This legendary brew was, sadly, unappreciated in its time. “I wouldn't currently drink a Celis White if you paid me,” laments Philadelphia bar owner Brendan "Hartranft,“but when Pierre Celis opened up his brewery in Austin by way of Belgium, the beer landscape was forever changed.” (For the record, a 2001 piece in the Austin American-Statesman declared that, after returning home to do what he loved, the brewer had once again become “a happy man.”)Brewers have revived the Celis brand multiple times over the years, but sadly the beer is still a shell of its former self. In 2000 it was shuttered, “breaking Pierre's heart and sending him back to Belgium,” Roper says. That same year, Celis sold his brand to Miller Brewing Company. One of those imitators was Coors, which in 1995 released what has become the best-selling wit in the U.S., Blue Moon. The beer was sensational and inspired many imitators,” explains Michael Roper, owner of Chicago’s Hopleaf Bar. “Pierre Celis brought Belgian Wit beer to America in 1992 when his Austin, Texas brewery began production. The tale of Celis White, deemed by many to be America’s seminal Belgian-style wheat beer, could be seen as a true craft beer tragedy. While never bottled, beer geeks flocked to the Philly brewpub to try the only American Berliner Weisse at the time.” “To my knowledge, this was the first Berliner Weisse produced in the U.S. “The resurgence of historical styles is one of the most important aspects of modern craft beer,” Rue says. But sours weren't big back then.” Still, people like Patrick Rue, founder of California brewery The Bruery, whose own Hottenroth Berliner Weisse has become one of the best known American takes on the style, see the importance of Nodding Head’s trailblazing. “We had to spoon-feed it to people,” owner Curt Decker said in an interview with City Tap last year. Though this mildly sour German style has exploded in popularity over the last few years, the Philadelphia brewery first whipped up their Ich Bin Ein Berliner Weisse way back in 2000-ahead of its time, perhaps. However, thanks to the collective knowledge and expertise of our 21 voters, we think it's an exceptionally telling look at the beers that have shaped American craft beer history.-Mike Pomranzĭon’t tell the brewers at Nodding Head Brewery about the hot new beer on the block, Berliner Weisse. The final order was determined strictly by the votes received, with the exception of any ties, at which point we used our editorial judgment to determine ranking.The final list, like any list of this type, is sure to spur debate. In the case of brewers, they were allowed to vote for themselves however, every single beer on this list received multiple votes, meaning a brewer's self-endorsement only counted if it was seconded by another voter. Voters were limited to two beers from any one brewery and encouraged to diversify their choices across years, states and styles. But as exciting new beers appear weekly in bars and on specialty shop shelves, we shouldn't forget their forebears: the brews that spawned, defined and advanced the craft beer movement, made by the influential brewers who brought our country from a low of less than 100 breweries in 1978 to where we are today.To help better appreciate the history of American craft beer, we reached out to 21 experts from across the American beer scene, including legendary brewers like Ken Grossman and Jim Koch, industry representatives like Julia Herz, and veteran writers like Aaron Goldfarb and Joshua Bernstein.We asked each voter to nominate five to seven American beers that they consider to be the "most important of all time." The only stipulations were that the beer must have started production after 1960, and it must have met the generally-accepted definition of "craft beer" at the time it was introduced. With more than 5,000 breweries, some of which produce dozens of different beers every year, America is home to the largest and most diverse beer culture in the world.
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