The Best Breweries of 2021

The breweries that submitted the highest-scoring beers collectively in 2021. These brewers demonstrated mastery of their craft.

January 10, 2022

Brewery of the Year

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Three World Class Ratings
Total Score: 289 points
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Wild Leap Brew Co.
308 Main St.
LaGrange, GA 30240

Congratulations to Wild Leap Brew Co. of LaGrange, Georgia for being named The Beer Connoisseur’s 2021 Brewery of the Year!

2021 was the third year of Wild Leap’s participation in the Official Review. And what a year they had as three of their beers achieved World Class ratings! This marks the first time in the twelve-year history of the Official Review that a brewery received three World Class ratings in a calendar year. Wild Leap also submitted an additional nine beers that received scores in the Exceptional range and a whopping 16 beers within the Top 150 Beers of the Year. Amazing work!Wild Leap was founded by Anthony Rodriguez and Rob Goldstein in September 2017 in the downtown area of LaGrange, Georgia. This small town is about a 30-minute drive from the Alabama border and had a population of just over 30,000 according to 2019 U.S. Census data.

Rodriguez, Goldstein and Chief Brewing Officer Chris Elliott have quickly turned LaGrange into a southern craft beer haven. In 2019, the brewery was named The Best New Brewery in the U.S. by USA Today’s 10Best feature, which was voted on by a panel of industry experts around the country.

Wild Leap’s success would not be possible without the boundary-pushing brewing style of Elliott, who is one-half CBO (Chief Brewing Officer) and one-half mad scientist, according to the brewery. That knack for producing terrific and interesting flavors is what helps push Wild Leap into the upper echelon of breweries in the South – and the country at large.

Wild Leap’s first core beers, Local Gold Blonde Ale and Chance IPA, help to whet the appetite of what the brewery is about, but it’s their limited releases that are truly eye-opening. Perhaps their best-known beer is the Alpha Abstraction Double IPA series, which focuses on a different hop blend with each release and are uniformly excellent. Limited-run IPAs will always be a hot commodity, and when the quality lives up to the hype, that’s when you know you have something special on your hands. Clearly, Alpha Abstraction fits that bill.

Alpha Abstraction, and the brewery in general, epitomize these words from their website, which ring even truer during this ongoing pandemic era: “though it is uncertain what the future brings, the Wild Leap story teaches us to stand strong, be fearless and to take our destiny into our own hands – every dream begins with an idea, but every journey begins with one wild leap.”

wild leap brew co. brewing team
The Wild Leap Brewing Team

Wild Leap submitted an incredible 12 beers in the 2021 Official Review that achieved a rating of World Class or Exceptional. The brewery’s record-breaking three World Class-rated beers in a single year were Lone Buffalo, Alpha Abstraction, Vol. 15 and Too Pure To Be Pink.

The brewery’s top-scoring beer was Lone Buffalo, a barrel-aged imperial stout released in very limited amounts. While known for a rotating cast of double IPAs and canned stouts and sours, this elegant, barrel-aged, bottled beer shows that Wild Leap can do barrel-aging as well as any brewery in the country. A complex aroma of sherry, vanilla, bourbon and dark roasted grains convey the mellifluous mélange of flavors that will follow upon sipping this rich brew, including dark fruit, toffee and a reprise of sherry.

Alpha Abstraction, Vol. 15 is the, you guessed it, fifteenth rendition of the brewery’s immensely popular Alpha Abstraction series. Each one of these beers highlights a different hop blend. Our judge loved the melodious combination of El Dorado and Idaho 7 hops, which provide intensely juicy tropical elements, light resiny notes and pungent spiciness to the beer’s aroma and flavor profile.

The brewery’s final top-scoring beer was Too Pure To Be Pink, another double IPA. This limited release was brewed with Yakima Chief Hops’ Pink Boots Blend in partnership with the Pink Boots Society, which supports women in the brewing profession. This year’s Pink Boots Blend featured an engaging combination: Cashmere, Ahtanum, Citra, Loral and Sabro hops – offering up ripe berry and stone fruit notes.

Rated 97 – World Class

Lone Buffalo
Specialty Wood-Aged Beer

A nearly flawless barrel-aged stout with balance, subtlety and incredible flavor that showcases the talent of the brewers.

Lone Buffalo wild leap brew co.