You’ve seen the lines. Hundreds of 20- and 30-somethings queued around the block, coolers and camp chairs in tow. Some stand for hours, slowly making their way to the entrance of not a streetwear boutique, but a craft brewery.
Hype has taken hold of craft beer, which turned out to be fertile soil for the same fetishism that forced your parents to drive you to the mall for Pokémon cards when you were 10 years old. Except beer isn’t like trading cards or rare coins. It’s perishable, with flavors that fade in a matter of weeks. So if you want to taste the best beer in the country, you need to find someone living close to your target brewery and organize a trade, typically using social media.
“Hype can grow across all platforms, but I can pick up on hype if a brewery happens to be featured across several beer Instagram accounts,” says John Paradiso, the managing editor of Hop Culture Magazine. “Gotta look out for those ‘ISO’ comments.” ISO, or “in search of,” is how beer fans signal that they’re looking to trade for a certain beer. Sometimes a beer is so rare that sellers use online marketplaces to sell individual bottles for many times their retail price. KBBS, a stout produced by Toppling Goliath in Decorah, Iowa, frequently resells for over $1000 on sites like My Beer Collectibles. It comes in 12-ounce bottles.
Beyond a strong social media presence, brewers can focus on certain styles to drive hype. The recipe is often some combination of extremity and scarcity. “Extremely dry-hopped and thick [double IPAs], heavily fruited lactose sours and pastry stouts of wine-strength loaded up with every kind of diabetes-inducing concoction under the sun, these beers are very Instagram-able and get a lot of engagement online,” says Ben Pratt, the owner of As Is, a craft beer bar in New York City. “These are not beers of balance or subtlety. There’s nothing wrong with them per se and they’re fun to drink sometimes. But not every pair of sneakers you own can be Balenciaga.”
The hype doesn’t come without detractors. Neighbors justifiably hate the amusement-park lines that frequently start the night before a release and curl around the block. Some brewers feel pressured to have a coveted beer — typically a hazy IPA — on tap in order to draw in customers that are simply looking to “tick” a beer off on apps like Untappd in order to show that they’ve sampled it. And beer purists, or anyone simply watching their waistline, can’t stomach the palate-numbing, toe-curling flavors that come in cans packed with as many calories as a box of donuts. But hey, do it for the ‘Gram.
While hype has created a subset of drinkers that treat beer like dispassionate collectors, it’s also served as massive front door for new drinkers. Some of which may never have ventured away from macro beer, had they not witnessed a grown man sweatily shoving bottles of imperial stout into a backpack, to be sold at a later date for an unbelievable sum.
For good and for bad, whether well-deserved or just lucky, there are a few dozen breweries across the nation that garner hype once reserved for overpriced shoes and underaged boy bands. Below is a list of breweries that have become meccas to the modern craft beer hypebeast.
