Mark Dredge - The Beer Bucket List: Over 150 essential beer experiences from around the world

THE
BEER
BUCKET
LIST

THE
BEER
BUCKET
LIST

OVER 150 ESSENTIAL BEER EXPERIENCES
FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Mark Dredge

Published in 2018 by Dog n Bone Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

2021 Jockeys Fields 341 E 116th St

London WC1R 4BW New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text Mark Dredge 2018

Design Dog n Bone Books 2018

The authors moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

ISBN: 978 1 911026 27 3

eISBN: 978 1 911026 97 6

Printed in China

Editor: Caroline West

Designer: Eoghan OBrien

Illustrations: Stephen Dew

Photography credits: See below

Key: t=top; b=bottom; l=left; r=right; m=middle; c=center
Bruce Yuanyue Bi/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images

Contents

CHAPTER 1
North America

CHAPTER 2
United Kingdom and Ireland

CHAPTER 3
Europe

CHAPTER 4
Australia and New Zealand

CHAPTER 5
Rest of the World

Introduction

The Beer Bucket List is a collection of essential world beer experiences. Its the most important old breweries and the industry-changing new ones; its the greatest world beer bars and pubs; the unmissable beer festivals; the most delicious destinations for beer and food; the must-visit cities to go to drinking; the unexpected, the unusual, the unknown, the classics, the most famous, the best. And out of a global search its wonderfully become a local celebration of the worlds beer diversity.

The author adding another tick to the list.

You can use The Beer Bucket List as a drink-before-you-kick-it list, if you like, but you might need to live forever to complete it. I havent completed my own beer bucket list yet and thats mainly because Im adding things quicker than theyre being ticked off.

While I searched the world for beer experiences, I was continually surprised by what I was finding: the hop-growing region of North Patagonia; the Middle Easts first brewpub in Batroun, Lebanon; the super high-end breweries in Western Australias wine-growing region; the cities in India with 25 brewpubs; the increasing number and quality of Thai beers coming out of a country in which its effectively illegal to brew; the community Zoigl brewhouses of northeast Bavaria. In fact, the more I looked the more I found. And not just a few unexpectedly located bars with a few taps, but genuinely unique things that show just how craft beer and local beer cultures are found everywhere.

My challenge was working out what counted as being worthy of going on a bucket list for the serious beer lover. It couldnt just be a bunch of nice pubs and cool breweries which you should go to if youre passing. It had to be definitive, selective, and had to go further than whats in your glassits about the travel, the discovery, the experience.

Some beer things are unequivocal beer bucket list ticks. They are the wonders of the beer world, where the equivalent of the Northern Lights would be the Pilsner Urquell cellars or Munichs Oktoberfest. Some ticks are more specific, like swimming with sharks or running a marathon, in that it takes a certain kind of person to want to do themdrinking Lithuanias farmhouse ales is one such example, as is having a pint in the Arctic Circle. Sometimes a tick is earned by going somewhere because thats the only place, or the best place, you can drink a certain beer or beer style: Czech Polotmavy, Vietnamese bia hoi, West Midlands Mildsthats the same as going to Israel or Italy or Peru to eat the local food.

There are quirks of the beer world that few people know about, like the Belgian bar that only opens for a few hours on Sunday morning and only sells sour beer, or theres the pub in northern England that serves all its ales directly from wooden barrels. Then theres the personal side of a bucket list where going to a favorite brewery allows you to taste something beyond just the ingredients used in the recipe.

There have been countless brilliant surprises while Ive been working through my own beer bucket list and I now have new favorite bars, breweries, beers, and beer cities, and Im more excited by the world of beer than Ive ever been before. It also excites me that Ive still got a lot more beer to drink before I even get close to completing my list. Until then, this is The Beer Bucket List, and these are the worlds essential beer experiences.

TOP 10 BEER BUCKET LIST TICKS

See the Burton Unions at Marstons Brewery, England (see )

Drink in the Pilsner Urquell brewery cellars in Plzen, Czech Republic (see )

Visit the brewing Trappist monasteries in Belgium (see )

Go to Cantillon in Brussels and drink Belgian Lambic (see )

Go to Oktoberfest in Munich (see )

Drink Zoiglbier in Oberpfalz, Germany (see )

Drink Guinness in Dublin, Ireland (see )

Visit Sierra Nevada Brewing Co, Chico, while on a California road trip (see )

The Great American Beer Festival (see )

Go to The Mussel Inn, Onekaka, New Zealand (see )

North America

Drink Allagash Brewerys White

MAINES MOST-LOVED BEER

In 1995, when Rob Tod opened a brewery in Portland, Maine, that only made a cloudy, Belgian-style White Ale, people thought he was bonkers. He started brewing this beer because he wanted something different and unique that you couldnt already get. Trouble was, there was probably a reason why you couldnt get it in Portland: no one actually wanted it. Or they didntyet. But Rob persevered through a tough decade and now Allagash White is Portlandsand Mainesbeer.

White is smooth and creamy; the spicescuraao, orange peel, and coriander seedplay in the background; and theres some fruity yeast. Its gentle with underlying power and depth, a versatile beer thats sessionable yet complex, familiar yet exciting, and the ultimate beer for food.

Allagash Brewery runs free tours around their impressive facility. You cant buy any beer to drink there, though; instead, everyone who visits gets a 3-oz (85-ml) pour from each of the four taps. The beers change and you can come in every day, if you wish, and get the four free pours. Its a nice, generous approach to the tasting room and one that encourages people to visit, but then also to go into town to drink Allagash beers in the bars.