Against all odds, the hamlet of Poix-Saint-Hubert—too small to be a village—has its own train station. This is all the more remarkable if you consider that the rail network is sparse in this part of Belgium, the rugged and rural Ardennes. Take a train from Brussels and you can be there in two and a half hours. Driving is an hour faster, but then you’d miss that distinct feeling of unlikeliness. Leaving the station, you look around to see that you’re in the basin of a lovely, thickly wooded valley bisected by a stream called the Lomme. This babbling water feeds the Lesse, which feeds the ..read more

You’re a fan of sour beers, you’ve definitely seen some tough-to-spell bacteria and yeast names thrown around. Brett, lacto and pedio are sort of the Three Musketeers of sour beers, producing some of the flavors that make beers distinctly funky, sour and tart. (I spotted a guy at Upland‘s Sour, Wild & Funk Fest two years ago wearing this shirt. Well played, sir.) Though people often refer to these bacteria and yeast in the same breath, it’s worth taking time to explore each on its own. I asked Michael Dawson, brand manager at Wyeast Laboratories, which supplies liquid b ..read more

  7 Monks Traverse City, Michigan 7monkstap.com With a name referencing the number of Trappist breweries worldwide (as of the bar’s opening in 2011), you’d be forgiven for mistaking this 46-draft taproom as a Belgian-only bar. Yes, you might see Delirium and Brasserie Dupont on tap, but the bar also pours fun Michigan- and Midwest-brewed beers from Short’s, Brewery Vivant and Prairie. Staff is friendly and more than willing to make recommendations, which should also include a tip about how great the food is. The bar p ..read more

But seriously: What is the difference between stouts and porters? It’s a question we get from our readers several times a week. Their confusion is warranted: Both beer styles are dark; both have flavors and aromas of coffee, chocolate and toast; both seem to fall within the 5-7% alcohol range. And with brewers putting their own twists on each style, differentiating them has become a challenge; there’s a lot of overlap. But there are subtle differences between these styles, and to understand them, it helps to first understand their history. We’ll start with porter. Though we know the style wash ..read more

IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, WE’VE WITNESSED AN EXPLOSION of new beer styles. Where sours were once obscure, today American wild ales and their fruited variants are the darlings of craft beer. Where session IPAs initially had us scratching our heads (How are they different from pale ales? Are they supposed to be less alcoholic or less bitter than IPAs, or both?), they’ve now distinguished themselves as one of the most popular beer styles on shelves. But 2016 was different: Unlike in years during which we celebrated wholly new styles, this time around we relished in a deepening and broadening of the ..read more

50. Cast Out Crux Fermentation Project (Bend, Oregon) ABV: 7.6% It’d be tough to select a more perfect beer to kick off our top 50, as Cast Out represents the best of several worlds. It’s heavy on the alcohol (7.6% is right near the 8% cutoff, above which we’d classify it as an imperial IPA) but drinks like a session beer. It’s heavily hopped with Galaxy, an in-vogue Australian hop that here contributes tropical melon and pineapple at first whiff, then sweet tangerine underlined by green grass and sweaty onion. It’s even illustrative of another growing trend among brewers: trademark issue ..read more

THE 50 BEST IPAS IN AMERICA – THE TOP 25 25. General Braddock’s IPA The Brew Gentlemen (Braddock, Pennsylvania) ABV: 6.8% The Brew Gentlemen get a lot of hype for their New England-style hoppy ales, and every bit of it is warranted. We seriously enjoyed Overgrowth, the brewery’s springtime pale ale, and the General here is nearly as impressive. Hugely aromatic, the beer’s bouquet blends pineapple, Orange Julius and a hint of chopped garlic, while smooth sips follow up tangerine zest with pineapple and chewy wheat dough at the sweetish swallow. The light-as-a-feather body smooths the ..read more

In 2009, when we first published our annual list of the year’s best beers, it was clearly a simpler time. Witbiers, Russian imperial stouts and newfangled American IPAs peppered the list. Fast-forward to 2014, and the landscape would seem downright alien to anyone who missed out on the last half-decade. This year’s list is all about brewing imagination, from Trinity’s Easy Swinger, a wine-barrel-aged Brettanomyces session IPA to Funky Buddha’s Maple Bacon Coffee Porter, inspired by breakfast at a roadside greasy spoon. We found 25 packaged beers, all new (or newly available) since last winter ..read more

  Jess Suworoff for DRAFT Legit technological advancement, or fancy-sounding gimmick? When breweries tout some new ingredient or process, I’ll admit I’m skeptical. (Blame vortex bottles and color-changing cans for my raised eyebrow.) So what are we to make of  estimable Sierra Nevada’s Hop Hunter, an IPA that debuted earlier this year and touts its “farm-distilled hop oil?” I asked Tom Nielsen, the brewery’s hop guru and scientist who helped develop the new hop-extracting process  (technically, he’s the manager of raw material development and quality). He explain ..read more

  Dan Suarez; photo courtesy of Suarez Family Brewery Suarez Family Brewery has been in planning for years. Not many people know that, though; husband-and-wife duo Dan Suarez and Taylor Cocalis Suarez have pushed back the brewery’s opening date thanks to equipment mishaps, and it’s a select group of tapped-in people who would notice. (“That’s what happens when you have a brewery three years in the making. You’re sort of stringing people along,” Taylor says.) Now that the brewery finally and officially opened its doors to the public last Saturday, though, wor ..read more