The Best Beer of the Month: January 2021

The number one question we get asked at The Beer Travel Guide: “Had any good beers lately?” And the answer, invariably, is always yes. So while in the past, we’ve made our fair readers wait until the end of the year to find out our relatively recent favorites, this year we’re going to let you know every month all of the new craft beers that have blown us away. We’ve selected ten beers that we feel are worthy of calling the best beer in January 2021!

Like our other lists, we’re only allowing ourselves to put one beer per brewery, so we can spread the love to as many fantastic breweries as possible– during this troubled time, your local craft breweries need your support more than ever. So please go support the ten breweries below and any others in your hometown to help them survive this pandemic and serve us amazing beer for years to come. Now, without further ado, our favorite beers this January!

Barebottle Brewing: Ultra Luxe

When we visited Barebottle, we asked what the taproom workers what they thought about the Ultra Luxe, and the response can only be described as “awe.” Sure enough, Ultra Luxe is awesome— a lush and velvety mango hazy that’s absurdly crushable for its nearly 8% ABV. It would’ve easily made our Best IPAs of 2020 list if we’d had it a couple days earlier.

BlackStack Brewing: The Great BlackStack Bake Off: Cherry Pie

Finally, thanks to the good people at Tavour, we got our hands on some of Minnesota’s finest craft from BlackStack Brewing. The Great BlackStack Bake Off: Cherry Pie is a mixed-culture, foeder-fermented berliner conditioned on cherry, graham crackers, cinnamon and more. It gives you the cherry pie flavor Warrant sang about, complemented by a magnificent kick of tart.

Blue Oak Brewing: Instagratification

We hit Blue Oak in San Carlos on the way to the Bay for New Year’s, and we started the year off with Instagratification and the magical taste of feijoa. Have we ever seen a feijoa in person? We’re not sure, but we want some now! This sour ale gives you pineapple, guava, a splash of strawberry, and tremendous balance– and it puts Blue Oak firmly on the list of best Bay Area sours we’ve ever had.

DankHouse Brewing: DDH Couch Kush’n

Since Emily has family from Ohio, we’re always looking for great Ohio beer, and we finally got our hands on fresh DankHouse in January. This hazy, DDH Couch Kush’n, is as dank as the brewery name suggests, with a fruity nose, smooth mouthfeel, and some sweetness amidst the hop blast at the end. We loved our first encounter, and we’re crossing our fingers we’ll get to visit later in 2021.

El Segundo Brewing: Nuclear Power Plant

If you live in Los Angeles and love hoppy beer, then you definitely love El Segundo Brewing– and their annual Meltdown event is the equivalent of Hop Christmas (Hopnukkah?). Their whole series of Meltdown releases was top notch, but the Nuclear Power Plant was absolutely… well, mind-melting! This 13.2% ABV west coast quadruple IPA has a crisp dank bite but is, astonishingly, smoother than most doubles. It represents an LA institution at their top of their game.

Ghostwood Beer Co.: Ancient Melodies

We swung through Redwood City on the way home from the Bay in early January, and we had the pleasure of meeting Tommy at Ghostwood Beer and grabbing some crowlers of his finest award-winning WC IPAs. (Seriously– their triple IPA beat Pliny the Younger at an IPA fest in 2020.) Our favorite of this batch: Ancient Melodies, a clean Strata-hopped IPA with tropical fruity vibes and remarkable crushability. West coast IPA fans should seek them out ASAP.

HenHouse Brewing: Latvian Laundromat

After our first ever visit to HenHouse Brewing, we found our trunk overflowing with IPA cans, because, well, there were too many terrific ones to choose from! Each one of them was delicious, so it was difficult to settle on one to feature… but we ultimately sided with Latvian Laundromat, a DIPA explosion of dank citrus and key lime that was as fresh as can be. These HenHouse IPAs have us counting the hours til Big Chicken Day.

Pure Project: Shadow of the Moon

For Pure Project’s fifth anniversary, they brewed up a QUINTUPLE IPA, featuring five of their favorite hops from across the globe. The end result: a 15% ABV hazy, Pure Project’s strongest beer to date. It’s far smoother than you’d expect for a beer so boozy, hitting you with warm wave after wave of super dank pineapple and melon. We’re eagerly anticipating Pure Project’s eighth anniversary and their inevitable Octuple IPA.

Santa Monica Brew Works: The Works

The lovely lunatics at Santa Monica Brew Works spent the end of 2020 brewing IPAs with filone bread that Bay Cities Deli uses in Santa Monica’s iconic Godmother sandwich. Both of these releases were quite tasty, but of the two, we preferred The Works, a west coast IPA that was fresh, tropical, and resinous, perfect for cutting through the heat of those delicious Bay Cities hot peppers.

Tripping Animals Brewing: Even More Gummy Saurus 2.0

Despite having family in Florida, we’d never gotten ahold of fresh Tripping Animals— until this year. The IPAs from Tripping Animals were great… but the sours we had were *superb.* Even More Gummy Saurus 2.0 is an Evil Twin collab fruited sour with mango, passionfruit, pineapple, coconut, and marshmallow— and frankly, we’ve never tasted a fruited sour where the tartness pops so hard but the coconut remains so prevalent. Tripping Animals, in the words of Eugene Levy, has us straight tripping, boo.

What was your favorite beer of January 2021? Leave it in the comments below! Also, follow Russell and Emily both on Instagram to find out what they’re drinking on a regular basis– and check out our Best of 2020 coverage while you’re here. Thanks for supporting our site! Cheers!