Your Top Ten Highest Rated Beers From 2015

Singlecut Bon Bon 2X 4.78
Lawson's Sip Of Sunshine 4.75
Founder's Blushing Monk 4.72
Grey Sail Captain's Daughter 4.68
Other Half Southern Hopalisitc 4.68
Singlecut Mo Shuggie 4.64
Pizza Boy Eternal Sunshine 4.62
Carton Boat Beer 4.49
Great Lakes Chillwave 4.56
Singlecut Billy Full Stack 4.52

 

Heady Topper
Bourbon County Vanilla Rye
Four Winds Nectarous
Bellwoods Bring Out Your Dead
Ballast Point Victory at Sea
Dieu Du Ciel! Aphrodisiaque
Prairie Bomb!
Fiddlehead Second Fiddle
Fifty Fifty Imperial Eclipse Elijah Craig
Bellwoods Montmorency Cherry Farmageddon

 

AleSmith Hawaiian Speedway — 4.85
Cascade Blackcap Raspberry — 4.77
Dieu du Ciel! Péché Mortel — 4.65
Fremont Coffee Dark Star '14 — 4.65
Crooked Stave NmOB (Leopold) — 4.64
Russian River Supplication — 4.62
Firestone Walker Parabola '15 — 4.62
Sierra Nevada BA Narwhal '14 — 4.60
de Garde Peach Bu — 4.58
North Coast Old Stock Cellar Reserve Bourbon — 4.57

Not a bad year I guess.

 

The grapefruit in was just too overpowering for me. I did give it a 3.67 Rating...
"At the risk of sounding like an asshole - I just don't see what all the love for this beer is about. I LOVE Sculpin, so I figured I had to try Grapefruit Sculpin. Smells like the grapefruit juice your Grama orders at Easter Family Brunch to wash down her handful of old lady pills. And, unfortunately, tasted much like carbonated, slightly hopped grapefruit juice with a slightly bitter, almost sour aftertaste. I'll pass and stick to the regular variety."

And I'm really hoping I just got a bad bottle of Nelson. I gave it a 3.63 Rating...
"I'm hoping I just got a bad bottle. It looked gorgeous in the glass, smelled like I was in for an awesome hop bomb, and then I tasted it and it was nothing but burnt malt. No citrus, no hops. I was totally let down. Will seek out again and revise my review if the second go around is better. (should be noted it was in a Green Flash bottle)"

 

-Prairie Apple Brandy Noir
-Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout
-Surly Todd the Axe Man
-Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout (2013)
-Sierra Nevada Barrel Aged Narwhal (2014)
-Country Boy Infinite Sadness
-Firestone Walker Parabola (2013)
-Firestone Walker PNC
-Prairie Fred's Blend
-Barley Brown's Pallet Jack IPA

 

King Julius
Good Morning
Truth
DDH Congress st.
Headroom
Proprietors bcbs
last buffalo in the park
veritas 015
PseudoSue
Morning Wood

Pretty clear I have a thing for MA brews but can you blame me?

 

Top 10 beers from this year:

1) Darkness
2) Heady
3) Zombie Dust
4) PseudoSue
5) BCBS
6) Bells 30th Anniversary
7) KBS
8) FW 19th Anniversary
9) Pliny the Elder
10) Permanent Funeral

Top beers consumed this year, not on the list above:
1) Gratitude, East End (2007)
2) Barrel Aged Darkness
3) Helldorado (2014)

 

Top 10
Tree House Good Morning 5
Goose Island Bourbon County Vanilla Rye 5
Hill Farmstead Double Citra 5
Founders CBS 5
Tree House King Julius 5
Toppling Goliath PseudoSue 4.98
Trillium Galaxy Dry Hopped Fort Point Pale Ale 4.98
Trappist Westvleteren 12 4.96
Funky Buddha Maple Bacon Coffee Porter 4.95
Trillium Double Dry Hopped Fort Point Pale Ale 4.92

Bottom 10
Goose Island 312 Urban Pale Ale 3.48
Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree IPA 3.54
Samuel Adams JP Stout 3.56
Dogfish Head Choc Lobster 3.56
Susquehanna Hopfive IPA 3.56
Southern Tier Warlock 3.65
Red Shedman Vanilla Porter 3.68
Short's Bucktricity Kills 3.72
Founders Black Rye 3.75
Center of the Universe Pocahoptas 3.75

 

Finally got around to rating a few classics, along with some newbies:

Abraxas - 4.5
Founders Backwoods Bastard - 4.43
Bruery Sour in the Rye - 4.38
Boulevard Saison-Brett - 4.35
Allagash Farm To Face - 4.33
Legend Of The Liquid Brain - 4.3
DFH 90 Minute - 4.29
DFH Raison D'Extra - 4.28
St. Bernardus Abt 12 - 4.27
Bell's Two Hearted - 4.25

Honorable mentions: Stone RuinTen (4.23) and Bell's 30th Anniversary (4.21)

 

5 Allagash Cuvée D'Industrial
4.91 Uinta Sea Legs Baltic Porter
4.79 Clown Shoes Flight Of The Angry Beast
4.71 Bell's Third Coast Old Ale
4.69 Smuttynose Really Old Brown Dog Ale
4.68 Surly Pentagram
4.66 Off Color Brewing Apex Predator
4.63 Crooked Stave Origins
4.6 Russian River Pliney the Elder
4.59 Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin

What a year! That Cuvee is a true masterpiece.

 

Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen 4.85
Oude Gueuze Tilquin a L'Ancienne 4.83
St. Bernardus Witbier 4.81
Epic Big Bad Baptist 4.77
Deschutes The Abyss 4.73
Jackie O's Dark Apparition 4.7
Weihenstephaner Vitus 4.68
New Glarus Serendipity 4.67
Triple Digit Gravitator 4.64
Jackie O's Wood Ya Honey 4.64

Now, if the list is limited to beers I had for the first time and rated in 2015, that's another matter entirely. A handful of these were a matter of me getting around to rating them on here.

 

It's fitting that my first post is a list of the top beers I've had this year (really since coming back stateside in June).
In no particular order:

GI BCBCS
Hardywood BA GBS
Perennial Abraxas
Russian River Pliny the Elder
Founders Project PAM
Epic Big Bad Baptist
Founders Backwoods Bastard
The Bruery Smoking Wood w/Mole
Founders Breakfast Stout
Allagash Curieux

 

Top beers I had for the first time in 2015:

Pieces Of Eight - Foley Brothers Brewing 4.96
Tesseract - Grimm Artisanal Ales 4.88
Susan - Hill Farmstead Brewery 4.79
BOMB! - Prairie Artisan Ales 4.79
Julius - Tree House Brewing Company 4.78
Mosaic Pale Ale - Hill Farmstead Brewery 4.75
Bon Bon 2X TNT IIPA - SingleCut Beersmiths 4.75
Does Anybody Remember Laughter? - SingleCut Beersmiths 4.74
Money With Pineapple & Mango - Barrier Brewing Company 4.69
Mosaic IPA - Other Half Brewing Co. 4.64
Double Negative - Grimm Artisanal Ales 4.64

 

I'm seeing a lot of Deal with the Devil on some lists. I'm kicking myself for not picking one up when i had the chance.

 

Trillium (I had pretty much eveything they put out last year and rated all high 4.5)
Tree House King Julius,Double shot (el salvador peadberry),Green
OEC Aeris Singularis
Hill Farmstead Biere de Norma
Grassroots Convivial Suarez
BCBCS
KBS

Those were all the beers that really stuck out for me. Plenty of other awesome stuff went into my belly as well.

 

Fun exercise. Makes me realize a had some bitchin beers last year. Here's what cracked the top ten:

1. Mosaic IPA - Other Half - 4.69
2. Anna - Hill Farmstead - 4.63
3. Bourbon County Vanilla Rye - 4.58
4. Peche 'n Brett - Logsdon - 4.55
5. Helldorado - Firestone Walker - 4.53
6. Bourbon Barrel Aged Abominable: Coffee And Cinnamon - Fremont - 4.49
7. Sump Coffee Stout - Perennial - 4.49
8. Sunny Side Up - Pizza Boy - 4.47
9. Biere De Miel - Jester King - 4.46
10. Smoking Wood Bourbon Barrel Aged - Bruery - 4.46

What's interesting to me is the stuff that just missed the cut: Bourbon Vanilla Shake, Tesseract, Focal Banger, a couple of Alpine brews. Killer beers, but I guess I was marginally less wowed by them in the moment than I was by the guys above. That, or one of the metrics caused them to slide a fraction of a point. Anyway - happy 2016, folks!

 

Evil Twin - Aun Mas A Jesus
Hill Farmstead - Dorothy
Alpine - Nelson
Nogne O - Horizon Tokyo Black
Half Acre - GoneAway
Alchemist - Focal Banger
Grimm - Rainbow Dome
Lawson's - Sip Of Sunshine
Evil Twin - Cognac Jesus
Alvinne - Sigma

Appears that I travelled to the U.S. a few times this year!