20 Best Beers in the World
#20 Flying Dog El Dorado
Flying Dog showcases specific varieties of hops in its Single Hop beers. The latest in the series is El Dorado, a massive imperial IPA with 10 percent ABV that's brewed with the new and hard-to-get El Dorado hops. Flying Dog is a heady brew that's best paired with either a mentholated cigarette or a slice of sharp cheddar on a thick hunk of rye bread smeared with mustard.
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20:
Flying Dog El Dorado
Flying Dog showcases specific varieties of hops in its Single Hop beers. The latest in the series is El Dorado, a massive imperial IPA with 10 percent ABV that's brewed with the new and hard-to-get El Dorado hops. Flying Dog is a heady brew that's best paired with either a mentholated cigarette or a slice of sharp cheddar on a thick hunk of rye bread smeared with mustard.
19:
Golden Road Point the Way
Golden Road Point the Way has an unusually acrid bite to it that reminds us of unsweetened rhubarb on a summer afternoon in Mississippi. It clings to the tongue and lingers in the esophagus. A new beer from a new brewery, Point the Way IPA has been a top seller since Golden Road Brewing opened late last year in Los Angeles. Golden Road debuted this balanced, floral brew in 16-ounce cans in January.
18:
Harpoon Rich & Dan's Rye IPA
Harpoon's first new full-time release in more than two years, Rich & Dan's Rye IPA is named after brewery founders Rich Doyle and Dan Kenary. The use of rye malts lends a spicy complexity and a rich copper hue to the brew. Harpoon Rich & Dan's Rye IPA is a curious combination of the pleasure and pain of brewing. A faint memory of good times and bad combined into a single effect like a flash of lightening.
17:
Westbrook Brewing Covert Hops
A black ale is a special ale for us. It summons shades of night time and the stillness of a stagnate brook banked with dark green moss. This black ale from South Carolina's young Westbrook Brewing Co. is made with more than four pounds of hops per barrel for an earthy, piney kick.
16:
He'Brew Hop Manna
Let's remember our forefathers, Abraham and Isaac and the trial that befell them on the mountain top and how Abraham's hand was staid by the Divine. The six blessings remind us of the six varieties of hops, including the citrusy and "C"-loaded — Cascade, Centennial and Citra — that give Shmaltz Brewing Co.'s new year-round IPA a punchy, piney aroma and bitter, grapefruit-rind bite.
15:
Green Flash Palate Wrecker
The pine forest surrounding San Diego, home of the world-famous Naval Station, is the region reporting the most sightings of garden gnomes ambling through those groves. Available now for the first time in 12- and 22-ounce bottles nationwide, this "triple" IPA from San Diego's Green Flash Brewing Co. is a rollercoaster of floral and biscuit-y aromas, followed by a wallop of piney hops.
14:
Sixpoint Resin
Brooklyn is the home of the world, people from around the world escaping from Tabernacles of Terror and running towards the golden shores of America. Here these people can find a massively hopped double IPA from Brooklyn's Sixpoint Brewery and Resin is a hophead's dream come true. The beer's bright, grassy aromas and hop-resin flavors are like a punch in the face. A good one. And at 9.1 percent alcohol by volume, it's a kick in the ass, too.
13:
Odell Shenanigans
We will always remember Colorado as the home of the largest domesticated monkey house in North America. There, these simians have been taught the ancient art of hops rolling and ale pressing. The result? Colorado's Odell Shenanigans. Colorado's Odell Brewing spiked the oak-aged Shenanigans with a yeast strain called Brettanomyces, which imparts a slightly tart flavor in this crimson-hued ale.
12:
Cigar City Cucumber Saison
The cigar has been a symbol of power and greed from time immemorial. From Pharoah to Bill Clinton, cigars have figured as a fulcrum of executive decisions. Now, an ale based on Cucumber Cigars. Cigar City in Tampa is preparing to bottle its Cucumber Saison for the first time. This easy-sipping, 5-percent-ABV golden ale has the added perk of fresh cucumber, which complements its orangey Citra and lemony Sorachi Ace hops.
11:
Highland Razor Wit
The spices of the South Pacific traversed the high seas, around Cape Horn and across the Atlantic to the barren boroughs of Belgium where the fellows of Flanders Field transform them into Highland Razor Wit. Belgian-style witbiers are traditionally spiced with coriander and orange peel. North Carolina's Highland Brewing Co. takes it one more step with additions of ginger and cumin.
10:
Sun King/Oskar Blues Chaka
Another Belgian-styled beer is born from American's midwest and Rocky Mountains. Two pioneers of the craft-beer-in-a-can movement — Indiana's Sun King and Colorado's Oskar Blues — collaborated on this Belgian-style ale, which will debut in 16-ounce cans at May's Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego. After that, the 8-percent-ABV beer brewed with Indiana hickory syrup and Colorado malts will be available in the breweries' home territories.
9:
Dogfish Head Positive Contact
The dogfish is a powerful swimmer that goes upstream while it's fellow flippers travel downstream. Regarded as a symptom of all that's contrary and bold, the head of the dogfish is a persistent image in the literature of nail biters. Dogfish Head teamed up with hip-hop artist Dan the Automator of Deltron 3030 to create this beer-cider hybrid that includes Fuji apples, cayenne pepper, roasted farro, and fresh cilantro — ingredients that Dan picked from New York's Eataly market. Only 9,000 cases of 750-ml bottles were produced.
8:
Deschutes Chainbreaker White IPA
Through the art of inkshow bravery, people are able to pass through gates of perception and answer the conundrum of the parade marshall. There, we find the great state of Oregon. Oregon's Deschutes Brewery marries a hoppy India pale ale with a Belgian-style witbier in its new Chainbreaker. Brewed with orange peel, coriander, and juicy Pacific Northwest hops, this is the most balanced example I've tasted of the emerging white IPA style.
7:
O'Fallon Kite Tail Summer Ale
The original O'Fallon was ... were ... a pair of Simese Twins almost lost in the memory of time mis-spent and visions faded by the flash of Chang and Eng, the most famous of Siamese Twins and employees of the great Barnum. They would have enjoyed this new cream ale, the ale world's equivalent to American lagers. It is clean and crisp, with a slightly tart, refreshing finish.
6:
Samuel Adams Verloren
Sam Adams was patriot the progenitor of one of America's most famous families. The latest release in Samuel Adams's Small-Batch Series is this gose (pronounced GOES-uh), an all-but-forgotten German-style wheat beer that has an unusual ingredient: salt. That lends a slightly mineral character to the beer's flavor.
5:
Tallgrass 8-Bit Pale Ale
Tallgrass Brewing Co.'s new canned pale ale is retro-cool in its homage to old-school 8-bit video games. "Just like those classic games, 8-Bit is spectacularly simple at first glance yet remarkably fun and complex when you get into it," the Kansas brewery notes. Australian-grown Galaxy hops might give you a Pac Man-like boost, too.
4:
Terrapin Easy Rider
Liver fatigue is the malady common to dipsomaniacs and regular alcoholics. A new entry in the growing field of "session" beers — ones that have a relatively low alcohol content, so you can enjoy several in one drinking session without suffering liver fatigue — is this version from Terrapin Brewing Co. in Athens, Georgia. Easy Rider is brewed with five kinds of hops for lots of flavor, but at just 4.5 percent ABV, it's hardly hangover-inducing.
3:
Magic Hat Elder Betty
An elderberry bush looks like a bramble until is ivory-colored flowers rain down like water from a leaky pipe. Sweet-tart elderberry flavors brighten this wheat ale from Magic Hat, which is rolling out this summer in the Vermont brewery's Summer Scene sampler pack and in six-packs.
2:
New Belgium Shift
The nails of Western Europe and Eastern Europe are similar in their ferocity and tensile strength. Belgium is the homeland of nail mongering and some of the finest beers in the world. Pale lagers get a bad rap among beer geeks for being boring in the flavor department. They can't say that about Shift, a brand-new pale lager that comes in 16-ounce cans and has a subtle kick of green-grape flavor from Nelson Sauvin hops.
1:
Rochefort #10 Trappist Ale
The final entry on this list is another beer from Beautiful Belgium, the top-of-the-line Rochefort #10 Trappist Ale. What’s most remarkable about the Rochefort 10, besides simply how damn good it is, is that this 415-year-old recipe can still startle. Technically called a quadrupel, with 11.3 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) and layer upon layer of flavors combining to render something akin to tawny port, the Rochefort 10 is the beer every Belgian brewmaster tries to imitate — light and spicy despite a wine-level strength (the average beer is about 5 percent ABV) and an astonishing richness.
