The 99 best bottles of beer (and mead) on our wall in 2017

By Tom Troncone | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

I'm part of a large #beerfamily, and together we hunt whales. No, not like the Japanese, that's just sick. I'm talking about rare beer.

We drink it, share it, cellar it, travel for it, trade it, talk about it, and a few of us even brew it. There's festivals, releases, basement and bar shares. There's brewery tours, a burgeoning obsession with mead, the dreams of one day opening a brewery, a lot of laughing and a healthy Uber rating.

And we do our best to make sure we get to share in each other's spoils.

It all leads to year after year of amazing beer (and mead) consumption, and 2017 was no different. I talk about beer a lot in the office (and probably too much at home), so one of the editors asked me if I would write about the best beers that I tasted this year.

They did not have to be released this year, mind you, though many were. So this is not a Best Beers of 2017 list. And, no, you won't find any Bourbon County on it. If it's macro, it's not on this list because I likely didn't taste it.

And since it's impossible to rank each of the 99 beers I list below, I'm only going to rank the Top 17 (for 2017) and then list the rest of them alphabetically.

And, full disclosure, though I have a great portion of the info for each beer rolling around in my brain, I did rely on some other sources to fill in the blanks. Some came from the breweries themselves, or social beer app Untappd, or Beer Advocate.

But a special note of acknowledgment is owed Bill Young's Lambic.info, the bible for information about Belgian lambic brewers and blenders.

So give it a look, and let me know in the comments what the best beers you had this year were, and happy whale hunting!

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1. Blue Suede Shews (Pips Meadery, Illinois)

So I'll just come right out and say it.

Blue Suede Shews from Pips Meadery is the best beverage I've ever tasted. And that includes vintage lambics, fine wines, aged high-end bourbon, all the way down the line to the Sweet Tea at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room in Savannah, Georgia.

Blue Suede Shews is a melomel. If you're not familiar with mead, a melomel is the technical term for a fruit mead. Or, in the case of Pips, which just recently began making commercial batches of mead after a couple years of only being able to distribute to family and friends, a massive amount of freshly juiced blueberries fermented with orange blossom honey and cashews.

BSS coats your mouth with the most amazing blueberry goodness and never let's go. It's a stunning achievement in American alcohol production, and the hype around owner Matt Preis' fledgling brand is not only real, but may even be understated.

You only can buy BSS right now on the secondary market and expect to shell out about $400 for a bottle if you can find one. Indulge.

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2. Schaerbeekse Kriek 2011 (3 Fontenein, Belgium)

For generations, sour cherries from the Schaerbeek municipality on the outskirts of Brussels were used in the production of kriek lambic due to their unique bitterness and a flavor reminiscent of pinot noir.

Growers would arrive daily in Brussels with carts of the cherries pulled by donkeys. As the Brussels region developed, the orchards that once grew the Schaerbeek cherries gave way to urbanization, making them much more difficult to source.

Which brings us to Schaerbeekse Kriek from Brouwerij 3 Fontenein in Beersel, Belgium. Master blender/brewer Armand Debelder produces the oude kriek from young lambic and wild Schaerbeek cherries.

How often the fruited lambic is brewed depends on the amount of cherries that can be locally sourced, and after a strong run between 2003 and 2011, it's only been released once since, in 2015.

For me, 2011 is the superior vintage, and a crowning achievement in fruited sours. I stumbled across this one in the 100,000 bottle cellar of Steve Flores' beer nirvana, the fabulous Goozlepipe & Guttyworks in Jacksonville, Fla., a must-visit for any beer nerd.

It's the best beer that I drank in 2017.

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3. Framboos Noyeaux 2016 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Bokkereyder. Get used to that name because it's going to appear a lot in this list.

Named the best new brewery in the world in 2016 by RateBeer.com, the beers from Raf Souvereyns's lambic and saison blendery have quickly become some of the most sought after in the world.

Raf was the featured brewer this past summer at a lambic festival thrown at the world renowned Ebenezer's Pub in Lovell, Maine. My favorite of the day (you'll see many more on this list) was Framboos Noyaux, a 2-year-old lambic with fresh Belgian raspberries, Tahitian vanilla beans and peach pits.

Bokkereyder beers don't yet distribute to America, so if you want to taste one you'll have to catch Raf at a festival, like the upcoming Icelandic Beer Festival. His booth will be the one with the longest line.

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4. Framboos Vanille 2016 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Framboos Vanille could be considered Framboos Noyeaux's cousin. Another stunning blend by the Hasselt, Belgium-based Bokkereyder, Vanille is a lambic aged in pinot noir barrels with 400 grams of raspberries per liter, as well as Tahitian and Madagascar vanilla beans.

It's the kind of beer that makes you close your eyes, shake your head and exalt "oh my God!" while bemoaning the fact that you can't get your hands on more.

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5. Art, Batch 4 (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Honestly, it's hard not to have Art at the very top of this list. It's one of the best beers in the world and Batch 4, released last year, was no different.

Art is Hill Farmstead's rustic farmhouse ale, Arthur, fermented in wine barrels. Hill blends what becomes Art from French oak wine barrels in which the beer has been conditioning for between one and three years.

I offered up the last of my Batch 4 bottles during an all-request share in Manhattan in July.

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6. Double Barrel Damon (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Damon is a world class Russian Imperial Stout from Hill Farmstead in Greensboro, Vermont, the top-rated brewery in the world for several years running.

For this version of Damon, brewer Shaun Hill aged the stout in port and bourbon barrels for more than two years. Damon is named after the beloved Hill family black lab that died during a walk in 2004.

It's silky, chococalety goodness in a glass, and was sold for onsite consumption only one time this year in the brewery's taproom, in the days leading up to Hill Farm's Festival of Farmhouse Ales.

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7. Framboos Cognac 2016 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

The goat is back on the list again, and it's with another mind-blowing raspberry lambic. This time it's Framboos Cognac, a 2-year-old lambic aged in cognac barrels with fresh raspberries.

Thanks Raf. We'll see you again in a few slots.

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8. DIVISION: Echo (Black Project Wild & Spontaneous Ales, Colorado)

And now we come to our first of many from Black Project Wild & Spontaneous Ales of Denver.

The backstory: Former Wayne resident James Howat and his wife Sarah opened their brewery, then called Former Future, in Denver in 2014. James, who studied microbiology at Colorado State University, wanted to experiment with beers fermented using only the wild yeasts that float through the air in Colorado -- a process called spontaneous fermentation perfected by the lambic producers of Belgium.

Thus was born Black Project.

Now, just three years later, James and Sarah find themselves as the owners of one of the hottest and most sought after breweries in the world.

Most of my #beerfamily came together at The Dog & Cask in Rochelle Park, where bartender and award-winning beardsman Joshua Safer manned the taps most nights. But Joshua left us for Denver this past winter and of course he landed a job at one of the hottest breweries in America.

Unfortunately, being his friend didn't help me win a lottery spot in Black Project's coveted Agent bottle society. Maybe next year!

Oh, right, the beer. Black Project created an ambitious set this year called ROSWELL, which consisted of five fruited sours. The brewery also made four different blends using two of the ROSWELL beers, with a third fruit added to each, and called it DIVISION.

I acquired a set of ROSWELL for myself, and Joshua brought a set with him from Denver, including the DIVISION bottles, when we went to Maine for the Beer Meets Wood festival in September.

Every bottle was stunning in it's own regard, as Black Project is at the forefront of a movement in beer called super-fruiting, where as much as five or six pounds of fruit is added per gallon to the spontaneously fermented beer.

Or, as Raf from Bokkereyder said to me each time he tried one of my fruited sours, "more fruit. More fruit."

The best of the ROSWELL/DIVISION bunch, for me, was Echo, a blend of raspberry, blueberry and mango, undoubtedly one of the best beers produced anywhere on the planet in 2017.

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9. Double Barrel A Night To End All Dawns (Kane Brewing, New Jersey)

Hey! It's a New Jersey beer!

Double Barrel ANTEAD is the crowning achievement of Kane Brewing Company of Ocean Township. To make it, Kane takes it Gold Medal-winning base imperial stout and ages it in bourbon and red wine barrels.

The result is one of the most delicious and complex stouts ever made. It's a shame that this amazing beer was limited to only a couple hundred bottles and fetches several hundred dollars a bottle, if you can find one.

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10. Damon: Kieni (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Damon, again. This time a stunning coffee variant.

To craft this mouth-watering beer, Hill Farmstead took a single bourbon barrel of its Russian Imperial Stout and conditioned it on Kieni coffee beans from Kenya that were sourced and roasted by the amazing and socially conscious people at The Coffee Collective in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The bottles were for only sold for consumption in Hill's tasting room in mid-November.

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11. Surette Reserva Rasberry 2016 (Crooked Stave, Colorado)

Shelf beer alert! Shelf beer alert!

Talk about under-the-radar. Here's a beer that at one point this year you could actually find on the shelves in stores in New Jersey! It's Surette Reserva Raspberry, a sour ale that was aged in oak barrels with raspberries from wild yeast master Chad Yakobson, owner of Crooked Stave in Denver.

I first tasted this beauty at Hill Farmstead's Festival of Farmhouse Ales in August, and the second I sipped it I had to run to my friends, ranting and raving about it. It retails for around $34.

My friend Sean Hamlin of Beekman Wines in Glen Rock let me know that they received a case from Crooked Stave, so I ran down to the store and was able to put a couple in my cellar for aging. The wild brettanomyces yeast in this beer with allow it to evolve over time, and it should be even more exquisite in the years to come.

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12. Gin Barrel Nocturn Chrysalis (Jester King, Texas)

This limited edition beer from Austin's Jester King blew me away at a share in which it was not supposed to be the top dog. Secured by #beerfamily member and wine sage Rob Barry, this wild ale was refermented with marion blackberries from Oregon and then aged in a gin barrel from Revolution Spirits.

Jester King says Gin Barrel Nocturn Chrysalis was brewed in 2014, aged in oak barrels for about a year, refermented with blackberries, then aged in a gin barrel for another 10 months.

It's another in a long line of winners from one of the best breweries in America.

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13. Armand'4 Oude Geuze Lente 2011 (3 Fonteinen, Belgium)

Bottles that eventually became the coveted Drie Fontenein "Seasons" set were first released in 2011 at Belgium's biannual Toer de Gueze. The set, which sells on the secondary market for about $1,200, consisted of Lente (Spring), Zomer (Summer), Hefst (Fall), Winter (uh, Winter).

One of the great beer folks who camped out at the Ebenezer's festival shared a full set with the group, and Lente was undoubtedly my favorite of the four. Lente is a geuze, which is the term for a blend of 1-, 2- and 3-year-old lambic.

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14. Flora with Blueberries, Blackcurrants & Raspberries (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Flora is Hill Farmstead's wine barrel-aged version of its wheat farmstead ale, Florence. The brewery selects a few barrels of Flora and ages them on fruit, in this case fresh blueberries, blackcurrants and raspberries from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

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15. Dalton Cuvee 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

This beer has been checked in a total of 11 times on Untappd, so it's exceptionally rare (less than 100 bottles were ever produced). It's a cuvee, a blend of beers, in this case other lambics in Bokkereyder's Dalton series, namely Averell (40%) and Jack, William and Joe (20% each).

The main beer, Averell, is a geuze aged in moscatel (sherry) barrels. The other components are geuzes aged in madeira barrels (Joe), porto barrels (William) and cognac barrels (Jack).

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16. The Man with the Axe (Pips Meadery, Illinois)

The Man With The Axe is another of Pips Meadery's exceptional melomels, this time made with Montmorency cherries, Tahitian vanilla beans and vermouth soaked oak chips.

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Photo courtesy Roemil Sia

17. Armand & Tommy Oude Geuze (3 Fonteinen, Belgium)

3 Fonteinen's Armand & Tomme (misspelled on the label as Tommy) is a geuze blended by Armand Debelder and Tomme Arthur of The Lost Abbey. According to Lambic.info, it is a 4-year-old lambic made from wort brewed at 3F and at Boon. It was released in 2012.

And now we reach the end of the ranked portion of our program. From here on it, it's alphabetical, starting with...

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50N-4E (Cantillon, Belgium)

The name of this beer is the rough geographic location of the Cantillon brewery. It's a gueuze (spelled with an extra 'u' by French-speakers in Belgium, and geuze by those who speak Dutch) that was brewed in 2013.

It then spent eight months in French cognac barrels from the Petite Champagne region of France.

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& (Ampersand) 2016 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Another Raf blend, this time it's a geuze that was aged in gin barrels that brought with it a beautiful lemony-gin flavor with a delicious barnyard funk.

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A Night To End All Dawns Cacao 2015 (Kane Brewing, New Jersey)

Kane re-imerges on our list, this time with the best variant of its 2015 ANTEAD release, in which roasted cacao beans were added to the already decadent bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout. Kane is the best brewery in New Jersey (don't let anyone tell you differently), and ANTEAD is their flagship beer.

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Photo courtesy Steve Smith

Aaron (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Simply put, Aaron is the best barleywine in the world. So for people in the #barleywineislife crowd, Aaron is Beer Level 100. Aaron spends two years in bourbon barrels before it is bottle conditioned.

Four batches have been made since it was introduced in 2012. I had the opportunity to sample three of the batches this year (the last three), with Batch 2 and 3 neck and neck for the best of the bunch.

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Abricot du Fermier (Side Project, Missouri)

Former homebrewer Cory King was head brewer at Perennial Artisan Ales in St. Louis when he launched an internal startup called, fittingly, Side Project.

Less than five years later, Side Project is one of the highest-rated breweries on the planet. The brewery's flagship saison, Saison du Fermier, was racked to French oak Cabernet barrels with apricots.

The result was the beautiful Abricot du Fermier.

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Abrikoos 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Oh, look, it's that goat again.

What happens when you take fresh apricots from the Rhone Valley in France, rack 1- and 2-year-old lambic on them and let the beer sit in a Chardonnay barrel from Genoels-Elderen, a winery whose cellars date back to the 13th century?

Well.....

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Apple Brandy Fayston Maple Imperial Stout (Lawson's Finest, Vermont)

The signature stout made by New Jersey native Sean Lawson at his eponymous Warren, Vermont brewery was aged in apple brandy oak barrels for this special release, poured for guests of Lawson's yearly anniversary party.

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Armand'4 Oude Geuze Winter (3 Fonteinen, Belgium)

The winter in the famed Drie Fontenein "Seasons" set. Like the rest, it is a very, very special geuze.

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Armand'4 Oude Geuze Zomer 2011 (3 Fonteinen, Belgium)

Ditto on summer.

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Atrial Rubicite in Sherry Barrels (Jester King, Texas)

Okay, another Jester King. This time it's the Spanish sherry barrel version of the brewery's Atrial Rubicite.

This is one of those cases where it's best to let Jester King explain:

"The base beer for Sherry Barrel Atrial Rubicite was brewed in 2013. After maturing in oak barrels for about a year, it was blended during the spring of 2014 and refermented with raspberries. It was then racked to a single 500 liter Spanish sherry barrel for further aging and maturation. In July of 2015, 15 months later, we racked the beer out of the sherry barrel and bottled it.

Sherry Barrel Atrial Rubicite was brewed with Hill Country well water, barley, wheat, oats and hops. It was fermented with our mixed culture of microorganisms consisting of brewers yeast and native yeast, and bacteria harvested from the air and wildflowers around our brewery, and refermented with raspberries grown in Washington."

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Being & Time (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Being and Time is the first spontaneously fermented beer ever made by Hill Farmstead, brewed in January 2011. It was then fermented in oak barrels. It occasionally pops up for on-site consumption in the brewery's tasting room.

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Black Damnation (Various) - (De Struise, Belgium)

During one of the side shares at Night of the Great thirst, a kind gentleman asked me if I'd like to buy into a share of a Black Damnation set. Duh, of course I would!

Black Damnation is made by De Struise Brouwers of Belgium, and is based on the brewery's famed Black Albert stout. Each Damnation much contain at least 50 percent Black Albert.

I loved four of these beers:

Black Damnation XVIII - Major Tom (Black Albert matured in 20-year-old Glen Grant whisky casks).

Black Damnation XVI - Ivan The Terrible (Black Albert matured in 15-year-old Glenlivet whisky casks).

Black Damnation XIV - Talisman (2012) (Black Albert matured in 10-year-old Talisker whisky casks).
Black Damnation XIII - More Anger (2012) (Black Albert matured in 10-year-old Glenmorangie whisky casks).
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Blackberry Whiskey Sour (Casey Brewing & Blending, Colorado)

Former AC Golden brewer Troy Casey left the craft beer arm of Coors in 2013 to strike out on his own with Casey Brewing & Blending. The world-class fruited sours he produces in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, using only in-state fruit, are now coveted around the country by sour beer fans.

Blackberry Whiskey Sour is a Biere de Garde that was fermented and aged in Woody Creek rye whiskey barrels. Casey then added whole blackberries from Hotchkiss, Colorado.

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Bleuet du Fermier (Side Project, Missouri)

Like Abricot du Fermier, Bleuet is Side Project's flagship saison, Saison du Fermier, racked on fruit in French oak Cabernet barrels. While Abricot is fruited with apricots, Bleuet gets a healthy dose of blueberries.

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Bright Black Delight (American Solera, Oklahoma)

American Solera's Chase Healey is another brewer who struck out on his own with stunning results. Healey, who was brewmaster for Tulsa, Oklahoma's Prairie Artisan Ales, launched American Solera in 2016 to focus on sour and wild ales.

Bright Black Delight is a sour age aged in oak tanks with blackberries. A limited amount was put on sale at the best pizza place on Planet Earth, Parker Pie in West Glover, Vermont, during Hill Farmstead's Festival of Farmhouse Ales.

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Call of the Void (Pips Meadery, Illinois)

Call of the Void is another highly sought-after mead from Pips. This one is a blackcurrant mead aged with gin-soaked oak chips.

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Churchill's Finest Hour (Port Brewing Company, California)

Churchill's Finest Hour is an imperial stout aged in oak barrels. It's produced by The Lost Abbey/Port Brewing for sale once each year at Churchill's Pub in California.

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Dalton Averell 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Okay, honestly, I had no idea who the hell The Daltons were before I drank Bokkereyder's amazing lambic blends. It turns out they are outlaws from a comic book series called Lucky Luke. There are four brothers, Averell, William, Jack and Joe, and each has a beer named after him by Raf of Bokkereyder.

Averell is the muscatel barrel-aged geuze entry in the series.

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Dalton Jack 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

In The Daltons, Jack is a corrupt politician. In Bokkereyder world, Jack is a geuze aged in cognac barrels.

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Dalton Joe 2015 (Bokkereyder, 2015)

In the comic book series, Joe is the shortest, oldest, angriest and smartest, according to Wikipedia. In the beer world, Joe was aged in madeira barrels.

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Dalton William 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

The last of The Dalton brothers, aged in a port barrel.

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DAMP-2 (MAZURT, Georgia)

It's been an awful year for the really nice guys at startup Mazurt Brewing in Atlanta, with the death of co-founder Dan Rosen, who was killed in June when he was hit by a car while walking.

One of the beers that Rosen left us with is called DAMP-2, and it's an American strong ale that is aged in American whiskey barrels and then undergoes a process that rockets the beer up to 22 percent alcohol.

It was definitely a contender for the Top 17, and would probably have landed in the Top 20. A spectacular beer.

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Ded Moroz - Barrel-Aged (Rushing Duck, New York)

Rushing Duck in Chester, N.Y., takes a backseat to nobody with their barrel-aged imperial stout game. Ded Moroz, which means "Father Winter" in Russian, is a Russian Imperial Stout (RIS) that is hopped with imported British hops to balance the sweetness. The barrel-aged version, which was released Friday at the brewery, ages that RIS in bourbon barrels.

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Deep Space Belle Meade Bourbon Barrel Aged w/ Coffee and Vanilla (Barreled Souls Brewing Company, Maine)

Full disclosure: I'm a member of the Barreled Souls bottle society and make at least one trip each year to Saco, Maine to pick up my bottles. There were quite a few stunners from this overlooked barrel-fermented nirvana this year, but the brewery's big achievement of 2017 came with the 204-bottle release of Deep Space imperial stout aged in a Belle Meade bourbon barrel with coffee and vanilla.

Don't sleep on Barreled Souls. Their stouts are absolutely world class.

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DeGarde - All (DeGarde Brewing, Washington)

This is a complete cop-out.

Look at the picture above. The nine bottles with the white squares are all from DeGarde, and we shared them at my friend Anthony "Tony Good Times" Ferretti's birthday share in May.

DeGarde, of Tillamook, Oregon, is one of the top fruited sour producers in the entire world.

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DIVISION: Hotel (Black Project Wild & Spontaneous Ales, Colorado)

That's Joshua pouring DIVISION: Hotel for us. Look. At. That. Beer.

Another beer that could easily have cracked the Top 17, this super-fruited ROSWELL variant has blackberry, apricot and blackcurrant.

I just can't with how good this beer was, and now I'm thirsty. But it's noon and I'm at my desk and we're not allowed to drink, and I don't have anything this good nearby anyway. Sadface.

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Druiven 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Another Bokkereyder beauty. This time it's Druiven, a blend of  1- and 2-year-old lambic, aged on dornfelder, pinot noir and regent grapes. Bokkereyder sources the grapes from Hoenshof, a winery in the Haspengouw region of Belgium.

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Experimentalis w/ Bouquet De Fleur (OEC, Connecticut)

The best brewery with a two-hour drive from New Jersey is Oxford, Connecticut's OEC (Ordinem Ecentrici Coctores - The Order of Eccentric Boilers), the brewery from the family that owns B. United, one of the most important craft beer importers in America.

OEC is a beer experimenter's dream, with custom-made Bavarian granite fermenters, a Kenyan Urwaga fermenting pit, an orchard, greenhouses bursting with herbs, grapes and exotic fruits from around the world, and an Eisbarn where beer fluctuates with the seasons.

One of the brewery's flagship beers is Experimentalis. This version is a witbier aged on sour oranges grown in the OEC greenhouses for a year in Thelema Mountain Vineyards Petit Verdot barrels. It's a stunningly beautiful beer.

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Experimentalis w/ Meyer Lemons (OEC, Connecticut)

This version of Experimentalis is a blend of 33 percent 7-month & 66 percent 2-year-old ale aged on greenhouse Meyer Lemons in Gandona Cabernet, Leonhardt Vineyards Zinfandel and Ransom Spirits Pinot Noir/Gin barrels.

OEC offers tours of the brewery and the B. United facility (the vintage cellar is a thing of beauty) just a few times a year, and the tours sell out quickly.

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Experimentalis w/ Raspberries Blend #3 (OEC, Connecticut)

Experimentalis with Raspberries Blend #3 was aged in Matthiasson Vineyards Syrah barrels.

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Photo courtesy Roemil Sia

Family Preserves: Cherry - Sweet Blend 3/2/17 (Casey Brewing & Blending, Colorado)

Troy Casey calls his Casey Family Preserves series a "fruit delivery vessel" and this time it delivered a blend of sweet cherries.

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Family Preserves - Laroda Plum 11/3/16 (Casey Brewing & Blending, Colorado)

This beautiful Family Preserves Laroda Plum was decanted and consumed at the amazing Denver sour beer mecca Goed Zuur, where the only thing as good as the beer is the chef's creations.

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Photo courtesy Andrew Sharaf

Fifth (Kane Brewing, New Jersey)

Kane released Fifth in 2016 as a special beer to coincide with the brewery's 5th Anniversary. It's a blend of select vintages of the brewery's stouts and porters — a blended, mostly barrel-aged imperial stout.

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Flora Cherry (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Pictured above is smiling #beerfamily member Steve Smith drinking Flora Cherry in the Hill Farmstead tasting room.

Flora is Hill Farmstead's wine barrel-aged version of its wheat farmstead ale, Florence. The brewery then selects a few barrels of Flora and ages them on fruit, in this case fresh cherries.

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Flora w/ Satsuma Mandarins (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

This is one of the more difficult Flora variants to find. Luckily for me, someone brought one to a small whale share we had in July in New York. The Satsuma mandarins were delightful.

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Framboise Noir (Two Roads Brewing, Connecticut)

Once-upon-a-time, Phil Markowski was head brewer at Southampton Brewing. During his time at the brewery, he created a beer called Black Raspberry Lambic, released in 2012. The beer has taken on mythical qualities, and sells for more than $1,000 on the secondary market.

Markowski is now the head brewer at Two Roads in Connecticut and in 2016 the brewery released a beer in their lambic series called Framboise Noir (black raspberry). Rumors circulated that it was the same recipe as the coveted SHBRL.

Framboise Noir was aged in wine barrels for 20 months and could easily be in the Top 17 on this list.

Is it the same beer as SHBRL? I don't know. I've yet to try it, and the one person I know who owns one won't open his. I'm saving my last bottle of Framboise Noir for when he does so we can do a side-by-side.

Any day now Bill Quirk, any day.

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Framboos Saison 2016 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

This time Bokkereyder takes Fantôme saison and blends it with lambic and raspberries.

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Fundamental Observation - Various Batches (Bottle Logic, California)

If there is one beer that put a brewery on the map in an enormous way, it is Fundamental Observation and Bottle Logic of Anaheim, California.

F.O. is a landmark stout, called an imperial vanilla stout and aged in bourbon barrels.

This was Batch 2, from 2016, which was amazing, but not on the level of Batch 1 from 2015, which would probably have been near the top of this list.

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Fundamental Summation 2017 (Bottle Logic, San Diego)

The stouts from yet-to-open 3 Sons Brewing of Florida have been widely sought after for the last couple of years by beer traders, and none more-so than Summation, a bourbon barrel-aged imperial vanilla coffee stout.

Fundamental Summation blended the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans from Summation with Fundamental Observation.

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Genealogy of Morals: Kieni (Hill Farmstead, Vermont)

Another imperial stout from Hill Farmstead, this time it's the remarkable Genealogy of Morals, which is brewed with coffee and aged for 28 months in bourbon barrels. A single barrel was chosen and conditioned on Kieni coffee beans from Kenya, which were sourced and roasted by The Coffee Collective in Denmark.

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Geuze Tegen De Grote Dorst Oude Geuze Nr. XII : Toots (In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst, Belgium)

Just call it Toots.

The longest beer name on our list, Geuze Tegen De Grote Dorst Oude Geuze Nr. XII : Toots, is an oude geuze blended by Yves Paneels and the Gueuze Society in Belgium. Paneels and his brother own the pub In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst (In Insurance Against the Great Thirst) in Lennik, Belgium, perhaps the top lambic bar in the whole world.

The blend was release to coincide with The Night of the Great Thirst lambic festival held every two years in Lennik and gets its name from Toots Thielemans, a Belgian-American jazz musician who died in 2016.

Yves son Jan is one of the youngest brewers in Belgium and this year released his first beer, called Janimal, a very tasty pale ale with American hops.

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Ghost Lambic Abrikoos 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

This is a Bokkereyder blend of Fantôme saison with 1- and 2-year-old lambic and Abrikoos.

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Ghost Lambic Chardonnay 2015 (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Another Bokkereyder Fantome blend, this time it's saison with 1- and 2-year-old lambic aged in a chardonnay barrel.

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Photo courtesy Randy Bognatz

Gin Barrel Saison (Hermit Thrush, Vermont)

Sleeper alert! Sleeper alert!

Gin Barrel Saison is a saison from Hermit Thrush in Brattleboro, Vermont, aged in barrels that held gin from various distilleries in Vermont.

Find this beer.

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Grand Cru Bruocsella 1983 (Cantillon, Belgium)

The first ever bottling of Cantillon's Bruocsella Grand Cru, was magnanimously opened for us by Chris Lively, owner of Ebenezer's Pub, this past summer. The beer is an old lambic released every year by Cantillon and, according to Lambic.info, is one of the few examples of an unadulterated lambic released in bottles.

It is matured for three years in oak barrels and bottled still, meaning without carbonation.

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Ground State (Bottle Logic, California)

Ground State is a "breakfast stout," generally meaning a stout brewed with maple syrup.

It is brewed with Vermont maple syrup and barrel-aged Coldbot Coffee beans, then aged in bourbon barrels with Madagascar vanilla beans, and finished on cacao nibs and coffee beans.

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Founders Ale 1937 (Courage Brewery, England)

How would you expect an 80-year-old stout to taste? The answer is apparently really really good!

Officially the oldest beer I've ever had the pleasure of tasting, this is another bottle that Sir Lively opened for us this past summer in Maine.

It was brewed in the Courage Brewery in Greater London and released in 1937.

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Here Be Monsters w/ Vanilla (Cerebral Brewing, Colorado)

This beast from Cerebral Brewing came out of nowhere, brought back to New Jersey by the venerable Joshua Safer. It's a velvety imperial stout aged for a year in Woodford Reserve barrels and conditioned on Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans.

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Hommage 2013 (3 Fontenein, Belgium)

Hommage is a blend of fruited lambics produced at 3 Fonteinen with an addition of fresh raspberries. This was a 2013, purchased from the amazing cellar at Goozlepipe & Guttyworks in Jacksonville, Florida.

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Kickbacks Oude Geuze (Huisstekerij H.ertie, Germany)

Quick, name a bar in the United States that can say it has a house oude geuze blended by master German blender Ulrich "Uli" Kremer. I can only think of one, and it's the aforementioned beer wonderland that is Goozlepipe & Guttyworks in Jacksonville.

But good luck prying one from the cellar of owner Steve Flores.

Huisstekerij h.ertie's Oude Geuze Kickbacks was bottled in 2013, and contains lambic from Lindemans, Girardin, Cantillon, De Troch, Oud Beersel, Hanssens, Boon, 3 Fonteinen, De Cam and Mort Subite. So yeah, there are beers from 10 different brewers and blenders in this one bottle.

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Kriek du Fermier 2017 (Side Project, Missouri)

The longest line this year at Hill Farmstead's Festival of Farmhouse Ales was the line for Side Project, and the beer everyone wanted before Cory King ran out was Kriek du Fermier.

This is another situation where it's best to let the brewer describe the beer:

"For the first Blend and release of KdF, we were fortunate enough to be allowed to use the Danish cherries from Frederiksdal. I first tasted the Frederiksdal Cherry Wines at the Mikkeller Copenhagen Beer Celebration in 2015. Their Cherry Wines were unlike anything I had had before and were distinctive in their cherry acidity, flavor and aroma. When we were given the opportunity to use these cherries, I was excited to put them in our favorite base for fruit, Saison du Fermier. 

After more than a year from the initial brew day, Kriek du Fermier was bottled and has naturally conditioned in the bottle."

Another Top 20 contender.

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Label Us Notorious (J. Wakefield Brewing, Florida)

I'm over pastry stouts. There, I said it.

Also, Label Us Notorious from J. Wakefield in Miami was phenomenal. Notorious is basically a variant of the Miami brewery's Big Poppa imperial stout, brewed in conjunction with Abnormal Brewing.

This variant was aged in Calvados (French brandy) barrels with coconut, vanilla and coffee from Mostra Coffee in San Diego. Be prepared to fork over about $500 if you can find a bottle.

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Lou Pepe Framboise 2010 (Cantillon, Belgium)

Lou Pepe Framboise (LPF) is a part of Cantillon's Lou Pepe lambic series. It's made from 2-year-old lambic aged in Bordeaux barrels, with raspberries. The beer is carbonated by adding a small amount of sweet liquor at bottling.

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Photo courtesy Andrew Sharaf

Mexican Cake - Apple Brandy Barrel Aged 2013 (Westbrook Brewing Co., South Carolina)

Mexican Cake is an imperial stout from Westbrook Brewing in South Carolina with cocoa nibs, vanilla beans, cinnamon and habanero peppers. This version from 2013 was aged in apple brandy barrels.

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M3 (Abnormal Brewing, California)

M3 is a collaboration between Abnormal of San Diego and 3 Sons Brewing. It's an imperial stout with Ghanian cacao nibs, Madagascar vanilla beans and Costa Rican coffee.

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Miami Madness (J. Wakefield Brewing, Florida)

Miami Madness is a Florida Weisse, a style all its own that took the beer world by storm this year. A Florida Wiesse is essentially a Berliner Weisse-style sour ale packed with tropical fruits. In this case, J. Wakefield made a juice bomb with mango, guava and passion fruit that was a contender for the Top 17.

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Mead X (Garagiste Meadery, Florida)

An exciting thing happened this year, Garagiste Meadery in Tampa, Florida, started legally selling their mead! Mead X is made with blackcurrant, blackberries and tart cherries, and aged on vanilla beans.

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Noble Ghost (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Noble Ghost is Fantôme saison and 1- and 2-year-old lambic with old world noble hops. Yes, I know, another Bokkereyder. It's not my fault.

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Oude Geuze Boon a L'Ancienne - Vat 104 Mono Blend (Brouwerij Boon, Belgium)

So here we are walking through Beer Meets Wood in Portland. It's nearing the end of the night and we are walking toward the front of the building and "oh look, it's the Boon booth." So we walk over to take a look and ... what is that?

Oh, just Oude Geuze Boon à L'Ancienne - Vat 104 Mono Blend on draft, pretty much as much as we can drink. It's an unblended lambic from Boon, and I don't really know much about it because not many people have had it.

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Oudilis Cerasus (OEC, Connecticut)

Oudilis Cerasus is a sour saison brewed with handpicked cherries, and then blended with 3-year-old Hanssens Kriek with Schaarbeekse cherries.

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Perzik (Bokkereyder, Belgium)

Perzik is a blend of 1- and 2-year-old lambic with red vineyard peaches from the September 2015 harvest. Raf insisted on pouring it because of the sediment on the bottom of the bottle. The peach pits were later used in Framboos Noyeaux, the number three beer on my list.

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Plum (Pips Meadery, Illinois)

Another Pips Mead, this one made with orange blossom honey and plums.

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Photo courtesy of Anthony Ferretti

PX7 (Lost Abbey, California)

We walk into Beer Advocate's Extreme Beer Fest in Boston in February as it opens, and the lines form at the tables of the usual suspects. So we walk on a bit and run into Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey, pouring his own beer, and there's nobody there.

So, giddy, we grin as TOMME ARTHUR pours us beer. The best of the lot, to me, and perhaps the best beer of the festival was something called PX7. What is PX7 exactly? It's essentially spontaneously fermented blending stock, meaning it is used as the base for other beers.

It's used as the base in some of Lost Abbey's most sought-after beers, including Cable Car and Duck Duck Gooze. It's really a shame that the base beer isn't often sold on its own.

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Querido Y Perdido (Casita Cerveceria, North Carolina)

Casita Cervecería started as a side project for one of the brewers at Hill Farmstead, Ryan Witter-Merithew, who'd also spent time brewing in the U.K. and in Denmark. Ryan relocated this year to Farmville, North Carolina, now the home for Casita.

Querido Y Perdido is an imperial Stout with cocoa nibs, vanilla, cinnamon and chili peppers.

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RAMJET (Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales, Colorado)

RAMJET was spontaneously inoculated in a coolship and aged for close to a year in a single red wine barrel. Montmorency Cherries were added to the barrel for a second fermentation, according to Black Project.

We've now entered the Black Project portion of our program.

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ROSWELL: Bluebook (Black Project Wild & Spontaneous Ales, Colorado)

ROSWELL: Bluebook is the guava version of Black Project's spontaneously fermented release. #Beerfamily member Joshua Safer pours for Black Project at the 2017 Beer Meets Wood festival in Maine in September in the above photo.

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ROSWELL: Grudge (Black Project Wild & Spontaneous Ales, Colorado)

Grudge was the raspberry variant of ROSWELL. Pictured above is the set I won in a raffle.

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SHADOW FACTORY: Aronia (Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales, Colorado)

SHADOW FACTORY was on draft when I was out in the Black Project taproom in June. I'll let the brewery explain the beer:

"SHADOW FACTORY is a rotating extremely fruit forward wheat sour that derives most its tartness from the fruit itself. The base beer was custom designed for this "super" level of fruiting. It is low alcohol, since the fruit adds nearly 50 percent of the fermentable sugars, and is comprised of 100% malted white wheat, to lend body and softness to the final beer, while allowing the fruit flavor and tartness to shine through."

Aronia is the chokeberry version. I believe the only chokeberry on this list.

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SHADOW FACTORY: Black Currant | Cherry (Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales, Colorado)

Again, from BlackProject.com:

"SHADOW FACTORY is our oak barrel refermented highly fruited beer with 100 percent wild caught microbes. This batch features fruit that was refermented in spontaneously inoculated barrels. Pounds of tart cherries and blackcurrants were added to our golden sour base, which was inoculated in our coolship and then aged in oak barrels, which adds subtle wild yeast complexity. These two fruits were combined to create a balance between the strong tartness of the black currant and the more mild and fruity acidity from the cherries."

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SHADOW FACTORY: Boysenberry | Blood Orange (Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales, Denver)

SHADOW FACTORY one more time, this time with boysenberries.

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Sleeper Series: The Cut - Emeraude Nectarine (Casey Brewing & Blending, Colorado)

Casey doesn't sell its Sleeper Series, leaving it for people to drink from bottle pours at the brewery. That's because something didn't quite work out in the brewing process. In this case, a beer destined be sold as The Cut: Emeraude Nectarine didn't carbonate correctly in the bottle.

Well, in many cases an uncarbonated, or still, beer allows the fruit to come more to the front and Emeraude Nectarine was no exception. This was a marvelous beer, one of the best Caseys I've had the fortune of tasting.

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Sour Golden Ale - Multiple Blends (Backacre Beermakers, Vermont)

The husband and wife team behind Backacre have released 10 blends of their beautiful Sour Golden Ale, and I luckily own two full verticals. The couple lives in Colorado, but barrel-ferment wort they buy from other brewers at the family house in Weston, Vermont.

You can only buy Backacre in a few stores around Weston, notably the Vermont Country Store and Meulemans Craft Drafts.

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Stickney Kriek (Hermit Thrush, Vermont)

Hermit Thrush describes Stickney Kriek as a beer that through "10 months of oak-barrel aging over sour cherries produced an exceedingly dry, deeply complex, and bitingly tart beer with a multi-layered balance of cherry, vanilla and toffee. This is not a lambic, but it's as close as we've come."

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Taking My Talents To Miami (J. Wakefield Brewing, Florida)

Another J. Wakefield Florida Weisse, this one an imperial with dragon fruit, guava and oranges.

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The Cut: Cherry - Danube 4/28/17 (Casey Brewing & Blending, Colorado)

Casey buys its unfermented wort from Roaring Foark Beer, and ferments and fruits at the Casey brewery in Glenwood Springs. This version of The Cut was fruited with Danube cherries, a cross between a tart and a sweet cherry.

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The Cut: Peach (Casey Brewing & Blending, Colorado)

Fun fact: Doc Holliday is buried in the cemetery across the street from Casey Brewing.

Another fun fact: This version of The Cut is fruited with Glo Haven peaches.

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The Newburgh Conspiracy (Newburgh Brewing, New York)

I think Newburgh Brewing of Newburgh, N.Y., does a fantastic job explaining this beer:

"Victory in 1783 brought great joy throughout the colonies, but there were also dark times ahead. Tired and angry Officers of the Continental Army grew restless as they awaited their hard-earned wages from our new Congress. A planned revolt was quashed by General George Washington, right here in Newburgh. This event became known as The Newburgh Conspiracy.

That dark moment in Newburgh history inspired the naming of our Russian Imperial Stout. The Newburgh Conspiracy is as dark as the hearts of those erstwhile conspirators. Made from only the first runnings of two separate brews, it is extremely rich, high ABV, yet smooth and drinkable. Hints of licorice and dried fruits are evident from the enormous amount of roasted malts. The high alcohol is warming without overpowering, making this a tasty treat for the cold winter ahead."

This version was aged for eight months in Hillrock Estate Distillery bourbon barrels

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Triple Sunshine (Lawson's Finest, Vermont)

It seems silly that this is the only IPA on this entire list, but here we are. I've had Double Sunshine IIPA and Triple Sunshine IIIPA from Sean Lawson many times, but there was something special about this batch, served at his annual anniversary party.

At 10.5 percent, it's more than a Double IPA, but also doesn't push the malty bounds of Triple IPAs, and is packed with tropical fruits. Let's just say that I had more than my share that night.

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Photo via TheLostAbbey.com

Veritas 018 (The Lost Abbey, California)

Veritas 018 is basically a remake of Lost Abbey's Veritas 015, which won a gold medal at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival.

It's a wild ale aged in oak with peaches and nectarines from Masumoto Farms, as well as added apricots.

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Photo courtesy Joshua Safer

Westly 2015 (Sante Adarrius Rustic Ales, California)

To make Westly, Sante Adairius takes their West Ashley wild ale, a saison aged in French oak Pinot Noir barrels with apricots, and doubles the amount of apricots and the time spent in the barrel.

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Photo courtesy Rob Barry

Works of Love SARA (Hill Farmstead, Vermont, and Sante Adairius Rustic Ales, California)

A collaboration between Hill Farmstead and Sante Adairius, this mixed fermentation saison was brewed in 2013 and spent over a year in the barrel.

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Zwanze 2017 (Cantillon, Belgium)

And, finally, we have me. And Zwanze Day.

Zwanze is Cantillon's annual release that is tapped at the same time around the world, and only select bars are picked to participate. This year, I spent Zwanze Day at the Novare Res Bier Café in Portland, Maine, a must visit for any beer nerd (that's the owner behind me).

This year's Zwanze was a 2-year-old lambic steeped with Oolong, a semi-fermented blue-green tea. Every bar makes their own Zwanze glass for the event, and finding out what the glass is at your bar is part of the fun. For the record, I think the tea cup glass at Novare was the best Zwanze glass this year.

So there you have it. The 99 bottles of beer on my 2017 wall.

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