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The Best Beer Available Online This Week
This week we focus on sour ales, which are great fresh or aged.
One of our missions at Hop Culture is to make the craft beer movement — the culture, the beer, the knowledge — more accessible to everyone. For drinkers living outside of the major beer cities, or simply on the opposite coast from their favorite brewery, much of beer journalism is an exercise in unfulfillable coveting. If a beer isn’t distributed to your local beer store or bar, you aren’t drinking it. Not anymore.
For the price of shipping, drinkers living across America can get the nation’s best beer delivered straight to their door. While certain styles — hop-heavy IPAs especially — are best drunk as fresh as possible, many styles tend to improve with age. This week, we focused on sours and wild fermentation beers, which hold up well to time and shipping. So for those wanting to sample the best of the craft beer revolution, look no further. Here are the five best bottles of beer available online this week.
Wise Guise, The Rare Barrel
Description: Red sour beer aged in oak barrels with raspberry.
Fermented With: Saison yeast, English ale yeast, three types of Brett, three types of bacteria
ABV: 5.60%
BA Score: 91
Buy Online: $24
Find a Bottle Near You
Arrows of Neon, The Rare Barrel
Description: Golden sour beer aged in oak barrels with lemon peel and lime peel.
Fermented With: Saison yeast, two types of Brett, two types of bacteria
ABV: 5.60%
RB Score: 94
Buy Online: $24
Find a Bottle Near You
Old Dishoom, American Solera
Description: Old ale aged in sherry barrels with a mix of Brett cultures.
Notes: This year, American Solera was named the best new brewery in the United States and second in the world at this year’s Ratebeer Best awards in Sonoma County, California.
Buy Online: $14
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Money Blend, American Solera
Description: Money Blend is a farmhouse ale fermented with a mixed culture and aged in oak puncheons for 18 months. The beer is oaky and dry. The beer has a soft texture and is full of lemon and funk.
Notes: This year, American Solera was named the best new brewery in the United States and second in the world at this year’s Ratebeer Best awards in Sonoma County, California.
Buy Online: $14
Find a Bottle Near You
Color Field, Grimm Artisanal Ales
Description: Dry-hopped sour brewed with hibiscus, rose hips, and chamomile.
Note: This beer is never boiled and never filtered.
ABV: 4.7%
BA Score: 85
Buy Online: $12
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Spontantripleblueberry, Mikkeller
Description: 1500 grams of blueberries per 1 liter — this beer doesn’t need any further presentation. Brewed at De Proef brouwerij.
Style: Blueberry lambic
ABV: 10%
RB Score: 99
Buy Online: $13
Find a Bottle Near You
Spontancherryframboos, Mikkeller
Description: Sour ale brewed with cherries & raspberries & aged in oak barrels. Brewed at De Proef Brouwerij.
ABV: 7.7%
RB Score: 98
About The Author
J. Travis Smith
Currently Drinking:
Mystic Brett Renaud
Travis Smith graduated from Duke University with a degree in Economics and Environmental Science & Policy before moving to New York, where he received a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University. Afterward, he and co-founder Kenny Gould were among the first hires at Gear Patrol Magazine. Many beers and waistline inches later, he turned his hobby into a profession. He currently lives in New York City with his girlfriend and a small dog named Wesley.