It’s one of those disorienting yet eye-opening beer experiences that makes it all worthwhile: seeing a beautifully bright, pale golden liquid, sticking your nose over it to take a whiff, and getting an enticing hit that evokes walking in the door of a local coffee shop that roasts its own beans … then taking a gently sweet yet balanced gulp that fully delivers on that promise.
That’s Daybreak, a coffee-vanilla cream ale from Wolf’s Ridge in Columbus, Ohio. Over the past couple of years, it’s become the brewery’s top seller and most-decorated award winner, gaining national attention.
Ohioans already knew about Wolf’s Ridge. The restaurant and brewery had been winning local and state accolades for years. The bigger acclaim began with Great American Beer Festival silver in 2019 for Daybreak. Then things really broke open in 2020: Daybreak won GABF gold, the Buchenrauch smoked beer won GABF bronze, and we at Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine®—after the beer shone in multiple blind tastings—named their Double Chocolate Rum Barrel Dire Wolf one of our 20 Best Beers in 2020. (Yes, that means we liked it even better than Daybreak.)