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It doesn't have to a winter afternoon to enjoy @kalispellbrewing's fantastic Winter at Noon dunkel, but it seems extra right. Toasty and rich without being sweet, this amber lager is equally refreshing and comforting. A perfect cold-weather lager.
An authentic-tasting gueuze calls for an authentic Belgian lambic basket, and @jesterkingbrewery's Spon-Methode Gueuze is about as authentic as it gets. Lemon juice, wet hay, vanilla custard, fresh-split oak, sweet verbena, pear skin and peach syrup meet the underside of a horse saddle in the nose; even more lemon emerges on that palate (though there’s less acidic burn than one would imagine), then rhubarb and dry vanilla bean fade as oaky tannins bite. It’s outrageously vibrant, complex, and accurate to this hard-to-replicate style.
When a German lager meets a quartet of American hops ... you have a beer that dreams of thawing weather. Montana, keep an eye out for @bayernbrewing's Inconceivable, hitting taps and bottles soon.
Say goodbye to @newbelgium Ranger and Rampant, and say hello to the Voodoo Rangers. The 8 Hop Pale Ale combines flavors of fresh-cut grass, Clementine oranges and caramelized garlic in a crushably clean 5.5% format; the 7% IPA utilizes Mosaic and Amarillo hops for flashes of Lemonheads, tangerine, mango and dried onion; and the Imperial IPA hides its 9% ABV behind notes of pine needles, cantaloupe rind, orange blossom honey and rose petals.
All three of the canned IPAs we tried from Atlanta-based newbie @scofflawbeer impressed us with their balance (see what we did there?), but we especially dug Hooligan, whose feather-light bitterness made flavors of orange zest, papaya, sugar cookies and green onion topped with a splash of tangy grapefruit all the more enticing.
An estival for the rest of y'all, @jesterkingbrewery’s Estival Dichotomous 2016 blends a wild-fermented saison with grapefruits, tangelos and marion blackberries. Flavors of fresh green oak, crisp pear, warm vanilla, orange blossom honey, tangelos and sulfur shift and shimmer before grapefruity twang tugs the tongue at the swallow.
This probably isn’t the best way to open a can of @barrier_brewing_co Tanto, but it’s definitely the most appropriate. A double dry-hop dose of ID007 (the hop formerly known as Idaho 7), Citra, Chinook and Simcoe lends aromas of lemons, garlic, marijuana, mango and lawn clippings that cut through the nose like the short samurai sword for which the beer’s named; the flavor is softer, with each chewy sip introducing the tongue to a procession of grapefruit, fresh white onion, pineapple skin and baked biscuits.
If there's an session IPA that does more with 3% ABV than @mcfatebrewing's Kimchi Session IPA, we haven't found it. There's no actual kimchi flavor (it was named after a brewer's late dog); instead, mown grass, peaches, tangerine and saltine crackers stack up before a finish quick as a fingersnap.

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