Favorite Beers of 2021
In 2021, we were finally able to take our first tentative steps back out into the world, visiting taprooms and taking a few short trips. I was even able to lead my first in-person beer education event since before the pandemic started, an outdoor tasting at a local public library.
My biggest accomplishment of the year was passing my Advanced Cicerone exam, a goal I set for myself several years ago. I flew to Chicago in August to sit for the tasting portion and waited anxiously for the next month till I got the exciting news. I was also honored to win two awards from the North American Guild of Beer Writers, one for my profile on Carillon Brewing and one for my expansive story on the use of ethical cacao in craft beer, both for Good Beer Hunting.
Join me for a look back at my favorite beers of 2021. After you’ve listened to the show, I’d love to hear your own favorites from this bizarre trip around the sun. You can also listen to my year-end episode here:
This 12% ABV imperial stout is brewed with maple syrup from a rural Amish family in Wisconsin, Mostra coffee, Ecuadorian cacao from Chocolate Alchemy, and Mexican vanilla. Pouring thick and dark with a lovely espresso crema foam, the beer brings us a deep woods comfort and complexity. The glass teases aromas of burnt caramel, maple sugar candy, and bourbon maple syrup. The coffee doesn’t really come through till the sip, and combines with the maple to taste like what I imagine a maple macchiato would taste like. The chocolate is a dark undercurrent running beneath it all. Back in Episode 20, Humble Forager founder Austin Jevne shared an evocative story about visiting the Amish family’s sugar shack at night, and tasting the beer I feel like I’m having the vicarious memory of being there.
Last February we got a major snowstorm, and Melinda and I drove to a local nature preserve late at night to hike through the snow and ghostly, bare trees beneath the moonlight and pinpricks of stars. When we got back home, we opened Old Treehugger from Live Oak Brewing in Austin, Texas. This elegant English Barleywine was full of notes of dark bread, caramel, pine, and orange marmalade, and was perfect for a cozy winter evening.
Fonta Flora Brewing in North Carolina brewed a beer with Jester King Brewery in Texas called Extending Branches made with Texas peach leaves and olive and juniper branches and North Carolina birchwood. This beer instantly brought to my mind moss-covered riparian tree roots reaching down from the edge of a forest into a splashing, rocky stream. It’s full of tumbling notes of diesel, dill, sweet peach, sun-dried wood, mineral-rich water, and flavors I only have images for: a blue teal sky, green moss creeping up the timeless musculature of the roots.
This Black IPA is brewed with Crimson Cup Kossa Kebena and Antigua Finca el Cadejo coffee and Chinook, Azacca, and Simcoe hops. This is a concept that could have gone off the rails easily, but it’s so deftly executed. The tropical hops and fruity coffee dovetail beautifully, with higher notes of coconut and mild cantaloupe over a sweet, caramel-like coffee foundation that lead into a balanced, piney hop finish. I never would have pitched this as a good idea, but it sure does work.
Bhramari Brewing in Asheville, NC, released a hefty 13.3% ABV bourbon barrel-aged Imperial Stout last winter called Quasars Shine Through an Endless Night. The beer was brewed with toasted coconut, vanilla, and barrel-aged coffee, and it’s a thick, sweet, indulgent sipper with surprising berry notes of strawberry and crunchberry cereal with underlying sweet coconut and just a whisper of coffee from the depths, dovetailing with the oak notes. If a tropical beach could float untethered in the blackness of outer space, this beer would be served there, as sweet and potent in the darkness as our memories of Earth.
Here in Ohio, Noble Beast Brewing in Cleveland is consistently putting out fantastic classic lagers. I could have chosen any of them, but their Graf Vienna stood out to me. This Vienna lager is brewed with just a touch of corn to mimic Mexican amber lagers, and it’s endlessly drinkable, with toasty malt notes, a dry, slightly flinty finish, and moderated hop bitterness.
I enjoyed Jackie O’s Gold Denim on the patio of The Barrel House in Dayton, my favorite beer bar. My sister was visiting from North Carolina, and it was the first time we’d seen each other since before the pandemic. I took no notes on this beer, because I was so focused on finally getting to hang out with my sister, but the only thing that distracted me from our laughing conversation was the continual realization of how perfect this golden Dortmunder Export lager was.
Autumn sees me drinking a lot of Oktoberfest lagers, and this year my favorite was Brinktoberfest from Cincinnati’s Brink Brewing. Just a whiff of slate-like sulfur, a toasty, bready foundation, a dry minerality, nice bitterness, and just a subtle touch of caramel.
On a trip to Denver in November to cover a few beer stories I got to drink at two of the best lager breweries in the country. At Bierstadt Lagerhaus I had their legendary Slow Pour Pils, a crisp German Pils that goes down so easy you almost don’t realize you’re drinking it except that it’s delicious. The beer is served in a gorgeous art deco stemmed glass, and takes a full 5 minutes to pour properly for a perfect pillowy head.
Cohesion Brewing brews exclusively Czech lager styles, and they serve them from proper Czech side pour faucets, which allow for the range of traditional Czech pours: Hladinka, which is a conventional pour with moderate foam, Snyt, which is about half beer and half foam, and Mliko, which is mostly foam. This isn’t normal beer foam though. The specialized faucet creates a wet, merengue-like foam that is as flavorful as the beer itself. My wife and I were there one evening after a collaboration brew day at Seedstock Brewing, and we sat at a long table with brewers and downed mug after mug of these frothy, Old World delights. It was an amazing sensory and social experience.
This summer I had the chance to taste Double Chocolate Medianoche, a variant of the coveted Medianoche Imperial Stout from Colorado’s WeldWerks Brewing. This monstrous 14.2% Stout was aged for 24 months in 5-6 year-old MGP high rye bourbon barrels and conditioned on Belizean, Guatemalan, and Mexican cacao nibs from Cultura Chocolate, as well as a subtle addition of Congo vanilla beans. The beer’s aroma leads with cherry and red apple from the bourbon and acidic cacao, before classic chocolate and vanilla take over, with quieter notes of bourbon and oak sitting in the background. The flavor is like a black forest cake with cherries, the rich sweetness balanced by the acidity of the dark malts and cacao, the toasted oak, and the slight bitterness of the roasted malts. The texture is thick and luxurious, and the depth of chocolate character seems like an unending presentation of new chocolate expressions, from the familiar comfort of brownies to the intriguing excitement of a single origin bar.
When Melinda and I were in Denver in November, we passed a lovely afternoon at Dos Luces, a brewery focused entirely on the ancient Mexican and Peruvian beer styles Pulque and Chicha, respectively. Both styles are brewed with malted corn, with the Pulque being 49% maguey sap and 51% corn, and both are far lighter than typical beers, with tart and bright acidity. Their Pulque Azteca is made with chocolate and subtle cinnamon and New Mexico chilis, and tastes like an acidic spiced cocoa with the comforting chocolate and the bright acidity somehow working beautifully together. The beer is normally brewed with Cultura chocolate, but unfortunately had to be made with Ghirardelli this time because of supply issues. I know, I know. It was still delicious, and I can’t wait to taste the Cultura version at some point.
This beer was a complete surprise. This Spumani-inspired Imperial Stout from Wolf’s Ridge was brewed in collaboration with Streetside Brewing and was made with pistachios, vanilla, strawberry, and Ugandan cacao from Ethereal Confections. Spiritous strawberry, angel food cake with berries, mildly acidic coffee-like cacao notes, and a sweet-but-not-too-sweet foundation makes this one of the most unexpected delights of the year.
Speaking of tropical flavors, many hop varieties showcase explosive tropical fruit aromas and flavors, and Rabid Brewing’s Baal hazy pale ale was my favorite beer this year that showed off those flavors. This hazy delight was smooth and bright with fresh mango flesh and citrus pith flavors and a dry and moderately bitter finish. Getting to drink this is the Rabid taproom with my friends, owners Raiye and Tobias, the night before Thanksgiving was one of my favorite beer experiences this year.
Mother Stewart’s Porter offers comforting flavors of dark milk chocolate, a touch of coffee, and an assertive finishing bitterness. They tweaked this recipe early in 2021, and this new version is excellent. Uncomplicated, but endlessly enjoyable.
Speaking of Porters, when I was in Denver I tasted Seedstock’s Baltic Porter, one of the best in the style I’ve had. Lovely, smooth chocolate was accented by notes of tobacco and raisin, and a distant minty pine note lingered in the darker flavors.
Maybe the best beer I had this year was one I’ve had countless times before, one I first had well over a decade ago. I said at the beginning these could be beers that were new to me, or that I had a new or unique experience with this year. Saison Dupont from Belgium is widely considered the best saisons in the world. This spritzy farmhouse ale balances moderate hop bitterness and grassy hop notes with lemon, stone fruit, and black pepper fermentation notes in an effervescent and dry body. I’ve had more bottles of it than I could ever count, but in the U.S. and in Belgium, but it’s rare to find it on draft. The Barrel House in Dayton had it on tap early this month, and Melinda and I sat on their patio on a sunny 45 degree day and drank glass after glass of this gorgeous, perfect beer. It’s been a hell of a year, and carefree moments have been few and far between, but sitting on the stools in front of our favorite bar while traffic and trains passed, we laughed more than we have in a while, constantly coming back to how perfect this beer is, and how perfect the moment was, and how much we love getting to see and taste the world together. Here’s hoping we get to do more of that in 2022.