The best brewery, for you, may be one nearby. Fresh beer, especially if it’s full of hops, is always better. And so many places now are making wonderful beer.
Case in point: I recently had Russian River Pliny the Younger, one of the most sought after beers in the country, for the first time. I followed it with a hazy IPA from Levante, an upstart out of West Chester, Pa., and then visited Stable 12 Brewing, in Phoenixville, Pa. And the beers from these relatively unknown and certainly humble places were … not at all eclipsed by what is widely regarded as one of the finest beers in the world. (Which of course is a testament to Pliny’s influence, as it helped push brewers to experiment with bold hop flavors.)
So drink local. Or, if you have a preferred style and a certain brewery makes your favorite version, go with that. Whatever. It’s beer. Drink what you like, but not too much.
Also vote in this contest, where we ridiculously attempt to narrow the United States’ 5,000 or so craft breweries down to the “best” one.
This is especially difficult because so many of those operations have launched in the last half decade or so. Here, we’re pitting some of the best old-guard breweries against some of the best new-school ones.
In many ways comparing breweries with wide distribution and long-established brands against younger operations is completely unfair. But some of the new breweries have built incredible demand by constantly putting out special releases — in which they’re experimenting with exotic hops, fruits, lactose, wild yeast, whatever — rather than focusing on flagship offerings.
For example, Southern Tier, established in 2002, has 56 current beers and 80 archived on BeerAdvocate; Tired Hands, founded 10 years later, has 357 current and 531 archived. These places aren’t even really playing the same game.
But we’re asking you to chose anyway.
