I found this rather challenging—it’s hard to narrow it down to just six beers—but I settled on beers that inspire me, and these are all beers that I carry with me a little bit. I think about them often, and I reference them often, whether that’s looking them up for information or trying to recall that experience, so I can formulate that experience in a beer myself. I like beer, so it makes it tough.
Blaugies La Vermontoise
Blaugies, Hainaut, Belgium
I think about saison and farmhouse ales often, and I have a long list of ones that matter to me and that I love. But La Vermontoise to this day is one I find not just inspiring, but also it’s one of the most delicious examples of saison I’ve tasted. Thank God it’s a collab they make often and not just a one-time thing.
Blaugies is one of my favorite beer producers, and I’ve loved pretty much every beer I’ve had from them. What I love about La Vermontoise is that it delivers all of the fermentation character from their traditional saison. The bottle conditioning is always highly effervescent, it has really nice dryness and, like all of their farmhouse beers, it has so much pillowy body for something that’s so dry. Their yeast profile is I think one of the most intriguing—it’s developed, it’s citrus, it’s a lot of earth, it’s full of delicate phenolics that play so well together, with some of the esters that yeast produces. It ferments wildly warm, it’s expressive, and the Hill Farmstead influence on that beer is remarkable. It’s delicate yet heavy-handed, if that makes sense. American things are generally heavy-handed; it’s what we do. But it’s so well integrated into these beers that it doesn’t take it off course—it’s still a Blaugies beer, and it tastes like Blaugies.
It’s super inspiring, as an American brewer who loves these things. It’s a melding of my two worlds—this American Amarillo hop and this tradition that’s sacred and gorgeous and something we’re always chasing. It’s a combination of New World exploration and boundary-pushing, with the softest landing you could possibly have in something so traditional. I’ve been inspired by so many saisons over the years, and as that path has weaved back and forth, this beer has been a constant guidepost. It’s a major inspiration for the flavor profile of our Saison de Banc Vert.
Augustiner Lagerbier Hell
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
This is another beer I think about all the time, and especially now—it’s cold everywhere else, but it’s hot here right now. To me, this is one of the few gold stars for the style. Of the Münchner helles, it’s my favorite and the one I’m trying to chase—particularly its balance and drinkability.
It’s extremely malt-driven and yet so dry—a technical challenge. It can be unassuming, and that’s part of what I love about it. You can drink it without thinking about it, and it’s designed that way. But as a brewer, understanding how to make something so malt-driven and ingredient-based with that Barke and honey-malt expression, and yet make it so dry and drinkable—it’s a challenging technical accomplishment. Most brewers aren’t going to have the technology or equipment or frankly even the mentorship or know-how to pull that kind of thing off. So, it has turned for me into a multiyear, ongoing process to understand how they do that and then work a similar character into our lager. I can drink maß after maß of this beer.
I love its yeast expression, clean but with personality. At different times of the year, you might get slightly different character based on how much they have to push out. Summertime, people drink a lot of it. But the beer cleans up nicely. It’s interesting and intriguing yet still delicate. It doesn’t taste like nothing, yet you can consume it like it does. That balance is so challenging, and I have deep respect for how they’ve done it. I should footnote this by adding that their Edelstoff accomplishes the same goal—they’re both extraordinary.
Allagash White
Portland, Maine
Allagash is admittedly one of my favorite breweries in the world, and for most brewers that’s not much of a stretch. There are a bunch of things I love about this beer, and the first is that there are very few beers made anywhere outside of their style’s place of origin that are as good or better when compared to those quintessential examples from that place. For example, I’d be hard-pressed to find an American pale ale better than Sierra Nevada Pale Ale—it’s the definition of that style. But I think Allagash White stands up favorably against any example of the style. As an American, I take pride in that.
I love the people there—founder Rob Tod, brewmaster Jason Perkins—and the idea that Rob made that one beer for so long, and he pushed it and pushed it until it became one of the most incredible success stories for a traditional European beer style in the United States, outside of lager. That makes it even more impressive.
Not only is the beer that good, but I love the stubbornness or eagerness to say, “This is going to be the one that represents us and what we’re passionate about.” They put so much back into their people, into the land, into the community—it makes it even easier to drink the beer when you don’t have to compromise any values to do it.
It’s a corner of the market that is strictly Allagash’s, and it should be. It’s not a beer that any other brewery should lead with, and yet it is and will continue to be more successful than most of our beers. They’ve not only preserved the historic style—they’ve added to its story.
Timothy Taylor’s Landlord
Keighley, West Yorkshire, England
I don’t get this beer often. It’s not something we can buy in Florida, and the last time I was in the U.K. was right before COVID—everything was about to shut down, and I was in London then Manchester. I obviously looked everywhere I could to drink this beer on cask and found it in a few different pubs. It’s a quintessential example of English bitter, and what I love about it is that every other bitter recipe you’ll see is typically a Maris Otter base. While I love the flavor of that, what makes Landlord special is that it’s a 100 percent Golden Promise beer. It’s all Simpsons Golden Promise malt, and still to this day it uses invert sugar.
The beer has an insane malt backbone as a result of that process, and it stands up to a pretty intense hop load. They use whole-cone Goldings hops, and it’s so flowery, the texture is incredible. Obviously, it’s best via cask engine. I just want to cozy up, find a quiet corner to sit all day long, and I want that pint to keep coming. It’s malt-forward, has a beautiful backbone, the palate is soft and textured, the hop character is intense and flowery and earthy, and on top of that is an incredible, expressive yeast profile that comes from open fermentation—this Yorkshire yeast that they’ve spent generations developing and growing and taking care of. It’s an example of an experience you can’t get anywhere else, and there’s nothing else I want this beer to be when I’m experiencing it in that moment.
The last time I had Timothy Taylor’s was a few years ago at CBC, at the Simpsons’ booth in the BSG section. I’d talked about that beer with them previously, so when they saw me, they said, “Hey check this out,” and they opened a cooler with a bunch of bottles of fresh Timothy Taylor’s. I drank a bottle and a half with them, and it was all chaos—everyone walking around and talking—but it made my day. It was as fresh as it could get, as they brought it right over. It’s a beer I think about a lot—I think about that experience, that balance, and that tradition. It stands out as the best beer of that style I’ve ever had.
Poperings Hommelbier
Boezinge, West Flanders, Belgium
I had this beer at the source a few years ago on a trip to Belgium. I flew into Brussels, rented a car, and we drove to Poperinge near the French border in Western Flanders—it’s the biggest hop-growing region in the country. You’re near St. Bernardus, you’re near Westvleteren, and hops are just a big part of this town.
I rented this cottage, and when I opened the front door, it was just hop fields across the street, and if I opened the back door, there was a balcony overlooking this beautiful green field with a pond and a tree hanging foliage over it, while in the distance I could see St. Bernardus. I remember thinking, “This town rules.” We were going around, trying all the beers we could, and of course the local beer is Hommelbier—”hommel” is the local dialect for hops.
They’ve been making the beer since 1981, and essentially, it’s a showcase for the hops from this region. There’s so much pride in this beer. It struck me as the most singular example of Belgian pale ale I’d ever had—so much flower, so much earthiness, such a good balance of bitterness. The yeast expression was classically Belgian, expressive but dry with a nice little alcohol warmth. The bitterness was so clean, with a depth to it that wasn’t edging out, but progressing as the sweetness was progressing. I don’t know how they did it—the bitterness maintained itself despite the growing alcohol warmth—and I just found myself at every café saying, “That’s what I want.”
I drank pils, I drank tripel. But that beer was so insanely balanced and probably the best hoppy Belgian beer I’d ever had.
Bierstadt Lagerhaus Slow Pour Pils
Denver
When I have this beer here in the United States, it tastes as good if not better than a lot of the examples in Germany that inspired it. It’s one of the best takes on northern German–style pils that I’ve ever had, whether in Germany or elsewhere. It’s all about Ashleigh Carter’s and Bill Eye’s absolute love of brewing and their incredible attention to detail. Their focus is a strength and requires a heavy level of dedication—much like Allagash and Rob Tod—and for most American brewers, that’s hard to think about. We have variety, a bunch of stuff. To say, “We’re just going to make this one thing or these few things” requires incredible discipline. Sure, there’s more of that now in the United States than when they started, but then it was like, “How can you do this?”
But then you taste the pils, and you understand how—because it’s one of the best examples I’ve ever had in my entire life, and likely will ever have.
I’ve learned so much from them and become good friends, and I’m so grateful to have found people who love what they do so much. That alone is just as inspiring as this beer and the rest of the beers that they produce. I love their passion for it.
Hell, the first time I had Augustiner at the source was with Bill. There are few people I’d rather drink beers with, and particularly beers of this style, this drinkability, this clarity of purpose—their unwillingness to deviate from what it takes to make the best version of this thing they love. It’s easy to take what we do for granted, but every time I taste their beers, they make me feel like everything is worth it. It’s all worth it.
