Also, while I was down in Florida I visited a new taproom in Apalachicola that is part of the Owl Cafe. Pretty sweet place, especially for that part of the world.



That Cigar City Invasion Pale Ale is the Real Shit. Very floral without an overwhelming bitterness.

Sounds like it.

For FAILBOT Derris's sake... Alchemist Brewery and Heady Topper.

Unassuming building in Waterbury, VT. CO2 cannisters outside, and a refrigerated trailer for storage.


This was part of a 3-day motorcycle camping trip I do every year with Neuro, and this year we brought a friend of his too. Awesome guy. He'd never had Heady Topper, and was content to let me drag their asses all over the state all weekend looking for good beer and curvy roads (not in rapid succession - everyone was very restrained and careful). We were gonna buy some cans for the campsite, but as you can see, they were sold out.


Modest, tiny tap room. First sample is free, second one is $1. Even when you know what you're in for, it is still SO MUCH BETTER than you remember. Fuuuck me. I just sat and sadly sniffed the empty glass for 5 minutes afterwards.


Stacked up flats. They can on Mondays, and are sold out by Friday most weeks.


Fermentors at right, burping out CO2 through the tubing as the yeast chew through the malt sugars. They make nothing but Heady Topper here. Indeed the only other thing I can find from them is the contract-brewed (in Ipswich MA) gluten free beer Celia.


-sniffsniff-



And from the Prohibition Pig tavern, where Alchemist used to brew in the basement before Irene flodded them out, here's a shot of two Hill Farmstead brews. One's a black IPA that was fucking astoundingly good, and the other was a "normal" porter called Edward, which I would put as a tie with Maine Beer Co's porter as the best I've ever had. From this small sample size, Hill is the real fucking deal, and I can begin to maybe believe it when people say it's the best brewery in the country today. Maybe. ALSO - Note to BG - they had Logsdon in this fucking place. Both Saison and Bretta. $22 a 750mL bottle. We couldn't get one... there was too damn much amazing shit to try, and we were driving motorcycles. There was MUCH angst and gnashing of teeth.



So of course this means I now have a Pliny shirt and a Heady shirt, both obtained on their respective holy grounds. So goddamned proud of myself.

Loogar,
I get publicity emails from various breweries as part of my duties with Nebraska Beer Blog, and I received some good news about Bama.
Stone Brewing Co. will be launching their products in Alabama on August 27th, or roughly one week after they debut here in Nebraska.
There are some events planned for the Montgomery area on the 28th and a ton of events planned for the Birmingham area on the 29th and 30th.

Everett is their porter and Edward is their pale ale; both awesome.

I was at the old Alchemist pub before the flood but Prohibition Pig looks amazing. Did you go to the Blackback Pub a block away?

I did not. We were really pushed for time by then... had a good 3 hours left to go to get back to the campsite, and everyone was seriously saddle sore. What the dealyo?

Haven't thought very hard about it, but I think I agree with most of this. Donno about the order, but most all of my boxes were checked. Descriptions were weak and lazy, but a good list.

25 Best Craft Breweries In America

Couple of iffy ones in the 25-20 range but I agree with most of the rest.

I would've chosen Sixpoint over Anchor, Great Lakes or Sam Adams.

It's a pretty boring and overall bad list if you ask me. With a few exceptions, It seems skewed toward bigger operations that make consistently above average six pack beer rather than breweries that are making really great and interesting beer. I guess that would be fine if they had a clear cut criteria emphasizing strong distribution, broad product line, consistent offerings but they don't really have any criteria and have some picks that clearly don't meet that - eg the small pub in Virginia. So wouldn't you think then that the criteria should be best beer? If that's the criteria, there are only a small handful from this list that I'd even consider. Maybe the east coast selections are better than the west coast ones though? I've never had Cigar City for example but know Bloor and others are big fans. With the exception of Russian River and MAYBE Lagunitas though, I hate the west coast choices. Rogue is a pretty terrible choice. Green Flash wouldn't make my top 20 S. CA breweries. I'll give Stone a pass because I know a ton of people love them, I don't though. Would anyone really pick Anchor Steam for any reason other than historical importance?

I guess your premise is right, though - that without really declaring it, they've mostly favored historical importance and wider distributions. But then when you ask a bunch of randoms from all over the US to rank "everything," and a lot of them can't get Hill Farmstead or Logsdon or Russian River, etc etc, then it's not really as meaningful a list unless they all compare things they can all get. Of course bumblefuck Brewery in NC and Cigar City don't fit with that, but ...? I nodded along with most of those ("most") and said "yeah that's a good, important craft brewery" even if I don't get a hard on looking at their beers.

Also, this is a bridge too far.

There isn't anything near a "bad" brewery there. Even humble old Anchor makes what is actually an excellent beer, if we weren't all bored with it by now. Also, let's recognize aloud what it would take to make a list that would excite Billy G, and then step back and think about how many readers would ever had heard of, much less will ever be anywhere near enough to try out, ANY of those beers.

Even though I'm bored with Sam Adams, I know they make very flavorful beers in BIG volumes and with immaculate consistancy. Fair enough, "what's the point in pointing out that Sam Adams is a "great" craft brewery," but... it can't be all Hungarian Boar's Milk Sour Stouts from a cave brewery on the coast of Big Sur.

It's just a weird and incoherent list of breweries. Even when I try to force a big brewery, wide distribution criteria on them, the list doesn't work at all for me. Where's something like Goose Island then? Fuckin' Rogue? Why????? They are terrible and the only Portland brewery on the list. Where is Deschutes or even Full Sail, let alone smaller ops like Logsdon, Hair of the Dog, Ninkasi and others? I hate Green Flash and hate Sierra Nevada. That's almost half of their CA selections. I get that Divine Brewing, Craftsman, Monkey Paw and other small ops aren't going to make the list but Firestone Walker is a glaring omission. And why not at least one of Port Brewing, Ballast Point, Lost Abbey, the Bruery? And then how the hell did that small brewpub make the list? I can't comment on the quality of the beers, maybe they are great and deserving. But I don't understand how they made the list at all if I'm supposed to excuse things like Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Anchor and New Belgium over much superior but smaller distribution beers. Bottom line though, over half the list doesn't make more than 1 beer which I'd call better than above average and I say that assuming that just about all of the breweries that I don't know do.

billy's getting CHH.

Billy, your take on it is colored REALLY heavily by your own boredom with a lot of otherwise solid, respectable breweries. I know what that's like, and I get it, but that's my thought on it. Sierra Pale is, for the first-timer, an incredibly flavorful and balanced beer. And they did it first. I'm with you on Firestone and Full Sail, they're fantastic and missing. Goose Island is grey territ'ry after the buyout... very deep bench and some top-shelfers in there for sure, but the money goes to an evil, deep pocket now. Maybe that's why they were snubbed.

For the ATL folks:



Red Hare Brewing - Forbidden Fruit

I've been pretty meh on all of their year round beers but I grabbed a growlette of this last night and it's the first thing I've liked by them.

They do one offs all the time as part of their Rabbit's Reserve series and this one came out about a week ago. Available on tap at some bars and at Growler joints. It's not being bottled.

It's an Apple Spiced Farmhouse Ale. Way less farmhouse ale and more spiced ale. It reminds more of a Pumpkin ale with hints of the saison style. Maybe it's that it reminds me of Pumpkin ales (and that fall is coming) but I enjoyed it as a nice change of pace.

Nice Waterbury visit, Cap'n. I'm finally making it that way later this month. Every time I head up VT I have to go Route 7 for whatever reason.

7 is MUCH more direct. It took us like 3 hours to get from the Spot In The Woods north of you up to Waterbury.

Oh and I just applied for a job at Night Shift.

-gulp-

That's not really it. I just don't like the list at all. What you're maybe forgetting is that I'm not that big a beer drinker to begin with. I was a late comer to the craft beer movement precisely because I never really liked Sam Adams or Anchor to begin with and I've always disliked Sierra Nevada. That's not to say it's undrinkable toliet water that I'd have to gag down but I'd never choose to drink it if given just about any other option. If given only two options, $5 for a bud light or a free Sierra Nevada, I'd pay for the bud light. I know that you, Bloor and Loogar and probably many others here are big fans of Sierra Nevada and that's fine. I really don't like it though.

I can see how you'd say that even if there's not much there that gives you a hard-on, it's mostly strong breweries that make good beers but you really like beer. When I have a beer, I either want it be really great and complex or completely at the other end of the spectrum -- lighter in flavor but refreshing. I don't have much use for the middle tier of "respectable" craft beers that dominate the list. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd rather have a bud light than most of the beers that about half the breweries on this list make.

That is crazy. Completely crazy. And fascinating. Even after all these years I can still very happily go through a 12er of Sierra Pale cans in a long weekend.

Well, I'm just not a big fan of American Pale Ales or IPAs/DIPAs in general. There are some I like quite a bit but a lot more that I really don't like at all. I've never tried to to figure out the common denominator between what I like and don't like but I would assume that there are hops and yeast strains that I like much better than others and the SNs just don't match my personal palate. I'm not trying to claim that they don't know what they're doing. I just don't like their beers at all and I've been lukewarm at best on the handful of collaborative beers that they've made with other breweries that I generally am a big fan of.

I pretty much never go through a 12er of anything in a weekend anymore and its really more common for me to go weeks in between single beers. I might go through a few bottles of wine and a bottle of bourbon and make a small dent in a couple of other bottles though. I don't drink enough beer where I think I need to have good six pack beers and I normally am going to choose wine or a cocktail over a beer. The exception is when its hot and I want something refreshing and even a bud light or a mexican swill will be preferable to a craft pale ale or ipa, or when I don't trust the bar/restaurant that much to make a good cocktail and can't find something by the glass on a wine list but do see a really great beer. I'd probably gamble on a cocktail still over a beer I'm mostly meh on.

billy g = beer hipster.

I literally never, ever order anything out other than a beer. I think once for Busty's big wedding dinner thing at a very fancy joint in San Fran they served wine with each course, so of course I didn't order a fucking beer then, but I probably thought about it. But when I'm out, I just never think of ordering anything else. Cannot think of a time I ordered something besides beer.