Let's Do the Numbers

A recap of the nation's top breweries and a new California import lands at Threes

Craft Beer & Brewing’s annual readers’ poll of the top beers and breweries in the US is always a fun list to peruse. Given the effort I’ve put into visiting over 3,500 breweries in the US alone, the number of breweries appearing in the poll results that get added to my “to-visit” list each year dwindles more and more. But it’s intriguing to crunch the numbers and see what’s left for me. While this newsletter is for you, the reader, I’m putting this down for my own reference — the breweries across all categories that I have not yet visited:

Small Breweries (fewer than 5,000 barrels per year) - Visited 16 out of 20

10. Triptych (Savoy, Illinois)
12. Floodland (Seattle)
18. Gold Dot & Heater Allen (McMinnville, Oregon)
20. Bearded Brewer (Omaha, Nebraska)

16 out of 20 is pretty good for a category that’s often populated by small up-and-comers. I managed to make good work of this category in the past year, visiting #6 (Goldfinger in Illinois) and #11 (Everywhere in Orange County, California) for the first time, plus revisiting North Park, Highland Park, Cerebral, and Bierstadt — all top-ten breweries. As for what’s left, it’s going to be hard to clear the board. Triptych is about a two and a half hour train ride from Chicago. Floodland doesn’t have a taproom and only releases bottles once every two months, so that will likely remain a challenge for the foreseeable future. Heater Allen has been on my to-visit list for a while, but McMinnville isn’t particularly easy to get to, even from Portland. Surprisingly, I’ve been to Omaha three times and enjoyed my visits there and I’m overdue to return, so Bearded Brewer may be the next of these four that I visit.

Small Regional (5,000–25,000 barrels per year) - Visited 13 out of 20

1. Outer Range (Frisco, Colorado, and Salanches, France)
11. Westbound & Down (Erie, Colorado)
12. The Alchemist (Stowe, Vermont)
13. Ghost Town (Oakland, California)
14. Block 15 (Corvallis, Oregon)
15. Pinthouse (Austin, Texas)
18. Solemn Oath (Naperville, Illinois)

Yes, despite having been to over 250 breweries in the state of Colorado, I haven’t visited two of its most popular these days. I’ll whittle this down by one this weekend, as I’m finally going to visit The Alchemist’s Stowe location (I used to frequent their original Waterbury location back in the late 2000s). And while I’ve been to Solemn Oath’s lovely Still Life bar in Chicago, I haven’t been out to their production facility in Naperville.

Midsize Regional (25,000–100,000 barrels per year) - Visited 17 out of 20

10. Toppling Goliath (Decorah, Iowa)
14. Lawson’s Finest (Waitsfield, Vermont)
18. Big Grove (Solon, Iowa)

No offense to Iowa, but you’re a bit off the beaten path (and Decorah is especially off the beaten path). Perhaps another Iowa beer trip is in my future, as I visited Des Moines back in 2019 and knew there was more to see. As for Lawson’s? I’ll see you this weekend.

Large (100,000+ barrels per year) - Visited 16 out of 20

6. Three Floyds (Munster, Indiana)
7. Bell’s (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
8. New Glarus (New Glarus, Wisconsin)
16. Tröegs (Hershey, Pennsylvania)

These are all breweries I’ve classified as “low-hanging fruit,” and I just keep telling myself, “I’ll get to them someday.” New Glarus’ taproom was closed for renovations when I was in nearby Madison in 2021 and I should wait until their expansion is complete before visiting at this point, and Three Floyds’ taproom has been closed since 2020, though they’re planning a new one. Given its proximity to New York, Tröegs is by far the most egregious of these, but a fresh Nugget Nectar at the source is definitely on my beer bucket list. Bell’s, however, is in my more immediate future — I’ve got plans to finally visit them and drink a fresh Kalamazoo Stout in early December.

Last year, I had 19 breweries on the lists I had yet to visit. I visited four of them and yet… I still have 18 breweries I have yet to visit. It’s a game of brewery whack-a-mole. To all of you who keep joking, “you’re going to run out of breweries to visit,” see? I’m nowhere close to running out.

By the way, for those who didn’t click through to these lists: there is one New York brewery included. Not surprisingly, it’s Other Half — ranked #5 in the Midsize Regional category.

Threes Brewing nabs a new head brewer

Los Angeles’ loss is New York’s gain. Brooklyn’s Threes Brewing has hired a new head brewer to lead production at their Gowanus Brewpub, and beer nerds will be pleased with the his resume. Josh Penney, who’s been head brewer at LA’s Highland Park Brewery for the past five and a half years, joined Threes’ team this fall. He’s also worked for LA outfits Beachwood Brewing and Golden Road.

Under Penney’s place at the helm of Highland Park’s brewhouse, the brewery has won three World Beer Cup awards and eleven Great American Beer Festival medals, in addition to the title of Brewery Group Brewery and Brewer of the Year at the latter’s competition this year. And the wins have been far from one note, varying in style categories from American-Style Lager to American IPA to Juicy or Hazy IPA to Kellerbier to India Pale Lager.

The new hire is far from the first connection Threes and Highland Park have shared. Highland Park beers have been poured at Threes in the past, including during their annual Can Jam, in an event during Vliet Week, and during their East Coast vs. West Coast IPA competition during March Madness. The two breweries released a collaboration West Coast IPA called Hello Brooklyn back during Covid in 2020. And this past June, Highland Park poured when Pils and Love was hosted at their Gowanus Brewpub.

Beer Events of Note This Week

• Brooklyn: MiLuna La Primera Release at KCBC, Thursday 11/21 from 7pm, free entry

• Manhattan: New York Beer Dispensary Grand Opening, Friday 11/22 from 5pm-close, free entry

• Bronx: Bronx Brewery Y-Series: Ofrenda Release, Sunday 11/24 from 2-7pm, free entry

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,557
Total breweries visited in 2024: 273
Total breweries visited in Vermont: 18

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #4, Magic Hat Artifactory, South Burlington, Vermont (Visited 13-Nov-2004)

I’m coming up on the twentieth anniversary of the weekend I moved as a fresh-faced youngster to Burlington, Vermont to take a job at a small ad agency. To mark the occasion, I’m spending this weekend back in the Queen City, a place I truly adored where I made long-lasting friendships — including my friendship with craft beer.

Magic Hat is no longer, but it still holds a very special place in my heart. One of my earliest introductions to craft beer was #9, an amber-hued apricot-spiked ale. As I spent time in Vermont, their smaller-batch beers broadened my beer horizons: Fat Angel introduced me to hoppy beers, Ravell brought me appreciation for Porters, Jinx opened my eyes to Scotch Ales. Living in Burlington, I befriended several brewery employees who often slipped me extra free samples at the taproom and invited me to keg parties – and taught me that playing beer pong with high-gravity beer is not a particularly responsible choice. While the brewery was sold off by founder Alan Newman by 2010 and its reputation among uber beer geeks soured over the years as it struggled to innovate and match a changing national palate, I still have an appreciation for the place that made some of my gateway beers.

When I moved to Burlington in 2004, Magic Hat was a hit in Vermont. It, along with the likes Long Trail, Otter Creek, and Harpoon, made the state an early destination for beer tourists at a time when the phrase hadn’t been uttered in the US. Smaller outfits were making a mark on the Green Mountain State’s scene, too. Vermont Pub & Brewery (where the late Greg Noonan brewed pioneering craft beer), The Shed (where Hill Farmstead’s Shaun Hill got his start), and The Alchemist (where cult status was still years away) were favorite stops after a day on Lake Champlain or a day in the mountains. But out of sheer convenience, free samples, $6 growler fills, and a taproom that embodied the offbeat, imaginative brand, I kept coming back to Magic Hat.

On my last visit in 2015, I felt right at home again when I visited the “Artifactory.” I got my last chance to enjoy the Feast of Fools Raspberry Stout and the Single Chair Ale at the taproom (ISO a tap handle, which featured the iconic single-chair chairlift from Mad River Glen ski area). But I looked around me as I saw other visitors and wondered: had they just come from Fiddlehead or Switchback down the road? Were they visiting for nostalgia’s sake like me? Things hadn’t changed much inside the brewery, but a lot had changed outside of it, and that was a part of the reason that the South Burlington brewery closed for good in 2020, leaving a $6 growler-sized hole in my heart.

The Doom and Gloom Tracker

At least 3 breweries I’ve visited closed or announced their closure this week:

• Brewery #1646, Ora Brewing Company, London, England (Visited 10-Aug-2019)

• Brewery #1661, 14er Brewing Company, Denver, Colorado (Visited 21-Aug-2019)

• Brewery #1797, Elysian Brewing Company - Georgetown, Seattle, Washington (Visited 27-Dec-2019)

The Weekly Reader

• How New York’s brewing industry is riding out the dip [Laura Reiley, Cornell Chronicle]

• AB Inbev continues their slow divestment from craft [Jeff Alworth, Beervana]

• How Michelob Ultra rose to prominence [Dave Infante, Taplines]

• Nobody drinks draft beer anymore [Kate Bernot, Bon Appetit]

One Last Thing

Next week is the annual release of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout, and if you’re looking to track it down, you’ll have a couple options in New York City: the usual venues, Top Hops and Carmine Street Beers will both be doing bottle pre-sales this week for pick up next week, and both will offer select beers from the series on tap. But additionally, Carmine’s sister bar Queue Beer in Gowanus will also have some BCBS variants available to consume on-site bottle and vintage draft pours starting on Wednesday. Moderation with these beers is key — it’s best not to get black-out drunk on Black Friday.

Cheers,
Chris