Eight Cool Craft Beers
“Craft beer is a celebration of creativity in a bottle.” – Unknown
Craft beers are small-batch, artisanal brews made with a focus on quality, creativity, and traditional brewing techniques. Unlike mass-produced beers, craft brewers experiment with unique ingredients, styles, and flavors, often drawing inspiration from local culture and seasonal elements. This passion for innovation and craftsmanship has sparked a global movement, resulting in an incredible variety of beers ranging from hoppy IPAs and rich stouts to funky sours and barrel-aged specialties. Craft beers celebrate individuality, community, and the artistry behind every pour.
1. Cantillon Fou’ Foune (Belgium)
Story: A legendary lambic beer brewed with fresh apricots, aged in oak barrels. Cantillon is a traditional Brussels brewery known for spontaneous fermentation.
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Brasserie Cantillon
Cantillon Fou’ Foune is a celebrated lambic beer from Brasserie Cantillon in Brussels, first brewed in 1998 as a tribute to apricot farmer Pierre “Foufoune” Tilquin, who supplied the brewery with fragrant Bergeron apricots from the Rhône Valley. The base is a traditional two-year-old lambic, spontaneously fermented with wild Brussels yeasts, into which whole apricots are steeped for several weeks. The fruit infuses the beer with a vivid, tangy aroma and a deep golden-orange hue, creating a complex balance of tartness, stone fruit sweetness, and Cantillon’s signature earthy funk. It has since become one of the brewery’s most sought-after seasonal releases.
2. Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast (Denmark)
Story: An oatmeal stout brewed with locally roasted coffee, a cult favorite from the renowned gypsy brewery Mikkeller.
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Mikkeller
Mikkeller was founded in Copenhagen in 2006 by Danish schoolteacher Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, who began as a homebrewer experimenting with bold, unconventional recipes. Rather than operate a traditional brewery, Bjergsø embraced the “gypsy brewing” model—collaborating with breweries around the world to produce small-batch, creative beers without owning his own production facility. Mikkeller quickly gained a global reputation for pushing style boundaries, from intensely hopped IPAs to pastry stouts and wild ales, and expanded into bars, restaurants, and beer festivals in multiple countries, cementing its status as one of the most influential craft beer brands of the 21st century.
3. The Alchemist Heady Topper (USA)
Story: A hazy, double IPA considered one of the pioneers of the New England IPA style, known for its intense hop aroma.
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The Alchemist
The Alchemist is a Vermont-based brewery founded in 2003 by John and Jen Kimmich, originally as a small brewpub in Waterbury. It gained worldwide fame with the release of Heady Topper, a hazy, unfiltered double IPA that helped ignite the New England IPA craze. After flooding from Hurricane Irene in 2011 destroyed the original pub, the Kimmichs shifted to production-only brewing, focusing on fresh, hop-forward beers distributed locally to preserve quality. Today, The Alchemist remains a family-run operation, celebrated for its innovative IPAs and commitment to community and environmental sustainability..
4. Omnipollo Nebuchadnezzar (Sweden)
Story: A wild ale aged in oak barrels, blended with exotic fruits like mango and passionfruit, pushing the limits of creative brewing.
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Omnipollo
Omnipollo was founded in Stockholm in 2011 by brewer Henok Fentie and artist Karl Grandin, blending avant-garde brewing with striking, surreal visual design. Like Mikkeller, Omnipollo embraced a nomadic brewing approach, collaborating with breweries worldwide to create unconventional beers that challenge style definitions—ranging from hop-forward IPAs to decadent dessert stouts and fruit-laden sours. Grandin’s distinctive, dreamlike artwork became as iconic as the beers themselves, helping the brand cultivate a cult following and redefine how modern craft beer could look and taste.
5. Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze (Belgium)
Story: A traditional geuze made by blending old and young lambics, aged in oak barrels with wild yeast and bacteria.
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3 Fonteinen
Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen, based in Beersel, Belgium, traces its roots to 1883 as a café and blending house where lambics from local breweries were married into gueuze. In 1953, Gaston Debelder purchased the café and, with his sons Armand and Guido, transformed it into one of Belgium’s most respected lambic producers. Known for preserving traditional spontaneous fermentation methods, 3 Fonteinen faced near ruin in 2009 after a faulty thermostat destroyed much of its stock, but rebounded with renewed dedication to aging, blending, and brewing its own lambic. Today, it stands as a guardian of authentic gueuze and kriek, revered by beer enthusiasts worldwide.
6. Firestone Walker Parabola (USA)
Story: A bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout known for its richness and complexity, with notes of chocolate, vanilla, and charred oak.
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Firestone Walker
Firestone Walker Brewing Company was founded in 1996 in Paso Robles, California, by brothers-in-law Adam Firestone and David Walker. Originally operating out of a small facility on the Firestone family vineyard, the brewery gained attention for its unique “Firestone Union” system—an oak barrel fermentation method inspired by British brewing traditions. Over the years, it expanded into a powerhouse of West Coast craft beer, producing acclaimed pale ales, IPAs, stouts, and barrel-aged blends. Signature beers like Double Barrel Ale and 805 helped solidify its reputation, while its Barrelworks and Propagator programs showcase a commitment to innovation and wild fermentation.
7. To Øl Goliat (Denmark)
Story: An imperial stout brewed with liquorice and dark malts, combining Scandinavian ingredients with modern craft techniques.
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To Øl
To Øl (“Two Beers”) was founded in 2010 in Copenhagen by Tore Gynther and Tobias Emil Jensen, former students of Mikkel Borg Bjergsø of Mikkeller. Starting as a gypsy brewery, they crafted bold, experimental beers at facilities across Europe, quickly gaining a reputation for creative twists on IPAs, stouts, and sours. In 2019, To Øl established its own large-scale brewery, “To Øl City,” in a former food factory in Svinninge, Denmark, allowing greater production and innovation. Known for playful recipes and striking design, To Øl has become a major force in pushing the boundaries of modern craft beer.
8. Founders KBS (Kentucky Breakfast Stout) (USA)
Story: An imperial stout brewed with coffee and chocolate, aged in bourbon barrels for a year. Legendary for its bold flavor.
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Founders Brewing
Founders KBS (Kentucky Breakfast Stout) is an imperial stout first brewed in 2003 by Founders Brewing Co. in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as a small experimental release. Originally created by aging the brewery’s Breakfast Stout in freshly emptied bourbon barrels with coffee and chocolate, KBS developed a cult following for its rich, boozy complexity and smooth balance of flavors. Demand quickly outpaced supply, leading Founders to expand production and turn KBS into one of the most anticipated annual barrel-aged releases in American craft beer, helping cement the brewery’s reputation for big, bold stouts.
