Best in Beer 2022 (December-January 2023)

From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: The two-centuries-old Whitelock’s Ale House is the jewel in the beer crown of Leeds, England.

From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: This community-minded, audiophile bar stacks the walls with vinyl and the taps with quality.

From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: San Diego’s LHK Noodle Bar is a no-frills hive for Chinese-Vietnamese food and a standout draft list.

A lemonade- or key lime–inspired beer adds some zing to the brine for these peppery, slow-cooked wings.

A splash of traditional Leipziger-style gose adds a bright yet earthy quality to this simple preparation for a refreshing, sweet-and-salty fruit salad. Why put the fruit in the beer when you can put the beer in the fruit?

This light, fruity ale highlights honey and honey-driven peach and apricot flavors against a clean, biscuit-like background.

You don’t need fruit to brew a fruit-flavored beer—malt, sugar, hops, and yeast can all be used to mimic the character of various fruits. Yet, once mastered, there is another use for this power of deception: boosting the flavors of real fruit.

IPL is about making sure the “L” part—lager—is getting its due. With this recipe, the idea is make something that’s clearly a lager but also features hops in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the palate or the grist.

With thanks to Brian and Doug Coombs and Matt Van Wyk, cofounders of Alesong in Eugene, Oregon, here’s a homebrew-scale recipe for the base beer that they use for their co-fermentations with local fruit.

Borrowing a page from winemakers, some brewers are pitching freshly picked fruit instead of slurry, taking advantage of the natural yeast and bacteria on their skins—a process that requires a leap of faith and the best, ripest fruit you can find.

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.

You might see the tea in Thai restaurants or trendy cafés or spas—a striking blue or purple liquid, steaming from clear mugs or iced in glasses. And, guess what? That potent color also works in beer.

The Cellarmaker Training Bines IPA that we named one of our Best 20 Beers in 2022 was one of five that came from five different breweries in an unusual collaboration project. Now, you can brew it on your own system.

This recipe from Josh Weikert’s Make Your Best series leans into Munich malt for a rich yet smooth foundation, for a doppelbock that drinks much more easily than its strength.

Some brewhouses are forever, even if they don’t stay put—and more than a few have traveled their way around the country and even around the world. At each location, that unique set of equipment and the brewers who use it must form a connection that inevitably affects what we drink.

As Mike Saboe was embracing craft beer and homebrewing in the early ’00s, he sought far and wide for inspiration. Looking back now, as brewmaster at Toppling Goliath, he recounts six beers that had an outsized influence on his approach to everything from hop-forward beers to burly barrel-aged stouts.

With thanks to Todd DiMatteo and his team at Good Word Brewing in Duluth, Georgia, here’s a homebrew-scale recipe for the rum barrel–aged barleywine that became one of our Best 20 Beers in 2022.

With thanks to Greg Browne, head brewer at Art History in suburban Chicago, here is a recipe for their Czech-style dark lager, inspired by the beer at the famous U Fleků brewpub in Prague.

Committed to brewing the best European-style lagers possible, Art History Brewing in Geneva, Illinois, is expanding into a brewhouse outfitted with a wish list of bells and whistles.

If “fruit beer” was once a niche style, it has since evolved into something much more significant, absorbing other traditions along the way to become a vibrant celebration of some of the most popular flavors on Earth. Here are five picks from the pros.

You can simply add a bunch of fruit to a beer and see how it goes. Or, you can take a step back, carefully consider the flavors involved and how they intermingle, and—from creativity to reality—plan and execute a more superlative fruit beer.

With thanks to Ben Howe and Karolina Lobrow, cofounders of Otherlands Beer in Bellingham, Washington, here’s a recipe for their take on a Polish pilsner—one of our Best 20 Beers in 2022.

The popularity of cold IPA has blown the cover off a quiet yet long-running practice in commercial brewing: using lager yeast to make beer sold as ale. Sam Tierney, brewing manager at the Firestone Walker Propagator brewery in Los Angeles, offers some perspective.

From Wisby Ölverk in Visby, Gotland, Sweden, here’s a small brewery’s take on the island’s traditional farmhouse ale.

The owners and brewers of a small craft brewery in Visby, on the Swedish island home of gotlandsdricke, share their view on brewing their local farmhouse style—and why they do it the way they do.

Real gotlandsdricke is little-known for the same reason it has survived: It’s from an isolated and pastoral island in the Baltic. Lars Marius Garshol sheds some light on this smoky, juniper-infused, hard-to-get farmhouse ale.

Here, we plot state populations against the number of breweries in each state, to get insight into which have the most and fewest breweries per capita.

Here are the best cities in the United States and around the world for drinking craft beer, according to our readers.

Pubs, bars, and cafés are crucial to the experience and community of craft beer and a vital link between maker and consumer. Here were your 20 favorites in 2022.

In our annual Readers’ Choice poll, here’s how you answered the question, “How do you prefer to buy your favorite craft beers?”

With thanks to Wayfinder head brewer Kevin Davey, here is a homebrew-scale recipe for their Original Cold IPA—as illustrated by Em Sauter of Pints and Panels.

From a trick new cooler to deep-dive books into gluten-free brewing and lambic history, here are some picks to kick off the new year.

You voted on your favorite styles in our annual Readers’ Choice poll, and while IPA continues to top the charts, lagers made steady and significant gains in 2022.

Beer offers all kinds of once-in-a-lifetime experiences, from drinking the rarest beers to attending festivals at all corners of the Earth. Beth Demmon asked five pros what’s on top of their beer-bucket lists. What’s on yours?

This recipe for a dark, spiced holiday ale is ideal for serving either cool or warmed and mulled, with many more variations possible on fruits and spices.

In recent years, brewers have been packing more and more fruit into their fruited beers, often evoking familiar and festive desserts. Now, let’s complete the circle and put a splash of that beer into this cobbler, ideal for sharing over the holidays.

What the Noël? Hot fruit beers for the holidays? It’s not as weird as it sounds. As the days get cold, Annie Johnson explains how to keep warm by getting punchy.

New York City–based writer Courtney Iseman, a Craft Beer & Brewing contributor and author of the newsletter Hugging the Bar, shares her highlights from the past year.

An influential if irreverent voice among drinkers today, the driving force behind DontDrinkBeer.com and the Malt Couture podcast shares his top tips and beers of the past year.

Our intrepid managing editor—currently based in Bangkok—shares his favorite beers of the year and ponders what may lie around the next corner.

Here are those rarest of drinks—products of studious craftsmanship and persistent tinkering, balancing great character with great drinkability. Once again, here are the pinnacles of the craft.

You voted, and here they are: your top 50 beers of 2022, plus your favorite breweries by size, as decided by the readers of Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine®.

From your favorite homebrewing gear to your go-to shops for ingredients and more, here are the top picks of Craft Beer & Brewing readers.

Which brewery makes the best saison? Who brews the best lagers? We asked, you voted. Here are the results.