Clones from across the Land

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2021 issue of Zymurgy Magazine

By Dave Carpenter

What’s your favorite beer? If you’re like me, you dread that question. It’s like being asked to name a favorite child, a favorite pet, or a favorite toilet-paper orientation (over the front, clearly).

What’s my favorite beer? “The one in my hand,” while often holding an element of truth, is such an overused response that it borders on cliché, at least when deployed within beer circles. “All of them” is as unsatisfactory as it is patently false.

Nevertheless, we all keep certain beers and recipes close to our hearts, whether we’d readily identify them as favorites or not. It could be a house ale you brew every other batch to always keep on hand. Or maybe it’s a holiday seasonal you make annually to age for the upcoming year.

I don’t have a favorite recipe, but even though I’m a big lager nerd, I’ve probably brewed more hefeweizen over the years than anything else. I like it, and everyone who drinks it…