There were reasons, both cultural and commercial, that this was the case in post-Prohibition America: Families with German roots controlled most of the rapidly growing domestic breweries in the 1940s and 1950s. The trend accelerated as industry consolidation took hold during the 1960s. Lager beers became omnipresent. In addition, as beer was shipped farther from its point of origin and spent more time in wholesaler warehouses, filtering became important to stabilize the product and extend shelf life.

By the second half of the 20th century, pilsner-style lagers had won the beauty contest, thanks to the style’s thirst-inducing Champagnelike appearance.

Beers are filtered, using either cake or surface methods, and classified into three basic levels: rough, fine and sterile. Using cake or depth filtration,  beer passes through a powder substance, such as diatomaceous earth (fossilized marine alga diatoms), finings (isinglass, the swim bladders of fish) or perlite (volcanic glass). Surface filtration uses membranes to filter beer. With lautering, the grain bed acts as a rough filter. In lager beers, gravity helps the process, as the beer is dropped bright while aging. Some brewers also use a technique called cold filtering, where proteins clump together at lower temperatures and are easier to remove. While homebrewers filter beer at 5 microns to remove yeast, grains and hop sediment, commercial brewers typically go much further to as low as 0.5 microns.

As craft brewing expanded, some domestic brewers came to realize that filtration can go too far, stripping away the natural goodness of beer. Overfiltering can take out color, hop bitterness and proteins that add body and help form the beer’s head.

“I appreciate the extra mouthfeel and head retention of unfiltered beer,” says Andy Brown, the brewer at Wynkoop Brewing Co. in Denver, CO. Brown had been taught at brewing school that filtering was an integral part of brewing. Then he had an internship under Dick Cantwell at Elysian Brewing Co. in Washington state, where filtering was rarely used. After spending time at Left Hand Brewing Co., Brown came to Wynkoop, where beers such as the B3K Schwarzbier are unfiltered hits.

This ale from Nebraska Brewing pours a golden straw color with a lacing head. Floral hops and background malt in the nose. A nice medium-bodied beer that shows some caramelized malt and good bittering hops. The finish has more of the floral notes encountered in the aroma.

Cottonwood Endo IPA

The beer pours a slightly amber golden color with a healthy lacing head. There is an inviting floral hop aroma. A decent level of hop bitterness is present from the first sip. Good crisp finishing notes that have a citrus edge.

Full Sail Pale Ale

Pours a bright copper color with a decent head. Wispy floral aroma that morphs over time to more of a lime-citrus note. Balanced flavor. Very drinkable with a good level of citrus hops.

Fuller’s London Pride

This British import pours a golden orange color with a moderate head. The aroma has a subtle hop character when compared to most West Coast pale ales. The hops overcomes the malt during the first gulp. There is a clear hint of a British yeast strain in some of the fruity character of the finish.

Deschutes Hop Trip

This fresh hop pale ale is made using hops picked near Salem, OR, that are added to brew kettles in Bend less than four hours later. The result is beer with a crisp aroma and plenty of fresh citrus flavor notes. The slightly orange tone to the color of the beer is topped with a thick head. The beer finishes with grapefruit notes.

Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA

Pours a slightly copper color with an off-white foam. There is an earthy floral aroma and the flavor follows suit. The jasmine is there and so is some roasted malt, topped off with a good level of hops.

Moylan’s Hopsickle Imperial IPA

The aroma from this one hits you as it is poured with plenty of pine and citrus. Great golden amber color with a head that fades to a minor presence after it is poured. A good level of hop bitterness throughout, with some tropical fruit notes in the finish. The 9 percent ABV comes through in the flavor.

Odell 5 Barrel Pale Ale

A British-style pale ale that pours a glowing orange shade with a pronounced head. Lightly hopped aroma with some grassy notes. The flavor is smooth and inviting. The hops do not assault your tongue, but you can clearly pick out the floral and spice notes.

Rivertowne Old Wylies IPA

This America-style IPA from Pennsylvania pours a slightly hazy amber color with a slightly piney nose. The malt in this IPA is more forward than most, but the hops are there with floral and citrus notes in the palate.

Saranac Pale Ale

This ale pours with a light amber color and off white head that slowly dissipates. The aroma is malty with some background spice. The flavor is soft and round. Malt leads the way, with some citrus hop notes poking through in an overall smooth ale.

• The American-Style India Pale Ale category is perennially the hottest contested style. This year Elevated IPA from La Cumbre Brewing in Albuquerque, NM, was selected as the gold medalist out of 176 entries.
• Just five of the 83 categories at the 2011 GABF attracted more than 100 entries. Four of those categories were pale ale styles.
• While the seven pale ale categories account for 8 percent of the styles judged, they attracted 15 percent of the total entries.

Clearly there is nothing that gets American craft brewers competitive juices flowing like the opportunity to proclaim they make the best pale ale in the nation. Brewers know that many consumers judge a brewery’s worth based on the quality of the pale ale they push across the bar.

Ask volunteers pouring at the GABF—or nearly all other beer festivals for that matter–and they will tell you that “I’ll have your pale ale” is the most common phrase they hear.  That can get a little confusing at some booths. For instance, Firestone Walker Brewing from California took home GABF medals this year for no less than five pale ales: Firestone Walker Extra Pale Ale, Pale 31, Mission St. Pale, Double Jack and DBA. So exactly which pale ale do you want?

Chris Erickson, a brewer at Snake River Brewing in Jackson, WY, said it is hard to put your finger exactly on why both brewers and beer drinkers appear to be drawn to pale ales.

“You can’t come up with some new crazy thing and push it on people. That’s been tried and it doesn’t work,” Erickson said. “People are drawn to certain flavor notes. Some people crave hops. Once they are into hops, they need more and more to get the flavor. That’s why they like pale ales.”

This 8.12 percent alcohol by volume ABV Colorado beer pours a cloudy amber color with a respectable head. There is a hint of citrus to the floral nose. The flavor gives off touches of apple skin and a bit of the rye spice, without being too peppery. Plenty going on with the flavor of this brew. The yeast brings with it some fruit that lingers between mango and strawberry notes.

Deschutes Black Butte XXIII

This Oregon double porter comes at you with a 10.8 percent alcohol by volume ABV strength and 60 IBU. One of the more interesting flavor profiles for a porter, with spicy Pasilla Negra Negro chilies emerging through a base that features chocolate nibs and bitter Sevilla Seville oranges from Spain, all embraced by the whiskey barrel aging. Roasty, big and malty.

Great Divide 17 Oak Aged Double IPA

This beer pours a wonderful golden color with a fluffy white foam. The hops are clear in the aroma, and you get the oak esters from the very start. A unique vanilla and pepper mix is a clear sign of barrel aging. This Denver beer is balanced with an appropriate level of malt, which enhances the drinkability of this 10 percent alcohol by volume ABV ale.

New Belgium Grand Cru Abbey

A nice example of a specialty ale. This 9.5 percent alcohol by volume ABV member of the Lips of Faith series pours a reddish brown with a thin tan head. Even though it is from Fort Collins, COolo., it has the perfect “Belgian brewers’ garden” range of flavors. The tastes go from caramel to biscuit, with hints of clove, raisin, nutmeg and banana.

New Belgium Super Cru

This is brewed using the essence of New Belgium’s popular Fat Tire beer, but supped up to celebrate the brewery’s 20thth anniversary. The 10 percent alcohol by volume ABV beer features a thin head on a copper- colored body. There is a nice level of malt to this beer, with clear indications of the Asian pear juice that has been added in both the aroma and flavor. Saison wildness is present throughout the background.

Short’s Anniversary Ale Blood Orange Wheat Wine

This anniversary brew from Short’s Brewing in Michigan lives up to its name with an orange-red color topped by a thin white head. It is dry- hopped and spiced with green peppercorns to balance the zest from the blood oranges. Surprisingly light and flavorful beer, even with the orange, 63 IBU from the hops and 10 percent alcohol by volume.

Summit Silver Anniversary Ale

This 80 IBU and 6.5 percent alcohol by volume ABV brew uses a combination of Citra, Centennial and Cascade hops is in a solid, straightforward extra pale ale. The Minnesota beer pours with a slight hint of orange tint to its golden color, producing a thick, lacing white foam. Plenty of good hop aroma and pine and spice notes to the flavor.

Twisted Pine 16thth Anniversary Bough Breaker Barley Wine

This beer from Boulder, CO, pours amber red with a thin head. Its 120 IBU coming come rushing forward, as does hints of the 9.1 percent alcohol by volume. If you want a hop bomb, this answers the call quite nicely. It finishes very dry.

It is also a sign that craft beer has put down roots and will be a part of the American culinary landscape for generations to come.

As brewers celebrate significant anniversaries, more labels with Roman numerals will start popping up. These beers are often limited- edition affairs, but some develop such a fan base that breweries are compelled to bring them back as part of their normal stable of brands. For fans of a brewery celebrating a milestone, these are must- have vintage brews.

“It is a chance to be experimental. We’re brewing a finite amount, not trying to a build a brand per se,” says Adam Avery of Avery Brewing in Boulder, CO, which started its anniversary tradition in 2003 to mark the brewery’s 10tenth year in business.

Avery says the “ballsiest” anniversary beer ever made at Avery Brewing was to mark the 15thth celebration. “It was the largest Brettanomyces beer ever created” and was spiced with hibiscus, black pepper and black mission figs. “It was a binary beer. You either loved it or hated it.”

Firestone Walker Brewer brewer Matt Brynildson says that when the brewery started in 1996, it “was kind of going in the opposite direction of most breweries at the time” by eschewing high- gravity brews in favor of session ales.

“We were kind of playing our own game and resisting the urge to brew big beers,” Brynildson says, noting the company was building strength in a three- county trading area around Paso Robles, CA, where 90 percent of Firestone Walker beers are sold. “Then as we prepared for our 10thth anniversary in 2006, we brewed a Russian imperial stout as a pilot batch.” More experimentation followed with a barley wine and imperial brown ale soon in the wooden Burton Union- style fermenting tanks.

“We were doing months of trial beers and started wondering what we were going to do with all of that beer. The only place to go with the beer was to put it in barrels,” Brynildson says. “A light bulb went off:; Wwe could make a blend.”

This Montreal brewpub turns out a rich creamy chocolate stout that has a dark brown color with a nice tan head. The beer has a slight cocoa nose and the flavor delivers a nice roasted base with a non-sugary chocolate flavor.

Flying Fish Exit 13 Chocolate Stout

This brew from New Jersey pours black as a moonless night with a thin tan head. There is quite a bit of roasted character to the nose. The beer does not start off overly sweet and it is pretty balanced throughout. As you progress through the big bottle, there is a slight Yoo-hoo note to the finish.

Foothills Sexual Chocolate 2011

This Russian imperial stout creates a pilgrimage of beer fans to Winston-Salem, NC, for its annual release. The beer pours an opaque black and has solid chocolate notes created when it is infused with organic cocoa nibs. The 2011 edition has more roasted qualities and hints of smoke than I recall in the previous vintages.

Fort Collins Double Chocolate Stout

The beer pours a dark brown with a decent tan head. There is a coffee-like aroma and the roasted grains really take control of the flavor. You can find chocolate around the edges of the beer, but they do not dominate.

Southern Tier Imperial Choklat Stout

This brew is very dark, with a light tan head that sticks around. The aroma is a welcoming milk chocolate scent. The beer is lighter in texture than it appears and very drinkable. It ranges toward the sweet end of the spectrum, but has some good balancing hop and roasted grain notes.

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout

Poured from a bottle, the beer has a different feel about it than the nitro-can. It is a dark black color with a decent tan head. Clear chocolate syrup notes in the nose. The flavor still has a good stout base with a chocolate-milk quality added to the finish.

With nearly 1,800 breweries in the U.S. (up from 42 when I reached legal drinking age in 1978) and countless imported brands, beer companies are constantly engaged in “look at me” marketing. This is the process of announcing the latest imperial this, double that or oddball ingredient that makes the beer “unique.” The brewer is trying to make the best beer possible, but what the marketing folks really are hoping for is news coverage, social media buzz and word of mouth among customers.

The first sign of any success in the market usually brings out the copycats. This makes it almost impossible to determine if it is a genuine trend or just a passing fad. A legitimate trend brings with it a group of beers that have staying power. Only time will tell.

A couple of years ago the “Your Next Beer” column looked at coffee and chocolate beers after it was clear a number of craft brewers were doing more than making experimental batches with these ingredients. Both categories have flourished, with some very nice beers built around these flavors. And if Great American Beer Festival medals are any indication of trends, both coffee and chocolate now have their own categories—chocolate graduated this year from the “Herb and Spice” division.

The history of chocolate goes back around to 4,000 years ago when the Mokaya people in Central America made chocolate beverages. The Aztecs and Mayans were making a spicy drink from the ground beans of cacao tree for hundreds of years before Spanish Conquistadors arrived. Aztecs actually used cacao to pay tributes to their rulers. Pueblo peoples also had a history of using cacao seeds long before any European had ever tasted chocolate. These were not sweet drinks, since refined sugar was not added. But they clearly started our almost instinctual craving for chocolate.

Craft brewers are increasingly experimenting with chocolate. The flavor swings can be pretty dramatic, from something sweet like a Hershey’s Kiss to a more bitter experience like Baker’s chocolate.

I can only imagine his reaction if he discovered some of today’s brewers blending wine grape juice with their ales. It would be as if two parallel universes had collided.

The division between beer and wine goes back through the centuries. The first record of beer being brewed is contained in 8,000-year-old Sumerian writings from what today is Iraq. The first known wine production goes back even further, around 10,000 years, to what is now Georgia in the south Caucasus.

Kinsley Dey

In Europe, most northern countries are “beer” focused, while southern countries lean in the direction of wine. Then there is the vodka belt and the whisky makers. Much of this has to do with growing conditions and traditions. Yes, you can get a great riesling in Germany and find locally made beers in Italy, but the truth is that most locals and tourists in these countries consumer the beverages that each land is best known for producing.

This ale changes slightly with each vintage. The Portland brewery starts with a Northwest-style sour ale base that is a blend of soured Triple, Blonde Quad and Golden ales that have been refermented with the fresh pressed juice of Niagara grapes. The beer pours a slightly hazy dark gold with a nice white foam. The sour ale is balanced amazingly well by the residual sugar of the Niagara grapes. If you have found sour ales tend to lean too much towards the tart side, you might want to give this one a try.

Empire Brewing in Syracuse Deep Purple:

Empire Brewing uses Concord grape concentrate from the Finger Lakes Growers Cooperative in a beer that has a distinctive bright purple hue and a thin purple-red head. There is no missing the Concord grapes in this one. The flavor is upfront and direct. But instead of being overly sweet, the ale starts to go dry in mid-palate. The finish is more tart than the initial aroma and flavor would suggest, with a slight hint of the wheat beer acidity.

Stone 10.10.10 Vertical Epic Ale:

This beer pours a nice golden color with a fluffy white head. The beer has flavors coming from a number of angles, making it difficult to pick out the wine components that come from three very different grape styles: muscat, gewurztraminer and sauvignon blanc. Does the spice come from the Belgian yeast of the gewurztraminer? Is the sweetness from the muscat or is it Belgian candy sugar? In the end, this is quite a different beer and worth trying if you happen to find a bar that is running vertical tastings of the Stone series.

This beer pours an amber-orange color with a thin white head. The aroma is slightly malty with a hint of the honey. The basil emerges in the flavor profile. It is a background note that comes forward, then reverses itself. This is a smooth drinker.

Dogfish Head Sah’tea

The brewery added this one to its full production line up in 2009. Dogfish Head takes a traditional Finnish sahti recipe that includes juniper berries and creates a bit of a twist with the addition of black chai tea at the end of the boil. The beer is a hazy orange color, with a decent white head—a nice sweet nose and several flavors that emerge with each taste.

Furthermore Knot Stock

Furthermore Knot Stock uses cracked black pepper that is boiled in a sack and then cold-infused in an American pale ale that features Northern Brewer hops. The brewery owners got the idea for the beer from an Italian cookie that used black pepper to add spice to its flavor. The ale pours an amber gold color with a thick off-white head. The black pepper is clear in the aroma. At 65 IBUs there is plenty of hop flavor in this rich and coating ale.

Moon River Rosemary Swamp Fox IPA

Savannah’s Moon River Brewing uses Centennial, Chinook and Brewer’s Gold hops, then dry-hops the ale with fresh rosemary. Rosemary Swamp Fox IPA leads with the rosemary, which is the lead element in the aroma and clear in the flavor. The hops are present, but soft when compared to many IPAs.

Stone Smoked Porter with Chipotle

This beer pours a nice dark brown with a khaki head of foam. There is a moderate level of smoke aroma with this brew. The first sip does not scream heat from a smoked chili pepper, but after a couple of sips you increasingly sense the warmth. It is not overpowering, but it is clearly present.

Saison Du BUFF

Stone Brewing, Victory Brewing and Dogfish Head combined forces in 2010 to form what they called Brewers United for Freedom of Flavor (BUFF). Saison du BUFF was released as a limited product with no plans to make it again. The one I tried was brewed at Stone and is a 6 percent ABV beer with a lovely aroma that is supported by the parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme used in the brewing. The flavor is a combination of floral, citrus and the spices. Lots of what you would expect in saison and some things you would not.