AZ Craft Beer News

2026 Phoenix Magazine Reader's Choice Awards Every year Phoenix Magazine lists their winners in various categories throughout the state. This year they had nearly 50,000 readers who submitted more than 285,000 votes for 2026 Best of the Valley! See all the categories and winners HERE Here are the winners for the Craft Beer & Liquid Arizona Categories: Best Brewery In The State: Desert Monks Brewing Best New Brewery In The State: Fuzzbot Brewing Hazy IPA Winner Church Music,

With a purpose to reduce water usage on the declining Verde River watershed, Sinagua malts was founded in 2016. With the help of Arizona Wilderness Brewing (and now many more breweries) the project has been widely successful to this day. Great job AZ Wilderness and Sinagua Malts! Sinagua Malt has become one of the most interesting sustainability stories in Arizona craft beer. Based in the Verde Valley, the company works with local farmers to grow malting barley during the c

I'm still trying to learn the subtle differences between German Pilsner and Italian Pilsner. My understanding is the Italian version is generally dry hopped resulting in heavy hop aromatics and the German one is not as aromatic with a sharp clean bitterness. Most of the top examples of Italian Pilsner I've had (Firestone Walker Pivo Pils, Sierra Nevada PILS) use Saphir or Spalter Select hops. Some day I hope to get a fresh example of the grand-daddy of the style, Tipo Pils