Best Triple-Threat Breweries

I have more respect for brewers that don't rely almost solely on the big 3 selling styles. Making wilds does take a tremendous amount of skill. On the other hand, producing a great lager/pils takes more skill than an IPA or Stout. I'm not saying its easy to make a good stout or IPA, but they are much more forgiving styles than a lot of other styles. I agree with the poster above that posited the "big three" as Wilds, American and lagers/pils.

Firestone Walker is near the top either way, they're not incredible in the lager category, but they have made solid beers there before.

 

First off, people need to stop taking themselves so goddamned serious, and trying to make themselves sound important by bashing the op and his opinions. Wilds/sours, stouts, and IPAs are the three most raved about styles on this website, just play along FFS.
second, to the people who think these are the easiest three styles to brew, I say bullshit. I homebrew, and its not as easy as throwing hops in the kettle, mashing in with roasted malts, or pitching brett into whatever you have laying around. If you dont get your recipe dialed in right your ipa can be overly sweet, or astringent from too many hops. Same goes for stouts, too much roasted malts lead to an astringent beer. As for sours or wilds, these beers are the hardest to produce well. If your grist isnt right your beer will be watery with no malt profile, exceed a specific level of hop compounds and you will inhibit the growth of microbes. Sometimes, even under perfect circumstances, you wind up with vomit band aids and dirty diapers instead of horse blanket and tropical fruit. Lets face it, if these styles were easy to brew we wouldnt have to wade through so much mediocrity to find the few gems that are out there in these categories.

Lastly, I am gonna throw odell out here...
lugene stout
ipa for hoppy
friek for sour

 

Aren't people simply giving their own opinion about what is difficult to brew? If the comments are supposed to be about the three most raved about styles on this website, why not just say that?

It's just more opinions, no one attacked or bashed the OP.

Is it easy to brew a Heady Topper or a Kentucky Breakfast Stout? Probably not. But your average IPA or imperial stout will at least taste decent, and most likely will taste good (see the ratings, you have to travel far down the least for each to find something rated less than a 3).

But to brew even an average pilsner? If anything goes wrong, those flaws will be apparent. A bad pilsner is undrinkable.

I think if most started homebrewing today and brewed an American IPA, it would at least taste like a "3". I can't say the same for a pilsner.

 

Since I agree with all your other points I will quote this. The point missed in your and other posts is that it is all well and good to make great, subtle, difficult to do well beer, such as Kolsch or Mild in a market that, if you succeed with it, is pretty much all yours. It is another thing to brew a style that is the most popular craft beer style, with a stupid amount of competition, and it is indeed yet another thing to brew all three top craft styles, and do them well.

Indeed, to stand out, many brewers now have to do things equally as difficult as the subtle beers, such as whirlpool hop additions, complicated hopstand procedures, and using yeast that is far more finicky than the usual Chico we think of as standard for IPA. For Stouts we have breweries doing cold brewed coffee infusions, toasting coconut to add, etc., etc., and barrel aging in multiple barrels, and blending, all complicated, and all to stand out in a crowded field. Same with wilds that are true wilds and not kettle soured and cervisiae fermented in primary. More time and skill than a lager or mild to get right.

I think these points in favor of OP need be considered when trying to determine skill levels, etc. as part of the equation.

 

Heater Allen is your answer!

 

Bells
Black Note/Expidetion
Le Bretteur/Wild One
Hopslam/2 Hearted

 

People already chimed in on the Lagers side (which might just better be called something like "German" to encompass stuff like Kolsch, Heffes ... but that ignores that non-German countries have a lager tradition) ... but there's no category for Belgian styles like Quads, Dubbels, Trippels, Saisons (which should not go necessarily in the wild category). So I'd add:

- "German" styles
- "Belgian" styles (outside of Lambic / Flanders / Oud Bruin)

It's a fun game because it's a rare brewery that makes superlative stuff across even two categories (usually, in the US, Hoppy + something else) ... but this is a really of the moment US centric list.

One interesting thought ... perhaps it's just hard enough to dial in Lagers or traditional Belgian styles that those that are best, simply focus there?

 

Cigar City

Jai Alai
Marshall Zhukov
Cucumber Saison

 

Have to give Avery the nod at the moment:

Wild - Raspberry Sour (I'm drooling just thinking about it as I type this)
IPA - Maharajah
Stout - Uncle Jacob's Stout

I didn't see a stipulation about imperial vs not so I have no guilt listing the last two

 

If that were strictly true, we wouldn't even be on this site right now.

Top 10 U.S. Brewers. Year: 1980
RANK BREWER BARRELAGE
1 Anheuser-Busch, Inc. 50,200,000
2 Miller Brewing Co. 37,300,000
3 Pabst Brewing Co. 15,091,000
4 Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. 14,900,000
5 Adolph Coors Co. 13,800,000
6 G. Heileman Brewing Co. 13,270,000
7 Stroh Brewery Co. 6,161,255
8 Olympia Brewing Co. 6,091,000
9 Falstaff Brewing Co. 3,901,000
10 C. Schmidt & Sons 3,625,000

 

Firestone (as others have mentioned)
Bruery (Humulus Lager... you can fill in the other two)

Also, I think getting the "Best by" date accurately on the can/bottle should be a pillar.

 

Not a top 3 list, but ...

Allagash is absolutely the top answer for the US. They are great across the board, though they do the wild thing as good as anyone. Ommegang is a distant runner up in the Belgian game.

Heater Allen (already mentioned) makes killer german styles.
Metropolitan in Chicago. I recently moved to Chicago and was surprised by how good their lagers are. They get no little around here (too much love for the hop and stout).
Olde Mecklenburg also makes great lagers.
Live Oak out of texas.
Great Lakes & Victory both have a really balanced approach across a lot of styles. Sierra Nevada could go here too considering the quality of their lagers.
Upright and Commons in Portland both make some funky beers but their focus is really on a broad array of European styles. Hell, Upright plays around with making American Light Lagers too.
The Lost Abbey is certainly makes some great funky beers and stouts, but strong ales seem to be more their forte in the dark realm. And they're solid across other Belgian styles.
Hair of the Dog is all about strong ales.

The resurgence of English styles seems a bit further behind the craft lager movement ... but there are some interesting examples. Machine House in Seattle focuses pretty much solely on English styles like milds. Civil Life in St. Louis seems to be doing similar things.

Funny story; chatting with Corey King at a Perennial event I asked what breweries he really liked in MO and Civil Life was his first mention. So the guy known for making gigantic stouts, wilds, sours ... drinks Milds and Bitters in his off time. Not really surprising. The JK guys seem to love Live Oak ... and you could see that in the two collabs they've done.

 

I forgot to add the word craft in front of the word beer once in my posts, but it didn't escape your notice I see. Well done.

 

Grimm Artisanal Ales:

Stout: Double Negative (Gold at GABF) and BA Double Negative
IPA (Basically every single one): Lambo Door, Tesseract, Afterimage, Cloudbursting, Forcefield, Simcoe
Sours (Basically every single one): Tesseract, Color Field, Rainbow Dome, Rainbow in Curved Air, Super Symmetry Telekenisis

They kill it more consistently that almost any other brewery in the country. The only breweries I've been so consistently impressed with are HFS, The Kernel, and Tired Hands.

 

AC Golden.

[Runs and hides]

 

I wouldn't say that the question suggests that in order to be a legendary and iconic brewery one only needs to brew these three styles and "mail it in" on everything else (although some are nearing rarified air by doing such), as a matter of fact, I personally would not rate any brewery on this thread above Weinhenstephaner, but that's just me. Instead, I interpret the question as being less iconoclastic and more reflective of the current state of style popularity. 42 of the current top 50 beers are one of these three styles, and that does not count the couple APA's as I was sticking strictly with the IPA family.

Within the context of current beer trends, I'd say it's a pretty valid question and a good topic for discussion.

 

I too disagree with the premise of this thread, as stouts and hoppy beers make it easy to hide flaws and the ability to produce a delicious, clean, light-bodied lager is a true show of skill. Thus, I'll be focusing on a brewery that does all four exceedingly well.
Creature Comforts
Hoppy: Tropicalia IPA (4.36), Cosmik Debris DIPA (4.51), and Automatic APA (4.71)
Stouts/Porters: See the Stars (4.61), Koko Buni Milk Porter (4.32)
Wilds: Southerly Love, The Curious #2
Lager: Bibo pilsner (4.1)

 

From my limited homebrewing experience, I think a highly skilled brewer must be able to master a pilsener (be it a German or Czech Pils, given this sites classifications), an IPA and a robust porter.

The pils can't be messy, the IPA has to have the malt to back up the hops an the porter needs to be roasty without being astringent. Hmmmm....tough call on who does this best, as many breweries that excel in one, do not do the others at all (ex. Weinstephaner's amazing pils, but without a pale ale or porter in sight). I guess I'd go with Sierra Nevada, although I think their pils example, Summerfest, is rather hoppy for a pils (I still love it though). Victory has Dirt Wolf and Prima Pils, but no porter that has really impressed me. Smuttynose's robust porter is awesome, as is Finest Kind and Wunderbar is a quality pils, so I could go with them too.