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Winter 2025, Issue 76
The Beer In Review
Happy holidays and welcome to our annual, year-end edition of The Beer Connoisseur magazine! 2024 was an intriguing year for beer fans, especially those that were looking to experience the social aspect of drinking or keep up their grueling exercise routine while still enjoying a lovely beer. To that end, non-alcoholic beer experienced a meteoric rise, which started a few years and has continued unabated.
While hard seltzers have seemed to fade away from the public consciousness – and also store shelves – in its place, NA beers of all stripes, be they from small craft breweries or mega, global brewing conglomerates, have risen the charts with extreme speed.
And that’s understandable! Brewers are the best they’ve ever been and producing an ultra-flavorful and true-to-style non-alcoholic brew is seemingly trivial for them, and the sales – and demand – for such products has never been higher.
Beyond the continued rise of NA beer, which is covered extensively both in our Consumer Trends piece as well as a new story in 2024 entitled “The State of Craft,” our Beer in Review section, as always, outlines the best beers and breweries from the year that was – and 2024 was a doozy.
Matching the highest number of World Class beers in our history, our judges reviewed an incredible 14 World Class beers in 2024, including seven beers with scores above a 97. While the “downfall of craft beer” continues to be a hot topic in the industry, our Official Review saw no such downturn, as brewers continued to deliver top-tier beers on a regular basis to our judges throughout the year.
For the second year running, our Brewery of the Year submitted three beers that achieved World Class ratings, including one of two beers that achieved a rating of 98. The brewery showcased their brewing mastery by producing three distinct beers that are exemplars of their style – read on to find out what storied brewery I’m referring to!
The issue rounds out with our standard Industry News, Official Reviews and Brewer Q&As as well as an interesting treatise from longtime contributor Martyn Cornell about his brand-new book.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INDUSTRY OUTLOOK
2025 Beer and Beverage Trends
An exploration of Circana sales data, which tracks some of the most popular beers by brewery and by sales category.
Top Emerging Beer Styles for 2025
Every year sees new styles rise and older ones fall by the wayside, and 2025 will be no different.
THE BEER IN REVIEW
Top 100 Beers of 2024
The best of the Official Review in 2024 as evaluated by our judges, including a record-tying 14 World Class beers with two nabbing huge scores of 98.
The Best Beers of 2024 by Style Category
The year’s best beer categorized by the most populated beer styles in the 2024 Official Review. A one-stop shopping list of the best brews on shelves today.
The Best Breweries of 2024
The breweries that submitted the highest-scoring beers collectively in 2024. These brewers demonstrated mastery of their craft.
FEATURES
The State of Craft
The ever-changing world of craft beer is explored in-depth by Jonathan Ingram, who details the past year and looks ahead to 2025.
A Trip Around the World in 80 Beers
Martyn Cornell's new book delivers a "trip from one side of the planet to the other, with a beer glass in one hand and a history book in the other."
REVIEWS
Official Review
Single-blind reviews from our panel of experts. Featuring Timmermans Framboise Hibiscus Lambicus, pFriem Double IPA, Lakefront Dive Beer and more!
Brewer Q & A
Brewers share secrets of their highest-scoring beers.