#gw-pabst

#gw-pabst

In 2014, Leon opened his brewery's first location inside a tiny warehouse space in the city's north-east. It was good timing. All over North America, millennials were going crazy for craft beer, and in Alberta, the government had recently changed rules to help microbreweries get their product to market. "There was a huge thirst in Alberta for craft beer," said Leon, who recalls getting emails about new breweries opening nearly every week. "It was a pretty wild time."

The "Silver Bullet" (as it's known to fans) first hit shelves in 1978 as part of the "light beer wars" of the era, when competitors like Miller Lite and Natty Light also broke onto the scene. But, inventor Bill Coors was workshopping what would become Coors Light as early as 1941. It was honed for decades before its debut, and today, Coors Light boasts an Instagram profile with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Beer has been brewed at Weltenburg Abbey, a stunning, still active monastery on the banks of the Danube in Bavaria, for nearly 1,000 years.

No trip to the brewery is complete without sampling the wares. Even if it's a place you visit regularly, you'll likely want to sample most of what it has to offer at least once. But while a greater variety may seem more enticing, it can also signal a potential red flag. Every kind of beer they have on tap means another tap that needs to be maintained. The more tap lines they have, the more likely it is that maintenance or cleaning gets neglected.

Bell's, famous for its Two Hearted IPA and summer-coded Oberon, was founded in 1985 as Kalamazoo Brewing Co. in Michigan. In that first year, it brewed 135 barrels. Today, it brews nearly 500,000 barrels annually. A barrel is roughly 31 gallons, or about two kegs' worth of beer. So the brewery's production went from around 270 kegs in 1986 to around 934,000 kegs today.

Goose Island Beer Co. unveiled its latest brew to join the brewery's Beer Hug family: Big Hazy Pineapple Beer Hug, an imperial hazy IPA. Clocking in at 9.9% ABV, Big Hazy Pineapple Beer Hug brings a pineapple-forward profile to the Beer Hug lineup, delivering a juicy tropical aroma, a plush hazy body, and a smooth finish that balances intensity with drinkability, the company says.

Ninja vs. Unicorn is classified as a double IPA and offers a generous 8% ABV. "A golden haze speaks to the unfiltered, grapefruit-noted, balanced IPA's character with a shockingly low bitterness, considering how much hops go into the brewing," Horan says about what makes the brew so special. More than five pounds of hops are included in each barrel used to brew this crowd pleaser.