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10 best beers for 2017

Find out what the breweries have in store for us over the year ahead

Wednesday 28 December 2016 11:21 GMT

If you thought the craft beer bubble was about to burst, think again. New breweries keep on opening, new beer experiments are continually being worked on, and bars and beer retailers continue to scour the globe for the next big thing. All of which means 2017 is set to become an even better year for beer drinkers.

With this explosion of styles and choice, trying to pick what might be this year’s beer trends isn’t easy, but we’ve given it our best shot with some help from our pals in the industry.

Brody Rossiter from Honest Brew is already beginning to see a shift towards less boozy beers: “The craft beer landscape is often dominated by high ABV brews, however breweries are quickly balancing out their offerings, mirroring potent double IPAs (DIPAs) and stouts with sessionable ales and saisons.” And many of these sessionable ales, he believes, will increasingly be delivered in cans: “They seal brews away from pesky oxygen and light (beer’s biggest foes), while also proving portable and super lightweight – cans are an easy choice for many of the world’s best breweries.”

According to Beer Gonzo’s Ant Akers, this year will see inspiration sought from the history books, in particular ones written in German: “2017 is set to be yet another great year for contemporary breweries bringing-long forgotten styles back into fashion with a modern twist.” He points to the salt and coriander-flavoured German sour ale “gose” as one example, picking out Westbrook’s Key Lime Pie Gose as a standout, adding: “In case you were wondering, it’s every bit as good as it sounds.”

And while we also expect to see traditional helles, keller and kolsch-style beers taken up by more non-German breweries, the craze for adding less traditional flavours to beer is set to continue. We’ve included a few unusual ones to try in this list and look forward to sampling a whole load more newly imagined flavours throughout 2017.

1. Westbrook Key Lime Pie Gose, 4%: £4.50 per 330ml can, Beer Gonzo

With many New World hops lending citrus characters to beer it’s no surprise that brewers have started to delve into the fruit bowl for even juicier brews, but few reach the heights of this American effort. It’s an excellently crafted, modern gose with, as Ant Akers puts it, “a healthy dose of key lime juice that brings a wonderfully sharp and zesty citric character, a tart and sour edge and super dry puckering finish”.

2. Magic Rock Inhaler Session IPA, 4.5%: £2.19 per 330ml can, Honest Brew

Magic Rock is a brewery with its finger on the booze pulse and this ticks a few boxes of what to expect from 2017 beers: an IPA brewed at a sessionable strength, teeming with modern hops and packed in a can. As Brody puts it: “Super fruity, super ripe, super juicy and super drinkable. Breathe it in!”

3. Fierce Peanut Porter, 6.5%: £2.60 per 330ml bottle, Fierce Beer

New Aberdeen brewery Fierce hit the experiment button right from the start, causing a stir with fanciful flavours and brewing bravado. If you’re looking for a new taste for 2017 then this drop of confection inspiration is worth unwrapping. It’s a rich, chocolatey porter loaded with salted peanuts – sweet, toasty and seriously nutty.

4. Cloudwater DIPA , 9%: £4.25 per 330ml bottle, Beer Gonzo

Few beers get the craft community’s hop-drenched tongues wagging with more excitement than each new release from Cloudwater’s DIPA range – powerful double IPAs brewed to a new recipe each time. They’re best served fresh for an overload of malt ’n’ hop flavours and, from now on, the releases go monthly, guaranteeing twelve different beers of exceptional quality throughout 2017.

5. Lost and Grounded Keller Pils, 4.8%: £2.10 per 330ml bottle, Beer Merchants

Beer aficionados have been eagerly anticipating the first servings from Bristol’s Lost and Grounded, not least because it’s the new project of the man responsible for Little Creatures and Camden breweries. Using traditional German brewing ingredients, Keller Pils is a proper test of the brewer’s craft: expect clean lager flavours with a real ale feel and a crisp, refreshing finish.

6. Tiny Rebel Stay Puft Porter, 5.2%: £2.59 per 330ml bottle, Honest Brew

The International Beer Challenge awarded Tiny Rebel 2016’s Brewery of the Year gong and, with larger premises under construction, Newport’s finest look set for superstardom. Stay Puft is a perfectly toasty porter that has been infiltrated with marshmallow, giving it an extra soft feel and sweet vanilla edge. The first batch was so successful it sold out within 36 hours – hopefully the new brewery will help keep up with demand.

7. Boundary Push & Pull Imbongo, 5.5%: £2.75 per 330ml bottle, Honest Brew

With England, Scotland and Wales covered in this list we’re nipping over to Belfast for our next entry. Push & Pull is an IPA brewed with different hop combinations each time, and occasionally other ingredients thrown in for good measure. From full throttle citric hops to a surprise beer double act of raspberry and coconut, experimentation is always in evidence. The exact hop mix is revealed on the Boundary website, which should be receiving a lot of traffic in 2017.

8. Gipsy Hill, Southpaw, 4.2%: £2.10 per 330ml bottle, Beer Merchants

Which of London’s numerous new breweries might break through in 2017? We’re placing our bets on Gipsy Hill, a small outfit focusing on modern beers with low ABVs. Southpaw is typical of its easy drinking style, an amber ale with sweet caramel malts, citrusy hop flavours and a dry bitter finish. It’s a crowded marketplace but these guys have given themselves a fighting chance at a big future.

9. Hofmeister Helles, 5%: £1.99 for 330ml, Hofmeister

In a series of 1980s TV ads, British drinkers were encouraged to follow a bear called George in search of beer, only to be rewarded with an insipid fizzy lager. Now the Hofmeister brand has been resurrected and this time the beer is more drinkable: a proper Bavarian helles, softly carbonated with a clean Munich malt base and subtly spicy hops. We will follow its progress with interest.

10. Innis & Gunn Rum Finish, 6.8%: £1..75 per 330ml bottle, Waitrose

One of this year’s biggest celebrations is due at Scottish brewery Innis & Gunn, as it has recently raised £2.5m through a Crowdcube campaign. The investment will see them open new bars in England and increase production of their oak aged beers. This rum cask edition packs flavours of boozy fruit puddings with toffee sweetness and an almost smokey dry finish – a taste of things to come.

The Verdict: Best beers for 2017

There’s much to get excited about when it comes to the future of British breweries, but many will continue to look abroad for inspiration. German tradition and American brashness combine in Westbrook’s incredible sour gose, and it could be that lime is the hit brewing ingredient of 2017.