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15 Classic Beers That Are Definitely Worth Revisiting
From Sam to Oskar to Pliny, don’t forget about these old standbys.https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/best-classic-beers
With at least one craft brewery in almost every neighborhood in America, consumers are spoiled for choice. Sometimes, that’s great. Choice means variety, and variety is the spice of life. But perhaps in the maze of milkshake IPAs and cookie-infused breakfast stouts, you find yourself wishing for simpler times: times when a few-dozen brave independent craft breweries pitted themselves against the might of Big Beer, when discovering a hidden case of Bell’s Hopslam at your local bottle shop felt like winning the lottery, when looking at a taplist involved choosing between five or ten options from breweries that you knew, loved, and trusted. Ah, to be alive and of drinking age in the early 2000s! Luckily, there’s a way to capture that experience. Many of the original breweries that kicked off the craft craze are still making their flagship beers—often in new packaging and more accessible than ever. However, if you’re like me, you probably haven’t tried the old standbys in a while. So this is your cue: Head down to the bottle shop, pick up one of the classics, and remind yourself why you fell in love with craft beer in the first place.
Firestone Walker Parabola
Firestone Walker head brewer Matt Brynildson has more experience aging beer in bourbon barrels than almost anyone in the world. That experience is best expressed in Parabola, a thick 13.6% ABV bourbon barrel-aged stout with notes of chocolate, black cherry, and coffee. A celebratory beer to drink with good friends, the brewery has released a new vintage each year since 2006, which you can drink right away or cellar for years to come.
New Belgium Brewing La Folie
With the tartness of kombucha, the spritz of champagne, the color of rich mahogany, and the taste of oaky tannin and funk, New Belgium’s La Folie isn’t for everyone. But it’s perfect for those who appreciate challenging, complex beers. One of the first commercially brewed sours, La Folie tastes just as good today as it did during its first release in the late ’90s. If you haven’t tried this beer in a while (or at all), you owe it to yourself to quaff a bit of U.S. beer history. Because let’s be honest: When was the last time you drank a Flemish sour brown ale?
The Alchemist Heady Topper
In 2003, John and Jen Kimmich borrowed $150,000 to open a 60-seat brewpub called The Alchemist Pub and Brewery in Waterbury, Vermont. By modern standards, that makes The Alchemist—and its bestselling Double IPA Heady Topper—an OG. Available since the earliest days, Heady Topper spent many years as a functionally unobtainable delight, requiring a pilgrimage to Vermont and crushing defeat if the brewery was sold out. Dank, unfiltered, and endlessly smooth, Heady Topper tastes just as good today as it did then, when patrons snuck into the bathroom to pour their pints into water bottles. True story!
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26 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
AND HAVE IT TASTE THE SAME AS IT DID WHEN I WAS 17.
deregulated the beer industry in 1979, opening up the industry to craft brewers.
My benchmark, bar none in pale ales is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was. It was first brewed in 1980
Totally a barley sandwich!
Essentially making home brewing total legal, Baby! It took the police a bit to figure it out; police busted a home brewer because they saw his wort chiller and thought he was running a still, which was still illegal. Hilarity ensued.
A big, hoppy IPA that is remarkably balanced and drinkable...
...and, a wheat/malt hybrid, hopped like an IPA. YUM
good beers!
I LOVE this DIPA
Toppling Goliath Brewing Company
King Sue
and this NEIPA
Trillium Brewing Company
Congress Street
I adore juicy IPA's, the fruit bomb types, which Tree House Brewery is probably the king of, but they (Tree House brews) are SO hard for me to get here in Sweden.
https://www.boston.com/culture/beer/2019/09/07/6-thoughts-on-6-tree-house-brewing-co-ipas/
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Julius (IPA, 6.8 percent ABV): When you think of Tree House you think of this flagship IPA, which drinks like Florida’s Natural and helped spawn the juice-bomb-y world we’re currently living in. This may be the most balanced beer on the menu.
Green (IPA, 7.6 percent ABV): Another flagship, and it’s my favorite. Australian Galaxy hops are the star, and Tree House manages to coax all the delicate pineapple, tangerine, and orange sherbet notes out with none of the abrasiveness typical of the style.
Bbbrighttt w/Galaxy (double IPA, 7.8 percent ABV): Another showcase for Galaxy (did I mention I like that hop?), this version of the Bright series is designed to isolate and amp-up the flavor profile. I get lime zest and a dank, weed-like nose.
Curiosity 74 (double IPA, 8.1 percent ABV): Tree House says it uses a “heavily oated’’ approach to the recipe here, and what I’m left with is something that reminds me of Trillium: big, juicy orange and grapefruit flavor and a slightly fuller mouthfeel than the usual Tree House offerings.
Super Treat (double IPA, 8.3 percent ABV): What is this witchcraft? On the can I’m promised “sweet hop candy flavors’’ and in practice there’s truly a Smarties, bubble-gum-in-a-pack-of-baseball-cards thing going on. Tree House promises lychee notes and I actually taste the lychee. Not my favorite Tree House beer, but a feat of engineering nonetheless.
Summer (double IPA, 8.1 percent ABV): I like Tree House beers an awful lot, but my main quibble with the lineup, made apparent by this 8.1 percent ABV “summer sipper’’ (the can prompts me to drink it at the pool) is that it’s a parade of really boozy brews masking as something lighter. That’s nice in theory — and I have no idea how they got this double IPA to be so airy — but it makes for some tough warm-weather drinking.
snip
Julius (IPA, 6.8 percent ABV): When you think of Tree House you think of this flagship IPA, which drinks like Florida’s Natural and helped spawn the juice-bomb-y world we’re currently living in. This may be the most balanced beer on the menu.
Green (IPA, 7.6 percent ABV): Another flagship, and it’s my favorite. Australian Galaxy hops are the star, and Tree House manages to coax all the delicate pineapple, tangerine, and orange sherbet notes out with none of the abrasiveness typical of the style.
Bbbrighttt w/Galaxy (double IPA, 7.8 percent ABV): Another showcase for Galaxy (did I mention I like that hop?), this version of the Bright series is designed to isolate and amp-up the flavor profile. I get lime zest and a dank, weed-like nose.
Curiosity 74 (double IPA, 8.1 percent ABV): Tree House says it uses a “heavily oated’’ approach to the recipe here, and what I’m left with is something that reminds me of Trillium: big, juicy orange and grapefruit flavor and a slightly fuller mouthfeel than the usual Tree House offerings.
Super Treat (double IPA, 8.3 percent ABV): What is this witchcraft? On the can I’m promised “sweet hop candy flavors’’ and in practice there’s truly a Smarties, bubble-gum-in-a-pack-of-baseball-cards thing going on. Tree House promises lychee notes and I actually taste the lychee. Not my favorite Tree House beer, but a feat of engineering nonetheless.
Summer (double IPA, 8.1 percent ABV): I like Tree House beers an awful lot, but my main quibble with the lineup, made apparent by this 8.1 percent ABV “summer sipper’’ (the can prompts me to drink it at the pool) is that it’s a parade of really boozy brews masking as something lighter. That’s nice in theory — and I have no idea how they got this double IPA to be so airy — but it makes for some tough warm-weather drinking.