We’ve done many blind taste tests of IPAs to try to avoid the trap of obsessing over hyped breweries while passing over others that are actually making beers we love. Grimm Artisanal Ales is a brewery that’s both hyped and also stands out in blind taste tests as one of the best IPA makers we’ve tried. For this week’s drop we’ve picked a mixed case with 4 IPAs to get the best per can cost while also getting the best variety.

Suggested Order

• 1/2 Case of Spiritual Consultant IPA (12 cans) - featuring Mosaic and Rakau hops. From Grimm: “Characteristic tropical and ripe stone fruit notes are layered with white grape and cotton candy/jellybean. Ultra clean, lightly hazy, pale, and superbly drinkable with a delicate sweetness that never turns cloying or hot, but stays tempered with a slight undercurrent of orchard dankness and an oat-forward grist that gives a silky body.”

• 1/2 Case - Mixed Hoppy Set including: ‘Cloud Landing’ / Dreamweapon / ‘Site Specific Nectaron’

  • ‘Cloud Landing’ (newest release): featuring Motueka, Rakau, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops. From Grimm: “this DIPA carries a light and airy quality that makes for a high drinkability factor. Notes of honeysuckle, lemon custard, lime sherbet, and honeydew are packed into a touch-of-sweet and rather refreshing medium-bodied beer.“

  • Dreamweapon - featuring Columbus and El Dorado hops. From Grimm: “Dreamweapon offers complex layers of intensely dank northwest woods in a crisp and refreshing format. El Dorado invites us in with a hint of candy orange on the nose, but Columbus delivers the whole forest—resinous pine, warm cedar, anise hyssop and crabapple. Dry in body with a satisfying citrus pith finish. “

  • ‘Site Specific Nectaron’ - featuring Nectaron hops. From Grimm: “The name of the hop is on the money — juicy and sweet ripe peach nectar is the dominant hop accent here, with a big gummy fruit candy backing. We did manage to contract a small amount of Nectaron this year, and given these results we look forward to playing more with this hop going forward.“

💰 Details

• $145 all in (including taxes and shipping) or $6.04 per can.

• This is a splurge, but well worth it for a brewery of this quality and for beers that are this fresh.

The NYC beer scene is on fire with high quality breweries and Wild East Brewing and Threes Brewing are two of the most standout breweries in the city. They also happen to be located a couple of blocks apart in the downtown Brooklyn neighborhood of Gowanus. Both breweries make some of the best lagers, mixed ferm, and, due to customer demand, hop forward beers that the masses love. This shipment comes to you from the NY state beer store Halftime Beverage, which ships to a long list of states and allows you to get beers from not one brewery, but two (or you could of course order a case with beers from many other breweries that they have in stock).

Suggested Order

1 full case that includes 4 packs of

• Wild East Ramble (Helles Lager)

• Wild East Patience & Fortitude (Czech-Style Pilsner)

• Wild East Fervor & Defiance (Czech-Style Dark Lager)

• Threes Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More (Imperial Stout)

• Threes Vliet (Pilsner)

• Threes Logical Conclusion (Hazy IPA)

💰 Details

• $156.43 all-in, including shipping or $6.51 per can.

• This is a bit of a splurge, but worth it for these two standout breweries that are the cream of the crop.

🐋 Whale hunters: this release is for you. Best Damn Beer Shop in San Diego currently ships 10 varieties of Drie Fonteinen bottles. Drie Fonteinen is our favorite sour beer maker on Earth. We’ve been to Brussels, tried every Lambic maker (including Cantillon) and Drie Fonteinen continues to stand out as the most complex and balanced Lambic maker. Many of these beers are not available anywhere else in the US right now, but you can order them from the comfort of your phone and have them shipped right to your front door. Disclosure: this beer is expensive. It’s reserved for the most special occasions when you want to enjoy some of the finest beers available on the planet. This beer will wow any friend you have who identifies as a wine snob and ‘doesn’t like beer.’ It will dance on your palate and overwhelm you with flavor and complexity. Flowery language over.

Suggested Bottles

These are the bottles we’re planning to order ourselves:

Prium Belle De Louvain: made using ancient Belle De Louvain plums.

Druif Musca Bleu: From Drie Fonteinen: “Muscat Bleu grapes from Wijndomein Hoenshof in Hoepertingen, Haspengouw region, Flanders. Muscat Bleu is a hybrid wine and table grape and has its origins in Switzerland. We macerated the grape must with four different lambics from two different barrels. We let it macerate for five months and blended the grape lambic with another three young lambics prior to bottling. The final fruit intensity is 38.1% of grape must per litre of Druif Muscat Bleu.”

Intens Rood: this is a special version of their Kriek also using cherries.

Hudson Valley Brewery (Beacon NY) has one of the best barrel programs in the country and offers a wide variety of inventive beer styles from Sour IPAs (not our favorite style), to sour farmhouse ales aged for multiple years, to crips lagers made with unusual ingredients like direct-press Cabernet Rose wine and Mediterranean bay leaves. This haul includes some serious range of flavors representing most flavors that beer can come in- and even contains a sour cider to celebrate the fruit the Hudson Valley region is best known for.

Suggested Order

• 1 4-pack: ‘One Long Beautiful Table.’ A collaboration with the team at Ci Siamo. Botanical Pilsner hopped with Hallertau Blanc and blended with a touch of direct-press Cabernet Rose wine; conditioned on Mediterranean bay leaves and orange peel.

• 1 4-pack Cassette. Little Saison (3%) brewed with NYS barley & raw wheat; hopped w/ Motueka.

• 1 4-pack ‘Say Less.’ Black Lager brewed w/ a variety of dark & specialty malt, hopped w/ Tettnang & Hallertau Blanc; aged in whiskey barrels for 18 months.

• 1 6-pack Pastel. Hudson Valley Cider. A blend of cider apples from Hudson Valley orchards, fermented with native yeasts, and aged in oak for 12 months.

• 1 750ml Heirloom. Ancient Grain Sour Farmhouse Ale with NYS spelt, rye, barley, einkorn, and emmer; aged in oak barrels for one year, and bottle conditioned with local wildflower honey.

💰 Details

• $121 all-in, including tax and shipping. Shipping cost will vary depending on your location.

• This is approximately $5.20 per can and $25 for the fancy barrel aged sour (Heirloom), which is a very fair price for such a highly regarded brewery and for such a wide variety of styles and inventive flavors.