise, peachy pêche and blackcurrant cassis as sub-styles of Belgian lambic, an appellation that hails from Belgium’s Senne Valley and adjoining Pajottenland and dates back at least 500 years.

But the particular majesty of sour cherry beer is no longer a throwback to centuries past, nor is it limited to the Low Countries. North America’s cherry harvest is typically in July and August, and while some regions were ill-affected by last summer’s weather, sour cherry beers from U.S. craft brewers are still hitting taps and shelves.

As P-Funk maestro George Clinton once said: “Just by getting a little taste of funk, you’re going to be hooked.”

Wisconsin Belgian Red | New Glarus Brewing Co. | New Glarus, WI

Depending on whether you live in Wisconsin, this famous cherry beer is either the easiest to come across…or the hardest. It’s the only sour cherry ale that’s available year-round, but New Glarus notoriously doesn’t distribute out-of-state.

The 4-percent ABV, fire-engine-red elixir boasts more than one pound of Door County Montmorency cherries per 750-ml bottle. It has won seven Great American Beer Festival medals beginning in 1996, although New Glarus president Deb Carey says that her husband, brewmaster Dan Carey, “was brewing this beer in the mid-’80s.”

The beer earned its keep over the years as New Glarus expanded, and is now spontaneously fermented in the brewery’s Wild Fruit Cave. As for the name, Wisconsin Belgian Red? It’s the Careys’ way of paying homage to the style’s geographic origins without infringing on the appellation.

“Just like we would not want a brewer in New York to label their beers as coming from Wisconsin, we do not use words [specific to Belgium] like ‘kriek’ or ‘lambic’,” says Deb.

La Roja du Kriek | Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales | Dexter, MI

Roja is a Belgian-style Flanders with an acetic pucker that sour beer fans have craved and enjoyed since 2004. Less known outside of Michigan is that Jolly Pumpkin founder and brewmaster Ron Jeffries has, by his account, “been brewing a krieked version of La Roja for probably about ten years now.” The cherry-infused variant has so far flown under the radar as a draft-only offering, or served from firkins at festivals. 2015 marks the first year La Roja du Kriek was been available in 750-ml bottles.

Every 100-barrel batch of this beer features over 50 gallons of freshly juiced, Michigan-grown Montmorency cherries, which Jeffries describes as “tart with an underlying hint of mineral sweetness.”  Additional juice is also pumped into an oak foudre cast while the 7.5-percent ABV beer ages.

“How could one not be inspired by Cantillon?” ponders Jeffries, referring to the inspiration he draws from Brussels’ most famous lambic brewer. But that respect doesn’t stop him from slapping the word kriek on the label. “I think protected and trademarked words…are a silly concept,” he says.

Nancy & Coolship Cerise | Allagash Brewing | Portland, ME

Belgian-influenced Allagash makes twin sour cherry beers. The primary difference between Nancy and Cerise (6.3 percent ABV and 8.1 percent ABV, respectively) is that the former is aged in stainless steel for nearly a year, while the latter is spontaneously fermented in an open-top vat called a coolship, and then matures in spent wine barrels for six months.

Both beers feature a blend of Maine-grown Balaton and Montmorency cherries, but Cerise receives around 50 percent more fresh juice at three pounds per gallon. Brewmaster Jason Perkins says the brewery avoids kriek in favor of the French word for cherry “out of respect for [Belgium’s] brewing tradition.”

Nancy and Cerise both pour a pinkish-orange hue and present ample funky cherry on the nose. Sipping Nancy conjures sweeter and more tropical flavors, while Cerise goes in a more dry, vinous direction. Given the nature of their fermentations, Nancy is released in early fall, while Cerise comes out when she’s good and ready.

Four Play, Hearts’ Beat & Shades | Upright Brewing | Portland, OR

Upright Brewing, Portland’s farmhouse-style yet basement-based brewery, makes no less than three krieks. Founder and brewmaster Alex Ganum buys his cherries from Baird Family Orchards, 30 miles away in the Willamette Valley.

The initial one, Four Play (5 percent ABV), begins as the brewery’s flagship wheat beer, which is named Four for its original gravity. The beer is then inoculated with Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus as it spends a year in oak casks alongside tart cherries. It is available year-round in the tasting room.

This year Ganum is introducing two new variations that take their names from jazz composer Charles Mingus’ “Hearts’ Beat And Shades In Physical Embraces.” Hearts’ Beat (6.8 percent ABV) is made with Brooks cherries (similar to dark bing pie cherries), while Shades (5.8 percent ABV) features yellow Rainiers. Both are barrel-fermented on whole fruit and spend a year conditioning.

Hearts’ Beat, says Ganum, “pours intensely red and drinks with a huge tannic quality, showing bits of Brett lambicus and orchard yeasts,” but ultimately finishes clean. Shades, on the other hand, doesn’t appear cherry-colored, “but surprises with loads of Rainier character and more firm presence of Brett” with a funkier profile.

While crediting famed lambic brewers like Cantillon and Drei Fonteinen, Ganum also points to nearby Double Mountain Brewery as inspiration.

Devil’s Kriek, Tahoma Kriek | Double Mountain Brewery | Hood River, OR

About an hour outside of Portland in the picturesque Columbia River Gorge, the town of Hood River is nestled between the river and the vineyards and orchards climbing Mt. Hood.  Double Mountain’s founder and brewmaster, Matt Swihart, picks fruit from his own cherry trees to create the brewery’s dual krieks.

Devil’s Kriek (9.3 percent ABV) is a Flanders Red base that pours a blood-orange hue from the addition of Bing and Van cherries. Tahoma Kriek (10.3 percent ABV), a strong Belgian-style blonde made with Rainiers, reveals the yellow cherries’ tone mixed with a bit of orange as well.

Swihart developed a Brettanomyces-based wild yeast culture that works alongside whole cherries to produce his krieks’ sourness. The beers spend a year in barrels, so the previous years’ vintages appear locally in 375-ml bottles late following summer.

Swihart initially flirted with leaving brewing for winemaking, and planted grapevines before deciding to raise cherries and focus on sour beers. “Hood River should be a Lambic region,” he says. “We have the fruit, the breweries and the knowledge source. This should be a destination for that.”

Nearby Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, pFriem Family Brewers and Solera Brewery also make krieks.

Supplication | Russian River Brewing Co. | Santa Rosa, CA

Russian River founder and brewmaster Vinnie Cilurzo doesn’t call Supplication a kriek, but he doesn’t back away from the comparison either. “The cherry character is certainly at the forefront,” he admits.

Santa Rosa is surrounded by grape vineyards, not cherry orchards, so Cilurzo uses dried cherries from Michigan. That’s also the key to having Supplication available year-round — if not always in 375-ml bottles, then at least on draft at the pub.

The brown, wild ale base is soured with the holy trinity of critters: Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. After receiving the sour cherries, the whole shebang ages in local Pinot Noir barrels for a year to allow the oak to balance out the acidity and funk of this 7 percent ABV sour ale.

“I thought it up and created the recipe,” says Cilurzo. “For the most part we’ve made no changes to the recipe from that first try. We hit exactly what I wanted to see in the first beer. It was probably the first time I envisioned a beer before making it and nailed it on the first try.”

Cuvee de Tomme, Red Poppy | Lost Abbey Brewing Co. | San Marcos, CA

“Once upon a time, it was the most award winning Pizza Port beer of all time.”

That’s how The Lost Abbey website begins the story of Cuvee de Tomme, which won four medals in five years beginning in 2000. The base beer is Judgment Day, a potent 11-percent ABV Belgian-style quad made with candi sugar and raisins. To create Cuvee de Tomme, about 30 pounds of Montmorency cherries from Michigan are added to each of the bourbon barrels it’s aged in for at least a year.

Another Lost Abbey beer brewed in the Flanders tradition is Red Poppy, a reddish-brown sour ale that’s half as strong as Cuvee de Tomme, but perhaps twice as cherry-rific with subtle notes of baker’s chocolate swirled in. Cuvee de Tomme is released around December and Red Poppy tends to appear a month or two later, while they last.

Transatlantique Kriek | New Belgium Brewing | Ft. Collins, CO

When New Belgium hired Peter Bouckaert from the Rodenbach Brewery, it gained more than the muscle and palate memory he developed from brewing Rodenbach’s legendary sour cherry beer, Alexander — it also gained access to his network of brewing friends from back in Belgium. Transatlantique Kriek began in 2003 as a collaboration with Frank Boon of Brouwerij Boon, and started a unique tradition of creating a blended beer from batches born an ocean apart.

For 2015, New Belgium sourced a two-year-old kriek lambic (made with 40 percent Polish Morello cherries) from Oud Beersels in Belgium’s Lambeek region. Once it arrived in Colorado, Bouckaert and company blended the oaked lambic with their own Belgian-style golden lager. The result delivers an 8-percent ABV ale with a tart wallop to complement the lambic’s vinegary kick.

As for the name, New Belgium takes its use of the traditional ‘kriek’ seriously and chose it only because this beer has Old Belgium credibility. “You cannot simply sour a beer and add cherries and call it a kriek, no more than you should dare disrespect the word ‘lambic’,” says wood cellar blender Lauren Salazar. “We use the word ‘kriek’ because actual Belgian kriek produced by a true lambic brewer is half of the beer.”

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Cascade hops, of course, are redolent of grapefruit pith, and stylish Citra hops live up to their tangy namesake. Increasingly, brewers embellish these already citrusy IPAs with actual zest, peel or juice from grapefruits, oranges, lemons, and/or limes to create complementary flavor profiles ideal for both hopheads and lovers of fruit beer. Here are a few citrusy, spring-like IPAs to seek out and crack open for an extra bright, sunshiny day.

Grapefruit Sculpin IPA | Ballast Point Brewing | San Diego, CA

Sculpin, “regular old Sculpin” as I now call it, has for years been one of the most celebrated India pale ales in the land. The highly-decorated beer already boasted citrus and tropical fruit flavors, but this new rendition sweeps any mango notes aside in favor of full-frontal grapefruit. Specialty brewer Colby Chandler speaks of a “proprietary process” of infusing such robust Florida grapefruit character into the beer—perhaps some dry-hopping with tons of zest—but it’s still a noticeable hop bomb (Simcoe, Amarillo, Centennial and more). What’s more, according to Chandler, the brewery already sells as much grapefruit IPA as the “regular old” one. (7% ABV | 70 IBUs)

Pamplemousse | LOMPOC Brewing | Portland, OR

Derived from the French word for grapefruit, the name is the only thing non-West Coast about this beer. Pamplemousse is built on a pungent IPA base, loaded with already grapefruity hops including Centennial and Chinook, Tettnang for balance, and a kiss of Southeast Asian flavor from Pacific Northwest-grown Meridian. Then enough real fruit juice is added to supply a full day’s dose of vitamin C. Well, it tastes that way at least. (5.8% ABV | 70 IBUs)

Homefront IPA | Center of the Universe Brewing | Ashland, VA

Memorial Day welcomes the seasonal release of this citrusy IPA that benefits America’s veterans. Brewed with and at several partner breweries across the homeland, including Fremont (Seattle), 21st Amendment (San Francisco), and Cigar City (Tampa), this isn’t the only IPA to use orange zest, but it’s certainly the only one aged on (unvarnished) Louisville Slugger maple wood bats! Why bats?

Center of the Universe Brewing was co-founded by former major-leaguer Chris Ray, and the aforementioned cities are some of the ones he pitched for professionally. Except for Tampa — that’s where he and his brother and co-founder Phil are from, hence their affinity for heavy citrus flavors in their IPA. As Chris says, Homefront combines “our military heroes, baseball and beer. It doesn’t get much more American than that.” (7% ABV | 65 IBUs)

More Moro Blood Orange IPA | Funky Buddha Brewery | Oakland Park, FL

Moro blood oranges, originally from Sicily, are a juicy treat that’s both bitter and sweet. To emphasize this unique crimson-colored fruit, the flavor-sorcerers at Funky Buddha built a foundation on caramel malts, piled on grapefruit-leaning hops, and then topped it off with the juice of these sanguineous oranges. Starting in April, you can forego the Creamsicle off the ice-cream truck and cool off with a bottle of More Moro instead. (7% ABV |80 IBUs)

Lorenzini Blood Orange Double IPA | Maui Brewing Co. | Kihei, HI

Not to be outdone, this blood orange bomb is built on a double IPA. The hop bill of Azacca, El Dorado and Sorachi Ace provides plenty of tropical flavors reminiscent of POG, a passionfruit-orange-guava fruit juice blend popular in Hawaii. While no actual POG was used in the brewing process, loads of real blood oranges and some local cane sugar make this bodacious beer as picturesque and enjoyable as a Maui sunset. (7.6% ABV | 80 IBUs)

Glacier Citrus IPA | Glacier Brewhouse | Anchorage, AK

Alaska is bound to conjure up images of frozen tundra that make you ache for a boozy bone-warming barleywine, which is exactly what this brewpub on the last frontier once earned a gold medal for. But when the ice melts in Anchorage, nice weather calls for a kiss of the tropics. An IPA hopped with Simcoe and Amarillo might be fruity enough, but when head brewer Kevin Burton incorporates orange peel and some lemon, too, the result is tangy enough to satisfy nostalgic warm-weather pangs for an old-school Orange Julius. (7% ABV | 55 IBUs)

Scurvy IPA | Tyranena Brewing | Lake Mills, WI

The name, of course, is in jest, since no pirate who drinks enough “bottells” of this IPA—replete with vitamin C from both bitter and sweet orange peels—could be afflicted. The innate tangy flavors, complemented by tangerine-tastic Amarillo and Summit hops, result in a citrusy salad that still offers the earthy, piney goodness of a contemporary IPA. (6.5% ABV, 68 IBUs)

Grapefruit Harvest IPA | Abita Brewing | Abita Springs, LA

When other spring and summer citrus IPAs disappear, this one from the Gulf will blossom as Abita’s winter harvest seasonal. The natural choice of Cascade hops paves the way for Louisiana-grown Ruby Red grapefruits. Augmenting the golden color from pilsner malts, these citrus gems don’t merely play a balancing role, but are given center stage. (6% ABV | 40 IBUs)

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Hood River is almost directly between Yakima, Wash., and Salem, Ore., meaning it gets Yakima Valley and Willamette Valley hops equally fresh. No wonder it hosts the best and biggest of the fresh hop beer fests during harvest season.

Speaking of fertile valleys, there’s a highway in Hood River dubbed The Fruit Loop for all of the vineyards and orchards it encircles. The intersection of hops, yeast and fruit creates unique brewing options for Hood River. Several breweries specialize in both IPAs and fruit beers like Belgian-style Krieks (brewed with cherries) and Pêches (brewed with peaches).

Full Sail Brewing Co.

Perhaps more critical, though, is Full Sail. Founded in 1987 by CEO Irene Firmat, the brewery turned Hood River into a hop haven (they resolutely refuse to make fruit beers) by importing talented brewers.

Full Sail has become the brewery incubator for the region, as nearly every brewery there was started by a former Full Sail brewer who branched off to start their own business. The brewery is also responsible for one merger—the marriage of Firmat to brewmaster Jamie Emmerson.

Logsdon Farmhouse Ales

Full Sail’s founding brewmaster, David Logsdon, founded Wyeast, the original yeast lab supporting craft brewers, in Hood River in 1986. In 2010, Logsdon launched Logsdon Farmhouse Ales in his picturesque red barn.

The saison-centric brewery produces Seizoen Bretta with funky Brettanomyces, as well as Cerasus, their Flanders Red ale, made with sweet and tart Oregon cherries. Just wait until Logsdon’s own Schaerbeekse cherries, grafted from authentic Belgian cherry trees in Flanders, are ready to use.

Double Mountain Brewery & Taproom

Matt Swihart’s prior experience in Maryland landed him a gig as Full Sail’s night shift brewer in 1994, before he worked his way up to assistant brewmaster. He left in 2006, and a year later opened Double Mountain Brewery & Taproom, saying Full Sail gave him “experience in quality control and project and team management.”

He now crafts Devil’s Kriek and Tahoma Kriek, made with tart Bing and yellow Rainier cherries respectively, both picked from his own orchard.

Still-wet hops create the vibrant, herbaceous Killer Green, the fresh hop version of Double Mountain’s resinous, citric Hop Lava IPA. Brewer Kyle Larsen is also a Full Sail alumnus.

Pfriem Family Brewers

Seattle native Josh Pfriem brewed at Full Sail from 2009 to 2011 before launching Pfriem Family Brewers, where he eventually hired Full Sail alumni Dan Peterson (head brewer) and Gavin Lord (lead brewer). Pfriem’s Belgian IPA is a hybrid of a tripel and a Northwest Imperial IPA, combining local spicy hops with foreign, differently-spicy yeast.

Solera Brewing

Solera Brewery, not far from downtown Hood River, is on the south end of the Fruit Loop in Solera Brewery, not far from downtown Hood River, is on the south end of the Fruit Loop in Parkdale. Solera founder Jason Kahler brewed at Full Sail for three years starting in 2001, before brewing at the only brewpub in Hood River not related to Full Sail: Big Horse Brewing.

The lab skills he gained at Full Sail were, he says, “helpful in what I’m doing regarding propagation of wild microbes.”

His emphasis is naturally the solera style of blending, and his Lapin Lover Kriek, made with local cherries, is gorgeous and gets tastier with age. Then again, Hedonist IPA, with tropical fruit flavors, is delicious immediately.

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Stone Brewing brewmaster Mitch Steele, who literally wrote the book on the IPA style, IPA:Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale, loves this new direction.

“[Session IPAs are] kettle hopped (for bitterness up front) and dry hopped (for flavor and aroma after the boil) using similar quantities and varieties as a standard American IPA,” said Steele. “The brewers challenge here is twofold: first is achieving a good flavor balance in a beer that is so low in alcohol that there isn’t much else to balance the hop character with, and second, ensuring that the dry hop character doesn’t become overly vegetal, due to the lower alcohol content of the beer.”

Session IPAs allow you to safely enjoy hiking, biking or other outdoor activities—yes, that includes just enjoying a beer outside. While the definitions for this style vary, for the sake of this article, I’m considering them to be IPAs under 5% ABV. Here are a few excellent examples of session IPAs from around the country.

Even Keel | Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits | San Diego, CA

Coined as a San Diego Session Ale, this draft-only summer seasonal is built with ten different malts and six varieties of hops including Ahtanum, Magnum and Cluster for a lemony finish. Brewer Colby Chandler said it was inspired by a local homebrew recipe that became a regular around the brewery’s homebrew supply store because it “didn’t prematurely put me to sleep on the couch.” (3.5% ABV, 50 IBUs)

Alpha Session | Drake’s Brewing | San Leandro, CA

Dubbed a NorCal Bitter, the malt bill consists of two-row Marris Otter and some Caramel-45, but again, it’s the hopping (Simcoe, Citra, CTZ) that gives this lightweight beer a powerful pine n’ grapefruit punch. You can enjoy this on draft and in bombers all summer long. (3.8% ABV, 50 IBUs)

Boat Beer | Carton Brewing Co. | Atlantic Highlands, NJ

Boat Beer from Carton Brewing Co. is the result of a unique mix of Kolsch yeast and German malts supported by a combination of eight American hop varieties. Served in cans and on draft in New York and New Jersey. (4.2% ABV, 35 IBUs)

Trader Session IPA | Uinta Brewing Co. | Salt Lake City, UT

Leave it to a brewery in Utah, notorious for its limiting alcohol laws, to devise one of the few year-round session IPAs. The profound hop bill results in floral and piney aromas with a smack of zesty citrus in each sip. It’s a perfect pint for a state that’s a massive outdoor playground. (4.0% ABV, 42 IBUs)

Pinner IPA | Oskar Blues Brewery | Longmont, CO

Instead of “session,” Oskar Blues calls this a “throwback IPA,” not in the retro sense but in that it’s all too easy to throw back several of these. The hop bill yields all the citrus and other tropical fruit salad notes you want for any outdoor setting (4.9% ABV, 35 IBUs)

All Day IPA | Founder’s Brewerying Co. | Grand Rapids, MI

It took Founders’ brewmaster Jeremy Kosmicki three years to develop this beer, but clearly he was on the right path from the get-go, as an early rendition called Endurance IPA, Jr. medaled at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival. Since its release (as All Day IPA) in 2012, it has become one of the best-known examples of the style. The citrus peel and resinous features replicate even non-session IPAs. (4.7% ABV, 42 IBUs)

Super Session #2 | Lawson’s Finest Liquids | Warren, VT

Super Session #2 is the newest beer to be offered in cans by this small but mighty brewery founded by veteran homebrewer Sean Lawson. Super Session packs a flavorful Amarillo hop bitterness from late kettle additions and dry hopping, while still coming in at only 4.8% ABV.

Other Notable India Session Ales

• Easy Jack (4.5% ABV) | Firestone Walker Brewing Co. | Paso Robles, CA
• Time Bomb (4.3% ABV) | 7venth Sun Brewery | Dunedin, FL
• Down to Earth Session IPA (4.4% ABV) | 21st Amendment Brewery | San Leandro, CA
• Sunshine Daydream Session Ale (4.9% ABV) | Fat Head’s Brewery | Middleburg Heights, OH
• Jibe Session IPA (4.0% ABV) | Green Flash Brewing Co. | San Diego, CA
• Demento (4.7% ABV) | Ale Asylum | Madison, WI
• Lil Heaven Session IPA (4.8% ABV) | Two Roads Brewing Co. | Stratford, CT
• Go To IPA (4.5% ABV) | Stone Brewing Co. | Escondido, CA
• Suicide Squeeze IPA (4.5% ABV) | Fort George Brewery | Astoria, OR

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The name derived from this medium-bodied beer’s use of toasted malted barley as opposed to roasted malt—gives the style its telltale nutty color and flavor.

As British brown ales (Newcastle Brown Ale, Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale) gave way to American brown ales from one of the earliest iterations—Pete’s Wicked Ale—to the hoppier ones that are now en vogue such, as Dogfish Head India Brown Ale, there’s a new breed a’brewin’ and they’re putting the nuts back in nut brown, porter or dunkel weisse.

Nut note: not all nuts are, botanically-speaking, nuts. But since American craft brewers don’t like constraints, we’re including some that pass the culinary-nut sniff test. Check out these examples of nut beers from America’s small and independent craft brewers.

10 Nut Beers Cracking into the Scene

Hazelnuts

Oregon produces nearly 99 percent of all American hazelnuts (it’s the official state nut). It also boasts nearly 150 craft breweries. Naturally, these local goodies, commonly called filberts, make their way into a few beers around the Beaver State.

Stubbs Old Crow Hazelnut Porter | Alameda Brewing Co. | Portland, OR To emulate chocolate-covered hazelnuts, brewer Carston Haney procured 450 pounds of “pressed hazelnut cakes,” the by-product of Freddy Guys Hazelnuts in the Willamette Valley. While “90 percent of the oil has been removed, the flavor and aroma are retained.” This robust porter results in malty, clean taste.

Chestnuts

There was such a thing as native North American chestnuts, but blight effectively wiped them out over a century ago. Having spread from Asia throughout the world, chestnuts are so predominant in Mediterranean cuisine that chestnut flour as an ingredient in Italian beers isn’t uncommon.

Gluten-free Pale Ale | Harvester Brewing | Portland, OR Harvester’s brewmaster James Neumeister began using chestnuts harvested 30 miles away at RC Farms in McMinnville as a source of barley-replacement in his dedicated gluten-free brewery. Considering their bronze medal at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in the new gluten-free category, I’d say it’s working pretty well.

“We use the chestnuts the same way a conventional brewery uses barley,” explains Neumeister. “Chestnuts have nearly identical starch content by weight to barley and contribute to the gravity similarly.”

They provide intriguing character while sorghum and certified gluten-free oats provide a malty base, and even those who aren’t gluten intolerant enjoy the taste of these beers, loaded with hops (especially in their new IPA).

Exit 8 Chestnut Brown Ale | Flying Fish Brewing Co. | Somerdale, NJ Chestnuts used to grow rampant in the Garden State…and aspire to again. In addition to using local honey, floured chestnuts added to the mash, and steeped roasted chestnuts in the boil work wonders before the beer finishes on whole roasted chestnuts in the bright tank. Judges awarded it bronze at the 2012 GABF in the Specialty Beer category.

Pecans

A perfect instance of something everyone considers a nut, but pecans are actually seeds of a drupe fruit from hickory trees. Prevalent throughout the American South, pecans are the state nuts of both Alabama and Texas (not to mention pecan pie is Oklahoma’s “state meal”).

Pecan Porter | (512) Brewing Co. | Austin, TX Owner Kevin Brand saw his new winter seasonal ingredient staring at him in front of the brewery: one of Texas’s state trees. Aspiring to something “dark and delicious,” they designed a robust porter finished with pecans. Brand and head brewer Nate Seal “messed around on a couple batches” and now this beer, with organic, heavily-roasted, Texas pecans—a pound per barrel—is (512)s flagship beer, though understandably sells best this time of year. If Texas-only distribution seems limited, imagine how hard it is to find their Whiskey Barrel-Aged Double Pecan Porter. Both complement a panful of brownies.

Southern Pecan | Lazy Magnolia Brewing Co. | Kiln, MS Mississippi’s first and only packaging brewery utilizes several exotic local ingredients. This nut brown ale, fleshed out with whole roasted pecans, is augmented by using pecans “just like grain” to “provide a nutty characteristic and a delightful depth to the flavor profile.”

Black Walnut

Another example of drupe seeds masquerading as tree nuts, black walnuts differ from their quotidian brethren with their added richness, smokiness, and yes, actually staining anything dark brown they come in contact with once cracked.

Black Walnut Dunkel | Perennial Artisan Ales | St. Louis, MO Conjuring up yet another imaginative ale at Perennial, brewer and co-founder Phil Wymore brews with black walnuts seeing as they’re a “quintessential Missouri ingredient with more grown (in state) than anywhere else.”

Wymore sourced the walnuts from Hammonds, a 60-year-old family operated company in Stockton, Mo. He selected a dunkelweizen as the base beer to recreate delicious banana bread with walnut flavors contributed both by the yeast, and of course ten pounds of crushed black walnuts per barrel, steeped in a mesh bag during secondary fermentation. There was some concern about oils destabilizing head retention, but since wheat beers foam up nicely, Wymore figured it would provide a counterbalance.

Polish’s Black Walnut Stout | Fort George Brewery | Astoria, OR Lead production brewer Michal “Polish” Frankowicz grew up in the Midwest eating black walnuts, thus inspiring him to create a black walnut stout for the brewery’s February-long Stout Month. He transfers the beer onto five pounds of halved walnuts—“more surface area provides stronger flavor”—before adding a pound of smoked walnuts into the bright tank.

Pine Nuts

Sure Italian pine nuts are delicious and make great pesto, but in the Four Corners states, particularly Colorado, there’s an even larger gift from pine trees known locally as pinyons or piñon.

Cheyenne Cañon Piñon Nut Brown | Bristol Brewing Co. | Colorado Springs, CO When Bristol Brewing decided to create a nut brown, they prudently looked to their local terroir. Given their smaller-than-average-nut size, the brewers are called on to roast up “loads of ‘em.”

Though piñons actually hit their stride from late summer to early fall, this seasonal release tends to come out earlier when a smooth, toffee-like american brown ale hits the spot after a ride or hike. That’s because 100 percent of its profits go to the Friends of Cheyenne Canon to preserve and maintain the natural playground just outside the brewery’s gates.

Coconuts

Okay, everyone knows these aren’t nuts at all, but since it’s common to find toasted coconut in a bag of trail mix made of mixed nuts, we’ll count it.

CoCoNut Porter | Maui Brewing Co. | Lahaina, HI Since before the brewery opened, they’ve experimented using abundantly available coconuts, and even placed at the World Beer Cup with this beer in 2006 when it was debuted.

Co-owner Garrett Marrero says they buy flaked coconut and “hand toast it in convection ovens to a deep blonde color,” ideal for extracting the true flavor over mere roastiness. In all, there’s 200 pounds per 25-barrel batch.

While Marrero loves it with a variety of meats, he oozed at the memory of floating macadamia nut ice cream in it. Speaking of which, if you find yourself at the brewpub, you might be lucky enough to find Mac Nut Brown made with macadamias and cocoa nibs.

Donuts

Voodoo Doughnut Maple Bacon Ale | Rogue Ales | Newport, OR We wish! However, Rouge Ales is sure to clarify that no doughnuts were harmed in the making of this beer. The same cannot be said for bacon and maple syrup.

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Though hops often do the heavy lifting for beer’s aroma and flavor, when coffee is added, it contributes quite the pick-me-up. So just as not all stouts are the same, coffee stouts allow for increased variation. Then again, why stop at stouts? They’re an obvious choice for coffee additions as stout is one of the few styles that calls for roasted barley. While malts and beans can be roasted similarly from light to dark, variables such as origin and acidity give coffee different nuances than barley.

With coffee as a natural complement to certain beers, surprisingly there were only a few drips into this style at first, due to unclear regulations. Lagunitas Brewing Co. was an early adopter with their Cappuccino Stout that starred beans from nearby Hardcore Coffee in Petaluma, Calif. But shortly after premiering in 1994, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) forced them to stop making it because “coffee was not an approved beer additive,” said Lagunitas’s Ron Lindenbusch. Same story for New Glarus Brewing Co’s Coffee Stout, brewed with coffee sourced from Just Coffee Co-op in nearby Madison, Wis.

To percolate doesn’t just mean to brew coffee, it also means to grow and become spirited. Here’s a look from coast to coast at how the art and science of coffee beers continues to do just that.

West Coast

Victory at Sea | Ballast Point Brewing Co. | San Diego, CA

In San Diego, on the desert end of the state, Ballast Point Victory at Sea is a 10% ABV imperial porter spiked with Caffé Calabria coffee and vanilla beans, resulting in a beer as rich and viscous as French drinking chocolate.

Brewmaster Colby Chandler solicited Calabria’s owner, Arne Holt, to create a blend exclusively for a winter seasonal he was conjuring up. Chandler initially developed a dark, yet hoppy beer and then chipped away at his creation’s bitterness and acrid notes, finally smoothing it out with coffee and vanilla.

Holt’s mix of Colombian and Costa Rican beans undergo what is called a Full City Roast (quite dark and sweet). The blend is then coarsely ground and cold brewed to retain aromatics and keep it more stable (so the beer, too, can hold up to cellaring).

Cascara Obscura | Laurelwood Public House & Brewery | Portland, OR

Portland, another bastion of coffee/beer love, recently celebrated Portland Beer Week, which included a beer and coffee brunch-seminar that featured six brewer/roaster collaborations, each with a different base beer style. From Laurelwood Public House & Brewery, came Cascara Obscura, a Belgian-style dubbel brewed with coffee fruit.

Brewmaster Vasili Gletsos says his inspiration for the beer actually hit while working on an espresso stout. While at Portland Roasting for a cupping session—familiarizing himself with various beans and roasts—Gletsos said he “chatted about the different impressions you can get from coffee.” The discussion turned to the cherry-looking fruit of the coffee tree that typically houses two seeds. Once dried, these green “beans” head to roasters. But the fruit isn’t dissimilar from the cherries they resemble. Gletsos made a tea from the fruit and says, “It reminded me of some of the dark cherry notes I get from a baltic porter or Belgian dubbel.”

Other great examples along the Pacific:

Survival Stout | Hopworks Urban Brewery | Portland, OR Seven grains are used for this beer that is finished with Stumptown Coffee’s Holler Mountain blend.

Arctic Rhino Coffee Porter | Midnight Sun Brewing Co. | Anchorage, AK This award-winning porter is named after the original coffee blend by local artist and roaster Michael Allen.

Speedway Stout | AleSmith Brewing Co. | San Diego, CA Ryan Bros. Coffee is used in this 12% ABV imperial stout.

Central

Java Mac | Sun King Brewing Co. | Indianapolis, IN

At the 2011 Great American Beer Festival® (GABF), judges awarded Sun King Brewing Co.’s Java Mac, a BJava coffe-infused iteration of their Wee Mac Scottish Ale, the gold medal in the decade-old coffee beer category. This medium-bodied ale contains no roasted malts and tastes more like a cup of nutty coffee than a blended mocha.

Fortuitously for Sun King, BJava’s roaster is Sandy Cockerham: homebrewer and national BJCP judge. Co-owner/brewer Clay Robinson says that because of her brewing background, Cockerham was easy to work with and he fully trusted her recommendations. After experimenting with a few dark ales, they decided “it would be fun to add coffee to something that people wouldn’t normally expect,” like Wee Mac. She suggested going with a Sweet Blue—a Brazilian coffee from Daterra Farms—which was coarsely crushed and then infused in secondary fermentation.

“I believe lighter coffee beers should be made and consumed at the peak of freshness so that beer geeks get all the wonderful notes that coffee has to offer,” says Cockerham. Incidentally, when she pitched infusing “a fruity, lightly roasted Ethiopian coffee into Sunlight Cream Ale, Sun King introduced “Coffee and Cream,” possibly the lightest commercial coffee beer out there.

Coffee Bender | Surly Brewing Co. | Minneapolis, MN

Surly Brewing Co. makes Coffee Bender, the coffeed version of their Bender Brown Ale. Head brewer Todd Haug says they went with Bender—a silkier version of a brown ale enriched with oatmeal—as the base because founder Omar Ansari wanted to roll out with two brands (the other being Furious).

Haug knew a brown ale allowed for versatility and this coffee beer became one of the earliest variations. “I wanted to have intense coffee aroma but not bitterness,” says Haug. He didn’t design the beer to taste like drinking a brewed pot o’ joe, but instead like sticking your nose in a bin full of beans. Those beans come from Finca Vista Hermosa in Guatemala, which are given the Full City Roast by Jim Cone at nearby Coffee and Tea Ltd. Cone roasts on a Monday, grinds on Tuesday and Haug begins steeping on Wednesday.

Other great examples from the Heartlands:

Java Stout | Bell’s Brewery Inc. | Kalamazoo, MI John Mallett uses pounds of Sumatran and Italian coffee freshly roasted directly across the street from Bell’s Eccentric Café at Water Street Coffee Joint.

Shade-grown Coffee Porter | Real Ale Brewing | Blanco, TX The dark roasted Mexican, organic, Fair Trade coffee used in this robust porter comes from Katz Coffee Roasters some 200 miles away in Houston, but in Texas, that’s virtually your neighbor. Fans can buy the exact Coffee Porter roast at Katz

Espresso Oaked Yeti | Great Divide Brewing Company | Denver, CO Brewery operations manager Ryan Fox previously worked at Pablo’s Coffee, whose signature espresso blend is added to the Great Divide brite tanks luxuriating with Yeti Imperial Stout.

Iowa Coffee | Upstream Brewing Company | Omaha, NE This “Imperial Rye Milk Stout” garners its name from a local cocktail. It’s made with malted rye, locally roasted Sumatran coffee, and milk sugar. The beer is then aged in Templeton Rye barrels, a distillery just over the Iowa/Nebraska state line.

East Coast

Cubano-style Espresso | Cigar City Brewing Co. | Tampa, FL 

Florida’s large Cuban influence has popularized Café Cubano—an espresso shot which is sweetened with sugar as it’s brewed. Fittingly, the Cuban-inspired brewery brews just that with their popular Cubano-style Espresso—loaded with hints of espresso, chocolate and caramel.

Cigar City felt it important to partner with, and support a local business, and Mazzaro’s Italian Market owner Kurt Cuccaro was only too happy to invite the brewers in for a cupping session to create the perfect blend for this beer. Cuccaro notes that it took about 10 different attempts to formulate the right blend that features four different beans including Brazilian and Colombian.

Cubano-style Espresso is made in small batches of only 15 barrels at a time, with the espresso beans, nibs, and Madagascar vanilla beans cold-extracted concurrently by Brewmaster Wayne Wambles to smooth out the bitterness. Just don’t look for any lactose in this beer. They save that for their even rarer Café con Leche. Harder to find still is Zhukov’s Final Push, an imperial stout augmented with Kopi Luwak coffee, made from the infamous beans that have passed through a civet’s digestive system.

Espresso Amber | Peak Organic Brewing | Portland, ME

Up the coast in Portland, the organic brewers at Peak Organic Brewing take a decidedly more delicate approach. Their Espresso Amber allows for a bitter java bite up front that segues into a sweet, caramel finish over any expected roasted malts. Because the organic espresso is roasted down the block from the brewery at Coffee By Design, who work with only Fair Trade coffee, this beer is the first in the country to be designated Fair Trade Certified.

Other examples from the Atlantic:

Java Head Stout | Tröegs Brewing Co. | Hershey, PA This oatmeal stout packs a whopping 60 IBUs resulting from running it through a hop-back embedded with espresso and Kenyan coffee roasted by St. Thomas Roasters. The addition of Cluster, Chinook and Cascade hops makes this one of the most unique stouts, coffee or otherwise.

Thunderstruck Coffee Porter | Highland Brewing Co. | Asheville, NC This robust porter goes the extra distance with four grains including Midnight Wheat and a pound and a half of coffee per barrel from Dynamite Roasting Co.

Jahva | Southern Tier Brewing Co. | Lakewood, NY The beans for this sweet and rich imperial coffee stout come from Blue Mountain Coffee in Jamaica.

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