I have the privilege of working in beer full time. Between writing, podcasting and judging, I get to taste a lot of beer and visit a lot of breweries. By the time the year is over, I will have sampled over 1,500 different beers (up slightly from 2024) and visited dozens of breweries in seven countries. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.
Here are the five best beers I tried and five breweries I visited that you should add to your bucket list.
The five best beers
3 Floyds Dismembers Only – If 3 Floyds has ever made a bad beer, I didn’t have it. Dismembers Only is yet another great beer from the legendary Munster, Indiana brewery. A 13.5% ABV barrel-aged imperial milk stout, after barrel aging, Dismembers Only has cocoa nibs, cherries and dried bananas added. It’s a huge beer, to be sure. But while there is a mind-bending amount of flavor and complexity, the beer is shockingly cohesive and simply delicious. Complex and simple at the same time. Mind blown.
Carlsberg Wheat Lager – Copenhagen’s multinational brewer made one of the best beers I tasted in 2025? Yes, they did. Carlsberg has long supported scientific research into beer. They invented the pH scale, isolated the first lager yeast strain and have developed new barley varieties, among many other scientific achievements. To celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Carlsberg Research Laboratory, Carlsberg brewed a beer using 100% wheat. Admittedly, I like this beer at least as much for the science behind it as I like it for the flavors. But those flavors feature delicate citrus and marmalade notes and are wonderful. The beer is only available at the bar at the Home of Carlsberg, the tourist destination built in the old brewery.
HORAL Megablend 2015 Vintage – HORAL is the High Council for Artisanal Lambic Beers, made up of lambic brewers from Pajottenland and the Senne Valley. Every other year, HORAL members blend lambics from their breweries to create a Megablend. The 2015 Megablend was made up of spontaneously-fermented beers from 3 Fonteinen, Boon, De Oude Cam, De Troch, Hanssens, Lindemans, Oud Beersel, Tilquin and Timmermans. Wild. Delicious. Wildly delicious.
Noble Beast Danish Lager – I love a great lager. But I find it hard to describe what makes a great one great. Bread. Biscuits. Cracker. There are only so many English words that can be used to describe beer and it’s hard to explain why I love the lagers that I do. United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Sterward once famously said that he could not define what porn was, “but I know it when I see it.” Well, I cannot define what great lager is, but I know it when I taste it.
Ozark BDCS: Onyx Coffee Blend – For 16 years, Pints For Prostates hosted the Denver Rare Beer Tasting among the events surrounding the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. It was a fundraiser for a noble cause, but 2025 was the last call for the event. During that final tasting, where patrons were awash in rare and amazing beers, one beer stood head and shoulders above the rest. Alabama’s Ozark Beer Company partnered with Onyx Coffee Lab to create a coffee stout to beat all coffee stouts.
Five breweries for your bucket list
Almanac Adventureland (Alameda, California) – The name kinda says it all. Almanac Adventureland, located on a former naval base in Alameda, California is a very large taproom with interesting spaces, both indoors and out. Multiple food trucks are available, but more importantly, there is a lot of space with games, activities and things going on. The taproom is family friendly with activities for young and old, far beyond corn hole. On the day I visited, there was pro wrestling.
Antigua Brewing Co. (Antigua, Guatemala) – Antigua Brewing is remarkable because of its rooftop. Enjoy good beer and good, authentically-Guatemalan food while overlooking an active volcano. The town itself has great charm and is well worth the two-hour drive from Guatemala’s capital, Guatemala City. If you combine the trip with a visit to another brewery on this list, that short drive will be well worth your time.
Cerveceria 14 (Antigua, Guatemala) – You have to see it to believe it. The Cerveceria 14 brewery and taproom is an enormous space. The centerpiece is a large stage where bands perform, with stepped, bowl seating on grass. Patios and balconies built among the trees also face the stage—it feels like you’re in a treehouse. But there’s also another, smaller stage. And forested area for walking. And an area for booths selling crafts. Oh. And did I mention the whole thing faces an active volcano (a different one from the volcano visible from the Antigua Brewing rooftop)? Seriously. You have to see it to believe it.
Godspeed Brewery (Toronto, Ontario) – Lager, lager and more lager. Godspeed doesn’t just have them, it does them extremely well. So obsessed with perfecting their Czech lager, for example, Godspeed spent weeks living in Pilsen, building two giant barrels alongside Pilsner Urquell so that it could better replicate that iconic brew on this side of the Atlantic. But Godspeed also does German-style lager, Indian-style lager and many others–sometimes with modern twists. If you want world-class examples of international lager styles all in one place, Godspeed has it.
Good Word Brewing & Public House (Duluth, Georgia) – Good Word Brewing hosts three small beer festivals each year. Any of those festivals is a great reason to visit Duluth, just under an hour’s drive from Atlanta. Duluth has an open-container area, meaning you can buy a delicious beer and walk around the town square with it. But that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy Good Word itself. Great beer in a broad array of styles, yes. But also amazing food, whiskey and cocktails. There are times that I think the “hospitality” part of the hospitality industry has been forgotten. But Good Word hasn’t forgotten. Good Word remembers hospitality.
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Don Tse
Living near seven malthouses, Don Tse is a freelance beer and malt writer and consultant known globally as The Don of Beer. He has been active in craft beer for over 25 years and has famously sampled and written tasting notes on almost 27,000 different beers. He is the co-host of the All About Beer podcast. Don has also written for magazines and presented on beer in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ukraine and Singapore. Nobody in those countries thinks his jokes are funny.