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100 American Craft Beers Every Beer-Lover Should Drink

There are some things in life that people simply have to experience first hand. Riding a roller coaster. Catching a wild brook trout. Running a mile for time. Dating someone out of your league…this is what life is all about. If you’re a baseball fan, you have to see a game at Wrigley Field. If you eat food, you have to try the spicy fried chicken at Gus’s Fried Chicken in Memphis. You just have to. You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced that chicken.

Likewise, if you’re a beer drinker, there are certain beers you have to drink. At least once. We’ve thought long and hard about what those quintessential beers are—the ones that everyone should try—and we’ve come up with a hearty list of 100 that define the American craft beer scene. Some of these beers would be considered the best beers in the country, if not the world. Others can hold their own, but earned a spot on this list because of the role they played in the craft beer movement. Is this a definitive list of beers everyone should try? Dear Lord, no. If you truly love beer, you should try them all. Even the bad ones. At least once. But this list will get you started.

Here’s the first round from the master list—we’ll be counting down all week. We hope you’re thirsty.

100. Dale’s Pale Ale

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Beer Profile: Brooklyn East IPA

Profiled by Maria Devan

This is a straight up good IPA. Pours clear and orange. Cream colored head that lasted well. Leaves sheets of shimmering lace.

Nose is candied orange peel with a splash of lemon. A malt that is not too sweet on the nose. As succulent as this is I am not seeing the nose run all over the place and I like that.

Taste follows the nose except for a permeating herbal from hop that is a perfect counter point to the sweetness of the orange peel. Bitterness underlies the drink rather than comes out over the top of it. Bitterness is firm but not sharp,clean and does not linger. This shows off a creamy biscuit with a faint caramel in the aftertaste. Lovely.

4.5
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Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”

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mdMaria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY, is a great beer writer, and should be a beer judge. Really, Maria, you’d make a great one.

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James Visger’s Beer Term O’ the Day

Beer Term ‘O the Day: Cold Break: This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze.

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11200622_10204207575965313_2069580751634047627_nJames Visger lives in Clarksville, TN. What, you wanna know more? He’s a BJCP beer judge and president of The Clarksville Carboys. More? His wife’s name is Jami and they are a great looking couple. That enough? Demanding, ain’t ya?

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James Visger’s Beer Term ‘O the Day

Beer Term ‘O the Day: CaraVienne malt. Similar to CaraMunich but lighter in color and less intensely flavored. CaraVienne is a pale to medium crystal-type malt produced by De Wolf-Cosyns Maltings malting in Belgium. Caravienne is a great adjunct in any beer where you might use Caramel malts to add a little color, some mouth feel, and some toasty flavors. Great candidates are Abbey style beers, English Bitters, and German Marzen, Oktoberfest etc.

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11200622_10204207575965313_2069580751634047627_nJames Visger lives in Clarksville, TN, he’s a BJCP beer judge and president of The Clarksville Carboys. His wife’s name is Jami and they are a great looking couple. James is not a rich man, though he certainly is blessed in many ways.

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Beer Profile: Ommegang Hop State New York

Profiled by Maria Devan

Pours with plenty of haze. You can see the particles in suspension producing a dappled effect on a golden orange body. A fat cream colored head. Head had fantastic retention and fell off rocky and clinging for dear life.

Nose is subtle but forceful. Biscuit malt and a woodier earthier hop scent. From the color I was expecting bold fruit. Instead I got a light scent from melon rind.

Light floral. taste is succulent. Juicy but not crisp. The malt is very soft and the hops show off a bit of spice rather than fruit. The floral comes out as the beer warms and so does some shy fresh orange. There is a yeasty scent right at the top of this nose that I am not sure they wanted there. It’s earthy. There is faint caramel in this that simply and without fanfare underscores the biscuit in this malt. This finishes spicier rather than fruitier. The finish is deceptively dry and I am happy about it. I think this a good pale ale.The dryness in this beer shows off the lightest touch of candied orange peel and grass in the finish.

4

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Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”

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_______________________________________Beer HERE

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mdMaria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY, atop a steep hill. Except when one time on St. Patty’s Day when leprechauns tried to slap skates on her and roll her down the hill, she only walks down it. She has been reviewing beer for many years, even with many homebrewers and other beer critics across the nation, on the web. She’s known as “The Girl Next Door” in her You Tubes. We are very lucky to have her here at PGA.

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James Visger’s Beer Term ‘O the Day

Beer Term ‘O the Day: Cereal mash. Rice and oatmeal don’t go through the first step of malting, so what you do is cook them first… When you touch or bite uncooked rice, you can feel it’s hard to bite through the outer shell… when you cook it, however, it becomes really soft…. well just like you, the enzymes will have a hard time getting through the shell of uncooked rice, but once you cook it, the starches inside become accessible… the same goes for oatmeal, corn, flaked corn, and other similar adjuncts…

When you first cook an adjunct to make its starches more accessible and then add it to the main mash, you call that a cereal mash… also known as adjunct mash…

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11200622_10204207575965313_2069580751634047627_nJames Visger lives in Clarksville, TN, he’s a BJCP beer judge, has a lovely wife named Jami, and is president of The Clarksville Carboys. Rumors that he rides wild boars through the streets of Clarksville at 3 in the morning are untrue… mostly.

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James Visger’s Beer Term ‘O the Day

Aromatic hops: Synonym for…

Beer Term ‘O the Day: Aromatic hops: Synonym for finishing hops. When hops are added during the final minutes of the boil, less of the aromatic oils are lost to evaporation and more hop aroma is retained.

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11200622_10204207575965313_2069580751634047627_nJames Visger lives in Clarksville, TN, he’s a BJCP beer judge, president of The Clarksville Carboys and general beer troublemaker. In a GOOD way!

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You And Yeast Have More In Common Than You Might Think

This fungus among us — baker's yeast, aka Saccharomyces cerevisiae — is useful for more than just making bread.

Rip open a little package of baker’s yeast from the supermarket, peer inside, and you’ll see your distant cousin.

That’s because we share a common ancestor with yeast, and a new study in the journal Science suggest that we also share hundreds of genes that haven’t really changed in a billion years.

Edward Marcotte, a biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, knew that humans and yeast have thousands of similar genes. But, he wondered, how similar are they?

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