From The Editor (Issue 34)

A new year is upon us, and with it come the sweeping changes we so quickly attempt to inject into our everyday lives. While New Year’s resolutions are a dime a dozen, craft beers certainly fetch a prettier penny, and this issue of The Beer Connoisseur is stuffed with all the brew that’s fit to drink.

Seeing as this is our year-end issue wrapping up the action-packed craft beer news and reviews from 2017, our headlining story is 2017’s Beers of the Year led by an impressive 11 world-class concoctions that were rated above a 96 by our panel of judges.

For those 11 special brews, we asked the judge who reviewed them to revisit the beer and tackle it from a different angle than the rote technical deliberations of a beer review. We also asked the brewer responsible to answer a few special, year-end questions regarding each world-class beer of the year.

Jonathan Ingram checks in with a Connoisseur’s Corner covering the changing business landscape of the craft beer sphere, including the sizeable differences between competition, co-opetition and co-option, and how each one affects the industry to varying degrees.

New Holland Brewing Co.’s Brett VanderKamp talks with Jim Dykstra regarding the state of the Holland, Michigan-based brewery that saw many changes throughout 2017, including dropping  stalwart members of its year-round beer rotation in the name of progress. VanderKamp’s thoughtful insights provide a window into the inner workings of one of the most well-respected craft breweries in America.

Rounding out our issue, we have BC judge James Link offering up 18 beers for wine lovers to enjoy, the differences and similarities of on-premise and off-premise business models in craft beer by Pat Evans, and an exploration into the immense individuality of each state’s beer shipment laws by Bob Barnes.

We also have a solid array of the usual beery goodness you’ve come to expect from BC, including new reviews, brewer Q&As for high-scoring brews and much more.

So be resolute and make the choice to imbibe more high-quality craft ales and lagers in 2018 … we’ll be right there with you!

Happy Brew Year!

- Chris Guest