The best.

What does that mean? Can anything be truly the best? When it comes to beer, “best” is such a subjective term. One person’s idea of what they think is the best beer out there right now is swill to another. Does best equal rare? Does it equal balance? Does it equal taste? Does it equal an ability to adhere to rules and win awards? Does it equal cold and there, on a hot day?

To celebrate The Daily Beer’s first birthday, we asked Alberta’s best beer writers to come up with their best and favourite Alberta beer events, breweries, beers and trends. It’s the best birthday present a blog could ask for – 4,000 words of absolute gold. I thank them all from the bottom of my beer glass.

All of the writers below have spent a lot of time at the coal face researching for this article. They are writers I know and trust. While the ideas, ramblings and rants of these writers are purely subjective, I respect their opinions, and their sense of what makes beer good – or even the best.

Jason van Rassel Jason van Rassel is a freelance beer writer, Daily Beer contributer-at-large, and a member of the North American Guild of Beer Writers. He loves a good beer and a good yarn, preferably at the same time. You can find him on Twitter and Untappd.

Best Alberta beer event or experience

Casks for a Cause: Casks are great outlets for breweries to experiment — drinkers get to enjoy the results. Midtown Kitchen’s Cask Wars is a great showcase for some out-there beers, but Casks for a Cause outdoes it because it brings so many one-offs together in one place, at one time. That also makes it a great occasion to enjoy beer and conversation with all kinds of great local beer people. The fact that it’s a fundraiser for a charity (Give a Mile) seals the deal.

Best Alberta brewery

Blindman Brewing. This is a brewery that started with a solid core line-up right out of the gate and quickly progressed to more daring beers — and nailing just about every one of them in the process. The session ale and IPA are dialled-in. The saison, with its seasonal tweaks, keeps me coming back all year long. Blindman’s 1st Anniversary Ale is a Belgian strong golden ale bursting with fruity esters, peppery phenols and great body. Brewing something so wonderfully complex shows a really deft hand — all the more impressive coming from such a relative newcomer.

Best new Alberta brewery

Banded Peak — and I don’t even like one of their beers! But I do like the creativity and talent they’ve shown by putting a distinct stamp on some established styles. Plainsbreaker Hopped Wheat does a good job of adding some hoppiness to a style that wouldn’t otherwise have it — but it’s aroma and depth, not bitterness that would overshadow the nice refreshing qualities of the wheat malt. Finding that sweet spot takes restraint and maturity more characteristic of an experienced brewer. The beer I’m not a fan of? Summit Seeker IPA: the darker malts give it a nutty quality that feels out of place to me. However, I applaud the creativity and there’s certainly nothing wrong with it — it’s just not my thing. But just about everything else Banded Peak does, is.

Best Alberta beer/s

Bench Creek White Raven IPA and Naked Woodsman Pale Ale. To me, White Raven is the best IPA being made in Alberta (though Last Best’s original IPA is damn close). It’s a great amalgam of the tropically-focused IPAs so popular now, but it’s got some more traditional citric and pine hop traits that combine for great complexity. Naked Woodsman is just a great pale ale that doesn’t try to be a baby IPA by bumping up the hops: it’s nicely balanced and drinkable while still packing a lot of flavour.

Favourite beer trend/s

I love that craft breweries are making traditional German styles and more lagers in general. A beer doesn’t have to be high-alcohol, barrel-aged or brimming with hops to be worthy of appreciation. Kudos to Brauerei Fahr for bringing a flavourful and fresh (which is so important!) hefeweizen to Alberta. And lagers, while they may not elicit raves from brewery fanboys and fangirls on rating sites, deserve respect: they’re usually harder to make because their subtler flavours make flaws harder to conceal. Dandy’s Marzen was the best example of the Oktoberfest/Marzen from Alberta I’ve ever had — and it took serious skill to make.

Scott Messenger Scott Messenger is a writer and editor based in Edmonton. He has dedicated 2016 to exploring Alberta’s craft brewing industry by only buying beer made by brewers based in the province. Follow his beer escapades at his One Year of Alberta Beer blog.

Best Alberta beer event or experience

I think the day I truly fell in love with Alberta beer was my first cask event. In early 2016, Blindman Brewing brought 20 litres of its Ichorous Imperial Stout to Edmonton’s Next Act pub. They ran out – 80 eight-ounce pours – in an hour flat. For me, it was trial by fire – if you’ve had Ichorous you know it can be a challenging beer. But it showed me just how complicated and ambitious and beautiful Alberta beer could be. And with the brewers on hand and making the rounds, asking for feedback, getting to know their customers, it really emphasized what craft beer is all about: people getting together to enjoy something they’re passionate about. It truly set the tone for my year of Alberta beer.

Best Alberta brewery

Ribstone Creek has always been one of my favourites. Perhaps ironically, that has never been more true than when they dumped a bad batch of Lone Bison (one of my favourite Alberta IPAs) this August. “If it’s not good enough for us to drink,” they explained, “then it most certainly cannot go to Alberta beer lovers.” It was a class act that (hopefully) set an example, and a clever bit of marketing, to boot. Bench Creek needs a mention as well, simply for nailing everything they do. Alley Kat, Edmonton’s hometown hero, rounds out my list. After more than 20 years, the veteran has managed to do more than stay relevant. Their Dragon and Back Alley series solidify their role as one of the leaders in the new era of Alberta beer.

Best new Alberta brewery

Coulee Brew Co. has struck that a rare balance that appeals most to me about a brewery: delicious beer that offer layers of flavours for you to parse out, that seem to demand you explain your affection. Not that they’re self-conscious beers; from the House of Pilsner to the Hoodoo Hops IPA, they burst with confidence. These are beers you go back to, only to discover something new in them, something you missed the first time around. Coulee is one of the breweries that have made me pretty proud of Alberta beer. Across the industry, there may be some bugs to work out (sometimes literally), but as a whole it has matured rapidly, achieving a sophistication that I feel rivals any brewing community in Canada. Of the newbies I’ve tried, Coulee’s a fine flagbearer.

Best Alberta beer/s

By the end of this year, I’ll have tried roughly 100 distinct Alberta beers. I liked a lot of them and loved far more than I hated. I’ve never considered myself qualified to point out “the best,” but I found some favourites that are now go-to brews. Bench Creek’s multi-award-winning White Raven is one of the finest-balanced IPAs I’ve ever tasted, Albertan or otherwise, and is the beer I name first if I’m asked for recommendations. Coulee Brew Co. was a fantastic discovery for me this year, as well, particularly their House of Pilsner, a spirited homage to the original “Pil” first brewed in Lethbridge in 1926. And though I tend to avoid fruity beers, Village Squeeze Lemon Berry Helles reminded me that the assumptions I make about pretty much everything are generally stupid. This stunningly delicious beer is like summer in a can.

Favourite beer trend

It’s great to see breweries giving back. The brewpubs of the Bearhill group always have a “community brew” on tap, giving a portion of the proceeds to a local cause. Part of what I once paid for a Cold Garden saison went to KidSport. And other breweries are following suit or taking different paths to philanthropy. It makes the local impact of buying an Alberta beer that much more profound. Possibly, that’s never been more important.

Don Tse Don Tse loves beer. He’s loved over 16,000 different beers. He’s written professionally about beer for almost 20 years, but he doesn’t like being reminded that he’s an old guy. Follow his beer counter at his website www.dontse.beer and follow him on Twitter @TheDonOfBeer.

Best Alberta beer event or experience

Is it a cop out to say I like them all? I’ve been into craft beer in Alberta for over two decades. When I started, the question of which beer event was best was absurd, because there were no good beer events. Now we are awash in them. And I love it. Each event brings something new to the beer scene and brings different people out. Beer is the most social of beverages and any event that brings good people together to drink good beer is an event I can support.

Best Alberta brewery

I love different breweries for different reasons, so I cannot name a single favourite. And for me to explain what I like about each Alberta brewery would take more time than I have (and more words than Haydon had allotted me), so I’ll just say I especially like Tool Shed, Dandy and Banded Peak, but any Alberta brewery producing and promoting good beer is worthy of praise. I’ve only had one beer from Situation, so I don’t feel it fair to say they are one of my favourite breweries, but if that one beer is representative of what they are doing, they would be on my “especially” list, too.

Best new Alberta brewery

Well, the aforementioned Situation certainly impressed me with one beer, but I’m not prepared to give them the crown based on that. Banded Peak on the other hand, has produced several great beers, most notably their Plainsbreaker and their Southern Aspect. Plus, I love that three wonderful people have banded together to explore the peak of great beer.

Best Alberta beer/s

Brewsters Blue Monk Barley Wine. Explaining why this is my favourite (a) would fail to do it justice, (b) make me thirsty, and (c) delay you from going to get some. Stop reading now. Go to Brewsters.

Favourite beer trend

Haydon isn’t paying me enough to make me follow his rules, so I’m going to say what is the worst beer trend (I’m okay with everything else). I love cask ale and you’ll often see me at cask ale events. But I dislike the movement of breweries throwing together a bunch of crap and expecting people to like it just for its uniqueness. Cask ale should not be about one-off brews. If you wouldn’t otherwise sell it to the public, don’t throw it in a cask and expect me to appreciate your creativity. Instead, take the beer you should be proud of (otherwise, why are you putting your name on it?) and just enhance it with live yeast, some extra dry hopping and cask conditioning. Does adding a new or unusual ingredient sometimes make a great thing better? Sure. But don’t take your filet mignon, slather it in A-1 steak sauce, ketchup, mustard, anise seed, nutmeg, bourbon soaked oak chips and organic, locally-sourced kitchen sink and expect me to enjoy it.

Adam Seguin Adam Seguin is the creator of the Western Suds craft beer blog, a co-founder of CAMRA Alberta and Beer Operations Specialist at Craft Beer Importers Canada. Basically, Adam is just a beer geek trying to improve himself one beer at a time.

Best Alberta beer event or experience

There are so many beer events that take place throughout the year so I had to think about this one for a bit. While I do enjoy getting together with all of my industry friends at the large Alberta Beer Festivals there is something about the Bottlescrew Bill’s Beer Fest that I really enjoy. It is held at the restaurant/bar so it is quite a bit smaller than the major beer festivals. This gives it a more intimate feel and this is something that I enjoy; I like smaller bars and restaurants for this very reason. There is a charity component to this beer festival as well. Adding charity into the mix is always helpful because it allows us to donate money to a good cause while we have some fun. And it would be hard not to have fun at the Bottlescrew Bill’s Beer Festival because there is a great selection of breweries/importers pouring lots of incredible beers. Bottlescrew prides itself in serving beer from around the world and this can be seen at their annual festival.

Best Alberta brewery

Now this is a tough one. I am going to limit myself to three breweries here. I know that everyone is expecting me to name the one that I worked for and I will not disappoint. Of course Last Best Brewing & Distilling is at the top of my list, I worked there because I believe that they brew some of the best beer out there. Last Best IPA was the first local IPA to blow my mind and that is something that will stay with me forever. When I look for some packaged product to bring home with me to drink I tend to lean towards Bench Creek. Their White Raven is another incredible IPA and I enjoy sipping on Naked Woodsman (that sounds a little weird doesn’t it?) and Black Spruce Porter as well. For my third favourite I need to mention Dandy Brewing Co. I have said it before; these guys have been making some incredible beers and pushing the boundaries when it comes to styles. They were brewing things like kettle sours and rauchbiers back when many local breweries argued that these styles would never sell in our market.

Best new Alberta brewery

I know that Blindman Brewing and Troubled Monk are not exactly “new” anymore but they are still kind of new right? Plus I feel like I need to mention them since I do really like what they have been doing. The session ale and kettle sour series from Blindman has been great and their recent 1st Anniversary Year was a delightful treat. Troubled Monk brews flavourful, well made beers. The Pesky Pig and their award winning American brown ale, Open Road, are delicious beers. If I am going to name one brewery that opened in 2016 I have to go with Banded Peak. I have enjoyed everything that these guys have put out there so far and the Plainsbreaker is something that I can drink all night long. As an added bonus their tap room is a great place to hang out. It is super chill and comfortable plus you can see all of the goings on in the brewery while you drink your pint.

Best Alberta beer/s

So many beers…oh so many beers. My favourite ones for the past year would have to be the above mentioned Plainsbreaker which is such a nice sessionable beer chock full of glorious late additions of Citra, Amarillo, and Summit hops which gives it a huge fragrant nose full of tropical fruit and citrus. Another favourite of mine has a higher ABV but that doesn’t stop me from trying to treat it like a session beer because I just want to keep on drinking it! Last Best’s Tokyo Drift (IPA #3) is a New England style IPA. I am a big fan of these hazy beers that are engineered to highlight the juicy, fruit punch flavours and aromas from the copious amounts of late addition hops and dry hopping (there are no bittering additions with this one). I love it when I can smell the pineapple on this from across the table; it just seems to call my name.

Favourite beer trend

When it comes to recent trends in our beer scene I do have a few favourites out there. I have been happy to see kettle sours become a popular style. This really seemed to explode over the summer. Dandy, Wild Rose, Last Best and Blindman have been doing a great job of getting these light, tart and refreshing beers into the hands of Albertan beer drinkers. I hope that this will lead to people becoming more adventurous in their beer choices and trying the deliciously complex wild sours that Belgian Lambic breweries have been doing for so long. Another trend that puts a big smile on my face are those New England style IPAs. Dandy and Last Best made some great ones and most recently there was a three way collaboration between Blindman, Troubled Monk and Bench Creek where they brewed this style. I am eagerly awaiting this release.

Hipster Beer Run Hipster Beer Run is the always loveable duo of Vicki Volt (@yycvicki) and Tommy Gun (@speedonthis) who sometimes write about beer on their extra fun blog called Hipster Beer Run. You can follow them on Twitter @hipsterbeerrun or you can be continually frustrated they haven’t written anything in their blog in a while by visiting hipsterbeerrun.com

Best Alberta beer event or experience

Beerfest is always our favorite event, we look forward to it every year. It’s a great opportunity to see everyone in the community and taste all the new beers coming out. This year was super fun because of all the new Alberta breweries that debuted this year and there was an energy at Beerfest this year that wasn’t there in previous years. Tommy also got to judge for the first time this year, it was a truly unique and genuinely fun experience for him to see how everything works with that side of the festival. A close second was the Alberta IPA tap takeover at Last Best, it was really cool to compare and experience so many different expressions of the same style all at once.

Best Alberta brewery

There’s no question, it’s Dandy. What Ben, Dylan, Derek and Matt have done since day one is incredible. Dandy consistently develops their own versions of innovative, delicious beer styles that we’re always impressed with. Whether it’s one of their incredible sours or an entire line up of German beers for Oktoberfest, including an unreal Märzen, they continue to impress us again and again. It also doesn’t hurt that all the Dandies are great people too. They’re all awesome, down to earth dudes with hearts of gold. All of us in Calgary are super lucky to have Dandy here, as they make the scene and the community demonstrably better. We feel like Dandy’s soaring popularity is only going to continue over the next year, especially with their new branding looking so fresh and so clean.

Best new Alberta brewery

This was a really hard choice to make as there were so many new breweries making great beer. Our pick for best new brewery is Banded Peak. From day one they’ve been fully dialled in, and their beers are solid. They just make amazing beer consistently, and a lot of new breweries take a few batches to work out the kinks in their recipes. Banded Peak is also the first brewery in Calgary to offer crowler fills, which ties in perfectly with their outdoors adventure aesthetic. We’re looking forward to seeing what these guys do in their sophomore year. A very close second is Cold Garden. These guys just make beer really fun. A sour Porter called Porter Patch Kids, a birthday cake Märzen, a lime IPA…these are really fun beers and that’s something we need more of in this industry.

Best Alberta beer/s

In no particular order…

The Dandy Brewing Company Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys: This big, fruity IPA also packed an assertive hop bite and a nearly invisible 7.2%ABV is an easy pick for one of the best beers this year.

Blindman 1st Anniversary Ale: Very often North American breweries screw up Belgian styles and try to hop the hell out of them or they turn out way too sweet. This beer is none of these. It’s a solid, dry, effervescent Belgian Strong that’s beautifully floral and fruity with a pepper, boozy warming finish.

Banded Peak Tart Cherry Saison: This beer doesn’t make any false claims: its got a hint of tart, a hint of cherry and it’s got the make-up of a beautifully crafted saison. What really makes this beer head and shoulders above many other beers is that none of these elements of how it tastes overpowers any of the other elements, they all work together in perfect balance.

Brauerei Fahr Fahr Away Hefeweizen: This stuff is liquid gold. You can tell the moment that this beer touches your lips it was made the old way, the right way. Not too overwhelmingly banana and bubble gum or terribly sweet. It’s dry and it’s tremendously thirst quenching, it’s what other hefeweizens wish they tasted like.

Favourite beer trend

We don’t pay attention to trends #hipsterbeerrun.

Haydon Dewes Haydon Dewes is founder and editor of The Daily Beer, Alberta’s top beer news website. He’s a passionate homebrewer, a voracious reader of beer literature, and a fierce advocate for beer culture. More than anything, he wants the Alberta craft beer industry and culture to grow into the hotbed of deliciousness it is destined to be.

Best Alberta beer event or experience

I’ve loved them all – Calgary Beerfest, Oktoberfest, J. Webb’s Super Classy Beerfests (summer and winter editions), cask wars, brewmasters dinners, tap takeovers. They’re a great chance to talk beer and catch up with friends. But one event stood out for me, and I’m sad to say there wasn’t a jot of Alberta beer in sight – Brewery and the Beast, which featured just Phillips beer (from BC).

It was held in a treed park on the banks of the Bow mid-summer, the sun was shining, and your entry ticket got you all the beer, wine and cider you could drink as well as the most incredible array of meat from Calgary’s best restaurants as cafes. It was a glorious celebration of summer. I’d love to see an event like this featuring Alberta beer.

Best Alberta brewery

This one is tough, but I’m going with Dandy Brewing Company. Their small size has allowed them to create a dizzying array of amazing beer, from lagers to imperial stouts to obscure European styles, to sours. They even nail big bold North American IPAs. But here’s the thing – it’s all good. That’s really hard to do. They’re expanding next year which is great news for Alberta beer lovers outside of Calgary. Although Big Rock is sometimes maligned in craft beer circles for producing huge amounts of “safe” malt-forward beer, they don’t get enough kudos for the creations from their barrel-aged program and their commitment to pushing innovation through their lambic-inspired wild fermentation project. Bench Creek haven’t yet made a bad beer (quite the opposite in fact) and they’ve smashed the stereotype that rural breweries only make swill for the local yokels. Troubled Monk, Blindman and Banded Peak are also killing it.

Best new Alberta brewery

This one is easy – Banded Peak. Three awesome guys, making really well crafted beer and having fun doing it. They haven’t rushed to put out a large range of beers – instead, they have focused on a smaller number of incredibly well made beer. They look up to US brewing legends Modern Times and I’d say they’re doing a great job of emulating their quality and creativity. These guys will continue to do very well. I’ve also been impressed with the beer coming out of Coulee Brew Co. in Lethbridge. While the brewery is new, brewmaster Badger Colish is an old master who knows his stuff. Their seasonals – including their Belgian tripel – have been very well crafted. Situation Beer in Edmonton also deserves some love, if nothing else fro their Page Turner IPA alone.

Best Alberta beer/s

So. Many. Good. Beers! Here were some of my favourites.

Banded Peak Southern Aspect: These guys do aromatic and flavourful hop-forward beers very well. This seasonal IPA exploded out of the glass with the most amazing tropical fruit hop smells. Simply stunning. I wish this was their standard line-up IPA.

Bench Creek White Raven IPA: It’s won a ton of awards for a reason. This IPA has the perfect blend of juicy fruitiness and resiny citrus. When I visited the brewery earlier this year, I got to sample a can straight off the canning line – probably the best Alberta beer I had all year.

Wild Rose Farmhouse White: Wild Rose put out a couple of really complex barrel-aged beers this year as part of their rare series, but this one was my favourite. It was earthy, fruity, spicy, funky, slightly sour and altogether intriguing, from the first sip to the last.

Favourite beer trend

I’m digging the move in Alberta towards wild and barrel-aged beer. As mentioned above, Big Rock is doing it right, and Wild Rose is pumping out small batches of amazing barrel-aged beer. Zero Issue will be opening early next year with the province’s first oak foeder for fermenting large batches of wild sour beer. And let’s not forget Blind Enthusiasm, which is set to open Canada’s largest wild and barrel-aged beer facility next year in Edmonton. This trend is a true sign that Alberta is coming of age as a brewing province.