Fields of Joy (Summer 2026)

From the Big Friendly in Oklahoma City, here’s a recipe for the dry-hopped, Brett-fermented saison that won gold at the 2025 Great American Beer Festival.

The next popular tastes can be difficult to predict, but there are ideas out there aplenty—and, in choosing, it helps to understand the longer arc of craft beer and our wider cultural context.

Sam Richardson discovered the beers that would inspire him most before he became a brewer, and he did so across the country from where he would later cofound Other Half in Brooklyn, New York. These often were intense and flavorful beers that defied easy categorization, and they marked enjoyable times of discovery with good friends. As told to Jamie Bogner.

This extra pale ale is a crowd favorite at Craft Coast Beer & Tacos in San Diego’s North County. It’s also found success at the highest levels of competition, winning two straight World Beer Cup medals—bronze in 2024, then silver in 2025, in the Australian-Style Pale Ale category.

“The aim here is to make a ripping XPA that combines plenty of saturated modern hop characters—thanks in part to the multiple small kettle-hop additions—with a lean but structured malt base,” says Scotty Hargrave, the progenitor of modern XPA.

Here’s a fairly classic take on an American seasonal tradition: a solid amber-brown ale that includes both the real (pumpkin) and the evocative (pie spice).