In today's edition of our brewer interview series, we're chatting with Clay Robinson, one of the brewers and co-owners at Indianapolis' Sun King Brewing Co. Clay and brewer/owner Dave Colt opened Sun King in downtown Indy in July 2009. Last year Sun King made serious waves at GABF when they walked away with eight medals, four of which were gold. More

Last week we covered some fine examples of recently released hoppy session lagers and ales. This week we're adding 5 favorites that rely more on yeast and malt and don't lean quite as heavily on the hops. Though some are a little above 5% ABV, we'd still consider them easy-drinking. More

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We ate our way through the pairings—both traditional and the unique—and did our best to sample as many of the 70-plus craft beers and homebrews as we could. Click through to see the tastiest of the meatball-and-beer pairings at Get Real NY's Beer 'n Balls festival. More

Barleywines, even in a field of brews with ever-increasing ABVs, are among the biggest of the bunch. They're characterized by their strength, depth, and complexity. Barleywines fall into two categories: English and American. The original English interpretations place a greater emphasis on rich malt and can be darker and fruitier. American barleywines dial up the hop intensity but the best still maintain balance. The significant malt character in a proper American barleywine, often equal to or greater than the hop presence, is what distinguishes it from an imperial IPA. More

Since Sam Adams launched its Single Batch Series last year, it's been a bit of a mad scientist's lab for craft beer crossbreeds, producing one-off creations like blonde barleywine, Baltic IPA, and rauch bock. They grabbed our attention with their latest releases in the series by dusting off a couple of seriously old and almost-forgotten styles: Gose and Sahti. Sam Adams isn't the only brewery to produce modern versions of these obscure ales, but they're certainly the largest. More

Each month this year, The Lost Abbey is releasing a new beer that calls back on the imagery of heaven and hell in classic rock anthems. The only catch: if you want to try the beers, you have to go to the brewery. Every bottle sold is opened and poured for you in the tasting room. Tomme Arthur, co-founder and director of brewery operations at Lost Abbey & Port Brewing, took time earlier this month to give us the back story on their Ultimate Box Set. More

"First, you must slurp it," Piet said. Piet van Leijenhorst, the master distiller for Holland's Lucas Bols, was giving us pointers on how to properly enjoy a Kopstootje (kop-stow-che), the Dutch pairing of a beer and a shot of Genever. According to tradition, to approach the tulip glass filled to the brim with Genever, you must first bend over and slurp—to use your hands or to spill would be bad form. More

If you want to try Black Tuesday, Kate the Great, Sexual Chocolate, Dark Lord, Surly Darkness, or a number of other great "cult" imperial stouts, you should probably prepare yourself for the possibility of waiting in line on release day, trolling Internet forums looking for trades, buying lottery tickets in hopes of winning a chance to buy a bottle, or paying incredibly inflated prices on eBay. But rest assured, there are plenty of top-tier imperial stouts available that require a lot less hoop-jumping to snag a bottle. More

I honestly can't tell you the last time that I walked out of a bottle shop carrying only the beer I went in to purchase. There's always a new release, an obscure bottle, or something I forgot I needed before I went inside. Last year my wife, Lauren, and I went bottle shopping while visiting one of her high school friends outside Baltimore. On one of the lower shelves in a local beer shop, I found a cache of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot from 2008 to 2011. I can't say I went into that store looking for a four-year vertical of American barleywines, but I had a good feeling about the way the staff was storing their beers and the opportunity was way too convenient to pass up. It was an impulse buy, no doubt, but one with merit. More

I'm not convinced that porters get enough respect. They're often passed over at the bar by the hop heads and the sour crowd. They're not as sought-after as many higher-octane American stouts or their Russian imperial cousins. But why? Porters are complex and roasty, filled with chocolate and coffee flavors, yet most still manage to be sessionable. They're damn-near perfect when it's cold outside, and you'd be hard pressed to find a better beer with a meal. More

Canadian Breakfast Stout is the second installment in the 750-mL Backstage series from Founders. The maple syrup Bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout, which had previously only seen limited draft availability, is currently ranked as the third most popular beer on BeerAdvocate.com. Its October release was greeted with reports of multiple block-long lines outside bottle shops, people paying north of $100 a bottle on eBay, and other general foolishness. That caliber of irrational reaction isn't uncommon anymore for some of craft beer's most sought-after releases, but was it justified? More

We all have holiday traditions. Every December I watch Die Hard and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, spend hours driving across Missouri to visit family and friends, and then spend many more hours sharing big Christmas beers with said family and friends. This year I'm sharing my 8 top Christmas beers here. Are they among your favorites, too? More

Though wild yeasts are gaining a good deal of traction in the U.S., straight-ahead sour ales from American breweries are still few. Sure, there's Brettanomyces this and wild that, but often they're a lefthand tweak on a brewery's existing beer or style. Ithaca Beer Co.'s Brute is one of the few, and a fine one at that. It's definitely in the top tier of American sour ales. More

Many brewers still bristle at the idea of intentionally allowing wild yeast into their breweries for fear of contamination, but Chad Yakobson, the brewer behind Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project has rolled out the welcome mat. Yakobson launched Crooked Stave earlier this year, brewing Brettanomyces-focused beers in Fort Collins, Colorado, with the goal of expanding the expectations of what the wild yeast can bring to beer. More

Almost every time I decide to try another Black IPA, I end up wanting to brush my tongue. The two-pronged aggressive bitterness of hops and roast often clashes like a couple of guitarists trying to play over one another. New Glarus Brewing Co.'s Black Top Black IPA, which won gold at GABF this year, takes a more measured approach. More

With all due respect to a proper, hesitantly spiced pumpkin ale, fresh (or "wet") hop beers are my harvest beers of choice. Fresh hops have a damp, almost-still-alive character that's lost when the hop cones are dried and stored, and I've yet to see their flavor reproduced another way. When brewing these beers, there's often no more than a matter of hours between the time the hops are picked and when they're added to the brew kettle. More

This past weekend the University of Missouri celebrated its 100th homecoming. I couldn't make it back, but I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have attended the game if I did. I've never been much for watching sports, but during my four five years there as an undergraduate I became a strong proponent of the eating and drinking that goes along with football. More

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Sixpoint's Mad Scientist line is a limited-run series of experimental beers the brewery releases once every two months. The series gives Sixpoint's brewers a chance to unleash some of their wilder notions on the public. We gathered at the Guilty Goose to try out four of the beers paired with food. More

I've been a fan of Brian Strumke's beers since the first time I tried Cellar Door, his white sage-laced Saison. Never beholden to the DuPont gold standard that many stylists cling to as the only true expression of a Saison, his beers are playful, creative, and often remarkable. So when I saw he was releasing a small portion of his flagship Stateside Saison that had been aged in Chardonnay barrels along with multiple strains of Brettanomyces, even the price tag (about $13 for 11.2 oz was the cheapest I was able to find it) wasn't enough to calm my curiosity. More

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NYC Brewer's Choice at City Winery offered beer lovers a rare opportunity to try a number of limited, unique, and aged beers while talking to the brewers who crafted them. We ate and drank our way through the crowd in search of the night's standouts. More

The San Diego stalwarts have always seemed to be more comfortable leaning on the big, bold, and sometimes brash side of the craft beer spectrum. Their latest creation, Stone 15th Anniversary Escondidian Imperial Black IPA, is no exception. If this isn't your last beer of the evening, it'll most certainly be the last one you taste. More

This is the last stop on our amber ale road trip up the West Coast. These amber (and sometimes red) ales are one of the styles the Pacific Northwest is known for, and it's now pretty easy to see why. These amber ales manage to strike a balance between bready, biscuity malt and fragrant, fruity hops. Many great Washington beers don't make it far from their breweries, but we were able to try nine different amber ales from the Evergreen State. More

When Deschutes brewmaster Larry Sidor and Boulevard brewmaster Steven Pauwels decided to collaborate, they harnessed their breweries' respective strengths and created two beers from the same recipe. Combining Deschutes' deft hand on the hoppy side and Boulevard's talent with all things wheat, the collaboration colors outside the style lines. It's one part Belgian Witbier, one part American IPA, a fistful of white sage, a bit of lemongrass, and voilà! White IPA. But despite starting on the same page, the two beers are quite different. More

Sometimes complex beers can be created with deceptively simple malt bills. The Stoic, Deschutes Brewery's latest installment in its Reserve Series, is brewed using only German Pilsner malt. Instead of relying on grains for character and depth, the Belgian-style Quadrupel gains its intricacies from four fermentations and multiple sugar additions, as well as the time one-third of the beer spent in Pinot Noir barrels and rye whiskey barrels. More

With a couple of exceptions, Oregon amber ales are a mellower and maltier bunch than their California counterparts. The beers are a little less assertive, but the best strike a delicious balance of malt and hops. More