the voice of great antiquity

Fun question! Here’s my top 5, roughly in order: 

Heady Topper, The Alchemist Pub and Brewery

At the moment I’m writing this, two major trends seem to be dominating the discussion in the craft beer community: the rise and fetishization of tiny nanobreweries and the production of incredibly fresh IPAs, to be consumed as quickly after bottling as possible. At the intersection of these fads, consider the Alchemist Brewery, a tiny brewery in Waterbury, VT, and its flagship beer, Heady Topper.

People compare Heady Topper to Russian River’s Pliny the Elder, by consensus the most highly-rated IPA around. I just drank a week-old Pliny and a month-old Heady (with a Three Floyds Dreadnaught and some fresh Ithaca Flower Power to boot!), and the Heady makes its competitors look like amateur night. It’s aggressive and bold, a big leering lip-smacking tropical fruit bomb to start, with a lingering resiny finish that builds and builds as you drink more. Its 8% ABV is noticeable but agreeable, well-balanced along all that gorgeous flavor. It’s an absolute masterpiece, everything any IPA lover could possibly want in a beer. Although it drops off when stored for a while, it’s still amazing after a month. And if you want it, you’d better drive to Waterbury, VT, and buy it at the brewery. The folks at the Alchemist are justly proud of Heady; after a catastrophic flood destroyed their downtown Waterbury brewpub after Hurricane Irene, it is the only beer they currently make. 

And more importantly, Heady might herald a sea change in how we perceive New England’s place in American craft beer - there are a handful of breweries in rural northern Vermont that are operating at this incredibly high standard of craftsmanship, and none of them distribute much outside their home state. New England - the East Coast, for that matter - hasn’t ever seen anything like this. Heady Topper is worth every bit of hype that’s been thrust its way. Heady Topper is the best IPA in the world, bar none.

Birth of Tragedy, Hill Farmstead Brewery

Forty miles down the road in Greensboro Bend, VT, Shaun Hill is changing the craft beer world as we know it. His Hill Farmstead Brewery - effectively a one-man operation, located in an old barn on land his family has farmed for generations - is consistently turning out some incredibly innovative beers, few of which ever even make it to bottles. Consequently, weekend mornings see an affable Hill greeting visitors who’ve driven hours from Boston and Montreal to visit his tiny retail shop, primarily for growler fills. Hill likes to experiment with small-batch single-hop pale ales, funky saisons, and barrel-aged porters, and he rarely fails - a testament to his years of experience brewing in Europe and the obvious knowledge he’s gleaned from effective partnerships with Denmark’s Mikkeller and Tampa’s Cigar City breweries.

I could have made this list “Top 5 Hill Farmstead beers of 2011” and it’d have been totally viable. I’ve tasted incredible black IPAs, wine barrel-aged farmhouse ales, citrus stouts, double IPAs, and American brown ales with Hill’s imprimatur upon them in 2011, and they’d all be the envy of dozens of lesser breweries. But I keep coming back to Birth of Tragedy - a dark, complex imperial porter brewed with coffee and honey, its flavor profile amplified by the bourbon barrels. It’s hard to imagine a better Hill beer anytime soon - and yet given Hill’s track record, I don’t doubt that one is right around the corner.

Imperial Eclipse Stout (Elijah Craig 18 Year), FiftyFifty Brewing Company

It’s sort of a case of death by a thousand cuts when you begin nitpicking big booming barrel-aged stouts like this, but this is the most I’ve ever instinctively liked a beer of this style, and that’s counting a lot of barrel-aged stouts. A huge, outrageous take on the style, its booziness high up in the mix, super woody and leathery, probably for enthusiasts only, but a thrill ride for those folks all the way. Currently trying to put a complete horizontal together of all the 2011 varieties; by consensus this seems to be the best of the bunch, but the others aren’t too shabby either.

Highland Wild Ale, Olde Burnside Brewing Company

My favorite out-of-left-field find of 2011, courtesy of an East Hartford brewery that mostly makes nondescript Scotch ales and English bitters. This is their first attempt at a sour, and it’s a marvel. A bold, lactic, smoky oud bruin, with increasing maltiness as the beer warms up; the oaky character takes some time to develop, and provides an interesting counterpoint to the initial tartness. It kinda functions as a creamier, fuller Rodenbach - that Scotch ale character is never absent, but it’s always on the cusp of being eclipsed by something much more overpowering. Nonetheless, it’s a strikingly unique and forward-thinking beer; how many sour Scotch ales are there, really? 

Unnamed black IPA, Eric Marklein

One of the very best black IPAs I tasted this year, notable both for its quality relative to other black IPAs (which are notoriously hard to brew well) and its source - my buddy Eric’s kitchen! I realize this is the equivalent of putting your friend’s band in your top 10, but hear me out: I know a ton of people who brew, and I drank a ton of bad homebrew in 2011. So at the risk of doin’ the brown-nose: Eric’s been brewing for a few years, and his beers have quickly developed a bit of a pleasant, idiosyncratic identity; I would have never thought a black IPA with this much Galaxy would work, but he managed to rein in the grassiness and create something that was multidimensional, yet showcased the nice roasty malt/hoppy dichotomy that makes this style such a pleasure. Again: not easy for the homebrewer, and Eric knocked it out of the park.

And if that sea change I mentioned earlier is really happening, it’s beers like this that I want to drink, and which ultimately sum up what’s happening in brewing this year: complex and thoughtful and well-rounded and altogether a step above your basic small-batch stuff. The first homebrew I’ve ever had that makes me wish someone would quit their day job. I wanna encourage him to keep making stuff like this, because holy shit do I wanna keep drinking it. 

As for worst beer: I dunno, Short’s Cornholio maybe? I can battle my way through a bottle of almost anything, but this was pretty rough; I expected way more from a Three Floyds/Short’s/Dogfish collaboration, but it tasted like someone was microwaving popcorn in my mouth. No thanks.