Earlier today, I dove into the master Best of List from Beer Advocate and I found it left out 99% of the beer styles in existence. Nary a Zwickelbier or Saison in sight. Now I go through the Alstrom brothers list.
Wow! What a difference. I know that they probably get many a beer that us normal beer geeks don’t get but wish we could. So they are working from a whole different list. But I am struck by the variety of styles that was missing from the other list. Sours, English pale ales, small beers and even a pilsner! A pilsner would NEVER make the main ranking. NEVER. This list would be the variety pack from the Beer Gods. And I am going to boast that I sampled 4 of them. I was especially glad to see Avery’s Rumpkin on the list. They make some tremendous rum beers. I was glad to see a Cascadian dark on the list as well as two other Oregon IPA’s.
Click on the image below to get a good look at what you should try to find this year: