The Best Breweries in the Midwest

The Midwest is full of great breweries—let’s be real there’s not much to do from November-March when you are snowed in other than brew and drink great beer. As a result there are some stellar spots spanning across these states!

The best breweries in the Midwest, in no particular order:

Phase Three Brewing Company: Lake Zurich, IL

Speciation Artisan Ales: Grand Rapids, MI

Pulpit Rock Brewing Company: Decorah, IA

Lua Brewing: Des Moines, IA

Forager Brewery: Rochester, MN

Side Project Brewing: Maplewood, MO

Jackie O’s Brewery: Athens, OH

New Glarus Brewing Company: New Glarus, WI

BlackStack Brewing: St. Paul, MN

Transient Artisan Ales: Bridgman, MI

Revolution Brewing: Chicago, IL

Drekker Brewing Company: Fargo, ND

Which of these have you been to? What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments! Cheers—Alexis

My Top Beers in May 2022

May was a month of bottle shares and an 11 day Northern California road trip, so there was a ton of good beer consumed and new breweries visited. Check out my top beers of the past month, in no particular order:

The Maison from de Garde Brewing in Tillamook, OR at The Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco, CA

The Maison is a Spontaneous Wild Ale aged in oak barrels and blended for 3+ years. de Garde is definitely one of my favorite breweries in the country so finding them on tap in San Francisco was a treat! The Monk’s Kettle was a fantastic beer bar with great food, I highly recommend checking them out in the Mission District.

Coeur de Cuvée (Blend #8) from Side Project Brewing in Maplewood, MO

Coeur de Cuvée is a series of blends of wine barrel fermented and aged Saisons from Side Project. This eighth release contains select barrels of a Chablis-inspired Saison which was then refermented on Michigan pears before being blended in a Bière de Coupage style and conditioned for an extended period of time in bottle. This was another fantastic beer from Side Project, who never seems to disappoint.

10,000 Steps (Batch 2) from Private Press Brewing in Santa Cruz, CA at Holy Water in San Francisco, CA

10,000 Steps Batch 2 is a blend of barrel aged Imperial Stout and Barleywine brewed with maple syrup and conditioned on cacao nibs and vanilla beans. Private Press is a sought after brewery with no taproom and limited releases in the Bay Area. Seeing them on tap at Holy Water was a delight! Holy Water is a chill beer bar in the Bernal Heights neighborhood with fantastic beers.

Supplication at Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, CA

Supplication is a Brown Ale aged in Pinot Noir wine barrels for one year with sour cherries, brettanomyces yeast and lactobacillus and pedioccus bacteria. Visiting Russian River was definitely a huge goal of mine so I was pumped to make it out to Santa Rosa. I tried 8 beers at Russian River and was truly surprised to find that Supplication was my favorite.

Everything at Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola and Santa Cruz, CA

I visited both Sante Adairius locations while in Northern California—the OG taproom in Capitola and The Portal in Santa Cruz. I was insanely impressed with every single beer that I had:

Queen of the Season Foudre aged Saison; Wisdom is Learned Barrel Aged Saison with peaches; The Gift of Comfort Barrel aged Blonde ale with rose hips and Meyer Lemon; Landscapes #3 Oak aged Saison dry hopped with Kohia Nelson; Anais House Saison; Cellarman Oak aged Saison in collaboration with Triple Rock; Tomorrow, Today IPA with Citra, Simcoe and Mosaic

Everything at Moksa Brewing in Rocklin, CA

Visiting Moksa was also extremely exciting for me, so it was tough not to drink the entire menu as I loved everything. My two favorites at Moksa were Smells Like C.R.E.A.M. Spirit, an Imperial Stout with port barrel aged maple syrup, vanilla beans and coffee in collaboration with @mikerphonebrewing and One Million Blueberries Imperial Sour Ale with blueberries and vanilla.

Hypnotized Minds Volume 2 Collaboration beer from Xul Beer Co. in Knoxville, TN, BlackStack Brewing in St. Paul, MN and Orchestrated Minds Brewing in Fort Lauderdale, FL at Resident Culture Brewing Company in Charlotte, NC

Hypnotized Minds is a Double Dry Hopped Triple IPA with Azacca, Citra & Simcoe hops. In celebration of CLT Beer Week Resident Culture hosted a tap takeover with a few guest taps, one of which was this fantastic Xul, BlackStack, Orchestrated Minds juice bomb!

Home Sour Home 2022 at The Rare Barrel in Berkeley, CA

Home Sour Home 2022 is a Golden Sour aged in oak barrels with peach, cinnamon and vanilla bean. Everything at The Rare Barrel was superb, but Home Sour Home was particularly delicious! This beer has a great balance of tartness and sweetness, making it easy drinking and phenomenal.

Schmoojee Hydra collaboration brew from Imprint Beer Co. in Hartfield, PA and Mortalis Brewing in Avon, NY

Schmoojee Hydra is a heavily fruited sour with mango, pineapple, passionfruit, banana, coconut and marshmallow. Mortalis and Imprint are two of the best in the game for Fruited Sours so it is no surprise that this was delicious. It was light and refreshing while also being thiccc and fruity at the same time.

Check back next month for my top beers of June 2022!
Cheers —ALexis

My Top Beers in January 2022

January brought a plethora of fantastic beers—from bottle shares, to a Charleston trip, to a Southern California trip visiting some of the top breweries in the country, there was no shortage of delicious brews. In no particular order, here are the best beers I had in January 2022:

Everything at Monkish Brewing in Torrance and Anaheim, CA

Is this cheating? Yes. Too bad. Everything Monkish brews is incredibly delicious and I was so thrilled to have the opportunity to visit both of their taprooms on my SoCal trip! I had the following beers and I would recommend them all:

• Conscience Be Free: Double Dry Hopped Double IPA with Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, and Simcoe

• Foggier Window: Double Dry Hopped Double IPA with Citra, Nelson Sauvin, and Galaxy

• Sticky Traffic: Double Dry Hopped Double IPA with Nelson Sauvin, Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy

• Biggie Biggie Biggie: Triple IPA with Galaxy and El Dorado

• One Tree: Triple IPA with Strata and Idaho 7

• M 9.5: Saison aged in oak barrels for 18 months and conditioned on spent Blenheim apricots

Nelson!!! (It’s What We Like Here!) at Green Cheek Beer Co. in Costa Mesa, CA

Nelson!!! (It’s What We Like Here!) is a West Coast IPA with hand selected—you guessed it—Nelson Sauvin hops from Freestyle Farm in New Zealand. I generally always choose a Hazy IPA over a West Coast IPA but I decided to branch out while on the West Coast because that’s where they are done best. This was easily the best West Coast IPA I’ve ever had. Shout out to Green Cheek for truly crushing the game.

Luxurious Luxury Volume 10 Collab from The Veil Brewing in Richmond, VA and Evil Twin BRewing in New York, NY

Luxurious Luxury Volume 10 is a Pastry Sour with blackberry, pear, marshmallow and vanilla salt. This latest installment in The Veil and Evil Twin’s collaboration series was absolutely epic. The flavors were exploding and I thoroughly enjoyed every sip.

Double Lightning at Resident Culture Brewing Company in Charlotte, NC

Double Lightning is a Hazy Double IPA with Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy hops. This is the double version of their Flagship Beer, Lightning Drops. I was incredibly impressed with the quality of Double Lightning and look forward to hopefully seeing more of it released.

Study Break, Intrepid Orchid (2022), and Memory Systems at Bottle Logic Brewing in Anaheim, CA

Bottle Logic crushes the Stout game so I of course ordered each one they had on the menu when I visited and they were all delicious!

• Study Break: Imperial Stout with lactose, caramel malts, cacao nibs and peanuts

• Intrepid Orchid 2022: Bourbon Barrel-Aged English Style Vanilla Barleywine with Madagascar vanilla

• Memory Systems 2022: Bourbon Barrel Aged Cinnamon Bun Stout—Imperial Stout aged in a braid of Old Fitzgerald, Heaven Hill, and Elijah Craig barrels and conditioned with a four-day marshmallow steep and a recirculation through Madagascar vanilla beans, Vietnamese cinnamon, and cassia bark

Tomorrow Today from Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola, CA and La Ruche from Side Project Brewing in St. Louis, MO

Tomorrow Today is a West Coast IPA with Simcoe, Citra, and Mosaic hops. Sante Adairius has long been on my list of breweries I’d love to try so I was absolutely stoked to get to taste some of the draft beer while in SoCal.

La Ruche is a Saison fermented using a blend of local microflora and a traditional Saison yeast. Orange Blossom honey was added for refermentation in a Missouri Oak Foedre and then it was aged to maturity before being naturally conditioned in the bottle. Side Project is always a top-notch brewery and this beer was exceptional.

I enjoyed both of these at Windsor Homebrew Supply in Anaheim. They have a killer tap list and bottle/can selection alongside their homebrew supplies.

Eternal Forever at Pure Brewing in San Diego, CA

Eternal Forever is a blend of Single and Double Bourbon Barrel-Aged Stouts with Cacao & Wild Thai Banana. Pure released this in celebration of their 6th Anniversary and I luckily was in town for the release. I actually had this beer twice while I was in San Diego, at Pure Balboa Park and at Pure Carlsbad, because it was just so good. The banana flavor was epic.

Fros’e Sour Blackberry Puff at Kings Brewing Company in Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Pictured left, this is a Fros'e with blackberry, blueberry, cherry, grape, double vanilla & double marshmallow. Kings is best known for their thiccc Fruited Sours and this brew was the best of the three I had on tap. The fruit combination was fantastic!

Rosé de Gambrinus from Cantillon in Brussels, Belgium

This is a blend of Lambics and raspberries from the famed Cantillon in Belgium. Every brew they create is great and this was a light, fruity, and tart sipper.

Pliny The Elder from Russian River Brewing Company in Russian River, CA

Pliny the Elder is a Double West Coast IPA with Amarillo, Centennial, CTZ, and Simcoe hops. This is probably the best known West Coast IPA in the country and deemed a classic. I’ve had Pliny several times before but I couldn’t pass up the chance to have it on draft on the West Coast at Mostra Coffee’s 4s location. It is always delightful—clean, crisp, and delicious.

Check back next month to see what my top beers of February will be! CHeers —ALexis