8 Unusual Beer Styles You Need to Know

Modern craft brewers tend to push forward, endlessly tweaking recipes and creating entirely new styles to distinguish themselves from the pack. But a small, nostalgic contingent of beermakers, bored with pale ales and porters, are looking backward for inspiration—way back, in fact. In the quest for extreme, off-the-wall brewing, the resurrection of obscure—and previously defunct—styles has become an obsession all of its own for some brewers, who are whipping up ales more suited to a joust than a Jets game. Dogfish Head and Sam Adams were trailblazers when it comes to crate-digging for ancient recipes, but now plenty of others are dabbling with archaeological ales. Here, we’ve highlighted some of our favorite throwback styles that, thanks to modern brewmasters with a taste for bygone beer, are once again available.

Mead, the earliest known booze, comes from honey. Beer comes from grain. Mix the two together in a cauldron and you have braggot, an exceptionally hearty beverage that combines the sweetness of mead with the grainy, maltiness of ale. Modern braggot brewers tend to ferment the grain and honey together, but Dark Age publicans in Britain blended theirs at the bar, also tossing in whatever herbs, spices, flowers, and fruits they had on hand (which often included hops). Sipping is encouraged, as these heady brews tend to clock in at 8 to 10% ABV.

What to try

Brother Adam’s Bragget Honey Ale (Atlantic Brewing Company, Bar Harbor, ME) This deep red ode to the Old World balances sweet Maine honey with a berry-like tartness. Bourbon Barrel Braggot (Kuhnhenn Brewing Company, Warren, MI) With a rich, molasses-like consistency and a serious hit of booze (16% ABV), this braggot is a one-and-done type of beer. A nap in bourbon barrels gives the brew appealing hints of wood and whiskey.

Early brew kettles were often made of wood, which meant that direct flames were a no-no and achieving the temperatures necessary to make beer properly was nigh impossible. Medieval brewers came up with a clever workaround: throwing scorching hot chunks of granite directly into the liquid wort. The rocks—stein means stone in German—cause a rapid, violent boil and caramelize the grain for a sweet and toasty brew. These days, it’s far easier to skip the third degree burns and utilize the fruits of industrialization, but a few fearless brewers risk life and limb to keep the tradition alive.

What to try

Hot Rocks Lager (Port Brewing Company, San Marcos, CA) Thanks to glowing hot granite rocks, this dark lager picks up rich caramel and toffee flavors. Leikeim Steinbier (Brauerei Leikeim, Altenkunstadt, Germany) This modestly fruity, caramel-tinged brew is light and easygoing despite the violent production process.

Tolkienites, take note: Gruit is the beer for you. Long before hops caught on, medieval Europeans flavored, preserved, and bittered their beer with a jumble of herbs and spices that—with names like mugwort and horehound—might have grown with abandon in Mordor. The herbal, often dry elixirs were thought to increase sex drive and induce a euphoric buzz, probably due to the occasional narcotic twig or berry.

What to try:

13th Century Grut Bier (Professor Fritz Briem, Freising, Germany) This tart, spicy beer channels Dark Age drinking habits with a potpourri of ingredients, including bay leaf, gentian, and ginger. Fraoch Heather Ale (Williams Bros. Brewing C. Alloa, Scotland) Based on a 4,000-year-old Scottish recipe calling for heather, this dry golden ale is herbal, floral, and easygoing. Posca Rustica (Brasserie Dupont, Tourpes, Belgium) One of Belgium’s best breweries has tried its hand at a traditional gruit. Posca Rustica is dry and citrusy like Dupont’s flagship saison, but with added complexity courtesy of ten herbs and spices.

Scandinavia is in the midst of a beer boom these days. But a millennium or so before craft brew kettles were bubbling from Oslo to Copenhagen, the Finns were downing this potent pour, brewed from a variety of grains like barley, wheat, rye and oats. Sahtis are unfiltered—hence the haze—and often citrusy. In place of hops, juniper twigs provide an herbal bitter balance.

What to Try:

Sah’tea (Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton, DE) A sahti-steinbier hybrid, this ale uses malts that are caramelized over blazing hot rocks. Its restrained spice comes from Finnish juniper berries, cardamom, black tea, clove, and black pepper. Sam Adams Norse Legend (Boston Brewing Company, Boston, MA) One of the first American craft brewers to tackle the Nordic style, BBC has been tinkering with this spicy, woody interpretation for nearly a decade. Sahti (Nøgne Ø, Grimstad, Norway) This Norwegian brewery nods to it neighbors with a peppery, honey-tinged brew that has just the right amount of juniper.

A construction worker needs a drink every now and again. Sometimes at 8am. Nineteenth-century English laborers looking for a morning buzz used to glug this herbal brew bright and early. Originally flavored with wormwood—the bitter plant in absinthe once thought to be hallucinogenic—purl was later infused with gin, ginger, and spices. Unadulterated ale eventually bumped purl from the morning routine, but a few historical brewers have brought it back to beer shelves.

What to try:

Green Purl (Sonoma Springs Brewing Company, Sonoma, CA) Purls are incredibly hard to come by. But if you’re in Northern California, seek out this smoky, herbal throwback, which derives a hint of licorice from wormwood used in the brewing process. 

Before there were Beer Nuts, there were oysters. The mollusks were once common at English pubs, often eaten over a pint or ten of stout. Lore has it that a few early 20th Century brewers in England and New Zealand took the combo a step further, adding oysters to their brew for nourishment during the “Guinness for Your Health” era (doctors used to promote stouts as health drinks, seriously). These days, a number of modern brewers pay homage to the classic pairing, tossing fresh oysters—sometimes still in the shell—into the brew kettle, adding extra body and a subtle minerality to the beer. And before you gag, know this: Oyster stouts taste nothing like seafood.

What to try:

Oyster Stout (The Porterhouse Brewing Company, Dublin, Ireland) This smooth, sweet stout picks up body and brine thanks to bivalves shucked fresh into the fermenting tank. Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout (Flying Dog Brewing Company, Baltimore, MD) Local Rappahannock River oysters lend this chocolatey stout a faint mineral quality; proceeds go to restoring the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population.

Smoky German rauchbiers—bready, toasty brews made from smoked malt—have made a comeback with beer nerds. But the Poles have their own entry in the “this beer tastes like bacon” genre, the grodziskie (or gratzer). Brewed primarily from smoked wheat malt, grodziskie’s are noticeably toasty. They’re also light and refreshing, hoppy, and low in alcohol. The last Polish grodziskie brewery was sold in 1994 and stopped production, but a number of brewers in Germany, the States, and elsewhere keep it alive.

What to try:

Piwo Grodziskie (Professor Fritz Briem, Freising Germany) The mad professor has dusted off another relic: Professor Fritz Briem’s hazy gradziskie interpretation is lighty smoky, sour, and seriously refreshing. Embers of the Deceased (DC Brau Brewing Company, Washington D.C.) In collaboration with DC’s Blue Jacket brewpub, the capital’s first production brewery in nearly 60 years recently released a crisp, tart take on the bygone style. It’s citrusy, hoppy, and—at just 3.7% ABV—highly drinkable. 

An ancient style from Leipzig, Germany, the gose (pronounced gose-uh) is brewed with salted water, lending it a slight briny character. Like most wheat-based beers, goses are light and citrusy. But toss in coriander and Lactobacillus bacteria, and the style is truly unique: spicy, sour, and full of complexity.

What to try:

Upright Gose (Upright Brewing, Portland, OR) These Oregon brewing savants balance puckering tartness with salt and spice for an almost Champagne-like beer. Leipziger Gose (Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayerischer Bahnhof, Germany) Brewed in Leipzig’s historic train station, this classic gose is light and tart with a lingering savory finish. Samuel Adams Verloren (Boston Brewing Company, Boston, MA) Part of Boston Brewing Company’s limited-edition small-batch series, Verloren is dry, spicy, and going quick.