Beer Recipes

The helles that won gold at the 2025 World Beer Cup was a collaboration between Cinder Block of Kansas City, Missouri, and Blind Tiger of Topeka, Kansas. The objective? To craft a high-quality helles without a traditional decoction mash.

This recipe takes inspiration from the lighter, easier-drinking blonde ales that the Belgian Trappist monks brew largely for themselves—but you can have some, too.

In the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, Goldfinger has built a strong national reputation for its lagers. This one is inspired by the German zoigl tradition but makes use of American ingredients, including corn and whole-leaf Mt. Hood hops.

Here are two recipes in one: first the peach soda, which you can modify depending on your own chosen fruit, then an extract-brewed helles that you can blend to your liking.

Fogbelt Brewing in Santa Rosa, California, recently revived this craft classic long brewed by Mendocino in nearby Hopland. Often cited as the first American red ale, pioneering microbrewers Don Barkley and Jack McAuliffe first brewed Red Tail Ale in 1983.

With conjecture based on archaeological findings, here’s a recipe for a mixed grog—in this case, an ale that includes herbs, honey, and fruit—of the sort that well-to-do, Bronze Age Danes might have enjoyed on special occasions and then (literally) taken to their graves.

From Unsung Brewing in Anaheim, California, this West Coast pilsner—with tropical character driven by Mosaic and Nelson hops—won silver in the Hoppy Lager category at the 2025 World Beer Cup.

Funky Fauna Artisan Ales in Bend, Oregon, ferments their light, quenching house saison with their own locally captured mixed culture.

Lisa Allen, co-owner and brewer at Heater Allen and Gold Dot Beer in McMinnville, Oregon, shares this recipe for a pils designed to show off a nontraditional German aroma-hop variety.

With a burst of Lórien hops in the whirlpool and more in the dry hop, the team at Sunriver Brewing in Sunriver, Oregon, describes this hop-forward pilsner as “distinctly crisp, with elegant hoppy notes of wildflowers, lemongrass, and black tea.”

This Citra- and Mosaic-powered hazy IPA is the popular flagship from Kros Strain in La Vista, Nebraska. See the notes below for how to adjust for the DDH version.

A classic style in the American craft pantheon, this amber ale is Annie Johnson’s house beer—the one she’s brewed again and again to dial in her process and ingredients. (She also drinks it.)

From Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado, this recipe is a celebration of Strata hops and the people who pick them.

For the team at Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado, this mountain-style IPA is a tribute to the Rocky Mountains. They select its modern hop varieties to achieve a complex profile of juicy and tropical notes.

The flagship beer from Wiseacre in Memphis, Tennessee, Tiny Bomb is a svelte, session-strength American lager with the full flavor of a German pilsner.

A classic style in the modern American pantheon, this hop-and-malt-forward strong ale serves as a great starting point for experimentation—for example, by subbing in your favorite hop varieties.

“Brewed as an ode to the sun,” this light, crisp, subtly sweet Mexican-inspired lager from Peaceful Side in Maryville, Tennessee, won the gold medal for International Light Lager at the 2025 World Beer Cup.

Based on details shared by the former lead brewer at Peoples Brewing in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, this mid-20th century American bock gets its color from a darker caramel Munich malt—not from the syrups that were common in dark adjunct lagers from that time.

This modern take on a Kentucky common comes from a collaboration between Bluejacket and DC Beer, a website that’s been covering the Washington, D.C., beer scene for more than a decade.

From Cloudburst founder-brewer Steve Luke, here’s a homebrew recipe for the West Coast double red that won gold at the 2025 World Beer Cup.