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Our Best Beers of 2024<\/h3>\n
December 31, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n
On Monday, we shared with you\u00a0our best beer experiences of 2024<\/a>. None of those experiences included our best beers of the year, which goes to show (again) how much placement and timing can affect how we interact with a beverage.<\/p>\n These beers run the gamut from low-ABV table beer to massive barrel-aged stout, and from a resurgent brewery to a hopefully-returning-soon collaboration from two breweries you may not be familiar with (yet).<\/p>\n It was a good year of drinking. Here\u2019s what we thought were tops:<\/p>\n As beer styles go, West Coast IPAs are my go-to. I\u2019m kinda over hazies, I\u2019m still a sucker for a pastry stout and will never say no to a Helles lager. All of that is to say that I never expected my favorite beer of 2024 to be a table beer. Heck, I\u2019m not sure I knew exactly what a table beer\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0when\u00a0Windmill Brewing<\/strong>\u00a0dropped Luelle in May, just weeks before they closed their doors.<\/p>\n Head brewer Jake Edwards \u2013 now brewing at\u00a0Open Outcry<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 named it after his newborn daughter and described the 3.8% beer as \u201ca farmhouse-style table beer brewed with orange peel and grains of paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n I still remember my first sip, pausing before declaring, \u201cThat\u2019s a\u00a0beautiful<\/em>\u00a0beer.\u201d An odd response, perhaps, but it was light, lovely and packed so much flavor into something with so little ABV, it quickly became a go-to this summer. Here\u2019s hoping Jake\u2019s new friends on the South Side get a chance to experience \u201cLuLu.\u201d<\/p>\n My favorite beer I had all year didn\u2019t come until late October, when I got to try this year\u2019s Rare\u00a0at the Bourbon County tasting at Salt Shed<\/a>. It immediately was the standout of the seven beers we sampled that night. The single biggest differentiator among non-adjuncted BCS offerings for years has been the type of barrel used.<\/p>\n Goose got their hands on some rare King of Kentucky bourbon barrels and brewed up a stout to withstand the slumber in wood. I got to try it again at Fulton on Black Friday while there muling for someone and I was lucky enough to grab two more bottles: one to drink and one to trade. There\u2019s\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0much barrel.<\/p>\n The buzz and limited availability so far1<\/a>\u00a0have most beer nerds outside Chicago wondering what all the fuss is about. I suspect this special beer will be unlike 2015 Rare, which you could find at Target a year later. Consider this one\u00a0truly<\/em>\u00a0rare.<\/p>\n To appreciate my favorite beer of the year it\u2019s important to understand the place behind it.\u00a0Ellison Brewery<\/strong>\u00a0first opened in 2015, a year after we uprooted from Chicago and moved to mid-Michigan. This was the closest brewery to our house, had free popcorn which immediately made it kid friendly, and had a fantastic lineup of stouts and IPAs.<\/p>\n It became our go-to brewery to take friends when they were visiting, a spot to grab a beer while running weekend errands or for the occasional girls or guys nights out. For Christmas in 2019 I was even gifted a mug club membership. And then COVID happened.<\/p>\n A lot of businesses struggled through those first several months, and I tried to do my part making trips every two weeks to snag beer or spirits \u2013 or sometimes both. In the ensuing couple of years things were different there. The steady rotation of beers we came to love weren\u2019t always on draft, the brewery closed for a spell during renovations and a second location in Lansing shuttered in 2023.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know the why behind it, but for a time, Ellison had become a shell of its former self. Which is why I was thrilled to find the brewery I first latched onto as\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0local brewery (much like I did with\u00a0Half Acre<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Begyle<\/strong>\u00a0back in Chicago) had a resurgence this year.<\/p>\n Ellison\u2019s lineup of stouts is unparalleled, and their Tiramisu Stout may be the best of the bunch. It\u2019s equal parts sweet and roasty without being an over-the-top pastry stout. A few sips reminded me of why I fell in love with the brewery nearly a decade ago.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t track the beers that I drink on Untappd or BeerAdvocate or anything like that. Instead, when I like a particular beer, I take a photo of it on my phone. As I was scrolling through my photos app to remind myself of what I drank this year, I stopped short on one photo that sums up what I really like in a beer at this point in my life: Gnack.<\/p>\n In July, Steve kindly sent me a few cans from breweries in the NWI region, including two tallboys of Gnack. He knew I\u2019d love this English brown lager, saying also that \u201cmy mind was blown by how good it is.\u201d And he was right!<\/p>\n Made by Merrilville\u2019s\u00a0Gnosis Brewing<\/strong>\u00a0and Kankakee\u2019s\u00a0Knack Brewing & Fermentations<\/strong>, it takes a seamless combination of everything I love about a good English-style mild ale \u2013 light, bittersweet, subtle and rich at the same time \u2013 and musically transposes it into a lager key, making it even easier drinking and approachable.<\/p>\n And even though we\u2019re in a renaissance of delicious dark lagers, this one walked an impressively delicate tightrope of flavor \u2014 not as sharply roasty as a Czech dark nor as sweet as a Dunkel \u2014 while working in the framework of a dry, grassy, lightly earthy English style. I loved it.<\/p>\n I had a lot of really good beers this year. I have a lot of good beers chilling in my fridge right now for NYE purposes. I\u2019m pretty lucky, and I drink pretty well. And I\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0wish I had some of this back in my fridge again right now. Here\u2019s hoping it returns next May.<\/p>\nSteve\u2019s\u00a0Best Beer: Windmill\u2019s Luelle<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F09174e07-d968-4c15-88b4-b1d742c165fe_944x945.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nEric\u2019s Best Beer: Goose Island BCBS Rare 2024<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nRyan\u2019s\u00a0Best Beer: Ellison Brewery\u2019s Tiramisu Stout<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Karl\u2019s Best Beer: Gnosis & Knack\u2019s Gnack Lager<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.guysdrinkingbeer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/gnack-best-beers-of-2024-576x1024.jpg\")
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