The Top 10 Best Breweries in Iowa 2018:

Backpocket Brewing -

Jackson Street Brewing -

Exile Brewing -

Lion Bridge Brewing -

Confluence Brewing -

Alluvial Brewing -

Barn Town Brewing -

Big Grove Brewing -

Toppling Goliath Brewing-

Pulpit Rock Brewing -

Another year, another Top 10 breweries in Iowa list. There's been some changes in the Iowa Beer Blog Top 10 since last year. Here's a quick link to 2017's list to refresh your memory.10.I'll admit it was a really back and forth for the 10 spot with Backpocket and SingleSpeed from Waterloo. The latter just jumped into canning and distributing its beer to Iowa's largest markets and that's exciting for everyone. Backpocket has been bottling and distributing its flagship lineup throughout the state of Iowa since 2012.The inclusion in the Top 10 isn't strictly alone based on flagship distribution. Backpocket has pushed the envelope staying with beer trends using its pilot system to produce several tasty NE IPAs, Milkshake IPAs and sours. BP expanded the Pucker Up series and added a new barrel-aged stout, Wake the F Up Iowa, to its lineup. Ultimately, the one beer that puts BP on the list is their 6th Anniversary Barrel-Aged Stout.9.Based out of Sioux City, Jackson Street's reach hasn't covered all of Iowa yet but it's growing. In Central Iowa, you can sometimes find beers on tap at The Iowa Taproom or el Bait Shop in Des Moines. Occasionally, there's bottles or crowler cans of their beer available at the Hy-Vee Wine and Spirits in Urbandale. If you're not familiar, you should be.Jackson Street has produced a handful of very tasty barrel-aged and pastry stouts along with barrel-aged sours. The Hell's Half Acre variants and Sioux City Sours have been flavored with maple, vanilla, coffee, rye whiskey, mango, apricot, raspberry and rhubarb to name a few.The recently announced opening target date for Marto Brewing will gain attention for the Sioux City beer scene but it's Jackson Street right now for which you should plan a weekend visit.8.Exile is a lot like Backpocket in that it produces a lot of beer and distributes its many flagships across the state. Beers like Ruthie and Hannah can be found at almost any place with a tapline in Des Moines.Like Backpocket, Exile has leaned on a pilot system to brew small batches at the brewpub for experimental purposes. Some of those experiments become bottled beer for distribution. Exile has tinkered with the NE Style IPAs and produced a very solid series of hop forward beers in this year's Hop Chronicles series. New beers in 2018 like G.C. Nebula, Orge at Simcoe Pass, Merlin's Mist, Crest of Cashmere and Chill Hop are all solid beers that show Exile isn't interested in just playing it safe.7.A common theme for 2018 in Iowa beer has been the growth of brewery distribution. Like SingleSpeed and Big Grove, Lion Bridge too expanded their brewhouse and added a canning line to the operation. While the cans haven't made it to Central Iowa yet, Coconut Disaster, Majestic Beast and The Spice Must Flow! will fly off shelves once they do.In addition to their flavored Porter, NE IPA and spiced beer, there's a solid beer portfolio across several styles. Lion Bridge does easy drinking well with their award wining English Mild, Compensation. They also have a solid Kolsch that sometimes gets fruit added if that's for you.LB also dedicates an entire month to barrel-aged beers. Each January, there's weekly releases of experimental barrel-aged stouts, sours and even a Marzen. The month ends with the release of their big barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout GAZPROM! which now includes variants and more limited versions.6.Probably the most feedback I heard from last year's list was the ranking (or lack of) for Confluence. I wanted to mention that as this spot is in no way a reaction to any sort of complaint. Confluence moved from the "just missed" section to #6 on the list because it continue to evolve with the ever-changing craft beer industry.Confluence introduced the Extinction Event series, a NE Style IPA with a changing combination of hops in each batch. Extinction Event sells out in Des Moines within days. They took old flagships and added new or more hops. It'd be easy to sit back and be happy with Des Moines IPA's success but they double dry-hopped to see what happens. And guess what? It made a great damn beer.Even with the success of their NE Style IPA and flagship experiments, Confluence continued the same with other styles. In 2018, they made a lightly bourbon kissed milk stout called 50's Dad. They made a pastry stout Oatmeal Cookie to celebrate their anniversary. The threw a Saison in rum barrels. They even made a kick-ass Pilsner which anyone can enjoy fan. I-Cubs fan or not.Yes, 2018 was a very good year for the Des Moines based staple. Now that the bar is raised, how high can Confluence go?5.Alluvial is another expanding brewery as they completed a new bigger brewhouse this Summer. With that will come more beer and hopefully expand on their reach beyond just a couple of taprooms in Des Moines. There's a crowler machine there somewhere and let's hope too for 16 ounce cans.Alluvial remains the closest thing to California in Iowa beer. They continue to make the prettiest, clear and clean IPA and Pale Ales in the state. Still, there's been some experimenting with new yeasts to get that Orange Juice murk that's attractive to the eye. There was the release of Sick Pants DIPA and Mosacious Especial for those chasing new trends.The brewery continues to flex some muscle too with a couple of big barrel-aged bottle releases this year. In addition to a new variant of Aurox, Russian Imperial Stout Lahar spent a year in the barrel before being released in two variants in February. With those stouts, Badgers Nadgers and Frontialis also arrived to the world. One a Barleywine and the other a fruited Berliner Weiss.4.Barn Town continues to garner the biggest buzz in the Des Moines brewery scene. The year got off to a big start with the release of a contender for beer of the year, Sticky Juice. Known for sludgy but super fruity NE Style IPAs, BT makes the state's best representation of the style.In addition to Sticky Juice, we saw new beers like Neon, Make the Galaxy Hazy Again, Looky Looky, Appaloosa and Imaginary Time. Imagine a day when those mentioned plus Hop Skewer and Pulp NonFiction are all on tap at the same time.The brewery showed in year two it's more than just juice bomb IPAs though. The use of pilot batches to produce experimental beers like the Hawaiiowan Punch, Ecto Coolest or Blueberry Muffin Testbatch shows what they can do. There's also the two tasty pastry stouts Yer Killin' Me S'mores and Maple Pecanye West that while super sweet, hit all the dessert beer notes. Finally, don't forget the cool collabs with Marto, Pulpit Rock, Mikerphone and Une Annee.3.Big Grove may have the best place to have a beer in their Iowa City taproom, but people don't come just for the atmosphere. Big Grove really hit their stride in 2018 producing some of the juiciest new beers to come out of Eastern Iowa. Just last weekend, it was a full house for their annual release of their barrel-aged stout, Richard the Whale and all of its variants.This wasn't Richard's first party but it was a year of firsts for Big Grove's dive into NE IPAs. Transitioning to canning and self-distributing beers, BG offered a couple of new beers to go with their introductory flagship lineup. First Launch and Easy Eddy were cast into the world.Following the easy drinking, non-bitter but juicy Easy Eddy came more hazy bombs like Turtle Hunter, Starla, Big Ed and Color TV. There was also additions to the Sidehill Sour Series and Sugar Bottom Series.Big Grove is set up for big success in the near future. Flagships like Arms Race and Boomtown will do the heavy lifting. Keeping their NE Style mojo moving while making the beer available in 4-packs of 16 ounce cans for $12 will keep the people lining up and the beer flying out of the taprooms.2.Iowa's biggest and most famous brewery spent 2018 expanding. TG finished and opened a new massive taproom just outside of Decorah in March. There was also distribution expansion into markets like Chicago, St. Louis, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.With expansion sometimes comes growing pains. While most of Iowa saw more access to cans and bigger drops of 22 ounce bombers, there was inconsistencies with the beer. Consumers need to trust that with each purchase they're buying the same thing. With the adjustment to the new brewing system TG needed time to nail down their method so their flagship beers like Pseudo Sue and King Sue can be the consistent batch after batch.One thing that is consistent, Toppling Goliath produces the world's best stouts and there's no doubt about it. Assassin, Mornin' Delight, SR-71 and KBBS all bring national attention and national demand. Each beer's release nearly broke the Internet with ticket demand and each beer still commands a hefty price on the Internet back alley of beer selling and trading.Still, the average Iowan doesn't get access to those, unless they're lucky enough to get in a ticket window milliseconds before the rest of the world. What they can get is one of TG's only new beers in 2018, Term Oil, at the taproom. While it's not Dorthy's Lime, it's not Assassin either.1.The "other" Decorah brewery did what Toppling Goliath did not. It continued to explore new beer trends and stay on the cutting edge of the ever-evolving beer world. Do you want a NE Style IPA? PR has Saftig, Gravy Boat, Stink Juice and Rhyme Animal. Want a pastry stout? PR has Cake Walk, Koffee and Doughnuts and Joy of Almonds. Sour? Church Salad, Fashion Risks and BA #Gallagher. But what about barrel-aged stouts? Well, there's BA Pudgy, BA Ol'Tella and BA $ticker $hock.Perhaps, it was the introduction of their barrel-aged beers that finally pushed Pulpit Rock to the top. BA $ticker $hock, first released a year ago, kicking off what would be the first of many parties and Pulpit's beer releases do not disappoint. While the batch bottles numbers are low, attendees usually get treated with a packed full taplist and several other to-go options that transitioned from 32 crowler cans to 4-packs of 16 ounce cans.In today's scene of hype beers and black market demand, Pulpit Rock stays grounded. You can find PR collaborating with other Iowa breweries like Barn Town, Brightside, Alluvial, SingleSpeed and out of state too with Mikerphone or Untitled Art. They make new beers for craft beer festivals like the Iowa Craft Beer Festival or Great Taste of the Midwest because they care about the consumer experience. They even made a 3rd Anniversary beer for Need Pizza with glitter and Funfetti because while beer is a business, Pulpit Rock still likes to have fun while never taking itself too seriously.Two Central Iowa breweries dropped from last year's ranking and it's certainly not an indication of poor quality but rather they were passed over. Madhouse, yet again, cut its "flagship" beer portfolio and will focus solely on barrel-aged beers going forward. Its Carpe Diem, like 515's OJ IPA, are still great beers.For SingleSpeed, they were 10b to Backpocket's 10a originally. I moved them out and gave Backpocket the sole owner of number 10 after tasting Wake the F Up Iowa. BP gets the nod thanks to two terrific barrel-aged beers released in recent months.Iowa Brewing Company just misses the cut for the second year as they continue to grow, distribute and produce quality beers. Same goes for Franklin Street. Fat Hill gets its first mention as this blog previously called it a brewery to watch in 2019. All five of these could easily be in the Top 10 next year.I've already mentioned the Top 5 breweries to watch in 2019 and based on some of the early response from the Iowa Beer Blog Reader's Choice votes, you may see one or two crack this list. Marto, Dimensional and Thew just need to get their beer out there and like with brewing, have patience.