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Best Beers for Golf, Ranked for 2026

Thomas Short — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:50:40 +0000

Some things in life are always worth appreciating. A good beer. A nice round of golf. Of course, any golfer knows that you can’t just drink any beer on the course. Aside from the fact that you can’t bring your own beer (you would never do that, right?), some beers might have a more negative impact on your game and day. So, picking the right beers for golf is key. Here are the best beers for golf that you should be able to find on your course. Best Golf Beers, Ranked 1. Firestone Walker 805 There’s a lot to love about the 805. This beer is perfectly light, has good flavor, is 4.7% ABV, and doesn’t sit too heavily in your stomach. There are plenty of good occasions to grab an 805 outside of golf, but the course is a great place to enjoy this beer. 2. Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin IPA I know that adding an IPA is a bold call since IPAs, sunshine, and physical activity don’t mix very well. However, I think the Grapefruit Sculpin IPA gets a pass because the grapefruit flavor is just too perfect. It’s a 7% IPA that leans juicy and crisp, making it perfect to sip. Start your round with a Grapefruit Sculpin, or have one at the turn. Or have one after your round. If your golf course (or area) doesn’t carry this delicious beer, look for the regular Sculpin IPA or a Hazy Sculpin IPA. 3. Heineken Silver I don’t want to crowd this list with the “light lager” types (think Michelob Ultra, Coors Light, etc), but I’m going to highlight Heineken Silver. Why? Because it’s low-calorie and I legitimately like the flavor. It’s pretty close to the regular Heineken flavor while still being light and low-calorie, which is a great combination. 4. Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale The Mirror Pond is a nice pale ale with real flavor, which I love. This beer does lean a little bitter and hoppy, but it’s just 5% ABV, meaning it packs a lot of flavor into a relatively light beer. It’s also available in most areas of the country, so it’s a safe pick if you see it on the beverage cart. 5. Local Lager Okay, this pick is a bit of a cop-out since it’s not a specific beer, but seriously consider buying a can of a local lager next time you’re golfing. Lagers are the perfect beer for sunshine, and you might find a local brewery that you enjoy! As an example, the Bandon Dunes Sheep Ranch Lager was the perfect pairing for Sheep Ranch, and I’m glad I gave it a try. 6. Athletic IPA The Athletic IPA, a great non-alcoholic beer, is legitimately one of the best beers to have on the links. Athletic does an incredible job of nailing beer flavor without any of the booze, perfect for someone who is taking their round seriously and doesn’t want alcohol affecting their swing. 7. Michelob Ultra I couldn’t honestly create a “best golf beers” list without including Michelob Ultra. Michelob Ultra is one of the best light beers and brings just enough flavor for you to notice without feeling heavy, which is perfect for a hot day on the golf course. I haven’t had a Michelob Ultra in any other setting, and I don’t think I will, but it’s great for golf. Golf Beers FAQs

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What Is Sour Beer?

Thomas Short — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 18:02:31 +0000

Some people think sour beer is unnatural. “This doesn’t taste like Budweiser!” they’ll say, or “Beer was meant to be as chilly as the Rocky Mountains to the point that I can no longer taste it!” It’s true, sour beer doesn’t taste like cheap lagers. But here’s a fun little fact: all beer used to be sour. In fact, sour beer is more natural than today’s wide variety of cheap lagers, IPAs, stouts, and such. Not to get too far into the history here, but people didn’t always have a firm understanding of yeasts. This was mostly due to the limits of science and thought in the 1800s. But once yeasts were discovered, oh boy, did beer have a Renaissance. Oh boy. At the time, different strains of yeast would be unwittingly clumped together, all of which are types of yeasts that modern brewers use. Mix all these yeasts and you’re doomed to get at least a slightly sour flavor. But split apart, brewers can take the classic Saccharomyces cerevisiae and make a non-sour beer. You’re probably saying something like, “this post is called ‘What Makes Sour Beer Sour,’ not ‘Why All Beer Isn’t Sour In The Modern Era.’” True. But just because most brewers moved away from sour beers doesn’t mean everyone did. Sour yeasts remained and are still used today. And yeasts make beer sour. What Makes Beer Sour? Any sour flavor you get in your beer (should) come from the yeast used during the brewing process. Generally speaking, you’re going to have either the Brettanomyces or Lactobacillus yeast strain make your beer sour. When you go to your local taproom and order a sour, the brewer could probably tell you which of these (if not both) they used. But what about sour beers with fruit in them? Well, those are brewed the same way…but with fruit. They still need the specific yeasts to get that sour flavor, and the fruit hopefully serves as a fitting complement. And then, for our more cultured beer snobs, there’s also spontaneous fermentation and open-air fermentation, often achieved through a coolship or something similar. Back in the day, this was how many beers were fermented. Today, some breweries still use this method. Particularly the Belgians. Belgian sours Belgium is deservingly the most famous region for sour beers. They have some of the oldest sour beer breweries in the world, and many, like the famous Cantillon, still use spontaneous fermentation/open air fermentation to get the sour flavor. Why don’t more people copy this method? Because it’s crazy risky. The fermentation is spontaneous, as nobody knows what’s going on in there or what it’s going to do. The result could be the worst sour beer ever to traipse this earth. Or, it could be a revolution in sour beers that happens to smell oddly like band-aids. Lambic vs Sour Maybe you were recently hanging out at a friend’s house and they bust out their lambic beer. Ooohs and aaahs fill the room. Cantillon at its finest. Then you sip it, and it tastes sour. Why not just call it a sour beer? Lambics are sort of like the champagne of beer, in that they are region-specific. To be a lambic, the beer technically needs to be brewed in Pajottenland, a region near Brussels in Belgium. Or, because Cantillon is the king of all lambics, at Cantillon’s brewery in Brussels. Like some other Belgian sours, lambics are exposed to wild yeasts through the spontaneous fermentation process. The only difference here is that the region is home to special yeasts, so the flavor profile is largely predictable (especially since they have over 100 years of brewing experience). So it’s hardly “spontaneous” since they know what will happen, but it’s still cool. TL;DR: Lambics are special sours, but not all sours are lambics. How to Enjoy Sour Beers People will tell you to approach sour beers in 3 steps, like this: The scaling is horrible and makes no sense to me. It’s basically like convincing someone to get into beer by forcing them to try flavors they might not be interested in. In my experience, that’s how you learn to hate something. Here’s my suggestion: go to a craft brewery near you that specializes in sours. Go up to the counter. Be honest. Tell them you don’t like/have never had sours but are curious. Nine out of ten taproom employees will give you tasters, tell you what you’re trying, and take in feedback to help you find the right beer. Once you’ve found one you think you might like, get the sour beer in a tulip glass. This commits you to 12 oz, which is a little less than a pint and relatively easy to manage. You may even settle for a 4 oz taster which is also fine, since you’re allowed to have as little sour beer as you’d like! Lastly, have pretzels on hand. I swear, it’s tough to beat a sour beer with the saltiness of pretzels on the side. Afterward, decide if you liked the beer. Did you? Cool. Did you not? Cool. I like sours, but you’ll rarely see me getting two in a row. Some people guzzle them like it’s their job, and it might be. That’s cool, too. Just remember that sour beer is still beer. It might even be the OG beer. Many of today’s beer drinkers didn’t like beer the first time they tried it. The same could be said for sour drinkers. Plenty of people don’t like stouts, porters, bitter IPAs, juicy IPAs, pilsners, wild ales, etc. But they still like beer. Sour beer is really just beer with different yeasts. Nothing too crazy about that.

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What is a Kettle Sour?

Thomas Short — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 19:37:31 +0000

I’ve noticed a lot of people see a kettle sour on a menu and say, “kettle sour,” like it’s a statement that combines trepidation, fear, and the unknown. “Kettle sour” serves as the enigmatic phrase echoed several times through a heady indie film. “Kettle sour.” You can practically hear Orson Welles uttering the words on his deathbed after he finishes trashing his bedroom. Contrary to the mystery surrounding the term, kettle sours are anything but a mystery; in reality, they serve almost as an entry-level sour while providing brewers with a quick and dirty way of adding another unique beer to their menu. Sit back, dear reader, and learn more than you ever wanted to know about kettle sours. What is a Kettle Sour? What is a kettle sour? Well, it’s a sour beer, but not like those infinitely tart beers that your one friend insists you drink and, yes, even enjoy. Kettle sours get their name from the stainless steel mash tun, or steel “kettle,” that they’re brewed in. Aside from that, the beer isn’t wholly unique and follows century-old methods of beer making. Back in the good ole days, all beers were sour. Because nobody knew what bacteria were, brewers didn’t know that the little fellas wildly changed the flavor of the beer. Once that was deduced, brewers ripped bacteria out and could craft beers that lacked a sour tinge. A kettle sour uses these bacteria (typically lactobacillus) to alter the flavor of the beer, adding a sour edge. Unlike other methods like spontaneous fermentation, the process of adding the lactobacillus to the sour is measured. The result? A straightforward, fairly one-dimensional sour that should be more approachable than its counterparts. Sour vs Kettle Sour Not convinced that you might actually enjoy a kettle sour? Ok, let me compare it to the sour beer. Traditionally, sour beers age in barrels, often over the span of months or even years. Kettle sours age in their steel kettle over a matter of days and weeks. This drastically shortens the brewing time but also gives the kettle sour less time to take on complex and unique flavors. Also, because kettle sours take less time to brew, they tend to be more one-dimensional — but this ain’t a bad thing. A good kettle sour will nail a clean, slightly sour flavor without making you reach for your Tums. Traditional sours have quite a bit more variety and draw their sourness from different places and bacteria (and sometimes both). There are also various types of sours, including the kettle sour. Yup, we’ve got ourselves a squares and rectangles situation. But, as I point out in the article linked above and earlier in this article, all beers were once a little bit sour. If you’re dragging your feet approaching the sour style of beer, a kettle sour could be an excellent jumping-off point. What does a Kettle Sour Taste Like? Kettle sours typically use lactobacillus, or lacto, as the main bacteria to bring some sour to the beer. In my experience, lacto adds a genuinely milky flavor to a lot of beers (see Milkshake IPAs). Thank god that kettle sours rarely have the same milky taste. Can you imagine a sour milky flavor? You can make that in your own home with a carton of milk and four weeks’ time. Aside from lacto, brewers have some room to get creative with kettle sours. Some can limit the amount of oxygen in the lactobacillus aerobic process (making it anaerobic) to alter the flavor. Others experiment with different hop varieties to change the flavor, consistency, and color of the brew. Another way to add some tasty flavor is by tossing fruit into the mix. The flavor often comes out subtle yet well blended. There must be some brewery out there that proves me wrong, but I would say as a blanket statement that kettle sours tend to be: Perhaps the biggest downside of kettle sours is that they aren’t very common. Is this due to the masses not wanting to approach something that sounds like a mix of kettle corn and acid? Maybe. If you managed to make it this far, let me impart this bit of wisdom to you: try a kettle sour, even if just once, because who knows when you’ll see one on a menu again.

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