This is Foaming at the Mouth, Joshua M. Bernstein’s hopped-up adventures in the ever-expanding universe of beer. And yes, he would like another round, please.
Runners spend months prepping for marathons, a race that stretches human endurance like a rubber band. For me, several decades hoisting beers is barely prep for Denver’s Great American Beer Festival, a three-day bender worthy of a Hemingway book.
The bacchanal, now in its 35th year, fills the sprawling Colorado Convention Center with 780 breweries serving some 3,800 beers, from pungent IPAs to cucumber-infused sours, doled out by the ounce.
This might seem measly, barely enough to inebriate a chipmunk. But consider GABF as a massive ice cream shop. Several plastic spoons of vanilla swirl and chocolate peanut butter are easy to lick. Multiply that by 300 and, well, ick.
In Denver’s mile-high air, where alcohol hits harder than a heavyweight’s left hook, one is the booziest number.
Getting drunker than Ryan Lochte isn’t my GABF goal. Instead, my Olympian task is strolling the concrete floor, chock-full of 60,000 revelers outfitted with pretzel necklaces, and make sense of the latest flavors and scents.
Trend winds forever gust in unexpected directions, and this year’s festival swirled with pilsners, Oktoberfest-ready lagers, and coffee everything, while German-inspired sours swam with fruits right at home in a Florida time share’s fridge.
Here are the trends that will take over American beer in 2017.
Fall Into Lager
This year’s gourd backlash has seen brewers hit the pumpkin brakes. Into the potpourri-scented void came beers infused with maple syrup and my pick for fall’s new darling, the märzen. This might seem like old news, as these Oktoberfest-ready lagers—märzen is German for March, when the beers were brewed and stored till fall—have endured for centuries. Small wonder: The style’s collision of crispness, caramel sweetness, and food-pairing mojo (sausages, pretzels, fried chicken) has Revolution Oktoberfest, Left Hand Oktoberfest, and Hi-Wire Zirkusfest poised to recapture fall’s throne.
Juice Is Loose
The IPA is no longer the ’roided-up wrestler pile-driving palates with bitterness. It’s as soft as soufflé, fruity and tropical as ambrosia salad (the secret sauce: hops such as Citra and Mosaic), a hazy dreamboat that smoothly sails down your throat. The beers are downright juice, a phrase that was loose at GABF describing Great Notion’s Juice Jr., Alvarado Street Brewery’s Contains No Juice, Left Coast’s Hop Juice, and Sam Adams Rebel Juiced, the brewery’s latest brand extension. It was revealed during a morning press conference, during which I fittingly partnered the IPA with OJ.
Milking It
Breweries had a cow at GABF, adding lactose—an unfermentable milk sugar that supplies sweetness and body—to a breakfast platter of styles. Milk stouts were abundant, with Monkey Paw’s macadamia-packed Dark Side of Paradise, 4 Hands’ cocoa nib–crammed Chocolate Milk Stout, and Boxing Bear’s gold medal–winning Chocolate Milk Stout the silky stuff you want to sip at Waffle House when wildly hungover.
Lactose also snuck into the unexpected. The Bruery’s golden Or Xata mimicked Mexico’s cinnamon-flecked horchata, while Launch Pad’s Cape Canaveral saison deployed lactose, citrus, and vanilla beans to evoke key lime pie. P.S. Keep an eye out for lactose-laced, dessert-worthy “milkshake IPAs” made by breweries such as Tired Hands and Omnipollo.
Hey, Joe
Coffee kick-starts our mornings, while coffee beers increasingly cap our nights. This year demonstrated that brewers are moving beyond the move of stuffing coffee into roasty stouts. Georgetown Brewing’s gold medal–grabbing Gusto Crema marries a light-bodied cream ale to floral cold brew, a pairing suited for 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. (Wolf’s Ridge Clear Sky Daybreak also rocks the cream ale–coffee tune.) Post-dinner is more appropriate for Allagash Brewing’s brawny James Bean, aged in bourbon barrels and infused with cold brew from Ethiopian beans reminiscent of blackberries and blueberries. And FATE Brewing takes the IPA into another tangent with Moirai Coffee IPA, a style with serious buzz potential.
Kölsch Crush
Brewers constantly quest for the next beer that’ll satisfy a broader audience, both lite beer bro and double IPA snob. Enter Germany’s kölsch, an ale that’s cold-fermented like lagers, dampening fruitiness and escalating brisk refreshment. The kölsch is no newcomer, but the beer—a great running mate to salads, eggy brunch, and lighter fish—is poised for a bigger role.
Classic interpretations such as Elevation 8 Second and Magnolia Kalifornia Kölsch abounded. More interestingly, kölsch found itself in the crosshair of brewers’ flavorful experimentation, blending the accessible with the stylistically unexpected. Ballast Point Serrano Kölsch will hit a home run for chili heads, while Little Harpeth Mosaic Kölsch is catnip to IPA junkies.
Fruited Sours
A decade back, Germany’s salty-sour gose (“goes-uh”) and lemony-acidic Berliner weisse were as forgotten as Scott Baio, relics from a bygone era. But brewers revived these ancients, recasting them as tingly thirst-quenchers and best buds to ceviche, salads, and shellfish.
Perhaps inspired by fruited IPAs' success, these low-alcohol sours are playing nice with the produce aisle. Ecliptic’s Zenith Grapefruit Gose and Crooked Thumb’s Florida Grapefruit Gose zestily refresh like cold showers during a heat wave. Tivoli's Strawberry Mint Berliner is an effervescent sip of summertime on a Southern porch. Metal Monkey’s pineapple-filled Bikini Bottom takes gose on a tropical jaunt, while Blue Point’s Beach Plum Gose swims into uncharted waters with the additions of seaweed and Long Island–harvested sea salt.
Four Other Trends to Watch for 2017
1. Field Beers: Beers like Scratch Brewing’s mushroom-filled Oyster Weiss and M.I.A. Beer Co.’s tart Babalu, crammed with carrots, were signs that vegetable-infused beers are ascendant.
2. Dry-Hopped Sours: We called it earlier this year, but the collision of sour beer and hops was everywhere at GABF. It's time drink on tart (and hoppy) side.
3. Beers Gone Wild: From Black Project’s spontaneously fermented creations to Sudwerk’s Fünke Hop Farm, aged in wine barrels and amuck with funky Brettanomyces yeast, beers humming with wild microbes will continue to make mainstream inroads.
4. Pilsners Aplenty: The Slim Jim-snappy lager continued its crafty comeback, with scores of breweries supplying a spin. Stock Foothills Torch Pilsner, pFriem Family Pilsner, and Von Trapp Bohemian Pilsner for your tailgating needs.