Rethinking the Classic Pale Ale (Winter 2023)

Here’s one to keep in mind for the cooler days ahead: a fondue-like cheese dish that gets a splash of barleywine and is sure to help keep you warm.

From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: L.A.’s Glendale Tap offers a retro feel, 52 taps full of great local beers, and neighborhood vibes.

From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: In Florence, Italy, Diorama offers a cozy spot to get acquainted with Italian and European craft.

This big and complex yet dangerously easy-to-drink ale is relatively easy to brew well—just watch that attenuation and focus on healthy fermentation for a drying finish.

All hail the crispy-fried potato—especially when a splash of pale ale joins the bright, spicy flavors of Thailand in this unusual take.

In this Ask the Pros edition of his Make Your Best series, Josh Weikert talks to the team at Creature Comforts about their GABF medal–winning Classic City Lager and the keys to its success.

From the production team at Creature Comforts in Athens, Georgia, here’s a recipe for their clean, crisp, easy-drinking American lager that won gold at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival.

Described as “an ultramodern meditation on the relationship between hops and yeast,” this hazy pale ale—double dry-hopped with Mosaic and Motueka, and fermented with Omega’s thiolized Cosmic Punch—won gold at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival.

Luminous Beings was practically an afterthought—a mid-strength hazy pale ale designed to culture up some thiolized yeast for bigger IPAs. Yet that afterthought took on a life of its own, winning gold at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival. Greg Winget, director of brewing operations at Wye Hill in Raleigh, North Carolina, explains the method behind it.

The defining traits of a Ukrainian golden ale are its golden hue, a relatively high ABV, and a smooth, sweet finish balanced by soft bitterness.

Ukraine has been on the minds of many people around the world for more than a year now—but that’s not why its national beer style deserves a spot in the global canon. Instead, let’s consider Ukrainian golden ale on its own merits.

For Josh Weikert, author of our Make Your Best series, altbier is the all-around perfect style and the one he brews most often at home. Here’s his own recipe.

Whether you’re making mead, cyser, or even honey beer, identifying high-quality honey is a challenge. James Naeger, director of sales and special projects at Schramm’s Mead in Ferndale, Michigan, offers some insight into the problems involved and how to overcome them.

From our Love Handles files on the world’s great beer bars: Seward Alehouse is a local dive like only Alaska can do it—it just happens to have great beer, too.

Dry and spicy yet hop-forward, this lemongrass-laced saison from Oedipus in Amsterdam recently took home its third World Beer Cup medal.

Exotic but familiar, the tropical plant lemongrass is far from being one of the traditional beer ingredients … yet its flavor and aroma fit right in with the others.

Pale ale makes an ideal base for trying out the split-batch method and experimenting with the different flavors you can get from one kettle of wort and a single brew day. Following this recipe, you’ll get an American-style pale ale, a Belgian-style pale ale, and a British-style strong bitter—but it’s easy to imagine more variations.

There is not one pale ale—they are infinite. For example: There are a few classic types that can be assembled from essentially the same wort based on some key choices. Let’s explore the versatility.

From Reuben’s Brews in Seattle, here’s a recipe for a modernized take on amber ale that features plenty of hops in the whirlpool and a broad, malty foundation.

Whether they’re smooth, malty throwbacks or hop-drenched progressives in crimson tuxedos, here are some of the best American amber and red ales we know.

“Paragon is our barrel-aged barleywine produced like a vintage,” says Mike Murphy, brewmaster at Lervig Aktiebryggeri in Stavanger, Norway. “Every year is the same but slightly different due to blending, subtle differences, and other variables. We stick to the same base recipe, and the yeast [and] aging do the rest.”

An American brewer in Norway inspired by English flavors is producing some of Europe’s most sought-after barleywine, with a new blended vintage appearing once a year. Here, brewmaster Mike Murphy explains the philosophy behind Paragon and offers practical tips for brewing your own.

This has all the makings of one of the world’s great beer-and-snack combinations—spicy-earthy Mexican flavors and zesty American pale ale.

Jess and Doug Reiser, cofounders of Asheville’s Burial Beer, share a thoughtful six that have inspired their own personal journeys and shaped the beers that they now produce.

“Mecha Red is a modern amber ale intended to be malty and caramelly, but not a sticky caramel bomb,” says Van Havig, cofounder and master brewer at Gigantic in Portland, Oregon. “It’s mildly fruity from hops and esters and finishes with a hint of chocolate.”

A ruddy ’90s pint is reappearing with modernized flavors—and it has a lot to say about the evolution of American craft brewing.

For those willing to take on a dark, low-strength, smoked beer, this historic Danish style may be the way to go. Yet there’s a question you must answer for yourself: How traditional do you want to make it?

Cider isn’t the only fermented fruit messing around with craft beer’s most cherished ingredient. In California, Field Recordings’ dry-hopped pét nat marries the best of wine and beer.

One of beer’s signature ingredients is adding interest and depth to one of the world’s great fermented drinks. Here’s how and why some cidermakers are embracing hops.

As one of the very few commercial breweries in modern times to attempt a smoky “ship’s beer,” Right Proper in Washington, D.C., shares this recipe inspired by the Danish tradition.

Dark, smoky, and well-hopped, yet low in strength, “ship’s beer” was the daily ration of Danish sailors in the 18th and 19th centuries—and it hasn’t completely disappeared. From written sources of that time, here’s what we know.

American craft beer’s archetypal classic style, updated with some contemporary ideas.

With greater awareness of its pitfalls and a few new tricks up our sleeves, the time for a resurgence in beautifully balanced American pale ale is now.

From Obelisk Beer of Astoria, Oregon, comes this prototype homebrew-scale recipe for a black barleywine that combines flavorful aspects of both barleywine and stout.

Jazz Rodriguez of Very Good Drinks shares this cocktail recipe that includes a splash of your own homemade tepache.

Brewers may not agree yet on what makes a great black barleywine tick, but this chimeric new “bipartisan drink” is adding some much-needed allure and interest to a style that’s been falling out of favor.

From Nat West of Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider in Portland, Oregon, this method meant for your home kitchen makes a relatively strong tepache that can be back-sweetened with pineapple juice and spiced to taste.

Tepache is the fast, fun, and nearly foolproof fermented drink you’ll want to blend into your next brew—or sip solo.

From a geeky quiz game to the Book of Hops (via an inline filter), here are a few of our recent top picks for enthusiasts of beer and brewing.

In these excerpts from our special Direct Fire podcast episodes, Firestone Walker brewmaster Matt Brynildson and WeldWerks cofounder and head brewer Neil Fisher tackle your questions about lager-mashing regimes and which adjuncts can pump up the mouthfeel of stouts.

For this glimpse into the past of big stock ale and barleywine, we’re grateful to beer historian Ron Pattinson. This previously unpublished recipe is based on brewing logs from more than 180 years ago.

Brewed since 1988, when Rogue Brewery got its start in Ashland, Oregon—home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—here’s a homebrew-scale recipe for the OG of American oatmeal stouts.

In this edition of Make Your Best: Ask the Pros, Josh Weikert investigates the inner workings of Rogue’s iconic Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout.

With the English tradition of stock ales and barleywines firmly in mind, here’s an original recipe from Randy Mosher. Note the options for oak-aging and Brett—but however you brew it, this is one to lay down for months or years.

Brewing up something big and ponderous, and looking for inspiration? The British barleywine tradition offers more quirks than you might think, including more funk, more hops, and more time.

The data suggest that while brewery closings have stayed fairly steady as a percentage of overall operating breweries, the rate of new openings in recent years has been declining at a relatively consistent pace.