Top 10 Beers of the Year
Hendrych H11 (Vrchlabí, Czechia) As usual, I can thank brother-from-another-mother Evan Rail for turning me on to a Prague pub like Pult, with its chill vibe and monomaniacal attention to pouring. Pult also gives pride of place to pale lager. The main reason I kept coming back, night after night, was this beautifully fresh and unendingly bright 11° světlé that was—in the technical sensory parlance—fucking bitter, listed at 52 IBUs.
Great Divide Laws Barrel-Aged Yeti (Denver) I’m so glad people still make them like this. In an era when super-thick barrel-aged stouts no longer taste like stouts, having coalesced into flat, viscous fig-bombs—more like dark-fruit syrup than malt—Sasquatch remembers. Yes, there are dried-cherry esters, but there is also espresso, dark cocoa, nutty whiskey-barrel depth, and even some woodsy hops to go with all that body and big brown foam.
Sapwood Cellars There Are No Edges (Columbia, Maryland) A bottle from the two-author brewery outside Baltimore was once again one of the best things I tasted all year. This Flemish-inspired imperial red ale, aged in malbec and pinot barrels, is gently lactic-tart—avoiding the acetic edge—with a punchy, dried-berries middle. Light on its feet, it somehow manages to be refreshing at 10 percent ABV, and the raspy-dry finish keeps me wanting more.