The Best Breweries of 2025
Story by:
Editorial Dept.
Each year, we acknowledge the breweries that collectively produced the highest-rated beers as evaluated in our Official Review. 2025 was resplendent with amazing brews, including a number of top-flight offerings from our best breweries of the year. This year featured some intriguing style excursions from the top three, so read on to reveal 2025’s best breweries!
How We Award Breweries
We look at the top three highest-scoring beers (as rated by our judging panel) for each brewery in the calendar year.
We then consider how many of the three finishes in the 100 to 96: World Class category, the 95 to 91: Exceptional category and the 86 to 90: Very Good category. For example, a brewery with two World Class beers and one Exceptional would rate higher than a brewery with a single higher-scoring
world-class beer and two exceptional beers. The brewery with the most World Class beers followed by the most Exceptional or Very Good beers is awarded the Brewery of the Year.
If two or more breweries have the same number of World Class and Exceptional beers, then the brewery with the highest point total wins.
In the event of a tie, a fourth reviewed beer is counted as a tiebreaker.
If a fourth beer was not reviewed, we look at the highest score total among the brewery’s two top-scoring beers.
If still tied, we note the brewery that had the highest-scoring beer overall between the two.
Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Moniker Brewery
3 Exceptional Beers
Total Score: 279
Highest-scoring beers:
Putzig Pils – Rated 95
Trendy Name Bright Colors – Rated 92
Stay Cool Drink Moniker – Rated 92
Moniker Brewery in Providence, Rhode Island is 2025’s second runner-up for Brewery of the Year. Originally founded during the COVID-19 pandemic (a massively fraught time for the brewing industry), Moniker has shown impressive growth due to its focus on high-quality ingredients and stylistically accurate representations of a range of interesting and flavorful beer styles.
Benjamin Estes, Moniker’s head brewer and holder of a biochemistry degree, believes: “Love makes beer taste good. The science is an added bonus.” That devotion to both the head and the heart in the field of beer made Moniker’s submissions to our Official Review this year an impressive blend of trendy styles and choices fit for a beer nerd. The brewery’s top-rated beer of the year was the Exceptional Putzig Pils. Judge Nelson Crowle loved this beer and appreciated its crisp quaffability, as well as the accuracy of its flavor and aroma profile.
The brewery’s next highest-scoring brew was the amusingly named Trendy Name Bright Colors, which cut out the middle man of coming up with a catchy pun on words like “juice,” “haze,” or other similar descriptors and simply claims the beer has a “Trendy Name.” Good stuff. The beer itself is also no slouch with a strong score of 92, and our judge loved the tropical elements of pineapple, kiwi, and lychee in this delectable hazy IPA.
Moniker’s last beer featured is Stay Cool Drink Moniker, another aptly named brew that delivers that perfect hoppy punch, especially during the year’s warmer months. An American pale ale, SCDM was a hazy variant of this less-popular-than-IPA style, and our judge once again loved the tropical and juicy elements found within – recommending that it be enjoyed on its own or with a barbecue food pairing to fully enjoy its delightful flavors.
Pure Project Brewing
1 World Class Beer
1 Exceptional Beer
1 Very Good Beer
Total Score: 278
Highest-scoring beers:
Planifolia – Rated 96
Diamond Dust – Rated 93
Cold Current – Rated 89
After tying for first runner-up for Brewery of the Year in 2024, Pure Project Brewing in San Diego, California has that position all to itself this year after submitting three terrific beers to our Official Review in 2025, including a World Class barrel-aged creation.
Kicking things off for Pure Project was Planifolia, following in the footsteps of the brewery’s top beer from 2024, Corylus. The brewery’s scrumptious base imperial stout was loaded up with a staggering 10 pounds of Tahitian vanilla beans, then aged in four distinct bourbon barrels: Eagle Rare, Heaven Hill, Cutwater, and Blanton’s. With that kind of pedigree, it’s no wonder that this pitch-black, velvety brew floored our judge with its complexity and tremendous range of flavors and aromas. Pure Project clearly knows their way around a barrel.
While their barrel-aged creations might take the cake, score-wise, Pure Project are also experts in the field of hazy IPAs, and their second highest-scoring beer, Diamond Dust, indicates that. Self-styled as a “Murky IPA,” this sultry, lush and juicy hazy delivers a punch of tropical and citrus notes – as expected for the style. But it’s the sheer force of flavor and aroma that the brewers squeeze out of the Cashmere and Mosaic hops that truly make this IPA pop.
The brewery’s final top beer was Cold Current, a classic American pale ale representation that shies away from any sort of “haziness” that has almost become the standard for any hoppy beer style, unless it’s clearly noted as “West Coast.” With grapefruit aromas and flavors gushing forth, this pleasantly hoppy APA delivered all the notes expected of the style, as our judge succinctly summed up by calling it “a crisp, clean, and light-bodied example of the style, which would pair well with a summer day on any coast.”
Congratulations to Wallenpaupack Brewing Co. in Hawley, Pennsylvania for being named The Beer Connoisseur’s 2025 Brewery of the Year!
2025 was another strong year for our Official Review. A consider-able eight beers achieved scores of 96 or above in 2025, with another eight clocking in just below at a 95 rating. Our Brewery of the Year was singular in its ability to produce multiple beers
that achieved World Class scores of 96 or above. Wallenpaupack Brewing Co. did so with stunningly crafted European-style ales, each featuring a blend of perfect attenuation, stylistic accuracy and subtle yet clear, delectable flavors which leave the palate begging for more.
Founded in 2017 by Rebecca Ryman on the shores of Lake Wallenpaupack in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, the highly decorated Wallenpaupack Brewing Co. is a 14,000-square-foot craft brewery with a 20-bbl brewhouse, brewpub and beer garden renowned for its dedication to creating a wide range of more than 50 styles. Wallenpaupack also runs a second taproom, The Wake Zone, which is located in nearby Tafton, PA. Inspired “by the lake and all that it offers,” Wallenpaupack aims to reflect its Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) roots through each handcrafted brew and brewpub menu offering, using locally sourced ingredients wherever possible.
The main brewery’s taproom features three unique spaces – the Brewpub, Barrel Room and Beer Garden.
The first mixes large, open, industrial design with natural lighting and a rustic feel reminiscent of mountain life of days past. Huge windows invite in the sun and provide views of the lake, while drinkers can gather around the stacked stone fireplace, which nods to the European beer hall. The Barrel Room is a quieter, more intimate space, where repurposed barrels function as tables, bringing the drinker closer to communion with each brew. As one would expect, there is also a viewing area to gaze into the heart of Wallenpaupack’s brewing operations, where stainless steel shapes of keg and tank contrast the wood and glass of this liminal drinker’s haven.
Beyond the Brewpub is the Beer Garden, a more casual outdoor space ideal for the whole family. Yard games, fire pits and picnic tables serve as a counterpoint to the interior bar, and a central meeting area is available for the community until winter ushers its beer lovers back indoors to gather around the fire, or even play a little pinball.
More than 30 taps feature a rotating offering of “Paupack’s Finest” brews, including its extensive line of ales, somewhat of a brewery specialty. These brews serve as a ready complement to the brewpub’s food menu, featuring classic fare with nods to both America’s favorite meals and some of the classics you’ll find in the German beer hall. Better yet, both food and condiments are often created with beer ingredients, including their signature “For the Love of Lager Rauch Doppelbock BBQ” sauce.
Head brewer Logan Ackerley’s attention to detail brings the best of European beer to the East Coast, and as Brewery of the Year, Wallenpaupack Brewing Co. is setting the standard for the future of quality craft beer in America. We thank Wallenpaupack for their contributions to our Official Review this year and to the state of brewing in general.
Cheers!
Wallenpaupack Brewing Co.
73 Welwood Ave
Hawley, PA 18428
Tel.: (570) 390-7933
Website: wallenpaupackbrewingco.com
2 World Class Beers
1 Very Good Beer
Total Score: 279
Highest-scoring beers:
Kroon – Rated 96
No Frills Pils (2025) – Rated 96
Trône – Rated 87
Wallenpaupack Brewing Co. delivered three incredible beers in 2025, two of which were Belgian ales, one light and peppery, one dark and complex. The third was an understated pilsner which lets the liquid do the talking, receiving a 96 through sheer force of subtlety and exacting stylistic merit.
The brewery registered two World Class beers with a 96 rating, the first of which was Kroon, a Belgian Golden Strong Ale. Judge Sal Mortillaro II first noted its “bone white head” and golden color, with immediate notes of pear and pepper. Warmth brings out more complexity, with mingling touches of bubblegum, low floral hop and grainy malt, perfectly interwoven. Mortillaro noted an “absolutely beautiful” aroma reminiscent of the best examples of the style, with a flavor journey that matches, incorporating more crisp, well-defined notes of pear and white pepper before developing into floral hop character. What follows is a pleasant, warming alcohol finish which hints subtly at the strength of this well-balanced, rich, aromatic ale.
The second World Class beer of 2025 from Wallenpaupack was No Frills Pils, a German Pils with a backbone malt flavor described as similar to “unsalted saltine crackers.” This modest opening leads into a rapid-fire journey of complexity; floral spicy hops flash before the palate, quickly followed by moderately high hop bitterness, which perfectly accentuates the doughy, crackery opening salvo. The carbonation is also whip-cracking, and the medium-full bodied mouthfeel ends dry, leaving the drinker begging for another quaff. Our judge Dan Martich felt this beer demonstrated characteristics true to style, all in perfect harmony, so much that there was surprise this beer didn’t come from Germany. In Martich’s words, No Frills Pils is “a deliciously drinkable beer, and one that accentuates the term quaffable.”
The final top-scoring beer from Wallenpaupack Brewing Co. was a brooding Belgian Dark Strong Ale called Trône. Perfect for cold weather, this beer carved its own stylistic path, deviating from the norm with a finish of chocolate and slight roast notes. The first sip begins a journey through flavors of plum, dark bread and a touch of caramel. Its dark copper pour invites the eyes, while the mouth is greeted with pleasant medium carbonation, complementing the initial sweetness which culminates in a pleasant warming alcohol finish reminiscent of a complex amaretto liqueur.
Comments 0
No Readers' Pick yet.