The Beer Bucket List E-Book

Mark Dredge

• Herausgeber: CICO Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 437

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Join award-winning beer writer Mark Dredge on his search for the world's best beer adventures and experiences. This collection of over 150 unmissable beer experiences features the world's greatest beers, bars, breweries and events: it's the ultimate bucket list for every beer lover. Combining travel, city guides, food and history, The Beer Bucket List takes you around the globe, via traditional old British pubs, quirky Belgian bars, brilliant Bavarian brauhauses, spots to enjoy delicious food and beer, the hop gardens of New Zealand, Southeast Asia's buzzing streets, amazing beer festivals, unique beer styles, pioneering breweries and the best new craft brewers. This is any beer lover's must-read book about the most essential beer experiences on the planet.

Leseprobe

THEBEERBUCKETLIST

THEBEERBUCKETLIST

OVER 150 ESSENTIAL BEER EXPERIENCESFROM AROUND THE WORLD

Mark Dredge

Published in 2018 by Dog ‘n’ Bone Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

20–21 Jockey’s Fields 341 E 116th St

London WC1R 4BW New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text © Mark Dredge 2018

Design © Dog ‘n’ Bone Books 2018

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

ISBN: 978 1 911026 27 3

eISBN: 978 1 911026 97 6

Printed in China

Editor: Caroline West

Designer: Eoghan O’Brien

Illustrations: Stephen Dew

Photography credits: See below

Key: t=top; b=bottom; l=left; r=right; m=middle; c=centerp2 tl, tr, mc Matthew Curtis; mr, bl, br Mark Dredge; p6 Matthew Curtis; p8 Matthew Curtis; p9 Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald/Getty Images; p11 Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald/Getty Images; p12 Matthew Curtis; p13 Mark Dredge; p14 iStock; p15 Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe/Getty Images; p17 Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; p19 Spencer Platt/Getty Images; p21 Scott Eells/Bloomberg/Getty Images; p23 Mark Dredge; p24 George Rose/Getty Images; pp27–p30 Mark Dredge; p31 Anthony Tahlier/Corridor Brewery and Provisions; p32 Mark Dredge; p33 Band of Bohemia; p34 John Gress/Corbis/Getty Images; p35 Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune/Getty Images; p36 Found Image Press/Corbis/Getty Images; p37 Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; p38 Gary Porter/The Washington Post/Getty Images; pp41–p42 Mark Dredge; p43 Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg/Getty Images; pp44–p46 Matthew Curtis; p47 Mark Dredge; p48 Matthew Curtis; p49 Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images; p50 Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; p51 Matthew Curtis; p53 Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; p55 Ken James/Bloomberg/Getty Images; p56 Matthew Curtis; p58 Hemis/Alamy Stock Photo; p60 George Ostertag/Alamy Stock Photo; p61 Felix Choo/Alamy Stock Photo; p63 Jay Reilly/Aurora/Getty Images; p65 Hemis/Alamy Stock Photo; p66 Kaz Ehara/Toronto Star/Getty Images; p67 Connie Tsang/Cask Days; pp68–p73 Matthew Curtis; p74 LatitudeStock—David Williams/Gallo Images/Getty Images; p75 Print Collector/Getty Images; pp76–p78 Matthew Curtis; p79 FourPure; p81 Andrew Errington/Getty Images; p84 SSPL/Getty Images; p85 RDImages/Epics/Getty Images; p87 Patti Nickell/Lexington Herald-Leader/MCT/Getty Images; p89 Jon Lewis/Alamy Stock Photo; p90 Matthew Curtis; p92 ToniFlap/ iStock; pp93–p96 Matthew Curtis; p98 Mr Standfast/Alamy Stock Photo; p99 Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile/Getty Images; p100 Fishman/ullstein bild/Getty Images; p103 UIG/Getty Images; p104 Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg/Getty Images; p105 Alan Copson/Getty Images; p107 Artur Widak/NurPhoto/Getty Images; p108 Barry Mason/Alamy Stock Photo; p109 John Baran/ Alamy Stock Photo; p110 Tibor Bognar/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images; p112 Forster/ullstein bild/Getty Images; p113 Bruce Yuanyue Bi/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; p115 Mark Dredge; p117 manfredxy/iStock; p118 Andrew Bain/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; p119 Bob Pool/Getty Images; p121 Jon Hicks/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images; p122 Florian Gaertner/Photothek/Getty Images; p123 Leber/ullstein bild/Getty Images; p124 Mark Dredge; p127 Pilsner Urquell; p128 Cultura RM Exclusive/UBACH/DE LA RIVA/Getty Images; p129 Matej Divizna/Getty Images; p131 Westend61/Getty Images; p132 Baladin; p133 Birrificio Italiano; p135 Jumping Rocks/UIG/Getty Images; p136 Philippe Lissac/Corbis Documentary/ Getty Images; p138 Fred de Noyelle/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images; pp140–p141 Matthew Curtis; pp142–p143 Mark Dredge; p145 William Van Hecke/Corbis/Getty Images; p147 Matthew Curtis; pp148–p149 Mark Dredge; p150 Krzysztof Dydynski/ Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; p151–p153 Mark Dredge; p155 Werner Dieterich/Getty Images; p157 Mark Dredge; p159 Yadid Levy/robertharding/Getty Images; pp160–p161 Mikkeller; p163 Gerard Puigmal/Getty Images; p164 Dean Conger/Corbis/ Getty Images; pp166–p168 Mark Dredge; p171 Andrew Watson/Getty Images; p173–p174 Mark Dredge; p175 Peter Harrison/ Getty Images; p177 Simon Shiff/Melbourne Good Beer Week; p178 Loop Images/UIG/Getty Images; p181–p182 Tim Cuff/Alamy Stock Photo; p185 Mark Dredge; p187 Robin Bush/Getty Images; p188 Matthew Curtis; p190 Mark Dredge; p191 Matthew Curtis; p192 Wibowo Rusli/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; p193 Mark Dredge; p195 Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images; pp197–p201 Mark Dredge; p202 Kim Won-Jin/AFP/Getty Images; p204 Mark Dredge; p205 Brent Lewin/Bloomberg/ Getty Images; p207 Pradeep Gaur/Mint/Getty Images; pp208–p209 Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg/Getty Images; p210 Volksblad/Gallo Images/Getty Images, p211 Johnny Greig/Alamy Stock Photo; p212 Mujahid Safodien/AFP/Getty Images; p215 Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images; p217 Mario Tama/Getty Images; p218 larigan - Patricia Hamilton/Getty Images; p221 Bruce Yuanyue Bi/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images

Contents

Introduction

CHAPTER 1North America

CHAPTER 2United Kingdom and Ireland

CHAPTER 3Europe

CHAPTER 4Australia and New Zealand

CHAPTER 5Rest of the World

Index

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Beer Bucket List is a collection of essential world beer experiences. It’s the most important old breweries and the industry-changing new ones; it’s the greatest world beer bars and pubs; the unmissable beer festivals; the most delicious destinations for beer and food; the must-visit cities to go to drinking; the unexpected, the unusual, the unknown, the classics, the most famous, the best. And out of a global search it’s wonderfully become a local celebration of the world’s beer diversity.

The author adding another tick to the list.

You can use The Beer Bucket List as a drink-before-you-kick-it list, if you like, but you might need to live forever to complete it. I haven’t completed my own beer bucket list yet and that’s mainly because I’m adding things quicker than they’re being ticked off.

While I searched the world for beer experiences, I was continually surprised by what I was finding: the hop-growing region of North Patagonia; the Middle East’s first brewpub in Batroun, Lebanon; the super high-end breweries in Western Australia’s wine-growing region; the cities in India with 25 brewpubs; the increasing number and quality of Thai beers coming out of a country in which it’s effectively illegal to brew; the community Zoigl brewhouses of northeast Bavaria. In fact, the more I looked the more I found. And not just a few unexpectedly located bars with a few taps, but genuinely unique things that show just how craft beer and local beer cultures are found everywhere.

My challenge was working out what counted as being worthy of going on a bucket list for the serious beer lover. It couldn’t just be a bunch of nice pubs and cool breweries which you should go to if you’re passing. It had to be definitive, selective, and had to go further than what’s in your glass—it’s about the travel, the discovery, the experience.

Some beer things are unequivocal beer bucket list ticks. They are the wonders of the beer world, where the equivalent of the Northern Lights would be the Pilsner Urquell cellars or Munich’s Oktoberfest. Some ticks are more specific, like swimming with sharks or running a marathon, in that it takes a certain kind of person to want to do them—drinking Lithuania’s farmhouse ales is one such example, as is having a pint in the Arctic Circle. Sometimes a tick is earned by going somewhere because that’s the only place, or the best place, you can drink a certain beer or beer style: Czech Polotmavy, Vietnamese bia hoi, West Midlands Milds—that’s the same as going to Israel or Italy or Peru to eat the local food.

There are quirks of the beer world that few people know about, like the Belgian bar that only opens for a few hours on Sunday morning and only sells sour beer, or there’s the pub in northern England that serves all its ales directly from wooden barrels. Then there’s the personal side of a bucket list where going to a favorite brewery allows you to taste something beyond just the ingredients used in the recipe.

There have been countless brilliant surprises while I’ve been working through my own beer bucket list and I now have new favorite bars, breweries, beers, and beer cities, and I’m more excited by the world of beer than I’ve ever been before. It also excites me that I’ve still got a lot more beer to drink before I even get close to completing my list. Until then, this is The Beer Bucket List, and these are the world’s essential beer experiences.

TOP 10 BEER BUCKET LIST TICKS

• See the Burton Unions at Marston’s Brewery, England (see page 85)

• Drink in the Pilsner Urquell brewery cellars in Plzen, Czech Republic (see page 126)

• Visit the brewing Trappist monasteries in Belgium (see page 138)

• Go to Cantillon in Brussels and drink Belgian Lambic (see page 147)

• Go to Oktoberfest in Munich (see page 111)

• Drink Zoiglbier in Oberpfalz, Germany (see page 114)

• Drink Guinness in Dublin, Ireland (see page 106)

• Visit Sierra Nevada Brewing Co, Chico, while on a California road trip (see page 54)

• The Great American Beer Festival (see page 46)

• Go to The Mussel Inn, Onekaka, New Zealand (see page 180)

Chapter 1

North America

Drink Allagash Brewery’s White

MAINE’S MOST-LOVED BEER

In 1995, when Rob Tod opened a brewery in Portland, Maine, that only made a cloudy, Belgian-style White Ale, people thought he was bonkers. He started brewing this beer because he wanted something different and unique that you couldn’t already get. Trouble was, there was probably a reason why you couldn’t get it in Portland: no one actually wanted it. Or they didn’t—yet. But Rob persevered through a tough decade and now Allagash White is Portland’s—and Maine’s—beer.

White is smooth and creamy; the spices—curaçao, orange peel, and coriander seed—play in the background; and there’s some fruity yeast. It’s gentle with underlying power and depth, a versatile beer that’s sessionable yet complex, familiar yet exciting, and the ultimate beer for food.

Allagash Brewery runs free tours around their impressive facility. You can’t buy any beer to drink there, though; instead, everyone who visits gets a 3-oz (85-ml) pour from each of the four taps. The beers change and you can come in every day, if you wish, and get the four free pours. It’s a nice, generous approach to the tasting room and one that encourages people to visit, but then also to go into town to drink Allagash beers in the bars.

To reflect their love of Belgian-style beers, Allagash installed a coolship in 2007 and produce a small range of spontaneously fermented beers to go alongside an extensive barrel-aging program. These are all very good. The coolship beers are comparable to the best Belgian Lambics, while the barrel sours are complex, elegant, and nuanced.

You walk into Allagash and it’s warm, friendly, and welcoming. The simple generosity of offering a few good beers for free is something you don’t see in many places, so visit the brewery, go on the tour, have your beers, then head into town and drink some more Allagash White—it’s a wonderful, pioneering beer and you should raise a pint to Rob Tod for his focused dedication and the way in which he gave Portland, Maine, its most important beer.

Make sure you sign up for a free tour at Allagash.

The Lowdown

WHAT: Allagash Brewing Company

HOW: Open every day, from 11am to 6pm (www.allagash.com).

WHERE: 50 Industrial Way, Portland, Maine 04103, USA

LOCAL TIP: A Brewery Secret…

You get four small pours of beer at Allagash, but, if you look closely, you’ll see there’s another tap. Ask your battender about the “fifth tap.”

Drink in Portland, Maine

THE OTHER BEERVANA

America is flanked by two Portlands, one in Oregon (see page 58) and one in Maine; two lighthouse beer destinations, two beacons of brewing. Oregon’s Portland is known as Beervana, but I think you can safely say there’s a Beervana on each coast because Portland, Maine, is a must-visit beer destination.

Great beer cities have certain features in common. They’re usually built on the foundation of some long-standing brewers, alongside a drive of new breweries that are typically established in regenerating neighborhoods, with most opening their doors so you can drink the beer where it’s made. There’ll be at least one classic or legendary pub that’s been around for decades, probably creating the city’s early interest in beer or at least giving people the beer they didn’t realize they wanted yet, and then there’ll be some standout pubs and bars that sell beer from all over the town, state, country, or world. Add good food, easy accessibility and travel, and a strong community feeling, and that’s how beer-city destinations pull you in. Both beery Portlands have all these things. Here’s the important stuff to know about the one in Maine.

The classic brewers include Allagash (see page 9), Shipyard (86 Newbury Street, Portland, Maine 04101), and Geary’s (38 Evergreen Drive, Portland, Maine 04103), the latter two specializing in British-style beers.

There are more than a dozen new or newer breweries that you should definitely try and get to. Bissell Brothers (4 Thompson’s Point Road, Portland, Maine 04102) produce some exceptional beers in the zeitgeist style of New England IPAs. Their Swish DIPA is sensational, a wowing beer that’s fresh and tangy like juice, intensely aromatically hopped, slick and smooth and satisfying to drink, with a fullness of body that pushes the juicy hops forward, then, importantly, leads to a clean and dry finish (something that’s often missing in this kind of brew). Bissell’s current location is their second home, as they started out in the space left vacant by the Maine Beer Co. (see page 12) when they moved to nearby Freeport. These two breweries are Portland-important for an additional reason: the brewing space they once used is across the street from Allagash and that industrial complex now has (at the time of writing) three breweries: Foundation, Austin Street, and Battery Steele (all at 1 Industrial Way, Portland, Maine 04103). All are open to the public, but have limited hours, so check ahead before visiting—you’ll want to go to these breweries when you visit Allagash. It’s a beer hub on the edge of town and also close to Geary’s.

Downtown Portland has the rest of the best breweries and it’s possible to walk or get short cab journeys or ride-shares between them all—opening hours aren’t consistent, so check ahead before visiting. Liquid Riot (250 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine 04101) is an essential stop by the waterfront in the center of town. It’s a huge corner brewery, distillery, and restaurant—the food is good and the beers are varied and very tasty. Oxbow Blending & Bottling (49 Washington Avenue, Portland, Maine 04101) is a cool space—a big, open drinking area in an industrial unit. They have barrels and also a space to blend the beers, but no brewkit there (that’s an hour north-east from Portland). Beers include the excellently hoppy Luppolo dry-hopped lager and a range of Saison-inspired beers, including Farmhouse Pale Ale, which has fruity hops meeting fruity-spicy yeast. Rising Tide (103 Fox Street, Portland, Maine 04101) is an industrial space that’s popular with locals. Their Ishmael is a good Altbier-ish kind of Amber that makes a nice change from all the IPAs you’ll have been drinking.

For something a little different, go to Urban Farm Fermentory (200 Anderson Street, Portland, Maine 04101). They make beer, cider, mead, kombucha, and jun, all on a small scale and all using local and foraged ingredients. Some beers are hop-free, while others contain Maine-grown hops; they use kombucha and jun cultures in some of their beers, while the fruits and spices in the beers are all handled subtly. It’s a fascinating exploration of fermentation and you shouldn’t skip it.

Across the bridge in South Portland, there’s Foulmouthed Brewing (15 Ocean Street, South Portland, Maine 04106). I didn’t love their beers or the food—I think I went on a bad day, as a lot of the locals said I should go. Fore River Brewing (45 Huntress Avenue, South Portland, Maine 04106) was one of the places I didn’t manage to get to, as was Bunker Brewing (Unit D, 17 Westfield Street, Portland, Maine 04102), which is out near Bissell. And, almost opposite Urban Farm Fermentory, is Lone Pine (219 Anderson Street, Portland, Maine 04101), which opened soon after I visited.

The classic pub in town is The Great Lost Bear (540 Forest Avenue, Portland, Maine 04101), which is, for me, the quintessential old American beer bar, the kind of place that’s the complete opposite to bare bricks and back-bars lined with identical tap handles. This pub has old brewery neons, mirrors, and signs on the walls, old beer cans, and lots of knick-knacks and tat collected over the years; it has the right kind of darkness, over-friendly service (edged with a little I-don’t-actually-care), music from a couple of decades ago that you know all the words to, TV screens that never shift from the sports channels, bellybusting bar food, lots of different spaces (meaning you can hide in the back somewhere or head to the bar and sit next to a local for a chat), and all accompanied by 70-odd draft lines, mostly from Maine. The Bear has been an institution since 1979 and you have to go.

Bissell Brothers have earned an enviable reputation for impressive IPAs.

The go-to geek bar is Novare Res Bier Café (4 Canal Plaza, Portland, Maine 04101), which is hidden down some backstreets and feels like a bunker. It has a lot of Maine drafts and many guest brews, including some lesser-seen European imports. The bottle list is excellent if you love Belgian and Belgian-style beers, including some of the hard-to-find Allagash catalog. I preferred drinking in the King’s Head (254 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine 04101) and at the Mash Tun (29 Wharf Street, Portland, Maine 04101) for their local beer ranges, cozier spaces, and less nerdy atmospheres, so head to those for a different and—for me—better experience.

Portland is famous for its great seafood. J’s Oyster (5 Portland Pier, Portland, Maine 04101) is a little shack by the water, old-timey, well worn by locals and tourists, and an institution in town. There are oysters, of course, but get a lobster roll with an Allagash White for a proper Portland lunch. Across town is Eventide (86 Middle Street, Portland, Maine 04101), the modern evolution of the seafood shack, which has a list of oysters from both Maine and other states, served with a flavored ice. Their decadent lobster roll is like a buttery sponge topped with brownbuttered lobster and there are a dozen local beers on tap.

Portland, Maine, is definitely a destination for beer lovers and it has all of the attributes you could want from a complete beer city. I still can’t make up my mind whether I prefer the beer beacon of Portland in Oregon or Portland in Maine, though I do crave Allagash and Bissell beers and wasting hours in the Bear after having amazing seafood for lunch…

Maine Beer Co.

BREWING GREAT BEER AND GIVING BACK TO THE WORLD

Around 16 miles (26km) from downtown Portland is Freeport, where you’ll find Maine Beer Co. They started out in the hot-spot brewing incubator a block from Allagash—in fact, they created that space in 2009—and are now revered for their wonderfully hoppy ales and commitment to their mission statement: “Do What’s Right.”

The beers are in the hazy, hoppy style and are elegant, clean, and balanced—and so hoppy they’ll make you say “wow” out loud. Lunch is a great example of a powerful IPA and big beer that’s incredibly drinkable and fresh, all with bitterness, balance, and a bright flavor through the middle, while Mo is a tropical-scented Pale Ale that’s lush and lovely.

The Maine Beer Co. follows “1% for the planet” by donating 1% of gross profit to environmental non-profits. Their motto also encourages them to be as sustainable as possible: they are very low-waste and solar panels off-set their energy use, helping them as they head toward being off-grid. And they donate money to a whole range of different charities and not-for-profit organizations, with the goal of creating a sustainable relationship between their beer and our planet.

Their “Do What’s Right” mission statement is built on three pillars: producing outstanding beer, giving back, and smiling every day. That smile sums up the whole place perfectly. Maine Beer Co. do everything right.

The Lowdown

WHAT: Maine Beer Co.

HOW: The tasting room is open Monday to Saturday, 11am–8pm, and Sunday, 11am–5pm (www.mainebeercompany.com).

WHERE: 525 U.S. Route 1, Freeport, Maine 04032, USA

With their charitable ethos, Maine Beer Co. are going out of their way to validate the saying that beer people are good people.

Go to Hill Farmstead Brewery

THE FABLED BREWER OF SOME OF THE WORLD’S BEST BEERS

It’s not easy to get to Hill Farmstead. Or, at least, it’s not quick to get there and you can’t just “pop in for a pint.” You have to plan ahead, you have to know that you’ll be driving down country lanes for miles, you have to know that there’ll likely be a long line when you do get there. But it’s all worth it because they genuinely brew some of the world’s best beers (and there’s a great view while you wait to get a drink).

What makes their beers so good is an elegance, depth, and clarity of flavor that few others can achieve. Their Pale Ales, IPAs, and DIPAs are hazy and have a pleasing roundness, with an abundant fresh fruitiness from the hops, but it’s always in balance, always exceptional, and there’s something taut and yet restrained about these beers. Their Saisons are extraordinary for their lightness and yet unrivaled depth, a dance of ethereal yeast and playful, teasing bubbles. Very rarely do you find beers that are perfect; at Hill Farmstead, it’s very rare that they aren’t perfect.

The farmstead in North Greensboro, Vermont, has been in Shaun Hill’s family for over 220 years. It’s now where he brews in a smart, modern brewery, far away from anything apart from views of the land. To see this facility on the Hill family’s farmstead, this beautiful barn brewery with its wide-ranging views, to have the anticipation of the journey and to arrive into beer-geek bliss, is an essential world-beer experience. The beers might be hyped up, but it’s not the fan-boy, squealing kind of hype that fad brewers receive; this is the venerable respect that only a handful of the world’s greatest brewers can live up to. It’s a pilgrimage beer destination.

The Lowdown

WHAT: Hill Farmstead Brewery

HOW: Open Wednesday to Saturday, 12–5pm (www.hillfarmstead.com).

WHERE: 403 Hill Road, Greensboro, Vermont 05842, USA

It’s one of the more remote breweries you can visit, but it’s well worth the effort to get there.

LOCAL TIP: Be Patient

After the long car journey to Hill Farmstead, you will most likely be in need of a beer. Unfortunately, unless you’re there on a rare quieter day, you’re going to have to stand in one of the long lines made up of with beer lovers desperate to get their hands on the latest limited releases. Don’t panic, it’s worth the wait.

Visit Yuengling Brewery

AMERICA’S OLDEST BREWERY

Yuengling Brewery’s beers might not excite most drinkers, but the brewery has a worthy and relevant place in the Beer Bucket List for its history as America’s oldest brewery still in operation and for being one of its largest breweries today.

Established in 1829 by German émigré brewer David Gottlieb Jüngling—who vaguely Americanized his surname to Yuengling—as The Eagle Brewery, it’s been in the same family ever since, with the fifth-generation David due to pass it on to the sixth-generation in coming years. Their Traditional Lager is the beer to try, a toasty, simple brew with some caramel-y malts and a definite grassy hop character. An eagle on the label makes reference to the original brewery’s name.

The Yuengling Brewery tour is a gap in my Beer Bucket List and so, not having been, I don’t know the full details, but the website promises a look around the hand-dug cellars, where the beer was once stored, and a walk around a site that has lived through so much American history (37 different US presidents have served during Yuengling’s timeline). Plus, the Pottsville location of the brewery has been active since 1831, which is an impressive fact (the original Eagle Brewery burnt down in that year and was rebuilt at a different location).

The Lowdown

WHAT: Yuengling Brewery

HOW: The brewery runs tours on Mondays to Fridays, 10am–1:30pm (roughly on the hour), and on Saturdays, 10:30am–1pm (April to December only on Saturdays). For more details, visit www.yuengling.com.

WHERE: 501 Mahantongo Street, Pottsville, Pennsylvania 17901, USA

Drink at The Alchemist

BECAUSE NOT MUCH TOPS A HEADY

You should go to Vermont to drink beer. Focus on the north of the state in particular, where there’s Burlington, a lakeside college town with some top breweries and bars; south of there you’ll find Fiddlehead Brewery; there’s also Hill Farmstead (see page 13); in Waterbury there’s Prohibition Pig, a brewpub that also has Hill Farmstead taps and often beers from Lawson’s Finest (another Vermont must-drink brewery), including their exceptional Sip of Sunshine Double IPA. The Prohibition Pig is also important, as it was there that The Alchemist’s beers were born and where John and Jen Kimmich brewed until the pub was drowned by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.

The storm came through at what was already a turning point for The Alchemist, a soggy serendipity (or perhaps an omen if you’ve read the book with the same name as the brewery) that led them to turn even further than originally planned. They’d been brewing in the pub since 2003 and making a Double IPA called Heady Topper since 2004—that beer got a lot of attention every time it was released. By 2011 the Kimmiches had decided to build Alchemist Cannery, a 15-barrel brewery and canning line not far from the pub, where they would just brew and can Heady Topper. They filled the first cans two days after the pub flooded, while still assessing the damage and before realizing that the pub had to close.

So their focus changed by necessity. The pub was no more and all their attention went into perfecting Heady Topper, a beer that was already close to perfection for most drinkers. It’s a Double IPA of vibrant fruitiness, upliftingly tropical but not sweet; there is mango and pineapple and some savoriness at the edges, plus a dry bitterness to balance the full, hazy body. It’s only available in cans (apart from in one bar, Hen of the Woods, in Waterbury), all their hoppy stock is turned in a week to ensure freshness, and it’s only sold within a short radius of the brewery.

From being a small-batch brew in a small pub basement, the beer has gone on to grow the Cannery and, in 2016, build a new brewery in Stowe, Vermont that you can visit (all the Heady is still brewed in Waterbury, by the way). At Stowe they brew Focal Banger IPA, Crusher Imperial IPA, and Beelzebub Imperial Stout, plus others, and you can visit and get three samples (one each of the three main hoppy brews) to taste and buy four-packs to take away.

Heady Topper is one of the world’s best IPAs, a beer that’s sought after around the world, but one you need to travel for if you want to drink it fresh. Go to Stowe, have some tasters, and buy fresh four-packs, before heading to Waterbury to drink in the Prohibition Pig and the Blackback Pub, working your way through their excellent beer lists. Then find somewhere to go and drink the cans of Alchemist beers as fresh as possible, ideally with a wonderful view of the Vermont countryside. Some Beer Bucket List ticks are as simple as drinking fresh beer near where it’s made, and this is one of them.

John and Jen Kimmich at their brewery.

The Lowdown

WHAT: The Alchemist

HOW: Open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am–7pm (www.alchemistbeer.com).

WHERE: 100 Cottage Club Road, Stowe, Vermont 05672, USA

Drink at Brooklyn Brewery

THE BOROUGH’S FLAGSHIP BEER DESTINATION

Brooklyn Brewery is important for brightening its borough and returning brewing to the neighborhood, as well as for being a must-visit beer destination—and a must-visit for everyone, from locals to beer geeks to city tourists.

Blaring beats on the stereo, bold and bright designs all around, and the kind of atmosphere that’s formed by shared bench seating and great brews are what to expect at Brooklyn Brewery. There are around 14 taps, plus special bottle pours, with some brews only to be found in the taproom. When you enter, you’ll swap dollars for tokens, with most beers costing one token (US$5) and some being as much as four tokens.

Have a Brooklyn Lager. It’s a beer you’ll no doubt already know, but this is the place to re-acquaint yourself with it and to understand how it was able to build the brewery. Sorachi Ace is a favorite of mine, a beer that’s spicy, zesty, lemony, and peppery, with a creaminess running through it all and ending with a long dryness. And always look for some of the super-rare bottles to share.

On Fridays they run free brewery tours and there’ll be a line of people outside before the doors open. The tour is worth going on. It lasts for 30 minutes and is loud and fast, though don’t necessarily expect to learn how to become a brewmaster—instead you’ll hear fun stories about the brewery and its history. There’s a pizza truck outside for when you get hungry.

The Lowdown

WHAT: Brooklyn Brewery

HOW: Free brewery tours on Fridays (at 7pm and 8pm) and the brewery opens on Saturdays and Sundays (from midday, with free tours half-hourly). From Monday to Thursday, there are paid-for tours at 5pm (www.brooklynbrewery.com).

WHERE: 79 North 11th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11249, USA

Brooklyn Beer Crawl

Go to Other Half (195 Centre Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231) for their exceptional hoppy beers—this is the most essential Brooklyn beer-stop, even if the location means basically standing up in a cramped-in space, wedged at the open end of their brewhouse. (FYI: the brewery is opposite a McDonald’s if you want to know what world-class IPAs taste like with chicken nuggets.) Threes Brewing (333 Douglass Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217) is a fun space, with great beers and barbecue food. Closer to Brooklyn Brewery is Greenpoint (7 north 15th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11222), which is another fun brewpub with good beers. Tørst (615 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222) is the go-to, beer-nerd bar.

Brooklyn Brewery has been at the heart of the New York craft beer scene since its inception in 1988.

McSorley’s Old Ale House

A MUST-VISIT MANHATTAN INSTITUTION

There’s an article from The New Yorker, available online, which describes in beautiful detail what it’s like to drink in McSorley’s, a Manhattan pub that opened in 1854. It was published in 1940 and brought a new focus to this old tavern. In the story you can feel the deep character of the place; you can sense how it’s remained unchanged for decades; you almost blow the dust from your screen as you read it and hear the roaring chorus of drunk Irish men from a century ago. Read the piece before you go, as you’ll realize that nothing about this place has changed and there’s nowhere quite like it.

If you go during busy times, then you’ll have to wait outside. Step inside and it’s literally spit and sawdust. The staff—dressed in old-style uniforms—are so busy and disinterested that you’d better be ready to order from the moment you walk in, but also ready to wait your turn. There are two beers: pale and dark. Order a beer and you’ll get two glasses—order three pales and you’ll get six glasses. Got it? Each are poured with a thick, Czech-style foam into small, chunky, robust glasses that can withstand the staff grabbing them half-a-dozen to a hand and drinkers crashing them together when saying cheers. The beers are decent, without needing colorful tasting notes, and evoke old-timey tastes; think Amber-ish lager with some richer malts and a rougher finish, with the dark a midpoint between a Schwarzbier and a Porter. But you aren’t really there for the liquid; it’s the liquid history that matters.

It’s Manhattan’s oldest continually operated saloon and began as an Irish working-man’s bar. Supposedly Abe Lincoln and John Lennon drank there. It’s inspired poems, paintings, and plays. It survived Prohibition, though you can’t imagine them ever not selling alcohol. Their philosophy of “Good Ale, Raw Onions, and No Ladies” lasted until 1970 when females were finally allowed inside—but only after an order from the court (a women’s restroom was only added in 1986 and it wasn’t until 1994 that the first female worked behind the bar). The male restrooms, by the way, are marvelous, and no matter how many beers you’ve had, you can’t possibly fail to hit the huge urinal. It’s a Top 10 Pub Restroom Tick, if anyone is interested in completing that list…

The bar is packed and raucous, almost as if people behave differently there, as if they have a pass to act like riotously drunk Irish men. You’ll be packed inside, sharing tables stacked with beers. It’s certainly touristy, but almost in the way that Katz’s Deli, another local institution, is. People come here for something unique and they get it. There’s a resistance to change, but that makes it feel as though you’re stood drinking in a lively bar over 150 years ago, which creates an inimitable beer experience.

It’s a pub of cultural, social, and historic importance, a timemachine drinking experience that’ll make you wish time travel is actually possible. As well as all of that, it’s just a damn fun place to have a few glasses of beer.

The Lowdown

WHAT: McSorley’s Old Ale House

HOW: If you want a calmer experience to take it all in properly, go on a midweek afternoon. If you want the full madness, then go on the weekend (www.mcsorleysoldalehouse.nyc).

WHERE: 15 East 7th Street, New York, NY 10003, USA

The walls of McSorley’s are heavy with the weight of tall tales and lively discussions from the thousands of drinkers who have passed through its doors.

Go to the Home of Extreme Beer

DOGFISH HEAD: ONE OF MY TOP BEER BUCKET LIST TICKS

I had the idea for The Beer Bucket List when I was thinking about some of the world breweries I wanted to drink at, but had never visited before. There were many in the US and Dogfish Head was at the top of the list.

A decade ago, as I was just getting interested in beer and looking beyond the local selection, Dogfish Head was the ultimate symbol of difference. It was an “extreme” side of things that most appealed to me, the way in which they were brewing beers unlike anyone else—beers toward the extremities of brewing in terms of strengths and ingredients—but also how they made their Ancient Ales or how they barrel-aged beers or used unusual ingredients. The idea of “Off-Centered Ales” made them the antitheses of boring British beer and I was desperate to drink them. Finally, I’ve now been there.

The brewery is not the most convenient place to get to, being around a three-hour drive from the nearest major airport, but it’s worth the effort. A steampunk treehouse stands in front of the vast brewery and leads you into the bright, glass-fronted tasting room. Inside, anyone who visits can get four 3-oz (85-ml) tastes of any beers on tap and there’ll be around 20 taps to choose from. You can also buy pints and additional tasters, or get growlers filled. Next door is a store selling bottles, growlers, and merchandise, and there’s also a food truck. The tasting room is where you begin. You go, have a beer or two, go on the tour, and then move to their pub, Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats (320 Rehoboth Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware 19971).

This is where Dogfish Head started in 1995, brewing on a tiny kit (then the smallest commercial brewery in the country) and only after changing local legislation—it was The First State’s first brewpub. It’s now a classic, all-American, all-star quarterback of a bar, the kind of place you’ve seen in a hundred movies, but never quite experienced in real life, somewhere with soul, characters, stories. There are 25-plus taps of Dogfish beers, including rare vintages and brewpub exclusives. The food is also really good and you’ll want to eat it.

I started with a 60 Minute IPA—I might initially have been drawn to the extreme beers, but I wanted their hero brew first. It’s a 6.0% ABV American IPA and has that proper old-school, citrus peel and pith quality. It’s a classic beer that deserves attention and, by the end of the night, it’s what I wanted to drink more of, going through the extremities and back to the grounding of this fine IPA. There’s also 90 Minute, their 9.0% ABV Double IPA and one that shares a family resemblance with the 60 Minute. It’s deep gold, with a toasty malt sweetness that smothers the ABV; there are hops all through it, but not the bursting, vibrant kind of modern hops—it’s more oily and rich with flavor and bitterness. These were beers I had loved reading about years ago; I loved the story of Sam Calagione, the brewery’s founder, developing a machine that could add hops continuously to these IPAs for 60 or 90 minutes. It’s easy to get complacent about important older breweries, focusing more on the newcomers, but Dogfish Head is one of America’s most important breweries.

After the IPAs, I wanted some of the extreme beers. Palo Santo Marron, their 12.0% ABV Brown Ale, is aged in 10,000-gallon (45,000-liter) vessels made from Paraguayan Palo Santo wood. It’s like a truffle, deep with dark fruits and chocolate, caramel, and vanilla. The wooden barrels—there are two—are the largest ones made in the US since Prohibition. World Wide Stout was also on when I visited. It’s a monster Imperial Stout, high-teens in ABV, thick, rich, and voluptuous, and yet with the smooth drinkability of a bold red wine.

Dogfish Head was right at the top of my must-visit Beer Bucket List destinations. It was one of the original breweries that showed me how interesting and different craft beer could be and it’s now rightly regarded as a classic American craft brewery. It’s an essential stop, where you should plan on visiting the tasting room before going to Brewings & Eats and staying and drinking there all night long. (And if you’re in need of a lie down after all that great beer, you can get a room at the Dogfish Inn, just a short cab ride away in nearby Lewes.)

THE BEST BEER HOTELS

• Hotel Oberpfalzer Hof, Windischeschenbach, Germany (see page 114)

• Hotel Purkmistr, Pilsen, Czech Republic (see page 130)

• Dogfish Inn, Lewes, Delaware

• Brewhouse Inn and Suites, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (see page 36)

Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione.

The Lowdown

WHAT: Dogfish Head Brewery and Tasting Room

HOW: Free tours Monday to Saturday (11am–7pm, hourly) and on Sundays (12–7pm, hourly). Go on a Saturday for a special tour that gives extra details and gets you into the steampunk treehouse (www.dogfish.com).

WHERE: 511 Chestnut Street, Milton, Delaware 19968, USA

Asheville, North Carolina

AMERICA’S BEST BEER CITY?

It wasn’t that I’d fallen out of love with beer; I was just feeling a bit unmoved by it, weary of it. I’d been to a lot of breweries in the preceding weeks and was jaded from traveling and drinking too much, and I wasn’t quite ready to go on a crawl of seven more breweries in an afternoon. But then I wasn’t quite ready for Asheville.

No one has ever said anything bad about Asheville as a beer town, so I knew it was supposed to be good. What surprised and delighted me was the very high quality of the beers, the variety of breweries, and the general sense that “Beer is great!” But, most of all, I loved the spaces and environments: the breweries are huge, open, bright spaces, mostly in the center of town, and mostly with outdoor space (the North Carolina sunshine helps). They usually have the brewery stainless on show, are all within a few blocks of each other, and are brewing on significant kits—not pots and pans in the back of a small bar. They take beer seriously in Asheville.

The star brewery is Wicked Weed Brewing. They have two locations in town and two production facilities out of town (although you can’t visit those). There’s the original Pub (91 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801), which has a large restaurant space upstairs and a more casual space downstairs where you can drink in view of the tanks—all the “clean” (as opposed to “wild” or sour) beers on tap in the pub are brewed in the pub. A few blocks away is Funkatorium (147 Coxe Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801), where they mature barrels of wild and sour beers and have them all on tap. Both stops are essential. Pernicious IPA was the best IPA I drank in four months of dedicated book research (and I drank a lot of IPA in that time). Amazing for its brightness, dryness, big aroma of citrus and tropical fruits, pineapples, and peaches; for its depth of hop flavor; and for its sharply clean bitterness that made me never want to drink any other IPA ever again. They also make some of the best sours I’ve drunk and some of the best barrel-aged stouts, including BA Milk and Cookies, which is grown-up chocolate milk that’ll make you giggle like a little kid. I liked it there a lot.

Here are some other breweries, bars, and restaurants in town—take a deep breath…

Burial Brewing (40 Collier Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801) is the place to go to drink more great IPAs. There’s an industrial, dark, dive-y vibe inside; they have a large, German-style outside space and the most curious brewery mural you’ll ever see of Sloth from the Goonies hugging Tom Selleck.

Go to Asheville Brewing (77 Coxe Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801) for huge and excellent pizzas and a brewpub that feels as if it’s the real heart of the town.

Catawba Brewing (32 Banks Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801) is a huge space, with room inside and out, food trucks, an open sight of all the tanks, and a large beer list—try their Farmer Ted for what realistically seemed like a faithful reinvention of an American Cream Ale. Plus, go to Buxton Hall BBQ next door for whole hog meats and local brews.

Twin Leaf (144 Coxe Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801), opposite Funkatorium, has some good lagers and Belgian styles of beer, plus typical American brews (though I didn’t rate the US styles as highly as the European brews).

Green Man (27 Buxton Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801) was busy with older drinkers when I went. It felt like the kind of place these people had been hanging out in for years

THE WORLD’S BEST BEER CITIES

• Asheville, North Carolina

• Portland, Oregon (see page 58)

• San Diego, California (see page 48)

• Bamberg, Germany (see page 118)

• Prague, Czech Republic (see page 128)

• Copenhagen, Denmark (see page 160)

• London, England (see page 74)

• Wellington, New Zealand (see page 188)

• Chicago, Illinois (see page 30)

• Brussels, Belgium (see page 150)

(it’s been open since 1997, so they probably have been). It had proper locals and a proper drinking bar; it was a place for a pint and not somewhere to sip samples. I loved their ESB for its rich maltiness, brown bread, cherries, and dry finish.

The taplist at Wicked Weed’s Funkatorium.

Hi-Wire (197 Hilliard Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801) has a good vibe, with the brewery sitting behind the bar and the beers tasting decent (a vague description, but I think I’d been to a few breweries by this point and my notes descended into useless doodles, which I assume means the beers were good or I’d have written bad stuff about them…)

Bhramari Brewing (101 South Lexington, Asheville, North Carolina 28801) makes food-inspired beers, or beers with edible ingredients, and, while many of them sounded interesting, I didn’t love any of the beers I drank there (they were mostly just odd or possibly a combination of what was ill-conceived or just badly delivered), though other reviews have been more positive.

On the edges of town you’ve got the recent transplants of Sierra Nevada, Oskar Blues, and New Belgium (please search for their addresses online—I’m bored adding them and you all know how to Google)—all have built impeccable, inimitable sites with huge tasting rooms and are wonderful environments in which to sit and drink beer. Opposite New Belgium is Wedge Brewing Co. (37 Paynes Way, Asheville, North Carolina 28801) in a shared creative space. Highland Brewing (12 Old Charlotte Highway, Asheville, North Carolina 28803) was the first in town and their British-style brews are nice. If you want to go to the original pub in town, then it’s Barley’s (42 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801), which is just up the street from Wicked Weed’s pub. There’s 20-plus mostly local taps in this old-school pub, which also serves pizzas. If you want bottles to take home, then go to Bruisin’ Ales (66 Broadway, Asheville, North Carolina 28801)—it’s a world-class beer store. And I’ve probably missed a bunch of places from this list; there’s that much good beer in Asheville.

I spent three days in Asheville and still didn’t get to all the places I wanted to visit. I’d happily go back any time. It was the kind of place that got me excited about beers and breweries again, primarily for the way you can visit so many superb locations, all within the space of a few blocks, and also for just how big and professional those breweries are. Asheville stayed with me long after I left and it’s the place I’ve recalled most fondly to people asking me about my recent beer travels. I loved it in Asheville.

Local street art welcomes you to one of the world’s greatest beer cities.

Which is the Best American Beer City?

You always see the same dozen or so names on the “Beer City USA” lists. The Portlands, San Diego and San Francisco, New York, Denver, Chicago, and Seattle, plus small cities such as Burlington, Asheville, Boulder, Bend, Grand Rapids, and Minneapolis. But which one deserves the title of “Best Beer City?”

I’ve been to all of them, except for Seattle and Minneapolis (those places are next on my list!), and all are brilliant in their own way. Personally, I always prefer the smaller cities, the places where it’s easy to walk around, and where there’s a close-knit culture. For its mix of high-quality breweries, excellent drinking spaces, and general beer vibe, I think Asheville is the must-visit beer destination in the US. The closest big-city contender is San Diego, but it doesn’t win on account of being so big and because everything is so far away—you need to hire a lot of cabs to get around and visit everywhere.

Go to Cigar City Brewing

AND ATTEND HUNAHPU’S DAY

Forget the theme parks, Cigar City is Florida’s finest attraction. The tasting room pours over 20 taps of their own beers, including classics such as Jai Alai IPA, plus limited-release specials, many of which either use something uniquely from Florida or inspired by the city’s stories. Just getting to the brewpub is on the Beer Bucket List, but every year they hold an event that pulls in beer geeks from all around the world.

Hunahpu’s Day is an annual event held on the second Saturday of March to release Cigar City’s imperious Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout. The beer is a Mayan monster, a 10.2% ABV brew that’s thick with dark chocolate, vanilla, mocha sweetness, and fragrant cinnamon, which contains a background fruitiness and bite from the two different chilis used in the brewhouse. It’s a ticketed event that has become one of America’s must-visit beer festivals, with over 100 other breweries attending and pouring their own beers. The list becomes ever more impressive each year.

Both Cigar City and Hunahpu’s Day are both still on my Beer Bucket List. Florida, in general, deserves some good beer attention, as it’s emerging as one of America’s most interesting states for new brews. And Cigar City is the place to begin—it’s also only a 20-minute drive to the theme parks if you want to do both in one day…

TEN GREAT TAPROOMS AND BREWERY BARS IN AMERICA

• Russian River Brew Co, Santa Rosa, California (see page 52)

• Stone World, Escondido, California (see page 49)

• Pizza Port Ocean Beach, San Diego, California (see page 48)

• Jester King, Austin, Texas (see page 26)

• Wicked Weed, Asheville, North Carolina (see page 22)

• Dogfish Head, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (see page 20)

• Sierra Nevada, Chico, California (see page 54)

• Bell’s Eccentric Café, Kalamazoo, Michigan (see page 42)

• Avery Brewing, Boulder, Colorado (see page 44)

• Cigar City, Tampa, Florida

The Lowdown

WHAT: Cigar City Brewing

HOW: The tasting room opens Sunday to Thursday (11am–11pm) and Friday to Saturday (11am–1am). Brewery tours are also available on Wednesday to Sunday, from 11am (www.cigarcitybrewing.com).

WHERE: 3924 West Spruce Street, Tampa, Florida 33607, USA

Jester King—the Ultimate Farmhouse Brewers

A GENUINE APPROACH TO SEASONAL BREWING

The old ideals of brewing seasonally and using local ingredients have long been replaced by year-round brewing and consistent beers, even at the famous and classic Belgian farmhouse breweries, thus removing that essential seasonal element. At Jester King, just outside Austin, Texas, they’ve brought those fundamentals back and are making them mean something genuine again; this is one of the only breweries where the terms “seasonal” and “farmhouse” mean anything substantial and real.

To Jester King, the words “farmhouse” and “seasonal” mean beers that grow uniquely in a particular time and place. Land, air, and the changing seasons dictate the beers they make and they have no interest in seasonal trends; when an ingredient is ready, they’ll brew with it and then when the beer’s ready, they’ll release it. Everything has its own timeframe, which is managed by nature’s calendar and not a release schedule.

It’s a holistic approach and much more detailed than my simplified distillation of their philosophy. Central to it all is their yeast. This was captured and cultivated from the land on which the brewery sits (a 58-acre/23-hectare ranch) by picking herbs and fruits, and by allowing the different microorganisms to flourish or fade away. That mixed culture of yeast and bacteria has been evolving since they first started using it, always moving in different directions, and also changing with the seasons: in summer, when it’s warmer, the yeast is worked harder and produces more fruity esters and spice; in winter, the yeast is more chilled out and that allows the bacteria to produce more acid. It’s a natural, seasonal variation, which the brewery embraces.

Jester King’s use of hops is particularly fascinating: every beer they produce includes a proportion of aged hops, which the brewers store in a barn located on their ranch for a few years to allow them to dry fully (theoretically these hops should give no bitterness, yet beers brewed with only the old hops come back with a recorded IBU). The hops are a flavor element in Jester King beers—although rarely a prominent one—and instead fulfil the additional role of being a “lever” in the beer; the antibacterial properties of hops can change a beer’s profile by manipulating its microbial properties. Simply: more hops means less acidity. The hops are also a gatekeeper for good and bad bacteria, allowing the good through and removing the bad, where they later combine with the acidity and pH level to repeat the process of removing any less-good bacteria.

They use as much Texas grain as possible. They have their own well water, which has a high mineral content. It isn’t necessarily flawless brewing water, but it’s the water they have and so that’s what they use. They have an orchard (peaches, plums, and blackberries to begin with, more to follow) and farm their land. The fruit is important, as they change what they brew depending on what’s just been harvested. And while all the beers vary, they also all come from the well-attenuated, hop-bitter, and yeastforward school of Saisons and pale Belgian ales, which gives them a consistent base.

There’s also a coolship in the brewery that they can use from December to February when the Austin air is cool enough to brew spontaneously fermented beers. They began this project in 2012 and started releasing these beers—called SPON—three years later, using the traditional production method of Gueuze and producing something similar and reminiscent of the classics, but with a unique flavor profile that gives more lemons, tannins, fruit pith, and leather.