From the Editor, Issue 76

Happy holidays and welcome to our annual, year-end edition of The Beer Connoisseur magazine! This issue, once again, represents the year that was in craft beer as well as a look ahead to what 2025 might bring.

2024 was an intriguing year for beer fans, especially those that were looking to experience the social aspect of drinking or keep up their grueling exercise routine while still enjoying a lovely beer. To that end, non-alcoholic beer experienced a meteoric rise, which started a few years and has continued unabated.

While hard seltzers have seemed to fade away from the public consciousness – and also store shelves – in its place, NA beers of all stripes, be they from small craft breweries or mega, global brewing conglomerates, have risen the charts with extreme speed.

And that’s understandable! Brewers are the best they’ve ever been and producing an ultra-flavorful and true-to-style non-alcoholic brew is seemingly trivial, and the sales – and demand – for such products has never been higher.

The issue, as always, is with replete with our standard Industry News, Official Reviews and Brewer Q&As as well as an interesting treatise from longtime contributor Martyn Cornell about his brand-new book.

Beyond the continued rise of NA beer, which is covered extensively both in our Consumer Trends piece as well as a new story in 2024 entitled “The State of Craft,” our Beer in Review section, as always, outlines the best beers and breweries from the year that was – and 2024 was a doozy.

Matching the highest number of World Class beers in our history, our judges reviewed an incredible 14 World Class beers in 2024, including seven beers with scores above a 97. While the “downfall of craft beer” continues to be a hot topic in the industry, our Official Review saw no such downturn, as brewers continued to deliver top-tier beers on a regular basis to our judges throughout the year.

For the second year running, our Brewery of the Year submitted three beers that achieved World Class ratings, including one of two beers that achieved a rating of 98. The brewery showcased their brewing mastery by producing three distinct beers that are exemplars of their style – read on to find out what storied brewery I’m referring to!

Either way, you’re a winner, dear reader. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for joining us on this beer journey, and we hope that your holidays are merry and bright. We wish you and your family all the best in 2025, and here’s to you in the new year and beyond.

Cheers!

Chris Guest
Managing Editor