The Best Breweries of 2021

BREWERY AWARDS

Each year, we acknowledge the breweries that collectively produced the highest-rated beers as evaluated in our Official Review. 2021’s top breweries were paragons of creativity and productivity, crafting styles ranging from thick, boozy and eminently flavorful barrel-aged imperial stouts to subtle and flawlessly executed lagers. Read on to discover 2021’s best breweries!

How We Award

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 place into the 100 to 96: World Class category and the 95 to 91: Exceptional 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 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.

Read on and raise a glass to this year’s winners!

Second Runner-Up

– – – –
Two World Class Ratings
One Exceptional Rating
Total Score: 288 points
– – – –

Gnarly Barley Brewing Co.
1709 Corbin Rd
Hammond, LA 70403

Tel: (985) 318-0723
www.gnarlybeer.com

After taking home Brewery of the Year last year, Gnarly Barley Brewing Co. of Hammond, Louisiana continued to demonstrate excellence by being named 2021’s second runner-up!

Gnarly Barley’s top-scoring beer was Imperial Peanut Butter Korova, following in the footsteps of their top-scoring beer last year – Barrel Aged Imperial Korova – and both beers notched a 97. This beer is based on the base recipe of the brewery’s Korova Milk Porter, a delightfully rich, creamy and chocolaty American porter. This amped-up version of the beer has its ABV raised to 9% (from 6.2%) and both tastes and smells like a melted peanut butter cup. Combined with the smooth and flavorful base beer, this near-flawless brew is sure to appeal to fans of chocolate desserts and rich stouts alike.

The brewery’s next highest-scoring beer was Jet Black Scream, which exemplified one of the rarer styles in the world of beer these days: Black IPA. Despite being a dark beer, black IPAs such as this one shouldn’t lose any notable hop elements because – at their heart – they are IPAs. In the case of Jet Black Scream, it emanates fresh floral and pine notes in the aroma, and the flavor is rich with elements of nutty praline and an amazing balance between dark malts and hops.

Last (but far from least), Gnarly Barley’s final highest-scoring beer was a light and tropical fruited sour called Mango Margarita Gose. Though sour beers are now competing with a glut of hard seltzers on the market, this enjoyably lush, sweet and tart sour aims to recreate its namesake – and succeeds with aplomb.

Rated 97 – World Class

Imperial Peanut Butter Korova
Spice, Herb or Vegetable Beer

A decadently rich dessert beer that both smells and tastes like a melted peanut butter cup in a glass. Divine!

Rated 96 – World Class

Jet Black Scream
Black IPA

Black IPAs are becoming difficult to find, and this brew is an exemplar of the style’s balance between malt and hops.

Rated 95 – Exceptional

Mango Margarita Gose
Wild Specialty Beer

Wanting a sweet and tart margarita with mango flavors? Skip the mixing and simply sip this exceptionally well-crafted brew.

First Runner-Up

– – – –
Two World Class Ratings
One Exceptional Rating
Total Score: 290 points
– – – –

pFriem Family Brewers
707 Portway Ave #101
Hood River, OR 97031

Tel: (541) 321-0490
www.pfriembeer.com

pFriem Family Brewers of Hood River, Oregon proved, yet again, that they are the gold standard for quality – and, as such, have been named our first runner-up for 2021. pFriem’s top-scoring beer was their second highest-scoring beer of all time: Hazy Sabro IPA, which was rated 98. pFriem is known for its mastery of a wide range of styles including fruit lambics, specialty smoked beers and Belgian witbiers, but the brewery also closely follows industry trends and produced this near-flawless hazy IPA. The heavy use of Sabro hops provide delectable papaya, cantaloupe, key lime and pine notes in this World Class brew.

Their next top-scoring offering was an intriguing barrel-aged brew called Vanilla Chai Bourbon Stout. Inspired by a latte, this elegant and high-ABV (11%) stout wowed our judge with its “elegant spicy chocolate muffin” flavor and aroma profile as well as its supreme balance – despite an impressive number of adjuncts and time spent in a bourbon barrel. Ginger, vanilla, gentle chocolate and light bourbon flavors and aromas swirl around this special release from pFriem.

pFriem’s final highest-scoring beer, Big IPA, was stopped short of being called an “imperial IPA” due to its 8% ABV threshold. While not quite the hop bomb that many other DIPAs can claim to be, this brew still erupts out of the glass with tropical aromas of pineapple and tangerine and a similar flavor profile thanks to an excellent hop blend including Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic, Citra and Vic’s Secret.

Rated 98 – World Class

Hazy Sabro IPA
Specialty IPA

One of pFriem’s highest-scoring beers of all time, this hazy IPA highlights the papaya and cantaloupe notes found in Sabro hops.

Rated 97 – World Class

Vanilla Chai Bourbon Stout
Specialty Wood-Aged Beer

A truly elegant and intriguing blend of aromas and flavors all topped off in a bourbon barrel, this sipper is a delight.

Rated 95 – World Class

Big IPA
Double IPA

Stopping short of being massively hoppy, this balanced brew features an exceptional hop blend of Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic, Citra and Vic’s Secret.

Brewery of the Year

– – – –
Three World Class Ratings
Total Score: 289 points
– – – –

Wild Leap Brew Co.
308 Main St.
LaGrange, GA 30240

Tel: (706) 298-6400
www.wildleap.com

Congratulations to Wild Leap Brew Co. of LaGrange, Georgia for being named The Beer Connoisseur’s 2021 Brewery of the Year!

2021 was the third year of Wild Leap’s participation in the Official Review. And what a year they had as three of their beers achieved World Class ratings! This marks the first time in the twelve-year history of the Official Review that a brewery received three World Class ratings in a calendar year. Wild Leap also submitted an additional nine beers that received scores in the Exceptional range and a whopping 16 beers within the Top 150 Beers of the Year. Amazing work!Wild Leap was founded by Anthony Rodriguez and Rob Goldstein in September 2017 in the downtown area of LaGrange, Georgia. This small town is about a 30-minute drive from the Alabama border and had a population of just over 30,000 according to 2019 U.S. Census data.

Rodriguez, Goldstein and Chief Brewing Officer Chris Elliott have quickly turned LaGrange into a southern craft beer haven. In 2019, the brewery was named The Best New Brewery in the U.S. by USA Today’s 10Best feature, which was voted on by a panel of industry experts around the country.

Wild Leap’s success would not be possible without the boundary-pushing brewing style of Elliott, who is one-half CBO (Chief Brewing Officer) and one-half mad scientist, according to the brewery. That knack for producing terrific and interesting flavors is what helps push Wild Leap into the upper echelon of breweries in the South – and the country at large.

Wild Leap’s first core beers, Local Gold Blonde Ale and Chance IPA, help to whet the appetite of what the brewery is about, but it’s their limited releases that are truly eye-opening. Perhaps their best-known beer is the Alpha Abstraction Double IPA series, which focuses on a different hop blend with each release and are uniformly excellent. Limited-run IPAs will always be a hot commodity, and when the quality lives up to the hype, that’s when you know you have something special on your hands. Clearly, Alpha Abstraction fits that bill.

Alpha Abstraction, and the brewery in general, epitomize these words from their website, which ring even truer during this ongoing pandemic era: “though it is uncertain what the future brings, the Wild Leap story teaches us to stand strong, be fearless and to take our destiny into our own hands – every dream begins with an idea, but every journey begins with one wild leap.”

The Wild Leap Brewing Team

Wild Leap submitted an incredible 12 beers in the 2021 Official Review that achieved a rating of World Class or Exceptional. The brewery’s record-breaking three World Class-rated beers in a single year were Lone Buffalo, Alpha Abstraction, Vol. 15 and Too Pure To Be Pink.

The brewery’s top-scoring beer was Lone Buffalo, a barrel-aged imperial stout released in very limited amounts. While known for a rotating cast of double IPAs and canned stouts and sours, this elegant, barrel-aged, bottled beer shows that Wild Leap can do barrel-aging as well as any brewery in the country. A complex aroma of sherry, vanilla, bourbon and dark roasted grains convey the mellifluous mélange of flavors that will follow upon sipping this rich brew, including dark fruit, toffee and a reprise of sherry.

Alpha Abstraction, Vol. 15 is the, you guessed it, fifteenth rendition of the brewery’s immensely popular Alpha Abstraction series. Each one of these beers highlights a different hop blend. Our judge loved the melodious combination of El Dorado and Idaho 7 hops, which provide intensely juicy tropical elements, light resiny notes and pungent spiciness to the beer’s aroma and flavor profile.

The brewery’s final top-scoring beer was Too Pure To Be Pink, another double IPA. This limited release was brewed with Yakima Chief Hops’ Pink Boots Blend in partnership with the Pink Boots Society, which supports women in the brewing profession. This year’s Pink Boots Blend featured an engaging combination: Cashmere, Ahtanum, Citra, Loral and Sabro hops – offering up ripe berry and stone fruit notes.

Rated 97 – World Class

Lone Buffalo
Specialty Wood-Aged Beer

A nearly flawless barrel-aged stout with balance, subtlety and incredible flavor that showcases the talent of the brewers.