1:59

information about our Austin Brewery Accelerator

2:02

next March. It's an invaluable tool

2:04

for anyone who's looking to start a brewery.

2:06

It's a great place to go. If you are a brewer

2:09

wondering how you can send us beer for review

2:11

or for consideration for things like this annual

2:14

Best in Beer issue, go to beerandbrewing.com,

2:16

click down to the very bottom of the page

2:18

footer, there's a Help Center link, click on

2:20

the Help Center, and within there we have a whole article

2:23

on how to get your beer reviewed in Craft

2:25

Beer and Brewing Magazine. Walks you through all

2:27

of the process as an editorial calendar, as

2:30

we review specific styles

2:32

in every issue. Then in the Best

2:34

in Beer issue, like for example, in this Best in

2:36

Beer issue that we just put to bed, we also

2:39

reviewed Saison's, Farmhouse Ale's,

2:41

Mixed Culture beers, as well as seasonal

2:43

beers, so Oktoberfest and Meritson beers. So

2:46

we have deadlines for when you should send

2:48

us, what you should send us when. We

2:50

like to spread these reviews out across the year and focus

2:53

each issue on that because it is the most

2:56

valuable way to judge beer, judging

2:58

like with like and judging large

3:00

flights of the same style beer so

3:02

that we can have context for all of these kinds of

3:05

judgments. With some of that out of the way,

3:07

it is now time to get down to it,

3:09

the digital edition of the Best in Beer

3:11

issue. By the time you are listening to this podcast,

3:14

we'll have an email to all of our subscribers, print

3:16

copies are scheduled to arrive within

3:18

the next week. Next Friday

3:20

on the podcast, we'll drop the Critics List podcast

3:23

with Kate Burnett, Stan Hieronymus, Courtney

3:25

Eisman, Alex Kidd, and of course,

3:28

Joe right here. They'll join me to share

3:30

their favorite beers, their hot takes, trends,

3:33

et cetera, experiences, places,

3:35

their ideal beer bars, and all the things that

3:37

they chose for their favorites

3:39

and within their Critics List. Fun

3:42

way to get a broad nationwide,

3:44

all United States kind of approach to what's

3:47

good right now. Before we get down

3:49

into the winners for our editors' picks and as

3:51

well as our readers' choice, we want to talk

3:53

about our methodology. But first, for

3:56

years, G&E Chiller has chilled the beers you love,

3:58

partnering with 3,000 plus breweries. across

4:00

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4:14

crew have been piping breweries, wineries, and distilleries

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4:18

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4:20

chiller they build. Reach out for a quote

4:22

today at gdchillers.com or

4:25

call to discuss your next project.

4:27

Also, support for this episode comes from BSG. Looking

4:30

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4:48

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utilization. Visit bsgcraftbrewing.com

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its own ciders, seltzers, and other beverages beyond

5:00

beer, if you need a central source

5:02

for fruit flavor, Old Orchard

5:04

has you covered. Old Orchard supplies flavored

5:07

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by heading to oldorchard.com

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slash

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brewer.

5:22

All right, Joe. I am going to take a sip

5:24

of one of our beers of the year right here and make

5:26

sure that my throat is well

5:29

lubricated for all of the conversation that we're about

5:31

to have right here. Why

5:33

don't you talk to everybody about our

5:35

Reader's Choice methodology, how

5:38

we create a reader survey, poll

5:40

everybody, and then what happens on the back

5:42

end when we process all that information?

5:45

Well, it's pretty straightforward. The

5:47

invitation goes out to y'all by email. It's

5:50

up on the website. And hopefully

5:53

as many of you as possible jump in there and

5:55

register your opinions on your

5:57

favorite beers, your favorite brewers, your favorite

5:59

for its styles to drink and brew and more.

6:03

And so it's always fun to see how that shakes

6:05

out. It's

6:08

to the extent possible, it is not multiple choice.

6:11

We want you guys to just

6:14

answer as best you can and that means there's a little

6:16

bit of cleanup on our end as far as Jamie's

6:19

end, I should say. He does most of that. Let's

6:21

see. The... A little bit

6:24

is putting it lightly. Let me tell you how many people

6:26

spell three floids with T-H-R-E-E

6:30

versus those people that spell three floids with a

6:32

three. Yeah, anyway. You got to get

6:34

the... Yeah, all the cantileans

6:37

and you got to get all that sorted out. We

6:39

take your survey results, we process

6:41

them, we come up with what you've selected

6:44

and apply these. And

6:46

if you are looking at the print or the digital

6:48

PDF or app version of the magazine,

6:51

you will notice that all of these categories that

6:53

you voted on as readers have a bright

6:56

pink background, a magenta background.

6:59

So it's very easy to track what is reader

7:02

determined in that way and our editorial

7:05

picks for our top 20 beers

7:07

of the years, kind of the editorial process

7:10

are all on a typical white background and our typical

7:12

running type. And so in

7:14

case this is in any way confusing,

7:17

we just want to explain that to you. As you

7:19

see it in that bright shocking magenta background,

7:22

that means that's something the readers voted on. And

7:24

if it's something with that nice beige background,

7:27

that's one of our critics lists, those are personal

7:29

opinions for our critics. And if it's in just

7:31

a normal white background, then that is coming

7:35

from our editors. That is part

7:37

of our editor pick process. And so of course

7:39

you may be asking, what does that editor's pick

7:41

process look like? Joe, why

7:43

don't you again tell them what it means.

7:46

Well you were talking just a minute

7:48

ago about how to find out how to submit beers

7:50

at the Help Center on the website. But

7:52

basically it's exciting because the process

7:55

that culminated in this issue is

7:57

now starting all over again. And

8:00

it's cool to think about that and to watch.

8:03

Basically, it starts with the brewers

8:06

and you all are deciding what beers to

8:08

submit to us and to submit

8:11

to our blind panel review. And that is

8:13

really where it starts. So you guys

8:16

decide what to send in. It goes before

8:18

the panel. There's some selection

8:21

because there's more than the panel itself can

8:23

judge. Then you score

8:25

high, then you're in the running basically.

8:28

So it's this winnowing down process that goes all

8:30

year. So almost all

8:32

of the beers that we consider for the editors picks

8:35

come through that process, that blind judging

8:37

process. Then we get together

8:39

at the end of our year, let's

8:42

say our editorial year because

8:45

for us, this marks the end of our magazine

8:47

year, I suppose. And we taste them blind again.

8:51

We go through the finalists and we taste

8:53

what we can. Now, the ones that score

8:55

really high are pretty much usually

8:58

locks. Yeah.

8:59

For any given issue, we

9:01

have separate categories. Those top

9:03

scores in each of those categories in

9:05

all of our issues throughout the year get automatic

9:08

consideration for our beers of the year. Not

9:11

every one of those top scores, it becomes

9:13

a beer of the year because we have more than 20 and we also

9:16

want to keep it open to other styles that are broader

9:18

than just those very specific styles that we

9:21

tend to review in each issue. And so

9:23

we have this kind of open ended submission

9:26

specifically for the best in beer issue

9:28

where we ask for us to again send anything

9:30

that we may not have sent specifically

9:33

for an issue earlier that year as

9:35

well as going back through and tasting some

9:37

of those highest scores earlier

9:40

in the year. And we go back and do that again so we have a contact.

9:43

We do that over several days here in the office

9:45

along with Stan Hieronymus

9:47

and Cape Renaud and this year we also had Patrick

9:50

Dawson, the beer writer who helped out

9:53

for one of the days of judging. And we tasted

9:55

through these beers again tasted through beers

9:58

that we didn't review over the course of the year. years

10:00

just to make sure that we had a broad

10:02

base to pull from as we were making some of these decisions.

10:05

And then we sat around for a few hours and

10:08

debated heartily about what

10:10

would actually make what we wanted to lift

10:13

up. It is a process that starts with thousands

10:15

of beers. Those thousands of beers we all taste

10:17

in any given year. It becomes

10:20

narrower because through

10:22

that course of the year we'll review maybe

10:24

or we'll taste probably 300 or 400

10:27

beers that are sent to us for any given issue of

10:29

craft beer and brewing. From there we

10:31

might review through that blind process

10:34

about 150, 160 per issue. And

10:37

out of those that we then review

10:39

for each issue we're pulling part of this list and

10:41

we're pulling the rest of this list from those that are

10:43

sent specifically for this issue.

10:46

Does that make sense Joe? Am I explaining this right?

10:48

I think so. It makes sense to

10:50

me. I think it's significantly

10:53

better than knowing how to make the sausage I

10:55

guess. You

10:56

should also Nate that all of our reviewing

10:59

and all of our even our blind tasting through this

11:01

best in beer process is all done blind

11:03

so that no one knows what they are tasting

11:06

as they're making decisions about these things. And so

11:09

we find that anytime you see a score in craft

11:11

beer and brewing magazine you can guarantee

11:13

it has been judged blind. The only

11:15

relevant and valid beer scoring

11:18

for us has to be done blind and

11:21

that the more pallets that we have tasting them. And

11:23

then through any review that you find in craft beer and brewing

11:26

there are going to be two judges as well

11:28

as one of our editors who are also tasting those

11:31

beers in order to make sure that we have got multiple

11:33

pallets on every beer. We

11:35

find that that just creates the broadest

11:38

approach to each one of these beers and helps us. You

11:40

know there are plenty of beers that will stand out to one judge

11:43

but the best beers we find resonate

11:45

with everybody. They find this broader

11:48

based appeal. It's not that

11:50

one is not good just because it only appeals to one

11:52

judge. It just makes it that much more interesting

11:54

and that much more compelling when we find

11:56

beers that are equally compelling

11:59

to a large audience. larger number of

12:01

folks that are tasting them. And so that's the

12:03

way that we approach it, just so that everyone

12:06

understands how we do that. Let's

12:08

kick in and start talking about reader's choice first

12:10

before we get into our editor's picks for our

12:12

top 20 beers of the year. This category

12:15

of reader's picks that our readers voted on

12:17

is favorite breweries and we have divided

12:20

these up by size. We

12:23

divide up by size because we want

12:25

to keep the playing field fairly even. Only

12:28

the larger the brewery is, the more potential people

12:30

they could have voting for them. We are equally

12:32

interested in breweries that brew under 5,000 barrels per

12:34

year as we are interested

12:37

in breweries that brew over 100,000 barrels a year. Each

12:40

one of them are in different categories. Let's

12:44

start from number 10 to

12:46

number 1 with a countdown of

12:48

our reader's favorite breweries,

12:51

small breweries, brewing 5,000 barrels per year

12:53

or less. Joe,

12:55

why don't you count them down for us? One in at number 10,

12:58

we've got Cellar Maker in San Francisco.

13:02

At number 9, Side Project in Maplewood,

13:04

Missouri, aka St. Louis. Eight

13:07

Goldfinger in Downers Grove, Illinois.

13:11

Number 7, Burial in Asheville, North

13:13

Carolina. Number 6, Monkish

13:16

in Torrance, California. At number 5,

13:18

Hill Farmstead, Greensboro Bend,

13:20

Vermont. Number 4, Beerstadt

13:23

Lagerhaus in Denver. Number 3

13:26

is North Park in San Diego. At

13:29

number 2, Highland Park in Los Angeles. And

13:32

then your number 1 favorite small brewery,

13:34

fewer than 5,000 barrels per year is Green

13:36

Cheek in Orange, California.

13:38

Strong showing from the Southern California

13:41

voters in this year's reader's

13:44

survey. Next up, our top 10

13:46

in these small regional breweries. That's 5,000 to 25,000

13:48

barrels a year. Number 10,

13:52

Weldworks in Greeley, Colorado. Number 9,

13:55

Live Oak from Austin. Number 8,

13:57

Bottle Logic in Anaheim, California.

17:38

The

18:00

next category favorite Stouter Porter Brewer

18:02

number 10 spot left hand number

18:05

nine for George number eight Firestone

18:07

Walker Number seven to shoot number

18:09

six is bells number five

18:11

North Coast number four bottle logic

18:14

Number three Goose Island number two

18:16

side project moving up from number six

18:19

last year and in the number one spot

18:21

again this year Guinness

18:24

Let's talk about the loggers Joe. All

18:27

right, so your top 10 favorite

18:29

logger brewers

18:29

and again for the whole for the Complete 20

18:33

subscribe to the magazine get the print edition Not

18:36

too late to get in your mailbox here in a couple weeks Favorite

18:38

logger brewer number 10 wayfinder

18:41

number nine dovetail in Chicago number

18:44

eight Suarez family number

18:46

seven shilling number

18:48

six Jack's Abbey five

18:51

Highland Park At number four

18:54

we have frame At number

18:56

three Samuel Adams Boston Beer

18:58

Company

18:59

number two gold finger and your number

19:01

one favorite Logger brewer according

19:03

to our readers is the beer shot logger house

19:05

in Denver Well done beer shot

19:08

and everyone else on the last let's talk about

19:10

favorite sour or wild

19:12

ale Brewer and in the number 10 spot Alvarado

19:15

Street number nine great notion number

19:17

three Drieff on Tannen number seven

19:20

is side project number six Attila

19:23

MOOC Oregon to guard number five

19:25

jolly pumpkins number four

19:27

cascade out of Portland, Oregon The

19:30

number three spot canton and

19:32

the number two spot Russian River and

19:35

reclaiming the number one spot this year Austin,

19:38

Texas is jester King How

19:41

about saisons Joe?

19:43

Oh, I love these. All right favorite season

19:45

brewers the top ten. Here we go at number

19:47

ten. Oh my gong At

19:49

number nine wolves and people pop in into the list

19:53

number eight allagash number

19:55

seven side project at Six

19:58

Fair Isle in Seattle At

20:00

number five, Jester King and Austin. Four,

20:04

Santé Adarius. Number

20:06

three, Hill Farmstead. Number

20:09

two, Boulevard. And

20:11

your favorite Cezanne brewer is

20:13

the Brasserie Du Pont in Torpe,

20:17

Wallonia, Belgium. Well deserved

20:19

still. Let's talk about favorite Abbey

20:21

style brewer, the number 10 spot Unibrew.

20:24

Number nine, Duval. Number eight, the Los

20:26

Abbey. Number seven, Rochefort. And

20:29

the number six spot Omegong. Number five,

20:31

Alagash. Number four, Westmala.

20:34

Number three, Shime. Number two, St.

20:37

Bernardis. And the number one spot,

20:40

it's St. Sixtus

20:42

Abbey, West of Letron. But I'm

20:45

sure I butchered that one. No, that was

20:47

good. All right, all right.

20:50

Why don't you walk us through Hazy IPA brewers,

20:53

Joe?

20:54

Okay. Number 10, other half.

20:57

And number nine, Pint House in Austin. Your

21:00

number eight favorite Hazy IPA brewer is Sierra

21:02

Nevada. Number seven, Trillium. Six

21:06

Swelled Works. Five, The Alchemist.

21:09

Number four is Monkish. Number

21:11

three is their neighbor's Greencheek.

21:13

Number two, Hot Butcher. And

21:15

your number one favorite Hazy IPA brewer

21:18

is Treehouse. Now let's

21:20

talk about your favorite American IPA

21:22

brewer. Starting with number 10,

21:25

a brewer that I'm drinking a beer of right now,

21:27

Fatheads out of Ohio.

21:31

Number nine, Hoff Butcher out of Chicago.

21:34

Number eight, Treehouse. Number seven,

21:36

Stone. Number six, Bells.

21:39

On the strength of two-hearted. Number five,

21:41

North Park. Moving up the list.

21:44

Number four, Brickside. Number three, Sierra

21:47

Nevada. The number two spot, Greencheek.

21:50

And then the number one spot, Russian

21:53

River. Once again,

21:56

also dominant in that category. No

21:59

surprise. prize at all. Well,

22:01

let's flip it forward a little bit and talk

22:03

about your reader favorite beer

22:07

cities. We, this

22:09

year again, decided to ask you for both

22:11

your favorite international cities and

22:13

your favorite U.S. cities. Quite

22:16

a bit of movement this year, I think, on

22:18

that U.S. city list. It's

22:20

always interesting to see where the votes come from

22:22

and there, you know, sometimes breweries make

22:25

a little bit of get out the vote push and I

22:27

think we saw a lot of that both in Chicago and

22:29

in Southern California this year, some breweries

22:31

that pushed out and so we saw a lot of representation there.

22:35

And for anyone who thinks, oh, maybe that's not

22:37

fair, all I can say is it's

22:39

open to everyone. Share this with your

22:42

customers, make them,

22:44

help them become readers of craft beer and brewing and

22:46

help them vote for great beer

22:49

or the best beer as they see it. Anyway,

22:51

let's talk about our top 10 U.S. cities.

22:54

Joe, what's that number 10 city?

22:56

At number 10, Austin, Texas was 14.

22:59

At number 9, Grand Rapids, Michigan, that was 13.

23:02

So you're seeing the movement here. Number 8,

23:04

Los Angeles, which wasn't on the list

23:06

last year. Number 7, Boston.

23:10

At number 6, Portland, Maine. There's

23:12

some different Portlands, you know. Number 5,

23:15

Denver, which was 3 last

23:17

year. Asheville, North Carolina was 1 last year,

23:19

now it's 4. Portland,

23:21

Oregon is at number 3. At

23:23

number 2, San Diego and your

23:26

number 1 favorite U.S. beer city

23:29

right now is Chicago and I think that's a great

23:31

pick and I think it's cool to see it getting recognized.

23:34

What a great beer town. Lots and lots,

23:36

you know, fantastic breweries. Lots

23:38

of great breweries, great beer

23:40

bars and a great tradition

23:43

of brewing there in the upper Midwest.

23:46

Let's talk about international cities and we'll

23:48

start this one at number 10, Copenhagen,

23:51

Denmark in that 10 spot. Number 9,

23:54

Bruges, Belgium. Number 8,

23:56

Bamberg, Germany, a place that Joe and

23:58

I got out to earlier this year. Can't

24:00

wait to go back. I highly recommend

24:03

beer travel in Germany with Joe He

24:06

is the best tour guide that anyone Could

24:09

possibly ask for number seven spot Amsterdam

24:12

Netherlands number six Cologne Germany

24:14

number five Dublin, Ireland Number

24:17

four London England the place I'm gonna go head

24:19

later this year couple weeks number

24:22

three Prague Czechia Another

24:25

city that Joe and I got to earlier this

24:27

year and what a phenomenal beer city that

24:29

is Number two spot Brussels

24:31

Belgium of course and in

24:33

the number one spot yet again this

24:36

year Munich Germany

24:38

that's an interesting one, right? It's number one

24:40

again And it's that's obviously on the

24:42

strength of Oktoberfest and Helles

24:44

and it just being a beautiful place But

24:47

is it really the best beer

24:50

city anyway that maybe that's another podcast

24:52

if

24:53

if there's an editor's pick for best

24:55

International beer city Joe what's your editors

24:57

pick? Oh, I'm totally biased toward Brussels But

24:59

uh, but Prague is there Bamburg. This

25:02

is my top three So they're well represented

25:04

in this list even if they're not in that number one

25:06

spot where you would particularly

25:09

put them Oh for sure. Yeah, I'm happy to see Brussels

25:11

up there. All right. Well, let's talk about you.

25:13

Let's talk about favorite beer bars this is a category

25:16

that The Joe and I are

25:18

particularly motivated around with

25:20

a deep amount of love. It's been a tough

25:22

year for beer bars We've seen a lot a lot

25:24

of challenges out there And

25:27

I just want to say it if I haven't said it enough

25:29

time Beer bars are

25:32

absolutely crucial for beer culture We

25:34

have been hardcore supporters

25:37

of beer bars in the place that they play in beer

25:39

culture Since the very first of this

25:41

the issue of this magazine our love

25:44

handles department since the very start

25:46

of the magazine for the last Ten years has

25:48

aimed to highlight some of the best in places

25:50

to drink beer that are not brewery tap rooms

25:53

around the world And you know and

25:55

I and so I just want to

25:57

implore everyone out there listening to please the

26:00

beautiful places, local

26:02

and further afield, where you can go

26:05

and drink great beer. And as brewery

26:07

tap rooms are an important part of this as well,

26:10

but don't ignore great beer bars in

26:13

this overall celebration

26:15

of great beer culture. They are absolutely crucial,

26:18

absolutely integral to the culture

26:20

that breweries and the craft beer

26:23

in general has created here. And

26:25

so that's my monologue. I know you

26:28

don't disagree with me there, Joe. No, I just,

26:29

I, you know, tap rooms, brewery

26:32

tap rooms are getting better

26:34

and better all the time and they're,

26:36

in a way, the reality is they're kind of cannibalizing

26:39

the beer bar space, that's just reality. When

26:41

you go to a city and you're trying to figure out

26:43

where you want to go drink some great beers, you're thinking

26:46

of breweries as well as you're thinking of beer

26:48

bars now, it used to be just beer bars. So

26:51

that's the reality. It is kind of taking up that head

26:53

space for us, but bars

26:55

have had to up their game. There are still

26:57

lots of great ones out there. And

27:00

if you want them to exist, get out there and support them.

27:03

I have been

27:05

spending more time drinking beers at locals

27:07

here in Colorado rather than just drinking at

27:09

home because, especially

27:12

after spending some time in Prague, like, it

27:14

kind of reinforced to me just how much

27:17

more fun it is to drink socially and drink

27:19

in these social spaces rather than just holding

27:22

up with my beer and going deep inside of

27:24

it myself within my own head. There

27:27

is something beautiful about that act of drinking

27:29

together and it's something that we should not lose even

27:32

in this kind of post-pandemic world as we're trying to

27:34

figure out what our new social normal

27:36

is. Nonetheless, let's talk about best beer

27:38

bars around the world as voted on

27:40

by the readers of craft beer and brewing

27:43

in the number 10 spot, Orange and Brew

27:45

out of Downers Grove, Illinois. The number

27:47

nine spot, another one from Chicago, the

27:49

Beer Temple. The number eight spot,

27:51

Motor Lambic in Brussels. Number

27:53

seven, Tap and Handle from Fort Collins,

27:56

Colorado. Number six, Church

27:58

Key from Washington, DC. of my

28:00

faves and one of our longtime

28:02

contributors now, Greg Enger, for the Brewing Industry

28:05

Guide, key player in Church Key.

28:07

Number five, Brick Store Pub, got there

28:09

last December. Beautiful, beautiful

28:12

spot in Atlanta, Georgia. Number

28:14

four, Navarre Rez in Portland, Maine.

28:16

Number three, Tornado, classic,

28:19

classic. Number two, Monk's Cafe

28:22

in Philadelphia, a place I first

28:24

went to 20 years ago, 20 years ago

28:28

this year, Joe. And in the number one

28:30

spot, representing Chicago,

28:32

like I said, the Chicago voters came

28:35

out in droves this year, Hop Leaf.

28:38

Hop Leaf takes the crown

28:40

for number one beer bar this

28:42

year. Congratulations, Hop Leaf. Absolutely.

28:45

So next up, we're going to share

28:47

with you our reader's choice.

28:50

That's our reader's choice for their top 25 beers,

28:53

or I should say your top 25 beers of But

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All right, let's talk about a reader's

29:59

choice.

29:59

We're top 25 and it is 25

30:02

this year. We

30:06

are making it harder and harder for

30:09

breweries to appear in our readers' top

30:11

list. These are

30:13

the top beers as voted

30:15

on by the readers of Craft Beer and Brewing.

30:19

Let's just break these up. Talk about the top 25

30:21

to 20 there, Joe. All

30:23

right. At number 25, New Glarus

30:25

Spotted Cow.

30:27

Number 24, The Alchemist Focal Banger.

30:31

At 23, Sierra Nevada Torpedo.

30:35

At 22, Pilsner Urquell from

30:37

Pilsen in Bohemia. Number 21,

30:40

Green Cheek, The Other Brian.

30:42

Number 20, Pint House Electric

30:44

Jellyfish. All right. At number 19, Orval.

30:49

Number 18, Firestone Walker's Pivo Pills.

30:52

Number 17, Alvarado Street, Mai Tai

30:54

IPA. Number 16, Brickside

30:57

Wanderlust. Number 15,

30:59

The Alchemist Hetty Topper.

31:02

At number 14, we got Freem Pilsner.

31:05

At 13, Goose Island, Bourbon

31:07

County Stout. Number 12,

31:09

North Park Hop Fu popping into the

31:12

list for the first time. Number 11, Highland

31:14

Park, Timbo Pills. It's

31:17

going to number 10, Extra Stout from

31:19

a brewery called Guinness in Ireland.

31:22

Number nine spot, Cezanne

31:24

Dupont. And then number eight spot,

31:27

Beerstadt Lagerhouse's Slow Port Pils.

31:30

And then number seven spots, Treehouse Julius

31:32

jumping way back up the list

31:35

this year from the 24 spot last year.

31:37

And then the number six spot, Sierra Nevada

31:40

Celebration, a much loved beer

31:43

amongst those in

31:45

the beer industry.

31:47

For your top five, Reader's

31:49

Choice beers. Your five

31:52

favorite beers according to you. Five, Alagash

31:54

White. Number four, Russian

31:56

River Blind Pig. Number

31:59

three, Bell's Eye. two-hearted IPA, which

32:01

was five last year. Number

32:04

two, which was three last year, Russian River, Polanyi

32:06

the Elder. And your number one

32:09

favorite beer is Sierra Nevada Pale

32:11

Ale again this year.

32:12

Congrats to all the favorite beers. Man,

32:15

they have really been consistent

32:18

with that in the Sierra Nevada side over

32:20

the last few years. A lot of love there,

32:22

a lot of love. And

32:26

I certainly can't disagree with

32:28

the readers or all of the love that

32:30

people share with all of those breweries. It's

32:32

also great, and let me just say this, to

32:35

see so many classic beers in everyone's

32:37

top 25. As much as important as

32:41

new beers are and as important as it is

32:43

to celebrate innovation in the world of brewing,

32:46

I'm also really glad that every year we can celebrate

32:48

these beautiful beers that brewers make year

32:50

in year out, wonderfully constructed

32:53

beers that they keep brewing in

32:55

such beautiful ways and making some

32:57

beautiful expressions of the brewers' art. So

33:01

having said that, it is now

33:03

time for us to roll into our

33:06

editor's picks for the best beers

33:09

in 2023. Again, as we mentioned at the top, these are beers

33:13

that we choose from the beers

33:18

that our blind panel has rated highest

33:20

over the course of the year, as well as beers

33:23

that we taste blind through our best in beer

33:25

judging process and also add

33:27

into that consideration. And then when

33:29

all of those things are said and done, we've got a big,

33:31

big, big, long list of these top

33:33

beers, and we whittle it down into what we

33:36

say, what we feel, and what

33:38

we think are our top 20 beers

33:41

that sum up this

33:43

year in beer for a whole variety

33:46

of reasons. And so on the first,

33:49

the first beer of our editor's picks

33:51

for the best 20 beers in 2023, it's a

33:54

beer out of Arizona, Arizona

33:56

Wilderness, a beer called Jitterbug Perfume.

34:00

the most beautiful, it's one

34:02

of the most beautiful beers that we've

34:04

seen all year, maybe the most beautiful beer

34:06

that we've seen all year. Packaged in a clear bottle,

34:10

nominally a Saison style beer,

34:13

but I wouldn't say that it's that Saison character

34:16

that jumps out at you the most. It

34:18

is a beet beer. It

34:21

has that

34:23

kind of earthy, but also fruity

34:25

character that comes out of it. It

34:29

doesn't have that beet bitterness, but it has

34:31

that gorgeous, beautiful color. This

34:35

beer also sums up what I really

34:37

love about what American brewers in this

34:39

kind of mixed culture and sour beer world are

34:41

pushing towards today. That is taking

34:44

on the natural wine world head on

34:46

and saying, hey, you can make funky

34:49

wine, but listen, we've been making funky

34:51

beer for a lot longer and

34:54

actually have processes that can produce

34:56

beautifully drinkable things. We

34:58

drinkable beverages that

35:01

engage in the same kind of consumption

35:03

mode, the same kind of visually

35:05

arresting color, but also

35:08

have a more broad flavor profile

35:10

to them. This Arizona Wilderness

35:12

beer was just a revelation. Joe,

35:16

you tasted it. All of our judges tasted it and

35:19

blew everybody away. It was stunning. I

35:21

mean, and if you had told me at the beginning of the year,

35:23

one of your best of the year is going to be a beet

35:25

beer.

35:26

That would have probably

35:29

believed you, but it would have been skeptical. It

35:31

was striking to look at,

35:34

but even better to drink

35:36

the way that tart citrus and the

35:39

dryness, the oak, all

35:41

just balanced beautifully. I noted that when

35:43

I went back in and drank another bottle

35:45

of it, writing our mention for

35:48

this story in the magazine, that

35:50

kind of oaky edge to it that created this

35:53

vanilla-ish softness

35:55

that helped kind of buffer some of

35:57

that earthier beet character as well as

36:00

the citrus acidity that came with it

36:02

just worked in this perfect kind

36:04

of harmony to create this softness but

36:06

also this punch and also this beautiful balance

36:09

between bitterness, sweetness, acidity,

36:12

citrus character. The

36:15

balance was just absolutely perfect. This

36:18

rated 100 with the blind judges of craft beer

36:20

and brewing this year. A well-earned

36:22

score, only a

36:25

couple of beers that have scored 100 over the

36:27

course of this past year,

36:30

absolutely beautiful, absolutely stunning and

36:33

a craft beer and brewing beer of the

36:35

year. What's next on our list, Joe?

36:38

Out of St. Antonio, weathered

36:40

souls good morning man. It's

36:42

a, I'm, you know you can correct

36:44

my pronunciation. My

36:47

Jamaican's a little bit rusty.

36:50

So this was- Patois, patois, which

36:52

by the way may become

36:54

the official language of Jamaica. I was really

36:56

excited to see that Jamaica

36:59

is taking steps to break

37:01

away from the British Commonwealth and

37:04

part of that may be turning

37:06

patois, Jamaican patois into

37:08

the official language of Jamaica, which

37:11

I think is absolutely fantastic.

37:13

Well this was a beer- Anyway,

37:16

nonetheless, good morning man. We just

37:18

style whiter and whiter the more we get in there. This

37:21

is a beer that absolutely killed it at our editorial

37:23

table. It was consensus

37:25

pick, we all just knew when we tasted it and

37:29

we still didn't know yet where

37:31

it was from. I think that's important to keep

37:33

pointing out. From the name you might

37:35

pick up, there's a Jamaican theme. There's Jamaican Blue

37:38

Mountain Coffee going in there. There's

37:41

a lot of other Marcus Baskerville's favorite

37:44

other toys, cacao

37:46

nibs and coconut and hazelnuts. Man, he

37:48

loves to throw all the fun stuff into the stouts and

37:50

it just, he knows what he's doing. He's

37:52

been doing it for a long time and it really works. Thick

37:55

and leggy in the glass, it's just fun to look

37:57

at. There's a little suggestion.

38:00

of chili in there too. It

38:02

is a sweet beer but is deep

38:04

and I think that was something that we kept coming

38:07

to in our discussion and

38:09

not for the first time. It's a theme

38:11

we talk about sometimes. We talk about dessert

38:14

stouts, these big imperial barrel aged stouts.

38:16

Yeah,

38:17

they're sweet. They're supposed to be sweet but

38:20

sweet is if it's only sweet,

38:22

you got a problem. There needs to be depth and

38:25

this had all the depth and a lot of it's coming

38:27

from that coffee. There's like a dark

38:29

roast mocha cup of thing going on

38:31

there, dark chocolate drizzle

38:33

like

38:35

bonbons are coming in my head there and

38:37

then you still got those nice berry esters

38:41

that I think that's

38:43

a lot depth comes from there too. It gives you a suggestion

38:45

of acidity even if it's not there like in your brain

38:48

it kind of works. Makes it so that it's

38:50

giving it some perspective and dimension. Anyway,

38:54

delicious beer. Congratulations

38:56

to Marcus and

38:59

yeah, I don't know. This is looking forward to

39:01

drinking this one again sometime.

39:03

Couldn't agree with you more Joe. I love that beer

39:05

and I think that that roast and the coffee

39:08

is that perfect foil for some of the

39:10

more indulgent characters and when

39:12

we were tasting in our best beer tasting just

39:15

blew me away with the kind of balance that he found in that

39:17

despite all the intensity and flavor. Alright,

39:20

next up we go to West Coast IPA

39:22

but it's an East Coast brewery out of New York City,

39:25

Finback, Headspace, West

39:27

Coast IPA are top

39:29

scoring, one of our top scoring West Coast

39:31

IPAs from the IPA issue

39:34

and to be a top scoring West Coast IPA

39:37

literally beating out 50, 80 other

39:40

West Coast IPAs to hit

39:42

this kind of scoring honor. I don't

39:44

know the exact number I just go back and dig that

39:46

up but what a feat.

39:49

The other crazy thing is that Headspace

39:51

is not the only beer that

39:54

was in consideration for beers the year.

39:56

Finback's Crispy Town, West

39:59

Coast Pilsner. was also a

40:01

top scorer this year in our logger issue.

40:04

And as a result of that, we reached out to them after seeing

40:06

that score that came through our

40:08

blind panel, we did reach out to them and worked on a

40:11

brewers perspective and they shared a homebrew

40:13

recipe for Crispy Town. And

40:16

just so that it's very clear to everybody, this

40:18

is how our editorial process works, our

40:21

blind panel may review something. When we

40:23

see something come through that strong through our

40:25

blind review process, we obviously

40:27

want to reach out to those brewers and build more

40:30

content around that because we know you are

40:32

going to be interested in how they've gone about

40:34

doing that. And so that's exactly what we did. Shared

40:36

the recipe and their perspective on

40:39

brewing Crispy Town, which if you are a craft

40:41

beer and brewing subscriber, you have

40:43

access to. So if you are not a craft beer

40:45

and brewing subscriber, what are you

40:47

waiting for? Go subscribe. Anyway, that

40:50

was Crispy Town, one of their 98

40:52

scoring West Coast Pilsner. But

40:54

this beer that's on our top list,

40:56

our best 20 beers of the year, is a

40:59

West Coast IPA made by this New York

41:01

City brewery. But it caught

41:03

out, all of our blind review

41:05

panel loved it. We noted notes

41:07

of Pink Lemonade, Peach, Pomegranate,

41:10

like a very subtle dankness, but just enough

41:12

dankness right there to add

41:15

this kind of depth and interest. You know,

41:17

so lean and light, but also like

41:19

kind of playful. It

41:21

showed that West Coast IPA doesn't have

41:23

to be just an intense experience.

41:27

It's not just about beating people over the head with

41:29

it. It can be that. It

41:32

can be unyielding and strong,

41:35

but it can also just be light

41:37

and playful and fruity, but

41:40

also nicely balanced with all of

41:42

these kind of spicy dank

41:44

and other notes. The beautiful

41:47

thing that we're seeing in West Coast IPA is

41:49

both this wonderful

41:53

flavor, but also this kind of restraint. And

41:55

I think that when we think about what

41:58

our judges are responding to. finding that

42:00

kind of balance. It's not simply about

42:03

doing as much as you can anymore. It's

42:05

figuring out how to do as much as you can and then

42:07

pulling it back and paring it down to the essentials

42:11

and building beautiful drinkable beers

42:13

that we can enjoy this hot flavor of beer

42:16

after beer after beer. And that is exactly

42:18

the space that Finback

42:20

Headspace occupies. All

42:24

right, Joe, after Finback,

42:26

we go mixed culture. We do and

42:28

you were talking about recipe in the magazine.

42:31

I've got a recipe for this one in my back pocket and I'm looking

42:33

forward to sharing that really soon,

42:35

particularly for our all access subscribers.

42:38

We send out all access recipes and

42:40

this is going to be exclusive for our all access

42:42

subscribers. This

42:45

is from now Santa Fe, formerly

42:48

from Chicago Keeping Together. And

42:50

this was another consensus pick

42:52

at our blind table and

42:55

it was a system really

42:58

beautiful beer. It's a very pretty beer

43:01

and it was fun to drink

43:03

and fun to talk about. And it

43:05

was a comforting beer too. And the

43:08

thing with Avery Swanson, man,

43:10

she is a really creative

43:13

brewer and she comes from

43:15

a different starting

43:17

point, I think, than a lot of other brewers. She's

43:20

what I would call an expressionist. And

43:22

I think that I knew some

43:24

of these when I was in Belgium.

43:27

Some people have, you know,

43:29

they just are, I don't know, right

43:32

brain thinkers or is it left brain? I get them

43:34

mixed up.

43:35

What

43:38

she's trying to do is communicate

43:40

a feeling or a

43:42

memory and evoke that through

43:44

her beer. And it sounds

43:48

new agey or what is it? It sounds like kind

43:50

of, I don't know, if you haven't tasted

43:53

them, it may sound a little bit

43:56

fluffy,

43:57

but then it

43:58

works. It's

44:00

just because she's really good at what she

44:02

does and she knows how to

44:06

turn this communication into

44:08

flavors in a technical way. So

44:11

it's, we should probably talk

44:13

about this particular beer. Thoughts of that a thinker. It's

44:16

got Earl Grey tea, it's got

44:18

some citrus, it's a Saison. A

44:21

little bit of saffron and I don't know what that does

44:23

but it, but I mean from a flavor

44:25

standpoint but it's cool. It makes

44:27

the beer very expensive to make. Yeah.

44:31

But it probably does something that's part

44:33

of that overall picture. It's just,

44:35

you get this like, there's a mimosa

44:37

juiciness to this beer

44:39

and

44:40

then it just like sparkles

44:43

away into dry cobwebs. It's just so

44:45

dry and then you got to go back for more of that kind

44:48

of juicy hit on there. It was really fun.

44:50

There's this like white wine cellar floor, pretend

44:52

a micey's hit there that's really cool and

44:55

then the Earl Grey is like this just,

44:59

well the way Kate says

45:01

it in her notes I think is really nice. The Earl Grey

45:03

is like a sweater that wraps up the rest

45:06

of the beer. Orange hits

45:08

first and washes swiftly away. The

45:10

combination of the two is a very nostalgic

45:12

moment of drinking tea after dinner in an

45:15

armchair. I mean,

45:18

that's hard to pull off as a brewer. Avery

45:20

did it. Congratulations Avery, fantastic beer. Wonderful,

45:23

wonderful stuff. Beautiful

45:26

beer and if you haven't listened to it yet, I had a great conversation

45:28

with Avery down in Santa Fe

45:31

a few months ago. Just got

45:33

an incredible approach to making beer and we are

45:35

happy and excited that

45:38

blindly our judges also responded

45:40

just as positively to the very

45:43

creative work that she's putting out there in the

45:45

world. Next up on our list,

45:47

we're going into Lagerland, Templin family

45:50

out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Avery

45:52

Keller beer. This one if you are a subscriber

45:54

to the magazine, know that it scored

45:56

a 99 and was the top scoring German

45:59

style. Pilsner on our list

46:01

this year. When we say Keller beer, it is

46:04

only like nominally,

46:07

you know, Keller in that sense. Not

46:09

a very hazy beer, mostly clear

46:11

from that regard, and probably doesn't

46:14

have as much of that younger beer

46:16

character as some people might expect out of something

46:19

purely referred to as

46:22

Keller beer. But this one was

46:24

just stunning in the way that it

46:26

embraces this character of malt and

46:29

then embraces this idea of

46:32

fullness. Joe and I have lots

46:34

of conversations, as we do

46:36

with, you know, other brewers, about the kind

46:38

of, oh, we should

46:40

say the limitations of or

46:42

maybe, you know, the complete bankruptcy

46:45

of the term crispy boy and

46:48

how this kind of reductive idea,

46:50

this reductive term, well, we are

46:52

excited that it has made more

46:55

people excited about lager in general. Well,

46:57

we are less excited about is the idea

47:00

that all lagers should embrace minimalism,

47:03

that it is somehow only about being

47:05

light and crisp, and that that is somehow

47:08

what lager should be. Anyone who spends

47:10

enough time exploring the

47:12

varying lager traditions of Europe

47:14

knows that that is absolutely

47:16

not the case, that there are very few European

47:19

brewers that would describe their beers as

47:21

minimal. In fact, we heard

47:23

it more often in the Czech Republic, those

47:26

beers described as sweet and full, you

47:29

know, within that kind of Franconia,

47:31

Bamberg area, you know, same kind

47:34

of thing. You find, you know, brewers

47:36

describing the kind of fruit and citrus characteristics,

47:39

you know, flavors within the hops

47:41

that they use in those beers. Like these

47:44

beers, you know, lager beer, you know,

47:46

and maybe I'm making your point here, Joe,

47:48

maybe I should let you make this point, but lager

47:51

beer, Halas, you know, Pilsner

47:53

and others, is as much about

47:55

malt as it is about hops and these other characters.

47:58

And, you know, in terms of... making logger,

48:01

we shouldn't shy away from that kind of character

48:03

in logger making.

48:04

I agree. I mean, yeah, like you said, that's

48:07

an argument I've made. But I think there

48:09

are different ways to get to

48:11

the destination, right? And

48:14

I think that crisp is not a meaningless

48:16

word. It does mean something. For

48:19

me, it's like a lightness and a structure and a quick finish.

48:22

And there's some implies some bitterness.

48:26

But it is meaningful. And I think

48:28

it's a cool thing to go for, particularly in hot climates.

48:30

I'm living in – I'm here in Bangkok right now. And

48:32

if, you know, Singha and Asahi weren't

48:34

crisp, they wouldn't be nearly as refreshing. So there's

48:37

a lot to be said for crisp. But that is

48:39

not the only way to crack the nut, so to speak.

48:42

There is – some of the traditional

48:44

loggers that are inspiring us, there

48:47

really is body

48:48

to it and mole character.

48:51

And right here in this Templin granary, Keller beer, you

48:53

know, those kind of bread dough – it's floral

48:55

hops, light touch of lemon zest. It

48:58

feels familiar. It feels comfortable. The

49:01

beer can be different things to different people. But

49:03

what captured us and I think what really

49:06

resonated with our blind judges the most

49:08

was this feeling of refinement. That

49:11

while it could be these different experiences, depending

49:13

on what you're looking for in the beer, the

49:15

hop flavor, the hop aroma, it

49:18

exuded this fineness. You

49:21

know, it's a term that we hear often from

49:23

European loggers. Like capturing

49:25

that quality of fineness is

49:27

important. You know, and this beer, even

49:30

if it is this kind of accessible,

49:32

you know, drinkable in threes

49:35

or fours kind of, you know, Pilsner beer,

49:37

you know, with a strong

49:40

hop character, but a balanced hop character. Like it

49:42

is just something that it feels

49:45

so elegant and so refined

49:47

and it can be that. Anyway, a beautiful

49:49

beer, an absolutely stunning beer coming out

49:51

of Salt Lake City, Utah. And

49:54

that actually, that score of that beer in

49:56

that issue was what got me to drive out there

49:58

to Utah and go do a podcast. with them because

50:01

naturally when I see these kinds of things come through, I

50:03

just want to learn more. Congratulations to Templin

50:06

for one of our beers of the year. Okay,

50:08

Joe, next up. Joe

50:10

Yeah, this one is fun because it really

50:12

shouldn't be here or it didn't need to be

50:14

here or I'm not sure how to put that because you

50:16

can win a gold medal at GBF but that

50:18

really has nothing to do with our editor's

50:21

picks for our top And

50:24

this one won a gold just

50:26

the week before we sat down to do blind

50:29

tasting. Not only that but

50:31

this beer... It... It...

50:35

It... It... Joe,

50:37

you're doing an editor thing again. You're bearing the lead. You

50:39

didn't even tell them what the beer is. Joe I'm getting there. I'm

50:42

getting there. It's a slow reveal. It's a

50:44

slow reveal. Be patient with me. Oh, man. It's...

50:48

Yeah, I mean, we're getting into the Midwest coast here. This is Fathead's Headhunter

50:50

out of Ohio. Yeah,

50:52

they had just won a gold medal the week before. They...

50:56

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Jamie. Did they submit this

50:58

for IPA issue this year? Jamie

50:59

That they didn't submit it for IPA issue but they

51:01

did send us all of their beers for the best

51:04

in beer issue. Joe Right. Jamie And

51:06

so out of consideration and given that they had just won

51:08

a gold medal, I was like, I'm going to slide this

51:10

into our best in beer tasting and

51:12

just see, you know, if Joe

51:15

and Stan and Kate and Patrick,

51:18

you know, maybe respond to it in a similar

51:20

kind of way and respond. You did

51:23

blindly, of course. You didn't know that that was what

51:25

this beer was. And it was in a context

51:27

with some pretty amazing, like, you

51:29

know, what I have implored every brewer

51:31

not to do is to send us IPAs

51:33

for the best in beer issue. My goodness,

51:36

you know, we taste enough IPAs during the IPA

51:38

issue. I don't want to see any more of those from folks.

51:40

But we did make space for a couple only

51:43

for these good reasons. And this is one of those

51:45

good reasons. You

51:47

all couldn't get enough of this one. Joe Ah, it was delicious,

51:49

man. And also, it's fun to think

51:51

about where

51:52

to categorize it. Maybe we should talk about how it

51:55

tastes first. I mean, it's got that nice firm bitterness

51:57

you expect from what we used to

51:59

call... American IPA. They're

52:01

selling this now. I don't know if they always did this but they're

52:03

marketing as a West Coast style now Which

52:07

people you know, we

52:09

could have talked about this with the Finback beer too I suppose

52:11

but like the regional designation can be

52:13

baggage at times Particularly

52:15

when the beer is not coming from the West Coast In

52:18

this case people these days now

52:21

we know what it means it communicates something

52:24

and and I think is it West Coast

52:26

I don't know close enough. It's dry. It's bitter It's

52:28

got this really nice like sun-kissed

52:31

orange candy juiciness to a lemon drop Candy

52:34

citrus peel so there's that sweetness there, but then it's

52:36

but then it dries out into

52:38

that nice clean bitter finish

52:41

It's just man. It's fun to drink. It's it's just

52:44

didn't put a foot wrong anywhere a little bit of

52:46

that resin lingers You know just just

52:48

enough to like remind you what it's supposed to be

52:51

Anyway, yeah, it's a delicious beer. Congratulations

52:53

fat heads You guys like are killing it this year

52:55

and you know, sometimes those GABF judges

52:58

may maybe know what they're talking about Absolutely,

53:00

and I mean, you know, I've been emailing

53:03

back and forth with Matt Cole the brew

53:05

master for fatheads I were gonna get a podcast going

53:07

some here sometime here the next few

53:09

months and try to tap into Understanding

53:12

what the real secret is behind

53:15

all of this fat heads You know magic

53:17

because it's not just IPA that they crush it

53:19

in, you know German style wheat beer and

53:22

others they are consistently

53:24

making some killer beers Across

53:26

some styles like that in a breadth of

53:29

style. So anyway, I want to learn more and

53:31

you know I need some excuse to go out to Cleveland, right?

53:33

I mean sounds like a great place to go in the

53:35

winter time Anyway,

53:38

let's we're gonna move the next beer on our top 20

53:40

beers of 2023 is a barley wine a barley wine of all things I'm

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support. All right, let's talk about barley wine

55:13

next. Next up, new image, 9505. You

55:18

know, this one is one that our blind reviewers

55:20

reviewed last fall in our pale

55:23

ale and other things issue, and

55:26

they scored it a 99 right

55:28

around the same time I noticed that

55:30

it won a, I think it was a silver medal

55:32

from Fobob Festival of Barrel

55:34

Age Beers in that kind of barley

55:36

wine category, clearly

55:39

crushing it last year in

55:41

this kind of category. So our

55:44

judges gave this beer a 99. Let

55:47

me tell a little story about it. They

55:49

released the first batch of 9505,

55:52

and that was the one that they entered last

55:54

year in Fobob and also sent to us that

55:57

our judges judged for that issue.

56:01

When it came time this year,

56:03

obviously as a top scorer with

56:05

a score of 99, it was automatically in

56:07

contention. And so I asked him to send

56:10

us some 9505. We want to revisit

56:12

it. Well, the beer they sent us was actually

56:14

batch two of 9505, where

56:16

the only difference was that it sat

56:19

in casks for like another nine months

56:21

or something. It was the same

56:24

exact original brew. They had just

56:26

debarreled the first part, bottled it,

56:28

released it as batch one, and batch

56:30

two, they just left it in casks, left

56:33

it in bourbon casks, and then pulled

56:35

it back out, you know, nine

56:37

months later, bottled that, and that

56:40

was what we tasted the second time around. You

56:42

know, I don't know that I've ever tasted

56:45

age that has improved

56:47

a beer that much, improved a

56:52

really phenomenal beer that

56:54

much. You know, we started with

56:56

our baseline from the original batch of 99

56:59

because it was an incredible

57:02

beer. It was absolutely stunning. Kind of,

57:04

I'm sure it's almost an ombarana style

57:07

character, like vanilla notes,

57:09

cinnamon, all spice, definitely

57:12

some chocolatey notes. It's on the

57:14

darker side of that barley wine spectrum,

57:16

has this kind of richness without falling into

57:18

kind of stout territory. It was very

57:21

much about this kind of spicy

57:23

flavor with this just beautiful,

57:26

beautiful, beautiful, rich

57:29

bourbon, whiskey spirits character. You

57:31

know, Stan described it as dark fruits, toffee,

57:34

dark chocolate, and sherry, but

57:36

it is so well integrated, it is so

57:38

cohesive, you know, that even

57:40

picking out these individual flavors doesn't

57:43

really do it justice. There is a, you know,

57:45

it was a bit boozy. I mean, this is a big beer, of course.

57:48

You know, but in this case, that booze works

57:51

to support the kind of weight

57:53

and heft of the flavor, you know, those oaky

57:55

bourbon notes. It kind of makes sense within that kind

57:58

of context. You know, you don't think. that

58:00

a beer that's rated a 99 could really

58:03

go anyplace. There's not a lot

58:05

of room to go. This

58:07

is one of those beers that made me wish that we

58:09

had more points because

58:12

it didn't even feel like 99, as Stan said, 99 is

58:15

too low. I

58:18

would think that if that was our judging standard

58:20

that even maybe 100 might be a little too

58:24

low for this beer. I don't

58:26

know that I can exaggerate when I say I think

58:29

this was my personal favorite beer

58:33

this year, the beer that stood out to

58:35

me the most and maybe even over the

58:37

last five years. It was so

58:39

singular and so interesting but

58:41

also so refined that

58:46

I just can't stop thinking about it and

58:48

it really did hit me in that kind of singular way.

58:51

So, I don't know. You tasted it, Joe.

58:53

How'd you feel about it? We all loved

58:55

it. I think that one of the things I

58:58

keep thinking about with the barley wines is the

59:01

discussion we kept adding was

59:02

beer flavors. We were looking for beer flavors. That

59:05

sounds really oversimplified and dumb but

59:07

in the context of I think in

59:10

recent years, barley wines have gotten

59:13

in the way that Imperial Stout have too,

59:15

chasing these higher finishing gravities

59:17

so they get thicker and sweeter and

59:20

that can work but

59:23

you need that depth. And

59:25

I think this was a more balanced example

59:29

with all the depth you could possibly ask for

59:31

all of the dark fruit esters playing

59:34

in with all the many, many layers

59:36

of caramel and it tasted like a

59:38

barley wine. And there's whatever

59:41

it is your like idea in the back of your head of

59:43

what a barley wine is, it's just like triggered all those

59:45

things and then there was more to explore and that

59:47

was super fun to taste.

59:49

For our next beer on this list, we actually

59:51

flipped back into mixed fermentation

59:54

again. This one may be a little

59:56

more of a beer that we might call

59:58

a wild ale. or a sour

1:00:01

beer. Joe, talk to us about

1:00:03

the next beer on the world. I'm going to give you the lead up

1:00:05

front this time. This is from Nashville,

1:00:07

Southern Grist,

1:00:09

and it's their Gin Barrel Age

1:00:11

version of Perpetual Composition. Perpetual

1:00:14

Composition is a Solera-style mixed

1:00:16

culture beer. So they

1:00:19

pull some out, put some back in, and they do different

1:00:21

things with it. And Gin

1:00:24

Barrels, you know, it's, I don't know,

1:00:26

I've been really excited by what's been going on

1:00:28

with mixed culture

1:00:30

beers and Gin Barrels lately. Last

1:00:33

year in our top 20, we had the Southwood

1:00:35

Cellars neologism here. And it

1:00:38

was just the way that the botanicals

1:00:40

can work with, you

1:00:42

know, working with yeast and,

1:00:45

and Brettanomyces and bacteria

1:00:47

to suggest citrus without, without often

1:00:51

there being any citrus in there. And

1:00:54

it's sort of the, I

1:00:56

don't know, I'm, you know, old

1:00:58

enough to remember some really dodgy Gin

1:01:01

Barrel beers from back in the day. And

1:01:04

you get the, you got the worst of the gin and none

1:01:06

of the fun.

1:01:07

And I feel like maybe brewers are really,

1:01:10

of course, these are the cream of the crop, but maybe you all

1:01:12

are getting the hang of this. No, I think you're right,

1:01:14

Joe. I think that there is like this is, there

1:01:17

is a direct correlation here and

1:01:19

that amongst some of our favorite

1:01:21

beers in this kind of, this

1:01:24

kind of spectrum, Gin Barrel

1:01:26

aging has a tremendously

1:01:28

positive effect. And, you know,

1:01:30

obviously when it's not handled well, it's

1:01:33

not a great beer and it doesn't make the list. But when

1:01:35

you're talking about a great beer and

1:01:37

I should say that this Southern Grist Perpetual

1:01:39

Composition is a great beer,

1:01:41

other, the other expression that they sent to

1:01:43

us, you know, for blind review

1:01:46

all scored a 95, the Blueberry

1:01:48

Perpetual Composition. And,

1:01:51

you know, and so from here, the Blueberry,

1:01:53

you know, scored a 95, the Gin Barrel

1:01:55

age scored a 99. A tremendous, obviously

1:01:59

they're starting from this tremendous. tremendous base but

1:02:01

it's this gin barrel expression that just

1:02:04

put this specific one just over the

1:02:06

top.

1:02:06

So a little bit about this beer.

1:02:10

It's spent nine months in a Bordeaux

1:02:12

fooder and then eight more in the gin

1:02:14

casks and how all that squares with the celera

1:02:16

thing, I don't know. I'm interested as

1:02:19

a, you know, someone who writes about

1:02:21

brewing as a taster

1:02:23

don't care. It's delicious. And

1:02:26

then you get this

1:02:29

just like really bright, classy

1:02:31

lemon floral on the nose. You

1:02:33

get a little bit of the juniper mint

1:02:36

and berries we were getting. And

1:02:38

then the acidity is

1:02:40

just nicely judged. It's gently

1:02:43

tart. I was getting a little bit of seaside

1:02:45

there, a little saline with, I don't know

1:02:47

what that maybe if that's from the bread

1:02:50

or from the gin or I had

1:02:52

no idea. But there's just like

1:02:54

this minty juniper stripe

1:02:56

that runs through it that's really, really nice all the way through

1:02:58

like that gentle acidity, dry finish.

1:03:01

As

1:03:03

elaborate

1:03:05

as elaborately as this beer was made using

1:03:08

big flavored components, it's

1:03:10

so elegant and just like delicate

1:03:13

and really fun to drink. It just works

1:03:15

beautifully. And I'm sure we're going

1:03:17

to see now more brewers

1:03:19

out there making mixed culture beers, putting

1:03:21

them in gin barrels. And then what do you do? You just print

1:03:24

money after that, right? Sales success guaranteed.

1:03:27

You know, someone's trying to appeal

1:03:29

to cocktail drinkers. This is a fantastic

1:03:31

way to do it with a beer, you know,

1:03:33

with beautiful breath and character. Nonetheless,

1:03:36

let's talk about the next beer on the list. BKS,

1:03:39

Pivo Project out of Kansas City,

1:03:41

Missouri, Bohemian style

1:03:43

pills there. This is another one that rated a 99 in

1:03:47

our logger issue with our blind reviewers

1:03:49

in that kind of check, pale logger

1:03:53

category. You know, this is

1:03:55

one now, you know, Joe and I came back from

1:03:57

Chequia. I

1:04:00

don't know about you Joe, but I became somehow

1:04:02

I became a complete asshole about

1:04:04

all this stuff I've always

1:04:07

been that way too. I was already like that so welcome

1:04:12

Alright so I joined this club with Joe

1:04:14

where we're complete assholes about this No,

1:04:16

where you feel like you have to lecture everybody on

1:04:19

what an actual check logger is which

1:04:22

for American brewers Let me just say

1:04:24

this it you it's not just

1:04:26

using check ingredients That's your first

1:04:28

step But if you're going to make a check style pay

1:04:31

a logger and you want to make it actually Check

1:04:33

style and not just check ingredients

1:04:35

make it like the checks do you have double

1:04:38

the cockpit? You've got to you know build

1:04:40

this kind of fullness into it You have

1:04:42

to have this kind of malt heft

1:04:45

that supports this intense hop

1:04:47

character Because that's how the checks

1:04:49

do it. It's got to be drinkable. It's got to

1:04:51

have this pizza. No, it's You

1:04:54

know it just needs to you know

1:04:56

you need to be able to drink You know

1:04:58

seven eight nine of them in

1:05:01

a sitting and so the balance

1:05:03

has to be absolutely spot-on there But

1:05:05

they're also not you know they're not meant

1:05:08

to be minimal either And

1:05:10

so we see a lot of minimal expressions

1:05:12

of check logger and thankfully

1:05:14

our judges of you can sniff those out

1:05:17

and This beer is not one

1:05:19

of those it you know captured the

1:05:21

kind of heft the kind of malt heft That

1:05:25

the thing that the check brewers might describe as

1:05:27

sweetness But it's really this kind of fullness

1:05:29

in the body that gets captured through

1:05:32

that double the coction process That also

1:05:34

offsets some of the dryness. You know it has both

1:05:36

of those things which I think becomes this interesting

1:05:40

Balance and this interesting kind of tension in

1:05:42

check pay a logger that it is both dry

1:05:45

And it has this feeling of fullness

1:05:47

of sweetness And so you know

1:05:50

but the key to it is

1:05:52

the time right you know it needs

1:05:54

to Start with that feeling

1:05:56

of fullness and sweetness, and it

1:05:58

needs to finish dry.

1:06:00

If it finishes sweet

1:06:02

and full then you're not doing something right

1:06:05

and you don't want to take another sip and you don't want to finish that glass. And

1:06:08

the key to Czech style pale lager is

1:06:10

finishing the glass and then finishing the next glass,

1:06:13

then finishing the glass after that and then finishing

1:06:15

the next two or three glasses after those

1:06:18

because that's how Czech pale lager

1:06:20

is consumed. And so if your beer can't do that then

1:06:23

it's functionally not doing it the right way. Anyway,

1:06:25

BKS, you know, Art of

1:06:27

Nails in Kansas City Brian

1:06:30

and Mary have done a phenomenal job, you

1:06:32

know, of embracing that kind of tension

1:06:35

in this beer, producing this kind of prized

1:06:37

drinkability, handling

1:06:39

the strong hop loads and the, you know,

1:06:41

the kind of fullness in the body

1:06:44

and still maintaining this drinkability

1:06:47

to the whole beer. And they've done it as

1:06:49

American brewers approaching this kind of Czech style.

1:06:51

They've done it in an absolutely

1:06:53

beautiful way.

1:06:54

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and plug an

1:06:56

article here too that we just posted on Monday

1:06:59

and you don't even need to be a subscriber to

1:07:01

read this now. It's online for everybody. But

1:07:04

my Czech lager brewing deep

1:07:06

dive that we did for our lager issue in the summer

1:07:09

is now on the website, the Art of the Addictive. And

1:07:11

the idea is if you want to brew a more

1:07:14

authentic Czech lager, here's

1:07:17

what the brewers tell us. They say we talked to a lot of brewers. Why

1:07:19

do you do it this way? How do you

1:07:21

do it and just get as many details as we can

1:07:23

and then also think about what we're tasting and try

1:07:26

to connect all the styles. But also if you just want

1:07:28

to brew that kind of beer that

1:07:30

you end up selling more of or drinking

1:07:32

more of because you just

1:07:35

have to have another one. There's little, you know,

1:07:37

that's their game. That's their whole thing.

1:07:39

They're trying to outdo each other in that game. And it's

1:07:42

for us, the drinkers, it works out beautifully. So

1:07:44

article, wallow in it. It's there.

1:07:46

And we also demand more foam. That's

1:07:49

all I'm going to say on that one. Joe, next

1:07:51

up, completely different

1:07:54

beer. We're going off in a whole

1:07:56

other direction. And

1:07:58

I think, you know, we should probably blow up. Wayne Stan for

1:08:00

this one because Stan

1:08:04

has become the biggest advocate

1:08:06

that we have found for pastry

1:08:08

stouts. It is the most unlikely

1:08:11

thing, but if we find someone advocating

1:08:14

within our discussions about beers of the

1:08:16

year, when we find someone advocating

1:08:18

for pastry stouts, nine times

1:08:20

out of ten, Stan Hieronymus, who would

1:08:23

have thought? Yeah, pastry Stan. That's what we call

1:08:25

him now. So he,

1:08:28

this beer is from North Richland

1:08:30

Hills, Texas. I believe that's Arlington

1:08:33

area, Dallas. No,

1:08:35

Dallas-Fort Worth. Yeah, Dallas-Fort Worth. And

1:08:38

it's False Idol, Ralphie Runs

1:08:41

Wild. The story of the name had

1:08:43

to be explained to us by Patrick Dawson.

1:08:46

It's a reference to the Buffalo

1:08:49

at Colorado Games, I guess. That's Ralphie

1:08:51

and he runs.

1:08:54

Joe, you're not paying attention to Coach Prime?

1:08:56

Come on, man. Dion Sanders. Oh,

1:08:59

right. Prime Time. Denver, Boulder

1:09:01

CU Buffs, man. Like no. The

1:09:04

Buffalo was their mascot and apparently someone

1:09:07

who has a relationship with the brewery, you

1:09:10

know, has a love of CU. Anyway,

1:09:13

they named this beer for Ralphie the

1:09:15

Buffalo. Because aged in Strandahan's

1:09:17

Whiskey Barrels, Colorado Whiskey, there's the connection.

1:09:20

There's the Colorado connection. I will say

1:09:22

as a Fort Collins resident, the home

1:09:24

of CSU Colorado State,

1:09:26

the Rams, a

1:09:29

big interstate rival with

1:09:32

the Buffaloes down in Boulder, you

1:09:37

can tell that we have editorial

1:09:39

integrity in this choice by

1:09:42

allowing this to kind of pass. I

1:09:45

shouldn't say that. I don't care about the Rams. They're

1:09:48

here. I have no connection to the university. Anyway,

1:09:50

I'd like to pretend that

1:09:53

there's been no bias against our neighbors

1:09:55

in Boulder over this beer. Yeah.

1:09:58

Well, we can keep talking football. We're both SEC guys.

1:09:59

guys now but I'm just gonna move on here. Let's

1:10:02

talk about vanilla because that is really

1:10:04

the

1:10:06

element that I think

1:10:08

well let's say it grabbed Stan's attention first.

1:10:12

He wrote in his notes, need to learn

1:10:14

more about vanilla and so

1:10:17

if I'm a little concerned

1:10:19

because if our hops insider becomes a

1:10:21

vanilla insider it's really gonna change the

1:10:24

mission of our coverage in the brewing industry guide but

1:10:27

when Stan wants to go down a rabbit hole you let him

1:10:29

go and you see where it's gonna take you.

1:10:32

Yeah if that happens we can blame these guys at false

1:10:34

idol. Anyway this beer delicious,

1:10:37

thick, leggy, black

1:10:40

as hell of course but when you put your

1:10:42

nose in there then you're getting into the

1:10:44

vanilla experience and

1:10:47

I think in beer broadly as

1:10:50

an ingredient vanilla can be overdone we all

1:10:52

know that it can also be really simple but

1:10:54

there is so much complexity

1:10:56

also possible with vanilla and so much

1:10:58

depth that's possible when it's done the right way and

1:11:01

in balance. This vanilla happens to

1:11:03

be Ugandan for you vanilla heads

1:11:05

out there

1:11:07

but we were getting like

1:11:09

cherry cordial dork fruit

1:11:12

compote notes from from the esters too.

1:11:16

For me it was like we used to eat mincemeat

1:11:18

pie Christmas every year I was getting the mincemeat pie

1:11:20

thing like lots of just stewed

1:11:23

raisins and spice and just

1:11:25

man it was just deep dark

1:11:28

chocolate of course more vanilla whiskey

1:11:30

spice and that way those things all work together

1:11:32

is beautiful

1:11:34

really big flavors sweet

1:11:37

but deep and beautifully integrated it's

1:11:41

yeah it was thick

1:11:42

warm

1:11:44

mitigated by this big marshmallowy

1:11:46

body I really enjoy how body can

1:11:49

mitigate sweetness like it's

1:11:51

and I had I got into a argument about

1:11:53

this at the judging table at GABF actually because

1:11:56

somebody was suggesting

1:11:58

that that a high finishing gravity

1:12:01

meant the beer is sweet. It was like, well,

1:12:04

yeah, but also that's body. And then

1:12:06

body can change how you perceive sweetness. To me,

1:12:08

it stretches it out sometimes instead

1:12:10

of it being sharp

1:12:12

and cloying. Anyway, that's another aside.

1:12:16

But I mean, for all

1:12:19

the fun and like childlike holiday

1:12:21

flavors going on there, there's

1:12:24

the warmth of the whiskey and there's the barrel tannin.

1:12:27

And it's like, yeah, okay, there's still some grown up

1:12:29

here. I love

1:12:31

that balance and going

1:12:33

back and forth there. Really delicious beer. Like

1:12:36

congratulations, False Idol. Thank you for sending that

1:12:38

one.

1:12:38

Absolutely. Next up on our list,

1:12:40

Hazy IPA, cross-strain,

1:12:43

fairy nectar, double dry hopped fairy

1:12:45

nectar. This

1:12:47

one, through the course of our

1:12:50

IPA issue earlier this year

1:12:52

was our top scoring Hazy

1:12:54

IPA. Pulled in a score of 98. The

1:12:57

Palmares are there. The

1:13:00

Bonafides, like it has a pedigree

1:13:03

here that's well respected. Our

1:13:05

judges, when they are tasting things blind, don't

1:13:08

give a shit about that. They have no

1:13:10

idea what they're tasting. They have

1:13:12

no idea what a beer is accomplished in the past.

1:13:15

And through that process, they gave this

1:13:17

beer a score of 98. As I've gone back

1:13:19

into it again recently and

1:13:21

been tasting it again, actually I had a can before we started

1:13:23

the podcast earlier tonight. I

1:13:25

think what our judges respond

1:13:28

to and what I have responded to most

1:13:30

about this is the kind

1:13:32

of balance that this Hazy

1:13:34

IPA is

1:13:36

certainly not one of the most murky

1:13:40

turbid and sweetest but

1:13:42

really captures the softness, the

1:13:45

softness of fruit flavor, some of these

1:13:48

stone fruit notes and as well as these tropical

1:13:51

guava and mango notes. But

1:13:53

the way that it balances these, the

1:13:55

way that it approaches them with a

1:13:58

subtlety, and

1:14:00

an intensity feels accomplished.

1:14:02

It also feels drinkable. This is a

1:14:05

hazy IPA, double

1:14:08

dry hopped hazy IPA that

1:14:10

I could drink three or four of in a sitting

1:14:13

and not grow tired of it that it

1:14:15

doesn't have that intense fatigue

1:14:17

factor because the goal is not

1:14:20

just to beat you over the head with that most hop

1:14:22

intensity that it can find. There's

1:14:27

a beauty to it and also

1:14:29

a drinkability to it that I think our

1:14:31

judges responded to. Nice

1:14:34

to see that within this kind of blind

1:14:36

judging context. It's easier

1:14:38

in a blind judging context to

1:14:41

celebrate those things that grasp onto them the

1:14:46

highest intensity that become

1:14:48

those like slight outliers that kind

1:14:51

of rise to the top because they shout the loudest.

1:14:54

This is not a beer that shouts the loudest. This is

1:14:56

a beer that pulls it together

1:14:58

in the most beautiful and most

1:15:01

cohesive of ways and for that it

1:15:04

has earned its spot on our

1:15:06

top 20 beers

1:15:07

of 2023. Next

1:15:10

up, Joe, we go a little bit dark. Yeah,

1:15:13

we're going to San Francisco. This one has a

1:15:15

little story attached. I'll try to keep it short. There

1:15:17

is actually another way for editors

1:15:20

picks, our best of the year, to happen

1:15:23

and one of those is that throughout the year, we

1:15:26

just experienced a great beer and

1:15:28

we remember it later in the year when we're looking back.

1:15:30

I look back, I could try to keep notes as much as I can

1:15:33

without being anti-social at times

1:15:35

and I look back at my notes and see like what really killed

1:15:38

it for me during the year and

1:15:40

this was one of those beers that killed it for me. So I reached

1:15:42

out to Nick Mamir at Bartlett

1:15:44

Hall Brewing and

1:15:47

I said, man, I loved that Palace

1:15:49

reporter when I was in there. I was

1:15:52

walking over San Cisco, tired

1:15:54

feet, needed to sit somewhere. Hey, that looks

1:15:56

like a bar. So my wife,

1:15:58

Kelly and I went in, sat down. down, ordered a beer,

1:16:00

it's like, oh, I think they won a couple medals.

1:16:02

We heard of these guys and had a

1:16:05

porter and it was just, damn,

1:16:07

this is really good. And

1:16:11

started taking notes on it like, this is why

1:16:13

I have to be anti social, honey, I got to take some notes.

1:16:15

And then you know, come back to it later in the year and yeah,

1:16:19

Nick sent us some beer, said we put it in

1:16:21

front of the table and buddy, you

1:16:23

know, I mean, I didn't really know it was, I

1:16:25

can ask him to send it in. I don't always know if it makes it

1:16:27

or if it's there.

1:16:29

So I didn't know what this was. We

1:16:31

didn't know what this was. But again, it

1:16:34

just was a hit at the table because

1:16:36

it's a great beer. Barlet Hall, Palace

1:16:38

Street Porter. That was a long, maybe

1:16:40

that was a longer story than it needed to be. But we're at 6.6

1:16:42

point 4 percent ABV. This is

1:16:45

not a big barrel aged

1:16:47

monster. It's old

1:16:49

school kind of robust American Porter.

1:16:52

The balance on it is lovely. It's got

1:16:54

the body. It's you get

1:16:56

that mid range caramel and

1:16:58

the bariesters for depth there.

1:17:02

You get that you do get that little bit of roasty

1:17:04

espresso and I think you want it there. It

1:17:06

should be there. But obviously,

1:17:08

easily overdone at times and here it

1:17:10

is just like hits the

1:17:12

note perfectly. It's bitter. It's

1:17:15

Swedish. It's roasty finishes

1:17:17

dry. Really beautifully

1:17:19

integrated woven together. It's just

1:17:22

a really fun beer to drink and it's and it's one

1:17:24

that you know, you finish up pie and you're like,

1:17:26

I'm gonna want another one of those. And

1:17:29

for you know, for a 6.4 percent Porter,

1:17:31

that's that's not easy to do. So congratulations,

1:17:34

Nick, great beer. You

1:17:35

guys get to San Francisco get out to get

1:17:37

out the Barlet Hall and try some beers, man. They're Nick

1:17:40

knows what he's doing over there. Next up on

1:17:42

our list, West Coast Pilsner.

1:17:45

Joe, is West Coast Pilsner a style? Is it

1:17:47

real? Yeah,

1:17:49

I mean, if if enough people say

1:17:51

it is, I guess it starts to become a thing, right? I

1:17:53

mean, we've done podcasts on it that have done really well.

1:17:55

Obviously, we've written about it.

1:17:58

We publish recipes call away. West Coast Pills,

1:18:00

so, but I

1:18:02

like, personally, I'm just interested in Hop

1:18:05

Forward Logger of all kinds. And

1:18:08

you know, dry hop loggers, I think, so where the hops

1:18:10

coming from, if they come from Pacific

1:18:12

Northwest, maybe that's the West Coast Pills.

1:18:14

West Coast Pills, you know, Italian

1:18:17

style pills, French style pills,

1:18:19

Polish pills, New England

1:18:22

pills, I don't know, I don't care what it is, we're here for

1:18:24

it, you know, send us your pills and

1:18:26

send it with all of the creative hop

1:18:28

expressions that you can

1:18:31

imagine and if they work well,

1:18:33

then hey, let's talk about it because I,

1:18:37

we are both here for any beers in

1:18:39

this high fours, low

1:18:41

fives, you know, percentage range that

1:18:44

capture this kind of flavor and do it with

1:18:46

this kind of drinkability. I think that's

1:18:48

what our judges loved about 12 West Radial

1:18:50

Spines, one of our 20 beers, the

1:18:53

best beers of this year and also

1:18:55

a top score in our logger issue. New

1:18:58

Zealand Pills, I guess we could also call it New Zealand Pills,

1:19:01

I mean, since we're going to try to, you know, slice

1:19:03

and dice these styles to, you

1:19:05

know, like infinitely small subcategories.

1:19:08

I like the idea of calling it Cold Pale Ale

1:19:11

because that's also what it

1:19:13

is and, you know, I mean, if we

1:19:15

can just trigger people like that, then we might as well trigger

1:19:17

people like that too. 12 West,

1:19:19

they've been sending a spear for the last couple of years, super

1:19:22

impressed with this brewery down in, you know, the

1:19:24

greater Phoenix area, Gilbert, Arizona

1:19:27

has done. You know,

1:19:29

they're playing across the field, but this beer,

1:19:31

I think, captured this beautiful West

1:19:34

Coast hop character and did it within this kind

1:19:36

of Pilsner milieu, this kind of, you

1:19:39

know, nominally Pilsner idea. I

1:19:41

keep using the word nominally, but

1:19:43

I just love it so much. I just can't stop.

1:19:46

12 West, radial spines, 5% ABV,

1:19:49

tons of hop character, but also

1:19:52

this beautiful drinkability that comes from this

1:19:55

lager fermentation that is so, that

1:19:57

just allows them to focus

1:19:59

so intently hops. It's not

1:20:01

estuary. It's really just about

1:20:04

all of that hop character,

1:20:07

those kind of classic orange zest, tropical

1:20:10

floral. But that range,

1:20:12

the beautiful part of it is that they keep

1:20:14

it. It's not, again, it's not loud. It's not trying

1:20:17

to drown you out with

1:20:19

this high volume intensity. They

1:20:22

keep it down at a measurable range.

1:20:24

And because of that, the beer doesn't become

1:20:27

fatiguing. You get to experience all

1:20:29

the beauty of these hops in just this

1:20:31

kind of perfectly, perfect

1:20:33

tone and perfect volume level to

1:20:36

appreciate them without having to

1:20:39

be deafened by

1:20:41

them. Beautiful beer. Love what they're

1:20:43

doing. Thank you to

1:20:46

Gully at 12 West. After

1:20:49

we decided to add this to our list, we

1:20:51

very cagely said, hey, would

1:20:53

you be up for asking us for sharing

1:20:55

a recipe for this beer with us without

1:20:57

telling him that they had won a beer of the year? Maybe

1:21:01

he might've had an idea, Joe. I don't know if he did or not.

1:21:03

He might've had some idea of what we were

1:21:06

asking him about, but he played

1:21:08

along with us nonetheless. Definitely subscribe

1:21:10

to the magazine, beerandbring.com. Click

1:21:13

on that subscribe button, become a subscriber and

1:21:15

make your own version of 12

1:21:17

West's radial spines.

1:21:20

Compare it to the original. Buy a six

1:21:22

pack, buy a case of it and compare

1:21:24

your own and tell us what you

1:21:27

think about West Coast Pilsner.

1:21:30

Joe, what's next on this? Another lager. Yeah.

1:21:33

So we're going to be talking a little bit about

1:21:36

Winston Salem here for a

1:21:38

couple of times in this episode.

1:21:40

And I don't want to give away too much. Maybe actually,

1:21:42

maybe this is going to... It's funny you say that because

1:21:44

Winston Salem

1:21:45

shows

1:21:48

up twice in this list. Gilbert,

1:21:51

Arizona shows up twice in this list.

1:21:54

The Bay area shows up twice in

1:21:56

this. There are five different

1:21:59

Kansas City. He shows up twice in this list.

1:22:02

10 of our beers of the year

1:22:04

come from five cities or

1:22:06

metro areas. And

1:22:08

there was a strange focus to that this year.

1:22:11

Sorry for interrupting you. This one in particular

1:22:14

is from Winston-Salem. Yeah. Well,

1:22:16

the theme that we're seeing anyway out of the beers

1:22:18

that are scoring really well with us and also winning

1:22:20

medals too at times is

1:22:23

dark beers out of Winston-Salem. And so I'm

1:22:25

super – I don't know if that's coincidence.

1:22:27

Maybe next year they win for pale ales or

1:22:29

something else. But it's just interesting to me that – anyway,

1:22:32

this is from Wise Man and Winston-Salem.

1:22:34

It's living a double life. Double life

1:22:36

because it's a dappelbach and that's fun.

1:22:39

And we're getting into more lager here too. It's a big

1:22:41

dappelbach at 8.5%. So

1:22:44

it's a bruiser but it's a drinkable

1:22:46

one. And

1:22:49

a dappelbach has to be. If you're going

1:22:51

to do a German lager

1:22:54

and call it that, then I think you

1:22:56

owe the tradition a certain attenuation.

1:22:59

You got to get it balanced enough. You got to get it fermented

1:23:02

out enough that it's dangerous

1:23:04

for its strength whatever that strength is. But

1:23:07

here you got all the malt depth too. It's

1:23:09

really wonderful. None of it's overdone.

1:23:12

The way I describe it is like

1:23:15

classical guitar complexity at easy listening

1:23:17

volume. Nothing's hitting you over the head

1:23:19

but there's so much there to appreciate. Stewed

1:23:22

plums, toasted muffin, dried

1:23:26

oak leaves. I mean sure. It's

1:23:29

really fun beer. You can

1:23:31

dial in like that and pick things apart or again,

1:23:34

holidays are coming up. You could just drink a beer like this

1:23:37

and get loose with friends and it would be

1:23:40

really fun. So anyway, great

1:23:42

beer. We're going to say more about Winston-Salem soon

1:23:44

here but congrats to Wise

1:23:47

Man. And we got to get down there Jamie to Winston-Salem

1:23:49

and figure out what's going on there with the Dark Mall.

1:23:52

Next up on our list, not Winston-Salem

1:23:54

but this is the other duo of towns

1:23:58

or cities and whatnot. that

1:24:00

I had just blanked on KCBC

1:24:04

Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn, New York

1:24:06

had two beers of our year, beers

1:24:08

of the year this year. This one is KCBC

1:24:11

Kings County Brewers Collective. Welcome

1:24:13

to the underworld. Hellas, another top

1:24:16

scorer from our logger issue as rated

1:24:19

by 99, I believe by the

1:24:21

blind judges of Crafts, Beer

1:24:23

and Brewing. New York City has hit

1:24:26

a beer renaissance, they're brewing renaissance,

1:24:28

KCBC in Bushwick

1:24:31

doing killer work, really creative

1:24:34

work, doing it with fun artsy,

1:24:38

edgy mentality to what they do, at

1:24:41

least within the packaging and within the way that they're

1:24:43

presenting the brand. But the beautiful

1:24:45

thing about the beer itself is that it again eschews

1:24:48

this kind of minimalist vibe. It

1:24:50

embraces that idea of malt. It

1:24:53

is full, it's hopped but it's not bitter

1:24:56

like a Pilsner. But there was

1:24:58

just this overwhelming freshness in the

1:25:00

flavor. It kept striking

1:25:02

us as fresh

1:25:05

malt. There was something light

1:25:07

and clean, full but also

1:25:09

not heavy. It

1:25:12

made it feel like it was substantial without

1:25:14

it having a lot

1:25:16

of weight to it. That is

1:25:19

just the coolest experience for

1:25:21

a Hellas that one could ask for where

1:25:23

it is both simultaneously satisfying

1:25:27

and also easy to drink. What's

1:25:29

up next, Joe? Yeah, so we're

1:25:31

going to go back to Kansas City for

1:25:34

this next one. It's KC Beer,

1:25:37

KC Beer Light. And

1:25:39

I think, okay, so we had, we mentioned Crossstrain

1:25:42

because they were in this space two years

1:25:45

ago, I believe with their Saison. And that's impressive

1:25:47

to do that with a Saison and a Hazy IPA too. And

1:25:49

KC Beer is here, I think they were here a few years ago

1:25:52

for the Hellas, for their Hellas. I'm pretty sure the Hellas

1:25:54

longer. So this is

1:25:57

a German-style Leich beer. three

1:26:00

and a half percent alcohol and it was

1:26:03

it was it did well with the with the blind review

1:26:05

panel earlier this year it

1:26:08

scored a 95 but that was being judged

1:26:11

along with a bunch of kind of

1:26:13

bigger German style pilsners too, so that

1:26:15

score stood out to us as something

1:26:17

like a 95 for

1:26:19

a beer of three and a half percent alcohol is

1:26:22

really exceptional actually. So

1:26:24

then to Jamie threw

1:26:26

it into the to our editorial blind tasting

1:26:29

and it was just one of those things where like we all could see

1:26:31

Like yes, you could set your watch to this

1:26:33

beer. It is precise It

1:26:36

is It is super

1:26:39

light but for that lightness. It has a

1:26:41

lot of flavor This a lot of that structure

1:26:43

is coming from a really nicely judged bitterness

1:26:47

It is kind of bitter And

1:26:50

and that it's not overly bitter and it you

1:26:52

know it with with this kind of light

1:26:55

Lightness of frame you really can't get away with a

1:26:57

whole lot But it tastes bitter and it's in it in a

1:26:59

way that makes you want to kind of keep hitting it There

1:27:02

is a really, you know feather light sweetness

1:27:05

to it But it's just it's

1:27:07

just super clean a lot of flavor

1:27:09

for three and a half percent alcohol Really

1:27:11

impressive beer. It was one of those where we're just like, yeah,

1:27:13

this is great. Like this is really well

1:27:16

made We could drink a lot of it Where's

1:27:18

you know, where's the argument? Where's where's the problem? There is no

1:27:20

problem with the beer was we didn't really couldn't

1:27:23

couldn't fault it We liked

1:27:25

I think we also liked the idea of having a light beer

1:27:27

on the on the list You know to be honest like

1:27:30

but it but it belongs here is well made

1:27:32

beer I think Casey beer is interesting

1:27:34

brewery to where they're they're just they're making

1:27:36

fantastic Reverend German style

1:27:38

lagers their powerhouse in the region

1:27:42

Or their force in the region at least, you know for

1:27:44

craft beer But I think they don't get

1:27:46

sometimes the people don't talk about Casey beer

1:27:48

as much they talk about live oak

1:27:50

or dovetail or notch among

1:27:53

the people who really appreciate

1:27:55

kind of traditional approaches

1:27:58

to craft lager in the States Casey

1:28:00

beer ought to be right up there in my opinion. Great

1:28:02

beer again.

1:28:03

Congrats to Casey beer and that team there. Up

1:28:05

next is not a lager. Up next

1:28:09

is a first for craft beer and brewing

1:28:11

editors picks for best

1:28:14

beers of the year. It's a non-alcoholic

1:28:16

beer. And this one actually, I mean,

1:28:18

we spent some time debating this one. Number

1:28:21

one, because it was the lowest

1:28:24

score from our blind panel of

1:28:26

any beer on this list. It

1:28:28

scored a, this beer, two roads, non-alcoholic,

1:28:31

GCIPA, scored

1:28:33

a 91 with our blind judges, which speaks

1:28:36

to something more interesting. When

1:28:39

we have, when we tasted non-alcoholic

1:28:41

beers back for that

1:28:43

first issue of this cycle,

1:28:47

we tasted a

1:28:48

lot of, let

1:28:49

me just be perfectly honest with you, a lot of

1:28:52

terrible beers about things

1:28:54

that people should not have called beer, about

1:28:57

things that were basically hard seltzer

1:28:59

with extract beer flavoring. And

1:29:01

it was the same kind of scenario

1:29:04

as when we first tasted gluten-free

1:29:06

beers years and years ago. There

1:29:09

was one standout and there were a lot

1:29:11

of, you know, attempts that didn't

1:29:14

really meet the standard that we would have liked

1:29:16

for beer. Of course, in that gluten-free

1:29:18

category, the competition has

1:29:21

improved immeasurably. And

1:29:24

you know, today's gluten-free beers are really

1:29:27

excellent. And the

1:29:29

top of that category are

1:29:31

very compelling beers,

1:29:34

gluten-free or not. What we're

1:29:36

starting to see is now in this non-alcoholic

1:29:38

category, the same thing is starting

1:29:41

to be possible. There we have started

1:29:43

to find brewers like Phil Markowski

1:29:46

at Two Roads who are finding ways

1:29:48

to make beer in this non-alcoholic space

1:29:51

that is every bit as compelling

1:29:53

as beer with alcohol. And

1:29:56

you know, at some level,

1:29:58

that should be celebrated. It was great

1:30:00

to see the same beer that our blind judges gave

1:30:03

their highest rating in this

1:30:06

issue last year. Most recently also won

1:30:08

a silver medal in the non-alcoholic category from

1:30:10

JBF. Also really

1:30:12

cool to see. It's kind of awesome

1:30:15

and cool to see Phil Markowski, a guy

1:30:17

that most people probably know as writing the

1:30:19

Farmhouse Ales book, who has constantly

1:30:22

been pushing innovation at Two

1:30:25

Roads in all of these things. I

1:30:28

will note that their hard

1:30:30

Seltzer H2 Roads was

1:30:33

our highest rated Seltzer a

1:30:35

few years ago when we put those

1:30:38

in front of our blind judges. This guy

1:30:40

who has made some of the most traditional

1:30:43

approaches to traditional farmhouse wild

1:30:46

and sour beers is also

1:30:49

just a phenomenal leader in this kind of spectrum

1:30:51

of innovation, but also

1:30:54

finding ways to make all of these innovative

1:30:57

beer styles and related

1:30:59

things taste good. Because

1:31:01

that's ultimately where it all comes back to. If

1:31:04

these things don't taste good, then what's

1:31:06

the point? If it doesn't feel like this

1:31:09

is something I can legitimately

1:31:12

enjoy in lieu of a beer, then

1:31:14

it hasn't succeeded. I will say

1:31:16

this and the reason that this beer is on our list

1:31:18

this year. This is the first non-alcoholic

1:31:21

beer that we have tasted where

1:31:24

we have felt that we can enjoy

1:31:26

this as a beer and not

1:31:28

feel like we are sacrificing

1:31:31

beer in the

1:31:33

pursuit of some other goal.

1:31:36

Well said. Yeah. It's exciting to see what's

1:31:38

going on with non-alcoholic beer now. It's getting

1:31:40

better and better all the time. The next beer on our list,

1:31:43

however, has plenty of alcohol in

1:31:45

it, Joe, and plenty of malt. This is another

1:31:47

one from Winston-Salem. Yeah. Yeah.

1:31:50

We're going to Incendiary and

1:31:53

man, these guys are having a good year. They

1:31:55

won two golds at World Beer Cup this year. One

1:31:58

for their shorts. and also

1:32:01

for their brown porter.

1:32:03

And this is where I'm gonna mention that in

1:32:05

this particular issue, in our

1:32:08

Ask the Pros section toward the front of the magazine,

1:32:11

we have a sort

1:32:13

of a brewer's perspective and a recipe

1:32:16

on how they put together their brown porter written

1:32:18

by Josh Weichert. So we got the

1:32:20

recipe there, you can get into that. We have

1:32:23

already published the recipe

1:32:25

for this one, Incendiary

1:32:28

Schwartz beer. We had

1:32:30

that in our lager issue this summer on how to brew

1:32:32

a gold medal Schwartz beer. So and

1:32:34

here it is. I mean, it was kind of a

1:32:37

no-doubter for this list too. It scored a 99 with

1:32:39

the with the review panel. We

1:32:42

loved it. It's a great beer. Again,

1:32:44

Dark Malt, Winston Salem, what's going on? I don't

1:32:47

know. It's interesting. Go find out

1:32:49

maybe there's something in the water. I think that I

1:32:51

mentioned this with a doppelbock

1:32:54

too but if you're gonna

1:32:56

call it a Schwartz beer, that implies

1:32:59

a German sensibility toward

1:33:02

drinkability. So it's got

1:33:04

to be drinkable. It's got to be balanced. It

1:33:06

can't stick out too far in any direction and this

1:33:09

is just really nicely put

1:33:11

together. It's got

1:33:14

that color you're looking for, just those like red highlights.

1:33:17

Like a Schwartz beer really isn't black

1:33:19

black. It's just not quite

1:33:22

black and this looks exactly

1:33:24

like it's supposed to look for whatever

1:33:26

that's worth. We don't care. We want to drink it. You

1:33:28

get like a cold brew coffee smoothness

1:33:31

to it. It's lightly sweet

1:33:33

but it's not sweet in any real way.

1:33:36

You've got just this agility

1:33:38

to the beer, the way it's going

1:33:40

between these soft notes of chocolate, dark

1:33:43

caramel, suggesting sweetness but it never gets sweet

1:33:46

and a little bit of light roast. It's just balanced,

1:33:50

restrained, gently

1:33:52

bitter, finishes dry enough. It's

1:33:54

light, it's clean, it's just a really

1:33:57

delicious beer. It's well made and we've

1:33:59

got If you look back look

1:34:01

at our website gold middle Schwartz bear you can search it up

1:34:03

and you've got the there This was a recipe

1:34:05

from their quality control manager Adam goods

1:34:09

I'm saying that the right German way I don't know how his family

1:34:11

says it my our family has been mispronouncing

1:34:14

our German name for a few generations now. So

1:34:16

but the It's it's

1:34:19

a beer that you can kill just as just

1:34:21

as many pints of as you could have pills or how this but It's

1:34:24

a striking, you know dark in the glass and

1:34:26

Nice job putting it together in

1:34:29

Cindy area and again, we got to get to winces-a- American

1:34:55

beer festival. I

1:34:57

mean just a tremendous accomplishment

1:34:59

in a very tough category There's

1:35:02

a few things I think that are feeding ghost

1:35:04

town and it's not just ghost town There

1:35:07

is this incredible high-performance culture

1:35:09

in the East Bay in particular, you

1:35:12

know between cellar maker

1:35:14

wondrous original pattern You

1:35:16

know like a bunch of really

1:35:19

killer beer makers, you know So to come

1:35:21

out and with a beer like nose goblin and be

1:35:23

so successful with it and to make

1:35:25

a splash with it Within

1:35:28

this context is hard. There

1:35:30

is so much great beer being

1:35:32

made within an hour

1:35:34

two hours three hours of where ghost

1:35:37

town is and so figuring out

1:35:39

how to make something that's going to Rise

1:35:42

above, you know this incredible

1:35:44

level

1:35:45

of high quality. I love this beer.

1:35:47

It's super fun to drink. It's Exciting

1:35:50

to see the sort of you know resurgence of West Coast style

1:35:52

we're talking about. I don't know if this is That

1:35:54

I think it is officially is it's West Coast like

1:35:57

geographically. I think

1:35:59

that there's There's a softness,

1:36:01

Ray Worth, there's a slight softness to the Ghost

1:36:04

Town beers that I enjoy. They're

1:36:06

not really hard edges. I kind

1:36:08

of, maybe sometimes, I

1:36:10

like bitterness. Maybe I wanted to feel more

1:36:12

bitter than it is, but you

1:36:15

still keep going back for more

1:36:17

and more. And I got

1:36:19

to go to the Ghost Town Taproom actually this

1:36:22

past summer too and that was really one of them.

1:36:25

And I knew what I wanted. I'm

1:36:27

in there and I'm thinking I should probably try a few others,

1:36:29

but damn, I know that one's going to be good.

1:36:31

So I had to have a nose goblin. Rip my face

1:36:34

off. Great. Yeah. Really

1:36:37

fun. Crush my soul. No, exactly.

1:36:39

There's something, I think, to the way that

1:36:42

they select hops where when

1:36:44

you say no rough edges, I agree with you, but I

1:36:46

think there's still like, there's a

1:36:48

spark to it. I still

1:36:50

haven't gotten to the complete bottom of what that

1:36:53

is, but nonetheless, Ghost

1:36:55

Town Nose Goblin deserves its

1:36:57

spot here and we

1:36:59

are humongous fans

1:37:01

of the way that they brew. It's also, we

1:37:03

got an all-access recipe for this on the website

1:37:05

too. So look it up, Ghost

1:37:08

Town Nose Goblin.

1:37:09

And so our last and final beer, Joe,

1:37:11

our final beer, the 20th

1:37:13

on our list of 20 Best Beers of 2023

1:37:19

is a barley wine that earned its spot

1:37:21

on this list through our Best in

1:37:23

Beer Tasting. Yeah. This

1:37:26

is from Norfolk, Virginia. This is Bench

1:37:28

Top's Old Wooden Ship. And

1:37:30

I think, I may have already used the phrase platonic

1:37:33

ideal earlier this episode already talking

1:37:35

about barley wine. And I think for judges,

1:37:37

it's a bit of a cliche, right? To look for the platonic

1:37:39

ideal of a particular style. But

1:37:42

it's interesting to think about

1:37:44

what is it when we think of any

1:37:47

particular style, but in this case, barley wine. Have we

1:37:49

not moved past this stupid

1:37:51

metaphor of the cave and the

1:37:53

idea that any of this shit

1:37:55

actually exists? Come on. Aren't

1:37:58

we, I mean, in terms of... of aesthetic

1:38:00

critique, aren't we well

1:38:02

past that at this point? Can we just put the

1:38:05

platonic ideal to bed? Well, it's going to get more into more

1:38:07

like a semantic explanation of

1:38:09

it because our idea of what a barley wine

1:38:11

is or what anything is, is based on all of our experience

1:38:13

with that thing, right?

1:38:15

So all the barley wines we've ever tasted

1:38:17

in our

1:38:19

lives add up to something in our minds and

1:38:22

particularly the good ones that you remember. And

1:38:25

then of course, along the way, you

1:38:27

absorb some style guidelines maybe and

1:38:30

maybe you try to brew it sometimes at home or in professional

1:38:32

capacity. You

1:38:35

develop this idea of what it's supposed to be and then sometimes you drink

1:38:37

something and it's like, it lights up all those little

1:38:39

centers of your brain that like, barley

1:38:41

wine alert, it's just like this

1:38:44

tasted, I guess like you want

1:38:46

one to taste. And again,

1:38:48

the beer flavors thing was coming up with

1:38:50

Stan and I. Let's talk about this beer. The

1:38:53

Year in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels, but

1:38:58

it's not a bourbon heavy barley wine. It's

1:39:01

like the bourbon and the barrel are adding

1:39:03

these beautiful accents to molds. And

1:39:07

it was really fun

1:39:09

to get lost in that. It's

1:39:11

like the bourbon and the barrels there are like pulling

1:39:14

strings and having influences and helping

1:39:16

determine outcomes, but they're not, you know, they're behind the

1:39:18

curtain. It's interesting how

1:39:20

that works. I love it when that's done well.

1:39:23

And then you've got, you

1:39:25

know, deep caramel depth,

1:39:28

big caramel nose line with like figs

1:39:31

soaked in brandy or something, poached

1:39:33

pears, milk chocolate, herbal

1:39:36

hops, and then, yeah, a little kiss of whiskey

1:39:38

there. And I'm still talking about the aroma.

1:39:41

I mean, so there's a lot to

1:39:43

do there. And then on the tongue, it's like, yeah, it's

1:39:45

big

1:39:45

on the palate.

1:39:47

It's sweet. Again,

1:39:49

another one I was just like, yeah, it's sweet, but it's deep.

1:39:52

There's a lot here to explore. You

1:39:54

got some bird sugar, that deep toffee, dark

1:39:56

fruit.

1:39:58

It's just and then of course, you Yeah, a little

1:40:00

bit of barrel too is there. And that

1:40:02

little sherry oxidation you're looking for there

1:40:04

is too. That just also signals like barley

1:40:07

wine. And it's like as good

1:40:09

as this was. I mean, this was unquestionably

1:40:12

one of the best beers that we tasted, even

1:40:15

among these I still think it would

1:40:17

be better after a year in the cellar. And

1:40:19

that's, I mean, it was just really

1:40:22

fantastic beer, Old Wooden Ship.

1:40:24

It's a cool name too, right? It sounds like

1:40:27

a barley wine, Old Wooden Ship. And

1:40:29

that brings to a close our

1:40:31

editor's picks for Best Beers

1:40:34

of 2023. Next

1:40:37

up on this Best in Beer episode

1:40:40

is our reader's picks for

1:40:43

Favorite Beer Styles. And this is going to wrap

1:40:45

up this episode. Interestingly

1:40:48

enough, we have loved asking this question

1:40:51

of our readers year after year to also see

1:40:54

how things change. And this

1:40:56

year, things have changed. Things

1:41:01

have changed, not at the very top, but

1:41:03

the number two spot. We

1:41:05

had two beer styles trade

1:41:07

places this year, and

1:41:10

it is very interesting to see.

1:41:12

We're going to go through this. We asked

1:41:14

you what your favorite beer style was at

1:41:17

the bottom of the list, but still

1:41:19

in double digits, right at about 12%,

1:41:21

11.8% of respondents mentioned that one of their favorite beer

1:41:29

styles was Smoked

1:41:32

Ale or Lager. Right above

1:41:34

that, at 13.9% barley wine. At 14%

1:41:41

of respondents, fruited sour,

1:41:43

that's a quick or kettle-soured fruited

1:41:46

sour. At 14.3%

1:41:50

of respondents mentioned that

1:41:52

Halfavites or Wheat Beer was

1:41:55

one of their favorite styles. 15% of

1:41:58

respondents mentioned Brown

1:42:00

Ale was one of their favorite

1:42:02

styles and of course these are not exclusive

1:42:05

we didn't have to make people pick one we

1:42:07

just said you know list all you know your

1:42:09

favorite styles 16.4% of respondents mentioned

1:42:12

that Abbey

1:42:16

Styles, Double, Triple and Quad were

1:42:19

some of their favorite styles just

1:42:21

a hair above that 16.5% amber and red ales were those

1:42:24

favorites at 17.2% English style

1:42:33

ales were right above that at 17.3% just

1:42:35

squeaking out ahead of it wild spontaneous

1:42:41

and mixed culture ales 17.9% porter

1:42:44

right above that and then of course

1:42:50

neck-and-neck with under south

1:42:53

under seven and a half percent ABV at 18.4% Vienna

1:42:56

Lager right above that 22.8% of respondents listed

1:42:59

that as a favorite

1:43:06

Imperial Stout came down a few

1:43:08

spots here 26.3% of respondents

1:43:10

listed Imperial

1:43:15

Stout as one of their favorite styles

1:43:18

that's only off of off of its high

1:43:20

over the last few years. Saison

1:43:22

however you know still coming in strong

1:43:24

there 27.9% of respondents listing Saison as one

1:43:26

of their favorite styles.

1:43:32

Hellas right above that 31.9% of respondents

1:43:34

listing Hellas among their favorite

1:43:39

styles pale ale

1:43:42

in the number four spot 42.5% of

1:43:44

respondents listing

1:43:49

pale ale as one of their favorite

1:43:51

styles and the number

1:43:54

three spot then this one was

1:43:56

number two last year 44.5% five

1:44:00

percent of respondents listed

1:44:03

hazy IPA as one

1:44:05

of their favorite styles. What

1:44:07

was it that unseated hazy IPA

1:44:09

for the number two spot? Yes, you

1:44:12

guessed it correctly. Pilsner, 52.9

1:44:16

percent of our survey

1:44:19

respondents listed Pilsner as

1:44:21

their number two, or is their,

1:44:24

one of their favorite styles. Of

1:44:26

people that have put it in the number two spot

1:44:28

on our readers list of favorite styles

1:44:31

to brew or drink. And

1:44:33

in the number one spot, once again,

1:44:35

in the same spot that it's been,

1:44:37

I believe, since we started asking this

1:44:40

question, 60.1

1:44:42

percent of respondents to

1:44:44

the reader survey listed IPA,

1:44:47

American or West Coast IPA, as

1:44:50

one of their favorite styles to

1:44:52

brew or drink. Joe,

1:44:55

what do you think about Pilsner taking

1:44:58

the number two spot away from hazy IPA?

1:45:00

I think that's encouraging.

1:45:03

And I mean, I also still like seeing Cezanne

1:45:05

up there pretty high too. And Pale Ale

1:45:07

is up high. I mean, I think these, I

1:45:10

think it's a good reminder actually that our readers are

1:45:12

mostly brewers. And so

1:45:15

these are, some of these are brewers beers. Maybe

1:45:17

we hear a lot about Pale Ale and Cezanne not selling

1:45:20

well. In some cases, or

1:45:22

not if you call them that.

1:45:23

But brewers

1:45:25

still want to drink them. And most of y'all

1:45:28

listening and voting are our brewers. And so there

1:45:30

is to see a Pilsner at number two in

1:45:32

that context makes a ton of sense to me. And

1:45:35

I'd love to see it. I'm here for it to thank

1:45:37

you all for your thoughtful, nuanced

1:45:40

voting in our reader survey. We

1:45:43

appreciate all of you all for sharing your time

1:45:45

with us, sharing your thoughts as readers

1:45:47

as to what the best breweries, best

1:45:50

beer styles, best beer cities, best

1:45:53

places to drink beer. All of those things

1:45:55

are this year. Please,

1:45:58

if you are not, sign up for... our

1:46:00

email newsletter. That

1:46:03

is the place where next September you will

1:46:05

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1:46:07

voting, a reader survey voting going

1:46:09

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and of course if you're not a subscriber, why are you not a subscriber?

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1:46:26

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get that notification. Get out there and vote next

1:46:47

year. Share your thoughts on what these

1:46:49

best beers, best styles, best breweries

1:46:51

are, because you are

1:46:53

such a crucial and integral

1:46:56

part of this entire

1:46:58

best in beer issue year after year

1:47:01

after year. Next

1:47:04

week, we'll be back with the Critics

1:47:07

List episode of the podcast

1:47:10

where I pop on with

1:47:12

Joe, with Alex Kidd, with

1:47:14

Stan Aaronemous, with Kate Bernat,

1:47:17

with Courtney Eisman, and talk about

1:47:19

each of their favorite beers of the

1:47:22

year. We appreciate you listening

1:47:24

through this and listening

1:47:26

to us share our editor picks,

1:47:29

your reader picks, all of these

1:47:31

things that make up our best

1:47:32

of the year. Joe, do you have any thoughts before we check out of here?

1:47:35

No, just congratulations to all the brewers who've

1:47:38

made these fantastic beers that were just delighted,

1:47:41

our judges and us at the table. It's

1:47:44

such a privilege that we get to do this. And

1:47:47

again, it's fun to see that process

1:47:49

starting to unfold all over again now with

1:47:52

our spring issue is going to be the malt issue.

1:47:54

The invitations out there, BeerandBrewing.com,

1:47:58

Help Center, you'll find any instructions on how to get there.

1:47:59

how to submit if you want to get into it. One

1:48:02

of the big things that we try to approach on this, we

1:48:05

don't gatekeep our list. We allow everybody

1:48:07

to submit beers. We do ask that you be a subscriber

1:48:09

to the magazine if you're going to send us beer

1:48:11

to review because we would appreciate some

1:48:13

support in that regard. But at

1:48:16

the same time, we don't charge an entry

1:48:18

fee for sending beer to the magazine to

1:48:21

consider for review on these issues.

1:48:23

We are trying to and tasty through

1:48:26

all of the diversity of beer that exists out

1:48:28

there in the world, exists out there in the

1:48:30

United States, but also exists out there in an international

1:48:34

spectrum. We want to do the best job

1:48:36

that we can to bring you the best content

1:48:39

around beer and about

1:48:41

the act and art and craft of brewing.

1:48:44

And we appreciate everything the brewers

1:48:47

do to support us in that and be able

1:48:49

to bring you this kind of content. Joe,

1:48:52

I think that's a great place to close. You

1:48:54

want to read us out?

1:48:55

Yeah. Yeah. ProBrew's

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G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love,

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partnering with 3000 plus breweries across

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the country. Increase fermenter capacity

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sustainably with Firm Cap Eco from

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Kerry. Flavor your lineup and

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streamline your sourcing by heading to oldorchard.com

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backslash brewer. ProBrew

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currently features short lead times between

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two to four weeks for their in-stock pro-fill

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rotary can fillers. Omega's

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thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers

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to bring intense guava and passion fruit

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aromas out of your molten hops. Build

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your complimentary sample box today

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at perfectpuree.com backslash beer

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and $3 per pound ordered of the

1:49:36

Yakima Chief Hops Pink Boots Blend

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will be donated directly to the Pink Boots

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Society. Go to beerandbrewing.com

1:49:44

and click on the subscribe button to let

1:49:46

us know this content matters to you.

1:49:49

You almost, you almost nailed it, Joe.

1:49:53

Oldorchard.com forward slash

1:49:55

brewer and it's perfectpuree.com

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forward slash brewer. we

1:52:00

realize that we don't know. So keep doing

1:52:02

that, keep challenging us, keep

1:52:04

feeding back to us, and let's keep

1:52:06

making craft beer just

1:52:08

a little bit better. Cheers. Cheers.

1:52:17

This podcast has been brought to you by Craft Beer and Brewing

1:52:19

Magazine for those who love to make and drink great

1:52:21

beer. To learn more or to subscribe, visit

1:52:23

beerandbrewing.com or find us on social media

1:52:26

at Craft Beer Brew.