The 15 Beers That Defined American Craft Brewing — and Where They Are Now

I can’t understand why Blue Moon should be on any list.
I agree with most of the others.
For me, New Belgium Fat Tire helped pave the way beyond lagers and macro-brews.
For me, Old Rasputin was the first Imperial Stout I chased, maybe not with scheduled releases like Goose Island BBCO

 

At the beginning of the HotD Dave entry:

"Before there were bourbon taters there were craft beer whale chasers"

ISO Bourbon taters

 

OK, Bert Grant was on the list, I'll put down the pitchtorches.

 

I have no problem with this list. Even Blue Moon- widely available at a price point that wasn't a turn-off, exposed a lot of people to how varied beer could be.

It's like hating on Metallica, Green Day, or MC Hammer. Maybe not the truest, but brought a lot of people into the fold that may never have even known this kind of stuff existed.

 

I agree that Blue Moon is a head scratcher. Otherwise, decent list and would add Fat Tire as you stated, along with RedHook ESB. There is definitely a regional factor. I may have even included Henry Weinhard's and Pete's Wicked Ale.

 

It’s a respectable list but I have some issue with New Albion Ale, SNPA and Bert Grants IPA all in row from late 70’s thru early 80’s and really not too much different going on in all 3 of those beers.

One thing I found interesting was New Belgium La Folie being introduced in 1997. That’s a pretty remarkable achievement for an American brewer to pull of that difficult to make style to such an exception level way back then. I figured it came out at least 10+ years later than that.

I think some others worthy of consideration might be Miami Madness by J Wakefield (one of the first fruited kettle sour makers), or Hill Farmstead’s take on mixed culture saisons (Anna, Dorothy etc) which seemed quite revolutionary in craft brewing to my taste buds.

 

i miss HOD
good list but without a late aughts earl 10s west coast ipa it is incomplete
sculpin, gf west coast, stone, racer 5, lagunitas, drakes, krbc, pizza port, about 50 others
seeing some of those old school beers makes me realize how crappy craft beer is right now and how boring so much shit is now
lots of great bourbon though
aloha

 

Anchor Steam Ale? I guess it took too much effort to read the label.

 

Henry Weinhard PR is a no for me. For BlitzWeinhard's lineup (Blitz, Blitz dark, Boh, OE800) HWPR was a big upgrade, but a lesser product than Andeker, Augsburger, McSorleys, Ballantine XXX, for example. Pete's followed the path of Sam Adams, being a contract brewed beer. Nothing too exceptional there from my point of view.

 

La Folie is one of the coolest stories to come out of craft beer, as it was, in many ways, responsible for sour beer becoming what it is in the US.

New Belgium La Folie: New World Rodenbach? — Beervana

Barrel PH1: Sharing a Sour Beer Good Luck Charm - CraftBeer.com

 

I think this was a reasonable list of Modern craft beer brands. As others have commented I would have some differing ideas:

https://morebeer.com/blogs/articles/what-is-craft-beer?_pos=7&_sid=03dd97679&_ss=r

But overall, little complaint.

Cheers!

 

Edited by AI, I suppose...

On Blue Moon:

Coors first released some of the Blue Moon branded beers in 1995 (contract-brewed by F X Matt). Celis was "popular" enough for Miller to buy the brewery, but the Inst. for Brewing Studies (predecessor to the Brewers Assoc.) put its barrelage at 20k - around the same as Summit and VT's Catamount (both with much smaller distro regions I'd guess) all in the high 20s of the largest craft brewers, with around a 0.5% share of the craft market. Not sure I'd call it "wildly popular".

Allagash, OTOH, began the same year as Blue Moon, according to the brewery.

 

"Consumer research."

In those days my "research" into Wit beer was prompted by Hoegaarden. Thank you Pierre.

 

If you're going to include Blue Moon, then you should include Magic Hat #9.

Yeah, I said it.

 

I read the blue moon entry as being notable because it showed that big brewers were noticing the trend and considered it legitimate enough to jump on it and it was a beer that put something besides light lagers in modern Americans faces in a major way.

Its a listicle so of course ive got my qualms, but I think the blue moon entry is pretty reasonable