Field Beer

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

From Accra’s Heritage Brewing, Ghana’s first modern brewpub, comes this recipe for their flagship lager—technically an ale, but cleanly fermented—featuring local maize and cassava as the bulk of its fermentables.

The annual release of this beer in San Diego has become such an event that Harland Brewing now organizes an Ube Day party to mark the occasion in the fall.

Pumpkin ale is a seasonal American tradition strong enough to smash even the most cynical pumpkin-spice fatigue. It’s also fun to make—and drink, and share—at home.

Lasting Joy cofounder and head brewer Alex Wenner describes this beet-infused stout as one “that really sums up our mission as a New York farm brewery.”

Ayla Kapahi, head brewer at Borderlands in Tucson, Arizona, shares this recipe for their easy-drinking wheat beer with German aroma hops, some light fruity esters, and a Southwestern twist: the addition of prickly pear.

For a bright, fruity flavor that’s special to Mexico and the American Southwest, consider the humble prickly pear. (Just watch out for those spines.)

From Foam Brewers in Burlington, Vermont, comes this recipe for a mixed-culture plum beer—also featuring lavender and lemon zest—that gets its vibrant hue from the addition of butterfly pea flowers.

We’re grateful to head brewer Alex Albers and the team at Destihl Brewing for sharing this homebrew-scale recipe for their pickle beer—a kettle-soured gose blended with a customized version of SuckerPunch’s flavorful brine.

Developed by Keith Villa, this recipe for a nonalcoholic peanut butter–flavored porter provides a significant dose of THC from dry-hopping with cannabis.

This recipe from Drinkers for Ukraine includes grist percentages but leaves the strength up to the brewer—Jump Ship in Edinburgh, Scotland, even brewed an alcohol-free version, taking “anti-imperial” in another direction. We, on the other hand, went big.

Earthy yet sweet, beets can add color, fermentable sugar, and comfort to your next brew—an anti-imperial stout, perhaps?

The team at Métier Brewing in Seattle describes Black Stripe as “a smooth, medium-bodied porter with dark chocolate flavors and hints of coconut.”

This recipe is based on Burley Oak’s series of dessert-like beers that combine lactic acidification, milk sugar, and copious fruit—or, if you prefer, a certain orange vegetable.

Mildly sweet, vibrantly colored, inexpensive, and good for you—until you make delicious carrot cake out of them. Or carrot-cake beer. Why aren’t we brewing with carrots, again? Let’s get to the root of it.

For this foraged recipe that includes sassafras root, spruce tips, and oak bark, any number of yeasts can work—but we think Norwegian kveik is a great fit.

Here is a homebrew-scale recipe for the beer that won a Specialty Beer gold medal at the 2017 Great American Beer Festival.

Had enough pumpkin beer? Embrace an American tuber so mighty that it doesn’t care whether you make it a side dish or a dessert. Or a beer. With whiskey.