Transparency about ingredients, sourcing, and especially our influences has always been at the forefront of what I’ve tried to do with Floodland. For me, the importance of paying respect to those who came before us can’t be overstated.
In revisiting a lot of the great Pick Six articles from past years, I was excited to be reminded how many of my favorites were mentioned—Taras Boulba, Orval, and so on. It got me thinking a bit about nostalgia for beers that were pivotal when I was developing my sense of style as a brewer—not quite the same as what’s fueled our progress as a small brewery, which is simply an ongoing love of beer.
I could talk ad nauseam about old Fantôme Saison and Ron-era Jolly Pumpkin Bam Bière. I could write essays about the importance of Hair of the Dog. In my emails, I practically have written essays about De Ranke, Thiriez, Blaugies, and Dupont.
As a group, we at Floodland are all bonded by a love of beer now, not just as a fond remembrance or a word spoken in passing while drinking light lager and Chablis. I am psyched to be able to share an incredible set of six modern beers made by some of the absolute best breweries to ever do it. These are beers I want to drink every day, made by brewers whose work keeps me excited about making and drinking beer, day in and day out.
Machine House Dark Mild
Seattle
Bill Arnott from Machine House has been holding down the cask-ale tradition for more than a decade in Seattle. Cask-conditioned ale served through a hand-pump is the greatest packaging format for beer that has ever existed. Packaging, storing, and serving these beers require great care and effort, but they yield an unparalleled product. Bill is well known for his Dark Mild, a 3.8 percent ABV powerhouse of drinkability. He’s helped return this postwar version of the style to popularity over the past decade, and every year at Floodland we look forward to Machine House’s March Mildness celebration.
If you’re in Seattle, there is only one absolute essential stop, and it isn’t my brewery. It is Machine House. Have a Dark Mild or five.
Heirloom Rustic Ales Plague Doctor
Tulsa, Oklahoma
I’ve had this petite (2.9 percent ABV) French-style lager with dandelion flowers in a few iterations, including the initial 750 ml bottle and the most recent can-conditioned version. At the end of a long brew day, there is nothing that disappears faster and is more thirst-quenching than this beer. (That’s when we’re lucky enough to have one or two on hand—they never last long.) Jake Miller of Heirloom has a knack for making beers that are both classic and transportive. How can a low-ABV lager like this serve as the ultimate lawn mower beer and at the same time have such phenomenal texture and dazzling aromatic complexity?
Suarez Family Hecto
Hudson, New York
Everything this brewery does is staggeringly good. I drink the Suarez beers whenever I can—but being on the opposite side of the country, that is not nearly often enough. I would stuff my fridge full of anything they do. The lagers and mixed-culture beers are all absolutely dialed, but my personal favorites are their pale ales. I could have picked any of the various pale ales that Suarez produces, but I have particularly fond memories of Hecto.
Pale ale is my favorite style of beer, and—having spent the past eight years brewing nothing but saison—it’s the thing I miss brewing the most. Every time I start to think I should start another brewery to make cask beer and pale ales, I try to track down some Suarez instead.
Hecto is uncluttered, with an elegant malt backdrop that highlights the hopping and fermentation. This balance yields a delicate, dry, soft, and aromatic beer. The Suarez pales perfectly showcase hop profiles that bridge the gap between what’s great about English ales and American ones, simultaneously floral and fruit-driven, and endlessly drinkable.
Wildflower Good as Gold
Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia
I spend so much time critically drinking our own beers that it can be difficult to find other saisons made in a similar modern style that I enjoy. The Wildflower beers are always an exception to that—they are joyful and exceptionally well crafted. Good as Gold stands out in my memory as a triumph of long and slow fermentation, both in barrel and in bottle. I can’t imagine that saison brewers of old would have ever dreamt that one day someone would make a rendition of their beers as characterful and engaging as this.
Moonlight Misspent Youth
Santa Rosa, California
Over the past 20 years, very few breweries have been as consistently great as Moonlight. In the ’00s and ’10s, no trip to Santa Rosa was complete without a stop at Flavor Bistro, which had a wide variety of Moonlight beers on tap. The ESB was usually my favorite in those days—it’s hard to choose between Death & Taxes and Reality Czeck as a second favorite of the old-school lineup.
In recent years, the beers have become even more consistent, and the lineup has expanded with a wide variety of exceptionally drinkable beers. Misspent Youth is my favorite of the modern Moonlight lineup—it’s a beautiful hybrid of a modern pale ale’s lighter malt with a classic floral and citrus-hop profile.
Heater Allen Pils
McMinnville, Oregon
The Northwest has been very fortunate for the past decade-plus to have both Lisa Allen and Kevin Davey brewing here. Having them both under one roof brewing at Heater Allen and Gold Dot is such a ridiculous concentration of talent that it borders on unfair, and I’m thankful my beers don’t directly align for comparison with theirs.
This is yet another brewery that could fill out this entire Pick Six list by themselves—the choice between Heater Allen Pils or Gold Dot Export or Gold Dot Pils de Pils is just a matter of which I drank last. All three are about as good as it gets. Anyone who appreciates a gloriously bitter and aromatic lager knows that the Heater Allen Pils is king on this coast.