Top 21 Beers We Drank in October 2024

Well, folks, October was a doozy for the Hop Culture team. Back-to-back-to-back trips to Bellevue, WA, the Yakima Valley, and Denver for the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) sent our team out into the wild for the first time since we traveled to Manchester, London, Edinburgh, and the Czech Republic back in the spring.

And, wow, we made the most of it.

From drinking a Baltic porter fresh off the tank at a 17x-award-winning brewery…

To sipping an epic Schwarzbier in a speakeasy at the Cheers of Bellevue…

And chowing down on pizza and pints at a brewery whose beer names are all songs…

A flight of the freshest fresh-hop beers we’ll ever drink (four minutes from picking to kettle, seriously)…

One of our favorite Czech-style dark lagers of the year…

Eating authentic tacos and drinking Fresh Hop Tacos…

Drinking five dunkels at the mecca of German-style lager…

Foaming at the mouth for a foam-filled ten-degree Czech pale in one of the only breweries dedicated just to Czech styles in the country…

To an IPA that BLEW. OUR. MINDS.

We had just the best time these past thirty-one days. Here are just a few of the highlights. And by few, we mean twenty-one (the legal drinking age!). Sorry, not sorry.

Hop Culture’s Top 21 Beers We Drank in October 2024

Chasing Automobiles – Formula Brewing

Issaquah, WA

Helles – The seventeen state, national, and international awards Formula Brewing has won in just its short four-year history should tell you all you need to know about Issaquah, WA’s only brewery.
Formula Brewing Founder Danny Bohm started the brewery after asking himself: What makes the ideal party?

In what used to be a block of storage units, Formula Brewing has turned nothing into the most respectably fun party in the town of around 30,000 people. “It was go bigger or go home,” explains Bohm, noting the brewery opened up two weeks into the pandemic in 2020. “We took the floor and bare walls and just ran with it.”

Whatever Bohm and Head Brewer Jesse Brown are doing seems to be working.

Brown’s beers have picked up quite an impressive number of medals. For instance, the helles, Chasing Trains, won a silver at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival.

If we measure success by accolades, the Formula head brewer probably doesn’t need to tweak anything.

But that’s just not how Brown’s brain operates. Let Bohm explain: “What does the head brewer do [after winning? He said], let’s change it up. I can do better.”

This led to Chasing Planes, a tweak on the award-winning helles with a blend of two different Weyermann Pilsner malts—extreme pale premium and classic—and a new hop bill of Tradition and Hallertau Mittelfrüh. That beer won silver at the 2024 World Beer Cup.

Now Brown is on to Chasing Automobiles, completing the John Candy film trifecta. Luckily, he had this beer on tap when we visited.

We loved the beer’s complex simplicity. If actions speak louder than words, we drained our glasses pretty quickly.

“It’s nice not to realize that your beer is gone until it’s gone,” said Hop Culture Social Media Manager Magic Muncie. “When you look down and it’s gone, you know that was a really good beer.”

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Solitary Series: January 2024 – Watts Brewing Company

Woodinville, WA

Imperial Stout – Watts Brewing, started by Evan Watts and named after the family’s business raising solitary bees for commercial pollination, is all the buzz in Woodinville, WA.

Recently, celebrating its first anniversary, Watts Brewing experienced a wild twelve months.

“We’ve just been sprinting on brewing,” says Watts Brewer Peter Murphy, who joined the team from Lucky Envelope three months ago.

At the forefront is the worker bee—Leafcutter—the brewery’s flagship kölsch.

Evan wrote the recipe while sitting in a ski lodge in Idaho. “This is the beer I want when I’m having lunch at a ski mountain or right when I get back to the car,” he shared. “This is what I want to crack as I take my boots off.”

But the queen bee might actually be the brewery’s Solitary Series, a bunch of unique one-off strong ales and wood-aged specialty projects that Watts puts out a few times a year.

When we visited, we tried a stout aged on Amburana, a Brazilian hardwood that gives off a cinnamon-nutmeg quality. Evan says that during COVID, he did a bunch of wood-aging trials with different formats and tests; Amburana stood out. “We’re just using a tiny bit here, and it really gives it a nice, almost spiced character.”

This particular version ages for about five weeks on Amburana spirals. “It’s a mixture of Amburana and heavily toasted American oak. However, the Amburana was extracted in three days. It worked super quick because it’s just such an oily, dramatic wood.”

And this was quite a dramatic beer.

With a slight warming spice in the background, the 9.8% ABV imperial stout drinks smoother than a fresh snowfall. That’s probably why folks have already given it an impressive 4.15 rating on Untappd.

Honestly, we could see ourselves drinking this beer once we got back from the ski hill, with the snow pants hanging up to dry and our feet up in front of the fire.

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Schwarzbier – Bellevue Brewing Company

Bellevue, WA

Schwarzbier – Since 2012, Bellevue Brewing Company has rightfully become a staple watering hole in the community of Bellevue, WA.

Community is everything here. “Whatever you’re doing, if you have a kid’s soccer game or a business meeting, you can always come in and expect to have a great meal and a great beer and know that you’re going to be taken care of,” says Johnny Robertson, the son of co-founder John Robertson, who started the brewery with Scott Hansen.

While Bellevue Brewing has sixteen taps with everything from a crushable Mexican lager to a Scotch ale, the move here is the Schwarzbier.

Formula’s Brown gave us one tip when we visited Bellevue Brewing Company: “Drink the schwarz.”
Which we did!

Designed by Bellevue Head Brewer Tony Powell, who started working at the brewery in 2007, the schwarzbier is an homage to his first trip to Germany in 2006. “I took knowledge from my travel and made what I consider a great schwarz,” says Powell.

While he doesn’t call himself the most creative brewer, Powell says he stays one hundred percent focused on fermentation and microbiology. “If I pay attention to the correct details, the better your beer will be,” says Powell.

Case in point: Schwarzbier has won several gold awards from the Washington Beer Awards.

And by our palates, it was damn delicious.

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Lithium – Resonate Brewery + Pizzeria

Bellevue, WA

Altbier – Is there anything better than filling up on pizza and beer? Don’t think so. Pull up to an unassuming strip mall next to a batting cage center, insurance agency, hair salon, and gas station, and you’ll find the best place to refuel—Resonate Brewery + Pizzeria.

Started by life and business partners Mike Ritzer and Lyanne Ma, the beer and pizza shop does exactly what it says.

On the beer side, Ritzer puts his skills from the Brewing Technology Program at the Siebel Institute in Chicago and the Beer Judge Certification Program to good use. Garnering over fifty awards across numerous styles, Resonate’s beer will stay with you for a long time…like an echo.

“I remember driving into the strip mall like, oh, this is different, but then I was really impressed by the beers,” says Formula’s Brown. “I have only good things to say about Resonate’s beers!”

Our favorites included Lithium, a German Altbier that picked up a silver at the World Beer Cup in 2022. “It’s our most award-winning beer,” shares Resonate Assistant Brewer Tricia Karsky, who sat down in our booth to chat with us briefly.

We don’t see too many Altbiers, but the style fascinates us, so when we see it on a menu, we tend to order it.

Malty…but not too malty.

Sweet…but not too sweet.

Floral…but not too floral.

Lithium really recharged our batteries.

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Black Stripe – Coconut Porter – Métier Brewing Company

Woodinville, WA

Porter – Two years ago at the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival, I struck up a conversation with Erin, who runs sales and distribution for Métier Brewing, who told me about the incredible community the Black-owned brewery fostered in Seattle. I put a pin in the back of my head, noting if I ever traveled to the Pacific Northwest, Métier would be at the top of my list.

Which is how I found myself sipping through a flight with Métier Brewing CEO and Co-Founder Rodney Hines, who got into homebrewing because “I couldn’t afford all the good beer that I wanted to drink.”

While working as the Director of U.S. Social Impact and eventually City Strategy at Starbucks, Hines says he started to think about “How do you create inviting, welcoming spaces for everyone in the community? And how do you do that specifically in the Black and Brown communities?”

For the last six years and now spanning three locations, Métier Brewing Company (MBC) has stood for “my beloved community,” says Hines, pointing out that of the people sitting in the taproom while we chatted, many were either women or People of Color. “I don’t know how often you walk into a brewery and see that.”

For Hines, these are the moments that matter the most. “I’ve seen older women of all races sitting alone, either reading or at their laptop, or I see groups of women, women of color, white women, just sitting alone and enjoying their space,” he says. “That’s part of the culture of creating a beloved community and everyone feeling welcomed.”

You’ll see those moments of magic in everyone at Métier, from the art on the wall made by folks of color to each can telling a story to various events like pup meetups, live music, salsa night, plant making, candlemaking, and more, to a local Black chef popping up in their Cherry St. taproom.

“I want people to have through our beer, through the space, through the strangers they may meet in the space, through our team members, to feel some affinity, some connection with who we are and what we’re doing,” expresses Hines.

But make no mistake: The common thread here is beer.

“We can’t do anything unless we brew damn good award-winning beer,” laughs Hines.

Such as the Black Stripe – Coconut Porter, Métier’s first award-winning beer, which picked up a silver medal at the Washington Beer Awards.

Made with roasted coconut flakes, this 5.5% ABV porter has a very pronounced roasted flavor with a luscious mouthfeel.

In many ways, the Coconut Porter acts as a gateway. People who are self-proclaimed non-beer drinkers will come in for an event or with friends, but once Hines can get them to try the Coconut Porter…it’s a game-changer.

Much like Métier itself. Proudly Black, proudly inclusive, proudly brewing Damn. Good. Beer, Métier should be on everyone’s must-stop list in Seattle.

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Sacrament: Malbec (2024) – Holy Mountain Brewing

Seattle, WA

Fruited Sour – Last year, Muncie named Holy Mountain one of the “Best Breweries of 2023.” He wrote:

What can Holy Mountain not do? Across the board, Holy Mountain exemplifies what quality beer can and should be. From their traditional styles to the barrel-aged offerings to wet-hops beers (one of tthe best beers we drank one fall) and everything in between, their attention to detail is always apparent. They can do no wrong, in my humble opinion.

Known for its mixed-culture program, Holy Mountain started after co-founders Colin Lenfesty and Mike Murphy (who has since left the brewery) spent three years thinking about oak-inspired beers. Opened in 2014, the 10,000-sq-ft taproom showcases oak-aged beers at their best. Whether aging through oak barrels, puncheons, or foudres, Lenfesty brews an ever-rotating lineup. Every time you go, you might find something new.

Or you might find some old, borrowed, and blue..ish. Well, it’s more like deep purple.

Sacrament: Malbec, which Lenfesty said we had to try, ages in oak barrels from JB Neufeld on top of crushed Malbec grapes from Doc Stewart Vineyards in Yakima, WA, for an 8.5% ABV fruited sour that’s just stunning in color and quality.

For this batch, Holy Mountain blended multiple wheat-based beers fermented in oak with a wild house culture.

You immediately get hit with those juicy notes, almost like Juicy Juice or Welche’s Concord Grape Juice notes, followed by tannins in the finish that quickly dry the palate and make you want to take another sip.

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Long Distance Krush – Bale Breaker Brewing Company x Driftwood Brewery

Yakima, WA x Victoria, BC, Canada

Fresh Hop Pale Ale – There’s nothing quite like drinking a beer made with hops that spent literally just four minutes from picking to pint (well, from the picking machine to the brewery, at least. Getting to the glass takes a little longer). Bale Breaker is like a carefully knitted fabric made of wire that hangs across poles in a hop yard, connecting growers, farmers, brewers, and friends.

Unlike anywhere else in the country, those wires cross at Bale Breaker, right at the heart of everything.

Because at this family-run brewery, wife-and-husband team Meghann Quinn and Kevin Quinn and Meghann’s brother (also) Kevin Smith (known as “Smitty”) aren’t just making beer, they’re growing it, too. Well, that is, one of the beer’s main ingredients.

“To our knowledge, we’re the only [brewery] on a commercial hop farm, and we’re the only one that grows all their own hops,” Kevin told me as he walked us around the 16,000-sq-ft facility in Yakima, WA. “In our year-round beers, one hundred percent of the hops in there we grow.”

At Bale Breaker, you go where the hops are born (could that be the name of a new children’s book?).

Here, magical phrases like “farm to fridge” and “ground to glass” get tossed around like hops into a kettle.

These are the freshest fresh-hop beers you will ever drink (assuming you visit sometime between late August and September).

Accordingly, we grabbed a flight of the brewery’s fresh-hop beers, ordered tacos from the Buen Taco food truck, and parked ourselves at a picnic table in the gorgeous garden. Surrounded by Mosaic hops strung up on trellises, we plowed through brilliant fresh-hop beers.

For instance, Long Distance Krush, featuring YCH and Haas’ latest Krush hop (formerly HBC 586) as the fresh hop along with Simcoe Cryo and Mosaic Cryo.

“So money,” says Muncie as he goes back to finish the taster. “It’s just straight strawberries and super crushable.”

The beer went international, featuring Victoria, BC’s Driftwood in what Bale Breaker called a “heartfelt collaboration.”

Dare we say we could taste the love here?

“Definitely one of the best of the trip, if not the best of the trip so far,” says Muncie. “And we’ve had dozens of fresh-hop IPAs.”

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Fresh Hop Tacos – Varietal Beer Company x Ladd & Lass Brewing

Sunnyside, WA x Seattle, WA

Cold IPA – Although we didn’t have time to get over to Varietal’s taproom in Sunnyside, WA, luckily for us, the local craft beer bar Schab’s Bier Den hosted a Varietal tap takeover for the forty-eight hours we spent in Yakima.

Highlights included Varietal’s Fresh Hop Tacos, which we were told was one of the most popular beers on the menu.

Brewed with wet, unkilned Mosaic and Citra hops from Haas-owned farms, Fresh Hop Tacos also got dosed with Krush LUPOMAX in the whirlpool to top off those resinous notes, according to the beer’s Untappd description. “Sticky resin flavors and tropical fruit and berry aromas overflow from this glass!”

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Czech-Style Dark Lager – Single Hill Brewing

Yakima, WA

Czech-Style Dark Lager – Yes, we tried a ton of fresh-hop beer while in Yakima. Yes, we enjoyed many of them. But yes, we also came across a Czech dark lager that blew us away.

Ask any brewer in town for the hop harvest where they end up at the end of the night, and nine times out of ten, they’ll say Single Hill.

I first discovered Single Hill when the brewery’s director of sales and marketing, Andrew Paytel, asked if he could send us beer. A couple of packages later, and with every beer crushing it, I knew I’d found a new gem.

For instance, Cold Throw, which made our list of “The 20 Best Beers to Drink in Spring 2022,” or Groundswell, which just picked up a silver in the number-one most-entered category at the Great American Beer Festival Awards—“Juicy or Hazy India Pale Ale.”

Overall, Single Hill made a name for itself with IPAs, but its reputation with lagers has only grown. Enough to the point where Single Hill Founding Brewer and GM Zach Turner says they’re rotating six styles with a new release every month—a West Coast, a hazy, another West Coast, and then a lager.

For instance, the Czech-Style Dark Lager, one of our favorite beers from the entire trip.

Turner says one of his friends works for Anheuser Busch and has a farm in Northern Idaho where he brought back fresh dried Saaz. “We pelletized those and used them,” he says. “So it doesn’t have wet hops, but it’s all 2024 Idaho-grown Saaz.”

Super smooth and silky, this version of a Czech-style dark lager includes lovely layers of German Chocolate Cake with just a whisper of floralness to keep everything in…Czech?

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Farmer Way IPA – Cowiche Creek

Cowiche, WA

American IPA – Everything at Cowiche Creek has been built from the ground up. “People say they have a shoestring budget,” says Cowiche Creek Brewing Company Co-Founder Derrick Nordberg. “There weren’t even shoes in this budget!”

The Nordbergs built everything by hand. “The only thing we didn’t do was pour the concrete and mount these doors because it voided the warranty,” he laughs. “We built the chairs, the tables … we built everything else here.”

Even today, he calls his team the “Band of Misfit Pirates.” If something needs fixing, Nordberg has been known to solve the problem, even if it’s 2 a.m.

But it fits for one of the only one hundred percent independently owned husband-and-wife-owned breweries in Yakima.

“We’re farmers that put a lot of work into what we do and are as authentic as possible,” said Nordberg, who grew up working 120-130 hours a week on his family farm as a kid.

Hence, the brewery’s flagship beer, Farmer Way IPA, has become a bit of a tagline.

“We say we do things the redneck way,” laughs Nordberg. “The farmer way.”

An American IPA best enjoyed after a long day of work, Farmer Way IPA has lots of hop flavor and citrus aroma with almost no malt backbone. And that’s just the way Nordberg wants it.

Bursting with Warrior, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops, Farmer Way IPA is refreshing, crisp, and not too malty.

Pro tip: Pair this beer with one of Cowiche Creek’s super tasty burgers, head onto the patio for spectacular valley views, and have a well-deserved night off.

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Canyon Crusher Fresh Hop – Outskirts Brewing Co.

Selah, WA

Fresh Hop IPA – Located in Selah, WA, on the ”outskirts” of Yakima, Outskirts Brewing lives by the motto “First class for the working class.”

Outskirts Head Brewer J.T. Wattenberg describes Outskirts’ style as a lot of European (courtesy of his time learning how to brew in England), “but at the same time, we’re in the land of the hop, so IPAs are where it’s going to be,” Wattenberg says with what we’ve come to learn is a trademark goofy grin.

Beers like Canyon Crusher, a flagship American pale ale with Citra, Simcoe, and Idaho 7.

“When people ask me to tell them about our style, this is right where I fall: easy drinking, a lot of flavors, a lot of aromas,” says Outskirts Brewing Brewer and Sales Rep Brian Paxton, “but it’s still crisp, clean, and nothing too crazy sitting at 5.9% ABV.”

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77 – 5th Line Brewing Company

Yakima, WA

Coffee Stout – At the hockey-themed brewery, 5th Line Brewing, “My vision for the brewery was to be a rink away from home,” says co-founder Chris Sutherland.

An Edmonton, Canada, native, Sutherland, who learned to skate at age three or four, has played hockey all his life.

Sutherland moved to Yakima in 2005, meeting his co-founder Nate Coppock around five years later at a hockey buddy’s wedding. Coppock had made a couple of beers for the occasion, and Sutherland wanted to learn how to homebrew.

“We had the same dream that every other knucklehead home brewer does. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to do this professionally?” he tells us. “One night, one of the brewers from Bale Breaker, who also plays hockey with us and is another Canadian, commented in the locker room that our homebrew might be the best he’s ever had.”

A bit of an inside joke, 5th Line refers to a phantom shift. “Even if you didn’t get a shift that night, at least you can go get a beer with the boys,” explains Sutherland. Folks around town often equate the 5th Line with the 12th Man, the Seattle Seahawks’ term for the collective fans whose support acts like an additional team member.

That mentality runs through the entire brewery, where the mission is simply to “have a good beer,” says Sutherland. We live in the hop capital of the nation, but that doesn’t mean that every beer has to be an IPA or a pale.”

Accordingly, of the sixteen taps at 5th Line, we enjoyed the 77 coffee oatmeal milk stout the most.

Named after Paul Coffey, a former professional Canadian hockey player who wore number 77, the oatmeal milk stout features…wait for it, coffee!

Originally one of Sutherland’s homebrew recipes he wrote eleven years ago, 77 doesn’t even crack 5% ABV, which for an oatmeal coffee milk stout keeps what could be thick and syrupy light and creamy.

“That was my gateway beer. … It’s always my go-to,” says 5th Line Co-Founder Jessa Sutherland.

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Kinda Wet – Cloudburst Brewing

Seattle, WA

Wet-Hop IPA – In Yakima, the hop harvest unofficially wraps up with the Fresh Hop Ale Festival, taking place this year on Oct. 5th. Breweries mostly from around the Pacific Northwest bring their best fresh-hop beers brewed over the previous few weeks. It’s a celebration of hops in its purest form, earning the festival a ranking of seventh best beer festival in USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards.

While an official panel of judges tasted all the beers, awarding breweries the best of the fest, we did our own little tasting.

Cloudburst’s Kinda Wet stood out as a highlight for us.
Thrown a curveball this year, Cloudburst had to pivot when their normally early-picked Amarillo hop provider—Virgil Gamache Farms—had already wrapped up picking on the day they arrived. In a bout of quick thinking, Cloudburst grabbed a shovel and scooped a couple hundred pounds of hops off the top layer of the ones drying in the kiln.

Maybe that’s what added that little something here for us. But who’s to say? We tried a lot of fresh-hop beers not only at the festival but also in Yakima. And this one stood out to us.
Maybe we’re just kinda crazy.

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Dunkel – Bierstadt Lagerhause

Denver, CO

Dunkel – “I’ve had five of these,” Muncie told me as he handed me a glass of Bierstadt’s Dunkel. I’d been crushing their incredible Helles all night, but after taking a sip of this Franconian classic, I realized I might have been doing it wrong.

Honestly, you can never go wrong at Bierstadt, the mecca for all things German lager in Denver, CO.

When I shared that story with Bierstadt Lagerhaus Co-Founder Ashleigh Carter later that week, she wrote back, “Ah yes—Dunkel. The Bierstadt sleeper if you ask me.”

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Coastal Bias – Amalgam Brewing

Denver, CO

West Coast IPA – When Amalgam, a pet project between now Bierstadt Lagerhaus brewer Phil Joyce and Westbound & Down Creative Director Eric Schmidt, first burst onto the Denver scene in 2017, they were pretty much just making straight-up mixed-culture beers.

Incredible, elegant, nuanced mixed-culture beers.

But recently, the duo have flexed their IPA biceps.

“I missed making hoppy beers,” Joyce told me as we shared a can of the brewery’s newest release—Coastal Bias.

Now, in a small tank tucked into Bierstadt Lagerhaus’ production space, Joyce and Schmidt drop here-now-gone-after-it-sells-out hoppy ales and lagers every four to six weeks.

“It has been the perfect merger of something ephemeral with something intentional,” says Schmidt. “It gives us a chance to breathe, to connect with the ingredients, the people, and the relationships.”

He adds, “That feels really good to me.”

Right now, that means Coastal Bias. “This beer is all focused on the hops,” says Joyce. Not just the hops but the people who picked them. For instance, this West Coast IPA includes the new hop Krush, picked in tandem with Cannonball Creek Co-Founder Brian Hutchinson, who Joyce says has an excellent nose for hops.

And the Mosaic? Amalgam tapped Highland Park R&D Brewer Tyler, a groom at Joyce’s wedding, for that lot. “Their Timbo Pils is the nicest expression of Mosaic you can ever find,” says Joyce. “They do a very good job selecting this complex yet tropical Mosaic character.”

For the Simcoe, Joyce and Schmidt tapped Westbound & Down. “We think it’s the coolest hop they selected,” says Joyce.

Lastly, the Nelson Sauvin comes from fifth-generation New Zealand hop farm Mac Hops Ltd. Joyce says he trusted Mac Hops owner Brent McGlashen to choose their lot blindly. “I wanted some Nelson hops without the plasticky, sometimes diesel character and just straight passion fruit, peachy, and big tropical,” says Joyce. And McGlashen delivered.

The result is a beer we’d call the new frontier of West Coast IPAs—less about brash headiness and more about balanced fruitiness. At 7.2%, the beer flirts with a higher ABV, but you’d never know it.

As my first beer of the night, I probably drank way more than I wanted to or should have, but I just couldn’t help myself.

Amalgam calls Coastal Bias’ big pineapple, lychee, and passionfruit notes “dangerously drinkable.”

I’d second that.

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Cohesion 12° – Cohesion Brewing Company

Denver, CO

Czech Pale Lager (Světlé Lezak) – Last time I visited Denver during an epic four-day adventure for GABF in 2022, I came home with one brewery name ringing in my ears—Cohesion.

I didn’t have a chance to stop there in 2022. So when I knew I’d be in Denver this year, Cohesion topped my list.

I initially met Cohesion Co-Founder Eric Larkin in Atlanta of all places; we both presented at the Georgie Brewers Guild annual symposium in 2022.

I learned pretty quickly that Larkin respects Czech beer and culture in a way unlike anyone else (and I mean anyone else) in the States. Our paths crossed again and again. Mostly around me interviewing him for any article we wrote about Czech beer, Czech styles of pouring, or Czech culture.

Yet, for two years, I had not been able to go to his brewery.

Until now!

First, I will be putting together an entire piece on Cohesion in the new year, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, suffice it to say that Cohesion is an absolutely beautiful brewery from the inside out.

I’m not sure any beer better defines Cohesion than the Cohesion 12°.

Larkin is always quick to point out that he has no Czech blood—he wasn’t born there and doesn’t have family from there. He just fell in love with the beer styles and culture, dedicating his life (and many trips and beers) to figuring out what makes Czech brewers tick.

In the Czech Republic, the 12° is the most notorious style of beer—split predominantly into two camps, Pilsner Urquell and Budvar. They’ve very different beers, and typically a Czech person will be in one camp or the other. “Budvar is called the sweet one, and Pilsner Urquell is called the bitter one,” explains Larkin. “They also have different production methods. Budvar lagers for ninety days. Pilsner Urquell cellar lagers for sometimes four to five weeks. One is owned by the Czech government. One is owned by Asahi. They’re very different companies. They’re very different all throughout.”

Larkin decided to take the elements he liked from both of those beers and blend them into Cohesion 12°. “I really love both beers, so I pulled from both of them,” he tells us.

In his 12°, Larkin blends some of the malt sweetness from Budvar with a bitterness that isn’t quite at the level of Pilsner Urquell but more than Budvar. He uses whole-cone hops, which is an inspiration from Budvar. He admits the hops have changed over the years from Saaz to Agnes.

Larkin also chooses to open ferment, which technically neither brewery does anymore but did historically at one point.

The lagering time follows Pilsner Urquell more closely. “The shorter lagering time gets a younger, fresh beer,” he says.

“From day one, it’s been the best seller,” says Larkin. And we can see why.

Larkin has told me the pinnacle is when a Czech person comes into the brewery, tries some of his beer, and perhaps with just a nod or a word or two, tells him it tastes just like home. “That’s the biggest praise we can get,” he shares.

I’m not Czech, so my opinion might not carry as much credence, but I have been to the Czech Republic, I have drank many (many) a Czech pale lager, and I have to say, Cohesion’s 12° is one of my favorites from the States.

If you’re ever in Denver, don’t make the same mistake I did in 2022. Get yourself to Cohesion now.

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KIWI. – Novel Strand Brewing Company

Denver, CO

Strong Hoppy Ale – First rule of Novel Strand: The letters I-P-A are not in their DNA. Since 2018, the brewery has been doing its “own little thing”: brewing beers with an unapologetic focus on lagers and hoppy ales.

Novel Strand Co-Founder and Head Brewer Tamir Danon talks about hops like a Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, Prélude—expertly with precise rhythm and timing.

When you drink one of Danon’s beers, you’re following a musical score.

For lagers, he wants short and snappy. Perhaps staccato is the right musical term. You should take a sip and, BOOM, almost immediately have your palate cleansed and want another.

“Snappy, crisp, quick, and easy on the palate because that will make you want more of the flavor,” he once told me. “We don’t want a gentle roll … we want to give you [a] poof of flavor, go away, and make you want to revisit that right now.

For hoppy ales, on the other hand, well, honestly, it depends on many different things, but generally, he wants a soft, rolling crescendo before hitting you with the drop.

My first time in Denver for GABF, I spent several hours with Danon listening to his canon on hoppy ales and lagers. He pretty much converted me over a couple of altbiers and hoppy ales.

So when I got into town, and he texted me that they had fresh Altbier on along with a black lager called Ninja Shit, I knew I had to make time in my schedule to drop by.

Now, Danon knows I love lager, so I’m pretty sure he reeled me in with promises of altbier and schwarzbier ( he did ply me with first) but meant all along to drop something new on me.

A strong hoppy ale called KIWI.

A love letter to New Zealand hops, KIWI. includes Motueka, Nectaron, Nelson Sauvin, and Riwaka from fifth-generation New Zealand hop farm Mac Hops Ltd, NZ Hops Ltd, and Yakima Chief Hops.

You know when you bite into a Gusher, truffle, or jelly-filled donut? Can you imagine that moment when the intensely jammy inside gushes out? It’s like Danon harnessed that moment in time and manipulated it in KIWI. You start with a mellow, smooth, slightly slow beginning, followed by a blast, burst, charge of incredible candied sweetness, immediately reigned back in like someone pushed rewind on the VCR, returning you two or three seconds in the past. Once again, things are mellow and mild, and you’re left wondering: What just happened?

Which makes you immediately want to take another sip. It’s devilishly clever.

And all of this happens within a five-second sip. It’s an incredible feat of mastery that I’ve come to expect from Danon, but I am still surprised every time it happens to me. I know it’s coming! And yet, once I drink one of his beers, I know nothing at all.

Later that night, Danon asked me which beer I liked the most. I paused for a second. Mostly because I almost didn’t want to admit this to him. Okay, mostly because I didn’t want to admit it to myself. But yes, this self-proclaimed lager drinker thought KIWI. was the best beer I’d had, perhaps during the whole trip.

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Classic Pilsner – New Image Brewing Co.

Arvada, CO

Italian/German Pilsner – When Ryan Pachmayer, who runs marketing, PR, and events for New Image, invited us to New Image’s revamped restaurant in Arvada, we couldn’t say no. With New Image currently (as much as possible) featuring all-local ingredients in its beers, New Image Founder Brandon Capps wanted the food to reflect the same ethos.

Table by New Image is where “farm to glass” meets “farm to table,” featuring a dedicated community of growers and makers through its pints and plates.

“We’re reflecting the same values that have made our beer program what it is, but with a different canvas,” wrote the brewery on Instagram. “We make ingredient-driven food, with a strong emphasis on all of the amazing things that we can find right here in Colorado.”

For example, every menu has a section called “Featured Seasonal Ingredients,” which lists the current farms and ingredients featured on the menu.

When we visited, I crushed a perfect seasonal fall Delicata Squash Salad with squash from Ollin Farms. But you also could have housed an Eggplant Toast with housemade focaccia and eggplant from Toohey & Sons Organic stewed in tomatoes and confit garlic aioli topped with ricotta salat and mint.

Most of our table ordered the Buttermilk Fried Chicken Sandwich with pasture-raised chicken-thigh, confit garlic aioli, lettuce, pickles, and tomato piled as high as the foam on the top of a Bierstadt Lagerhaus Slow Pour.

World-class beer now has the food to match.

Speaking of that world-class beer, you have plenty to choose from here. I started with an XPA called Tiny Little Bags before switching over to the Classic Pilsner, a 4.5% ABV pilsner that has veered from Italian pilsner to more German pils lately.

Pachmayer says they’re using one hundred percent Hallertauer Mittelfrüh hops from Germany, lager yeast from local Colorado Inland Island labs, and a local floor-malted Leopold Bros pilsner malt. (Read: local ingredients!)

Which is how traditional German brewers would have made their pils anyway. “You go back to those classic German pilsners; they always use malt from their home country, often within a hundred miles of the brewery,” explained Pachmayer, who has traveled extensively in Germany, including Dusseldorf, Köln, Munich, and Franconia, to name a few. “That was the case a century ago, and it largely remains true today. It feels more German in many ways to use the local malt than to import our malt halfway across the world.”

Beyond that, Pachmayer says the primary driver behind using local malt is to lower their carbon footprint. “Brandon feels if you own a business in today’s world, you have a responsibility to the community, both local and wider,” he explains, noting that Capps basically lives for the outdoors. “We love supporting our local growers, but we also want to make sure we’re minimizing our impact on the world … while still producing a very high-quality product.”

Pachmayer emphasizes that New Image doesn’t “cut any corners” with its Classic Pilsner, from decoction mashing to natural carbonation to low and slow lagering. “We sit the beer at around 50°F, and it never gets any warmer,” he explains. “We long lager at nearly freezing temperatures until it’s ready.” And New Image seriously won’t touch the beer until it’s ready. “We’ve run out of it a few times because we wanted to give it another week or two to taste perfect,” laughs Pachmayer.

At lunch, our server brings over the Classic Pilsner in a tall, somewhat skinny glass with a firm dollop of foam on top. That’s intentional, too. Something Pachmayer experienced when ordering the pils at Augustiner in Munich.

“Clear as day from filtration, a firm bitterness, followed by a pleasant floral hop that accents that bready, grainy underlying pilsner malt, it’s a wonderful style of beer that compliments virtually any dish you’re eating,” says Pachmayer, noting the uber dryness immediately leaves your palate, tempting you for another sip. “Truly my favorite style of beer, the right mix of “don’t have to think about it every sip” and “this is damn delicious and interesting!”

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Group Project: Landbier – Cerebral Brewing

Denver, CO

Landbier – Okay, just look at the list of breweries who participated in this collab: Halfway Crooks, Olfactory, Cohesion, and Cerebral. 😱 When we stopped by Cerebral for a lager tap takeover on the last day of GABF, there was no way we could pass up getting a pint of this beer.

Part of a larger “group project” that included tackling four different “assignments”—DDH IPA, WC IPA, WC pale ale, and Landbier—this beer challenged four breweries to work with Leoppold Bros Floor Malted Edelweiss heritage malt (a collab between Leoppold and Sugar Creek Malting from Indiana) and whole cone Saaz hops in the mash along with a whirlpool dose of Perle, Saaz, and Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops.

Cerebral Lead Brewer Sam Bennett texted me some additional deets. That incredible collab malt, Edelweiss, comes from an old-world Czech variety of barley. “I feel like we get a great doughy/straw character from it as well as a touch of melon like sweet fruit,” Bennett wrote to me, noting the grist also included spelt and a local chit malt form Root Shoot Malting.

Double decocted for maximum malt complexity, Landbier was also foeder ferment with Czech lager yeast and spunded to get a soft carbonation, according to Bennett. “We lagered only for three weeks to give the beer a more rustic, unfiltered profile.”

Rustic and less refined around the edges, Landbier had notes of Oyster crackers, sourdough, and yuzu zest.

Although we know this beer was very complex to make, we found this collaboration lager to be a standout in its simplicity. Standing outside on Cerebral’s gorgeous patio, drinking one in the Colorado sunshine, just made us happy.

It was the perfect way to end our GABF adventures in Denver.

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Marimba – Spangalang Brewery

Denver, CO

Mexican Lager – One of only two Black-owned breweries in Denver, Spangalang Brewery keeps things jazzy in the historically Black Five Points neighborhood.

Named after a jazz cymbal rhythm first popularized by jazz great Kenny Clarke in the 1940s, Spangalang continues to honor the history of jazz in the area through its beer.

Commonly known as the “Harlem of the West,” Five Points used to be one of the great jazz meccas in the U.S. Similar to the 18th & Vine Jazz District in Kansas City—now home to the area’s first Black-owned brewery, Vine Street Brewing Co.

We actually bumped into Vine Street Co-Founders Kemet Coleman, Elliott Ivory, and Woodie Bonds at Spangalang while sipping on multiple rounds of the brewery’s Mexican lager—Marimba.

An instrument akin to the modern-day xylophone, the Marimba was traditionally brought over by Africans to Mexico.

For us, we found this Mexican lager, which the bartenders christen with a wedge of lime, imminently drinkable. Like a good rhythm bouncing around in our heads, we kept returning to this beer repeatedly.

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Chin Wag – Hogshead Brewery

Denver, CO

ESB – Drinking our fair share of cask ale through Manchester, London, and Edinburgh last April was a highlight of the year for sure.

So when we had the opportunity to visit Hogshead, a pub in Denver that prides itself on its cask program, we said yes, please!

One of three flagships, Chin Wag is an ESB with a toothsome maltiness curbed by Fuggle and Golding hops. Hogshead calls this one “Dangerously quaffable” at 38 IBUs and a “beer to savor over a good conversation.”

Which, honestly, is exactly what we did.

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