Jeff Alworth's Best in 2024
For some reason, it’s been several years since I was invited to contribute my favorite beers for Craft Beer & Brewing’s annual best-of issue. (As an example, here’s Kate Bernot’s article.) I am not the least bit bitter about this, however, because it gives me a chance to post my faves here. In the distant past, I used to have a Satori Award, or the best debut beer of the year, as a framework for reviewing the best beers of the year. For many reasons, that’s not feasible anymore, so instead I’ll borrow CBB’s format, which is a great one.
Compiling this list has become a snap since I started recording my faves in real time as Beer Sherpas in the weekly newsletter. (If you’re not subscribing, why not?!) I just glanced back at the 46 beers I recommend since January. Twenty-two were lagers, 21 were ales, and three were sour or wild. Thanks to the March adoption of a little four-legged who has separation anxiety, I traveled very little in 2024, and only once outside the state, so most of the beer came from Oregon (even more than usual). Perhaps because of that, 26 of the recommendations fell roughly into the IPA category (12) or pale lager (14). That roughly reflects the dominance of those styles in the state these days as well. I mention all of that to give you a sense of the kinds of beers I was drinking, and which ones stood out.
So with that, here were my faves, listed in alphabetical order.
Top Ten Beers of the Year
Benedict Tmavý
While I was in Prague I drank as many darker beers as possible—they’re a lot rarer than pale lagers, and January is their season. Made by Břevnov, it was a 4.5%, 11° beer that reminded me of Baltic porter. It was very intense, with a Colombian coffee meets dark chocolate nose, and a deeply roasty palate. In the middle of all this was that unmistakable Czech silkiness and a light, mousse-like palate. Some sweeter molasses notes blossomed after the blast of roast, and it drank very easily. Most dark lagers there aren’t super roasty, but Břevnov shows just how broad this style really is.
Block 15 Fresh Hop Sticky Hands
Made with Coleman Citras in the increasingly-popular liquid nitrogen method, this was the first time Block 15 had done a fresh hop version of their flagship. It makes a case for their use in a double IPA, too. Far from being overwhelmed by the beer’s strength, the alcohol volatilized the aromas and made them absolutely vivid with fresh, green goodness. In this case of these fresh Oregon Citras, they were intensely, iridescently green.
Breakside The Sublime
Breakside’s seasonal Helles was an evolutionary step along what I have long been hoping to see—a “German” lager on the way to becoming fully American. In this case, Breakside took a traditional helles template but used the whirlpool to accentuate the aromatics of the American Lorien hops (along with some German Hersbrucker) while leaving the basic formula intact. These were lager hops, herbal and savory, and they merely floated above the pillowy German malts, which asserted themselves as soon as the beer arrived on the tongue. It wasn’t “American” in the sense of the flavor of the hops, but a clever use of the kind of techniques normally reserved for them.
De Garde The Kriek
Trevor Rodgers has been making lambic-style wild spontaneously fermented ales for eleven years now, and his beers have gotten very accomplished. Everything in the brewery goes into the coolship for wild inoculation, and his beers sit on wood for years. Before trying The Kriek, I had a glass of straight, still lambic, just to get a sense of the base beer. It was delicate and surprisingly un-funky (for the style). In The Kriek, his cherry-infused version of the Belgian classic, that means a refreshing, approachable fruit ale (again, for the style), that recalls the best examples from the Payottenland. Rich with cherry flavor and aromatics, with some funk underneath, it is just a spectacular beer. I know some of the Belgian lambic-makers admire his beers, and that should tell you a lot.
Grand Fir Trail Bloom
Grand Fir launched into summer with two sparkling pilsners. They were both excellent, but the Czech-style pils, Trail Bloom, was extra special excellent. It captured the essence of the style, a task at which most Americans fail, with a full, very creamy malt base and vivid, spicy hopping. One thing we don’t discuss all that often in lagers is yeast, but that may be Trail Bloom’s secret weapon. I picked it up in the nose, and it carried through to the tongue. We don’t really have a good vocabulary for discussing lager yeast, so I’ll just say that it gave me an immediate sense memory of Czechia, where yeast is a major part of the flavor profile. I wrote at the time that this beer would contend for one of my favorite beers this year, and I was on the mark with that prediction!
Living Häus Leo
When I saw “New England pilsner” on the taplist at Living Häus, I groaned. What fresh hell is this? Something closer to angelic, it turned out. The description tells you what they were shooting for, and brewer Mat Sandoval got there by creating a rustic kellerbier with flaked oats and spelt malt, and then kissing this base with the fruity notes of Nelson, Citra, and Galaxy hops on top. It had greater mouthfeel than a typical pils, but not overmuch, and the hops were aromatic and fruity, but not candy-like. And here’s the amazing part—it also had a big dose of sulfur that persisted through the final swallow. On paper, that seems like a disastrous combo, but in fact, the sulfur functions like a dank note, providing some ballast and balance for the sweet, tropical hop flavors. “The sulfur ties it all together,” Mat agreed when I spoke to him—and as a bonus, it gives it that crisp drinkability that is the hallmark of every good pilsner.
Reuben’s Citra Crush
I enjoyed this dessert-y pint of hazy IPA with a plate of Mexican food, and it was a surprisingly nice fit. Summery and ice-creamy, a dense layer of foam rode like whipped cream atop a cloudy orange beer. Reuben’s generally shoots for style fidelity, and here that meant being true to the New England way, with a thicker, creamier beer with loads of residual sugar. The brewery added enough bitterness to give it a pleasing edge, however, balancing the sweetness enough to make it a delicious treat.
TPK Beach Day
Right in the midst of fresh hop season I happened across this beer. With no fresh hop beers to sample, I turned my attention to this brightly-colored delight. It’s the kind of beer you don’t see much anymore—a wheat ale sweetened with fruit, no souring required. It was a POG blend (passion fruit, orange, and quava), and it worked in part because the acid from the fruit gave the beer structure. The fruit flavors were gentle but distinct, and the wheat added a touch of bready pillowyness to the proceedings. Fruit ales like this fell out of favor when kettle sours came along, but Beach Day is a reminder that they were once popular for a reason.
Upright Saison Elani
Perhaps no style is less popular in the US than saison, a fact I lament when I come across one like Upright’s. It’s a style you really need in some moods, and no substitutes will satisfy. But this wasn’t just a serviceable saison for drinking in a pinch, it was special. Upright didn’t do anything tricky; Elani was just a simple, yeast-forward session beer (4.8%). It was built on a nice layer of malt sweetness, and the yeast was dry and almost lagerlike. I’ve often felt like there was some kind of strange connection between saisons and Franconian lagers, and that was true with Elani. It drank like a lager, and a perfect summer beer—but it was pure saison.
Weltenburger Dunkel
One of the very few disappointments I found in Bavaria was the quality of the average dunkel. They were often overly sweet and flabby, with malts that felt muddy. Klosterbrauerei Weltenburger’s Barock Dunkel was the kind of beer I craved when I saw “dunkel” on the menu, and it’s perfect for autumn. The malts were the star here, and they have wonderful complexity, with a brown bread and crust aroma and a chocolate note that emerged mid-palate. Dunkel lagers are full by design, and that can lead to the flabbiness. Weltenburger avoided this problem with malts that have a dry quality on the palate, despite the beer’s fullness. Although Barock does have a creamy mouthfeel, it doesn’t cloy. It was legit one of the best examples I’ve ever had.
Adrian, Evan, and me
The Year in Beer
Industry Topic I Wish Would Get More Ink/Pixels
Beer. In the latter days of the great pre-Covid boom, beer talk tended a lot more toward bubbly industry talk. Things were growing! Breweries were flourishing! Everyone was making money! We were excited about these newfangled hazy beers and dessert beers, but so often the talk went straight to growth. During Covid, that trend continued, appropriately, but with a desperate turn. We were still talking about money, but mostly whether there would be enough of it to keep these many thousand breweries afloat. It seems like an almost reflexive habit now—beer talk remains industry talk. Things are rough, so I get it, and it’s not that the industry isn’t important. But beer talk should include some talk of, you know, the beer, right?
In part, I think this indicates an insularity within beer. Industry talk is necessarily a discussion among people inside the biz, not a dialogue with the broader public. A healthy beer culture, by contrast, revolves much more around the things consumers care about: the beer itself, its flavors, styles, techniques, ingredients, and so on; cool breweries making interesting beer; the experience of drinking beer. The topics of discussion are more likely downstream from what’s happening than their cause, so I doubt just talking more about beer would change things. Rather, we’ll know the beer world is back to health our minds turn to our glasses rather than EBITDA.
Experience That Gives Me Hope For the Future of Beer
TPK Brewing. One Wednesday in October, a group of friends and I at gathered at TPK to launch our latest D&D adventure. An envoy had to arrive early to secure a table, because TPK can really get busy these days—as it was that night. The founders built the brewery precisely for this purpose. They’re RPG gamers themselves, and they launched a new campaign the same time they opened the brewery (which stands for “total party kill,” a D&D reference). It is routinely buzzing in there, attracting a crowd who smiles when someone wearing elf ears or a tiefling tail walks in. Neighborhood folks stop by as well, and tt’s not exclusive to gamers. Regulars, however, are evidently tolerant of the Hobbit vibe (the brewery building looks like a medieval pub).
I am heartened by TPK because it shows that customers will reward a focus on experience and community. Behind the scenes I know they were intent on making good beer, but this wasn’t the central thesis for the brewery. They broadcast in every way that they wanted gamers to come and be comfortable. Over the past decade, I think breweries may have forgotten this element of beer. In a moment when everyone is looking for ways to attract customers, TPK is an example of a brewery that found a community need to serve. Gamers, surely, aren’t the only niche looking for a place to hang out and drink beer, so this represents a way to grow.
Most Memorable Beer Experience of the Year
Prague. I wish I could mention finding some sublime beer in a cool ruin bar in Budapest during my visit there in January. Alas, the ruin bars are more touristy and less ruinous these days, and Hungarian beer is maybe a decade out from being able to produce truly distinctive, exceptional beers. So I must fall back on my time in Prague, where I might cite ten different experiences. I will choose the second of my visits to Hostomická Nalévárna, however, when I joined fellow writers Evan Rail and Adrian Tierney-Jones, who happened to also be visiting the city. It’s a tiny neighborhood bar that serves as Pivovar Hostimice’s Prague outpost—and also Evan’s local. The beer is very Czech; full, yeast-forward, dabs of diacetyl here and there. (Evan complained that Americans who couldn’t abide a little diacetyl didn’t fully get Czech beer, and he’s certainly correct.) The bar is very Czech as well, but simple-Czech, not ornate, moneyed Urquell-Czech. We had the kind of wonderful conversation three writers usually have, which means it included precious little dissection of the beer—but a whole lot of post-sip nods of appreciation.