Joe Stange

In our annual Best in Beer 2025 critics’ roundtable episode, our editorial team goes beyond the unabashed popularity contest and thorough blind-judging process to share their own personal favorites of the year, connecting the dots to suss out the contours of craft beer’s today and possible tomorrows.

• Podcast

Our executive editor shares his favorite beers and beery moments from the past year.

• Best in Beer 2025
• Critic’s List
• Bob Seger

Uncork the magnums, this is the winners’ circle. Through a gauntlet of judging panels and on to the editors’ table for a last round of blind tasting and spirited discussion, these are the beers that lit up our palates and our brains—or that simply had us yearning for another, and another.

• Best in Beer
• Edtors’ Picks
• Best 20 Beers

In this once-a-year episode, Jamie Bogner and Joe Stange share Craft Beer & Brewing’s Best 20 Beers in 2025, as selected by our judges and editorial team—plus, the results of our Readers’ Choice survey for best breweries, beer cities, bars, and more.

• Podcast
• Best in Beer

Intense, complex, and punchy, the hops of New Zealand are special—so, making the best beer you can with them deserves some special consideration. From Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud—or Middle Earth, if you prefer—here are specific tips from the brewers who know New Zealand hops best.

• New Zealand
• Hops
• Riwaka

This fresh, vibrant, spicy Thai dish is a powerhouse of flavor, from its lime-driven acidity to its fiery chiles, crunchy peanuts, and briny little sea creatures. Should you put it in beer? Yes, obviously, you cowards.

• Somtum
• Special Ingredient
• Chili Beer

From our Love Handles files on the world’s top beer bars: In central Prague, this pub is dedicated to perfect pours while offering a discriminating selection of Czech lagers and more.

• Love Handles
• Czech Republic
• Prague

Roast us for it, if you must, but we won’t mince words: Garlic beer could be a breath of fresh air.

• Garlic
• Special Ingredient
• Garlic Stout

New research points toward much greater potential for rice malt in brewing—with varieties that provide color, character, and brewing specs that aren’t so different from barley.

• Rice
• Rice Malt
• Malted Rice

Our Summer 2025 issue is here, dripping with hop oils and the latest useful intelligence for brewers anywhere who want to elevate their IPA game.

• Issue Drop

From our Love Handles files on the world’s great beer bars: In south St. Louis, this small pub focuses on bottom-fermented beauties, from perfect Czech-style pours to ice-cold High Life.

• Love Handles

The permutations are infinite. Crack into our Spring 2025 issue, and choose your own malternate reality.

• Issue Preview