Subscriber Content

The helles that won gold at the 2025 World Beer Cup was a collaboration between Cinder Block of Kansas City, Missouri, and Blind Tiger of Topeka, Kansas. The objective? To craft a high-quality helles without a traditional decoction mash.

This recipe takes inspiration from the lighter, easier-drinking blonde ales that the Belgian Trappist monks brew largely for themselves—but you can have some, too.

In the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, Goldfinger has built a strong national reputation for its lagers. This one is inspired by the German zoigl tradition but makes use of American ingredients, including corn and whole-leaf Mt. Hood hops.

Here are two recipes in one: first the peach soda, which you can modify depending on your own chosen fruit, then an extract-brewed helles that you can blend to your liking.

Fogbelt Brewing in Santa Rosa, California, recently revived this craft classic long brewed by Mendocino in nearby Hopland. Often cited as the first American red ale, pioneering microbrewers Don Barkley and Jack McAuliffe first brewed Red Tail Ale in 1983.

With conjecture based on archaeological findings, here’s a recipe for a mixed grog—in this case, an ale that includes herbs, honey, and fruit—of the sort that well-to-do, Bronze Age Danes might have enjoyed on special occasions and then (literally) taken to their graves.

Kyle Harrop, founder of Horus Aged Ales, shares his approach to brewing, aging, and blending higher-gravity barleywines and stouts—and to selecting and using the flavor components that can take those beers to the next level.

From Unsung Brewing in Anaheim, California, this West Coast pilsner—with tropical character driven by Mosaic and Nelson hops—won silver in the Hoppy Lager category at the 2025 World Beer Cup.

Funky Fauna Artisan Ales in Bend, Oregon, ferments their light, quenching house saison with their own locally captured mixed culture.

Lisa Allen, co-owner and brewer at Heater Allen and Gold Dot Beer in McMinnville, Oregon, shares this recipe for a pils designed to show off a nontraditional German aroma-hop variety.

This Citra- and Mosaic-powered hazy IPA is the popular flagship from Kros Strain in La Vista, Nebraska. See the notes below for how to adjust for the DDH version.

A classic style in the American craft pantheon, this amber ale is Annie Johnson’s house beer—the one she’s brewed again and again to dial in her process and ingredients. (She also drinks it.)

The flagship beer from Wiseacre in Memphis, Tennessee, Tiny Bomb is a svelte, session-strength American lager with the full flavor of a German pilsner.

A classic style in the modern American pantheon, this hop-and-malt-forward strong ale serves as a great starting point for experimentation—for example, by subbing in your favorite hop varieties.

“Brewed as an ode to the sun,” this light, crisp, subtly sweet Mexican-inspired lager from Peaceful Side in Maryville, Tennessee, won the gold medal for International Light Lager at the 2025 World Beer Cup.

Based on details shared by the former lead brewer at Peoples Brewing in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, this mid-20th century American bock gets its color from a darker caramel Munich malt—not from the syrups that were common in dark adjunct lagers from that time.

This modern take on a Kentucky common comes from a collaboration between Bluejacket and DC Beer, a website that’s been covering the Washington, D.C., beer scene for more than a decade.

From Cloudburst founder-brewer Steve Luke, here’s a homebrew recipe for the West Coast double red that won gold at the 2025 World Beer Cup.

On his two-vessel brewhouse in Duluth, Georgia, Good Word owner-brewer Todd DiMatteo hand-lugs buckets full of mash to make his decoction happen for their house helles—a process that he says is worth the effort.

From Vine Street Brewing in Kansas City, Missouri, comes this juicy IPA that features a tropical aroma with notes of citrus and white grape.

Based on discussions with Rochefort brewmaster Gumer Santos, here’s a homebrew-scale recipe inspired by the Trappist abbey’s strongest dark ale—with notes on how to adjust the recipe to approximate the 6 or 8.

Justin Slotnick, production manager at Schilling Beer in Littleton, New Hampshire, shares this recipe for their dark bock inspired by the industrial American tradition—but updated to use today’s old-fashioned craft malts.

From Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub in Minneapolis, here’s a recipe for their Doppelbock that won gold at the 2024 World Beer Cup—and that beer also was the basis for their Eisbock, which won gold at the Great American Beer Festival in 2024 and 2025.

This beer began as an attempt to brew something with a properly reddish hue for the holidays—but it serves just as well as an exploration of earthy rye and malty depth with a firm, spicy bitterness.