The Best Breweries of 2025

Another year, another impossible task: narrowing down the breweries that blew our minds, melted our palates, and made us seriously consider installing a second liver. You’d think after crisscrossing the globe for festivals, sneaking into taprooms between flights, and obsessively scrolling your check-ins on Untappd, this list would get easier. Nope. Every November, we stare at a chaotic pile of contenders and wonder how on earth we’re supposed to choose. And yet—somehow—we manage to nail down a list of the Best Breweries of 2025.

If 2023 and 2024 taught us anything, it’s that great beer knows no borders. In 2025, that felt truer than ever. From a gorgeous standout in New Zealand to a flavor-soaked haven in Manchester to a lager-forward paradise in Utah, breweries everywhere pushed boundaries, perfected classics, and reminded us why we love doing this in the first place.

Before you dive in, check out our “Best New Breweries of 2025” and “Best Hidden Gem Places to Drink in 2026”—trust us, you’ll want those on your hit list, too.

As always, we tapped the entire Next Glass crew—from different cities, backgrounds, and beer obsessions—to build a list that reflects the full spectrum of what made 2025 exceptional.

So, with a full pint and an even fuller heart…here are our picks for the Best Breweries of 2025.

The Best Breweries of 2025

Canyon Brewing

Arthurs Point, Otago, New Zealand
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

Attracting adrenaline seekers from all over the world, Queenstown, New Zealand, offers everything from hang gliding and paragliding to breathtaking hiking and bungee jumping at the world’s first commercial bungee operation. Follow Gorge Road for about seven minutes north of the center of town, and you’ll find the road twisting and dipping down to the Edith Cavell Bridge. Sitting 157 feet (47.8 meters) over the Shotover River, this single-lane bridge leads you somewhat terrifyingly to Canyon Brewing.

Perched just in the crook of land on the other side of the bridge, Canyon Brewing might just be one of the most beautiful breweries I’ve ever visited in the entire world.

Below you, high-action jet boats take off, shooting down the river with terrified passengers.

Above you, multiple mountains rise tall.

To your left, that harrowing bridge.

Right in front of you, Vacation Hazy Pale Ale, an absolutely jam-packed 5.2% ABV juice bomb rammed with El Dorado, Moutere, and Nectaron. Sunshine in a glass, this hazy pale reminds you that sometimes you just need to sit back, sip, and see the sights. Life is good…especially on vacation in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

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Helper Beer

Helper, UT
Submitted by: John Gross, Next Glass Director, Strategic Business Development

What if I told you one of the best breweries in the country was from the land of the Osmonds? Helper Beer in Helper, UT, has been knocking it out of the park with lagerbier since 2023, and they just took home their first Great American Beer Festival (GABF) gold for Schloss Tor in one of the largest categories: German-Style Pilsener.

They produce ~700 bbl a year, and when it comes to the 10-bbl brewhouse, it’s a one-person show: owner and headbrewer Jaron Anderson.

The portfolio is well-rounded with IPAs, stouts, and a 9% ABV tart beer, but lager is where the heart is and where they are getting more and more attention.

Located about 110 miles from Salt Lake City, Helper is a rural area not on the Wasatch Front (where most of Utah’s population lives), and as a result, it’s helped turn the local community onto craft beer. Anderson previously worked at Templin Family Brewing and Red Rock Brewery, and his former coworkers at Templin are also producing notable lagers for the state.

In addition to world-class lagerbier, the brewery offers stunning graphic design and a tasty food menu with plenty of oily olives, fresh pizza, and creamy burrata (which I’m always a sucker for).

Helper is a standout, carrying the torch from the past generation of Utah giants (Epic, Uinta, Wasatch, and Squatters) and moving the state forward.

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Dimensional Brewing

Dubuque, IA
Submitted by: Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

Do you know which brewery had two beers ranked among the top five highest-rated beers in the first half of 2025?
If you’re in the know when it comes to Midwestern breweries in the U.S., you probably guessed it’s Dimensional Brewing.

Nestled in Dubuque, Iowa (just a chill three-hour drive west of Chicago), Dimensional boasts over 143k total check-ins and a stellar average 4.12 Untappd rating, making it the fifth highest-rated brewery in Iowa (with over 5k check-ins).

Founded by Tom Rauen and Jeff Burds in 2018, Dimensional continues to make waves, crafting the highest-rated beer on all of Untappd for the first six months of 2025—the mind-blowing 4.782-rated Barrel-Aged S’Meeses Imperial Pastry Stout (2025 edition).

With a whopping 348 beers listed on Untappd, Dimensional is crushing it in literally every category. The Iowa crew is super versatile, boasting over 70 stouts, 90+ IPAs, and 100+ sours, all of which are highly rated.

In the first two years of the Untappd Community Awards, Dimensional’s pedigree was on full display, snagging five golds and a total of nineteen medals, firmly planting its flag among the great Midwestern breweries.

Curious about what beers Dimensional currently has on tap? You can check out their current beer list on Untappd.

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Private Landbrauerei Schönram

Petting, Bayern, Germany
Submitted by: Grace Lee-Weitz, Senior Content Editor, Hop Culture

Let’s be honest: We drank a lot of lager when we traveled with Trip’s Beer Trips on our first-ever epic Bavarian beer adventure earlier this year. From helles, kellerbiers, and zwickelbiers to landbiers, vollbiers, and everything in between, we drank our way across the lager-loving region of Germany.

After lapping in the lager luxury for a week, Schönram still stands at the top of our charts as one of our favorite breweries on the trip.

Funny story: We actually learned about this brewery while in Australia. 🤷‍♀️ A conversation with KAIJU! Beer Founder Nat Reeves, who sported a Schönram hat during our entire time checking out the Australia hop harvest courtesy of our friends at Australia’s largest hop producer, HPA, told us this brewery changed his life.

So when we happened to be in the neighborhood, we asked Reeves if he could connect us. His reply: You’re in for a treat, I’m so jealous!

Boy, was he right.

To get there, we took a short train from Salzburg, Austria, which dropped us off at a station in the German countryside. From here, it was anybody’s guess whether a somewhat mysterious bus would show up (even some local police in the parking lot couldn’t give us a straight answer). But lo and behold, a red van pulled up right on time. After confirming with the driver that we were heading to Schönram (and by confirm, we mean a series of non-commital grunts and shrugs), we climbed in. Roughly eight minutes later, he dropped us off at an intersection, Braustubel Schönram looming before us.

Founded in 1780, this 245-year-old brewery was built on tradition but thrives on progress, an ethos you’ll find in the brewery’s guiding principle, “Tradition and progress, well united.”

Which is why you shouldn’t be surprised to find a Wyoming native and Weihenstephan alum at the helm. Schönram Brewmaster Eric Toft started at the brewery in 1998, settling in for a couple of years before putting his mark on the beer.

“The beer was perfect for me. It was just fine as it was, and there was no reason to rush anything,” shared Toft, who eventually started tweaking the recipes and developing his own relationships with hop farmers as past contracts ran out.

Raw materials are where Toft shines. He talks about barley and hops like they’re his own children, each variety unique, different, and needing its own style of parenting. Toft went to hop harvests, became friends with farmers, and really nurtured the ingredients in Schönram’s beers.

Those small changes over time took Schönram from a little local favorite to a place of lore, a hidden gem amongst the craft beer community. It’s an IYKYK type of brewery.

Even today, there’s a massive mural in the brewery with both the Bavarian and American flags, honoring Toft’s impact on the brewery. (Editor’s Note: Toft now resides in Brussels full time. He is still involved in Schönram.)

If you drink just one beer at Schönram, make it the Schönramer Hell.

There are a few things Schönram does to make this beer stand out.

While Schönram Deputy Brewmaster and Head of Quality Assurance Tobias Kohrs won’t tell you precisely what hops go into this beer, or “as our first brewmaster used always to say, I could tell you, but I’ll have to kill you,” he could share that they’re all typical traditional German hops from either Hallertau or Tettnang. Do with that what you will.

Schönram Senior Brewmaster Eric Toft, whose care and devotion for sourcing the right raw ingredients in Schönram’s beers is unparalleled, expands a little further, noting they only use aroma varieties from four hop farms, with three hop additions at fifty, thirty, and fifteen minutes.

The result is a helles that’s slightly hoppier than others in the area, but “the drinkability is there,” says Kohrs. “It’s not sweet in the mouth, and combined with the bitterness, you still have the thirst to drink another one.”

A blend of slightly under-modified winter and summer barleys provides the base for the helles, which goes through a single decoction to coax out a little more character and flavor.

Schönram also openly ferments its lagers, hand-skimming resins off the top throughout fermentation. They believe this process removes unwanted compounds from the beer, focusing solely on the bitterness they want. This isn’t by any means a new practice in the region, but Toft says they are one of just a handful of breweries still doing it. In fact, Schönram’s newest cellar is a bespoke design, combining five large 450-hectoliter open-fermentation vessels with an automatic cleaning system.

The helles then spends between thirty-eight and forty-nine days lagering in horizontal tanks, which is what Toft calls the “sweet spot” for Schönram’s best-selling beer.

“It makes a huge difference to have proper maturation,” explains Toft, who says his obsessive-compulsive tendencies to tweak things when it comes to brewing have benefited the helles.

“I’m actually never happy,” Toft says with a small smile. “If I think my beer is perfect, then I have a problem. I should probably stop because … you should always be thinking about a way to make it better.”

Well, we think Schönram’s helles and Schönram itself are pretty perfect.

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Wondrous Brewing

Emeryville, CA
Submitted by: Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

This Bay Area-based brewery returns to the Juiciest, first making an appearance as a brand-new brewery on our ““Best New Breweries of 2021” list!

The Bay Area beer scene is one of the best in the country, but there’s one brewery that continues to blow my mind every single time I visit, and that’s Wondrous Brewing.

Wynn Whisenhunt, the founder and head brewer, has an impressive brewing background, professionally training in Germany before making his mark with NorCal legends like Sante Adairius and Lagunitas.

When you sip on Whisenhunt’s creations, his extensive experience shines. Whether it’s lagers or barrel-aged brews, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything on the draft list that doesn’t blow your mind.

The competition in NorCal is tough, but Wondrous rises above the rest thanks to consistently outstanding performances across all styles.
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New Trail Brewing

New Trail Brewing

Williamsport, PA
Submitted by: Aaron Keefner, Brewery Solutions Consultant, Next Glass

A brewery built for the outdoors, New Trail Brewing Company, whom Brewbound recently announced as its 2025 Craft Brewery of the Year*,” has been blazing new trails in Pennsylvania.

It’s right in the name. “We don’t want to be the old trail,” laughs New Trail Brewing Marketing Director Don Rieck. “[New Trail] is about finding your new path.”

Initially started by Dave Hertwig, Charles Imbro, and Tony Ecker, New Trail is more than a brewery; it’s an outdoor recreation brand. The co-founders wanted to “make beers that they wanted to drink while doing the things they love to do,” says Rieck.

The Williamsport, PA-based brewery makes beers geared specifically for anything you do under the sun, literally. “The beers we craft are meant to be your sidekicks when you go out and do whatever it is you like to do,” says Rieck. “That might be hanging out in the backyard with a bunch of friends around a fire pit, rock climbing, something really extreme, and everything in between.”

He continues. “These beers are meant to ride along with you and be perfect complements to your adventure.”

Like skiing, running, gravel cycling, and fishing, among others. “We wanted to create great beer and draw people to visit us, drink beer, and use the area around us,” says Rieck, describing Williamsport as “a city, but we’re just five minutes from the middle of nowhere—undeveloped land.”

For instance, Broken Heels. The flagship hazy came from New Trail Director of Brewing Operations Mike LaRosa, who brought some serious hop game with him from previous stints at Kane and Tired Hands.

Initially planning to brew this beer every two or three months, LaRosa honed the recipe. “Even from the beginning, we wanted to make the best beer we could,” says Rieck, noting they still hold to the original recipe today. “We made this really, really excellent beer.”

Packed with hand-selected Pacific Northwest Citra and Mosaic hops, Broken Heels drinks orange-forward, “maybe with a little bit of citrus rind and pine,” shares Rieck. The New England-style IPA finishes dry, with a classic haze that’s just damn delicious.

And we’re not the only ones who think so.

Broken Heels took off so quickly that New Trail now brews it up to seven days a week.

Named after an adventuring accident that left New Trail Co-Founder Imbro with two broken heels, the brewery’s first flagship “was a survival of the fittest,” says Rieck. “Everybody wanted that beer, and they wanted to drink that more than anything else we made.”

Just when you think New Trail has grown as much as they can, they open a new market and continue to grow in the markets where they already have distribution. They are truly pushing themselves to be the craft brewery that can play with the big kids, especially with their variety, 12-pack offerings, and 19.2oz cans of the Broken Heels IPA and Crisp lager series.

If that weren’t enough, you can find 15-packs of the Crisp series, matching prices of regional and national hitters like Iron City, Sierra Nevada, and Lagunitas.

*Editor’s Note: Brewbound and Hop Culture completely separately and independently named New Trail to its respective lists of best breweries of the year

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Track Brewing Company

Manchester, England
Submitted by: Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

Our most recent adventure took us to Manchester, England, the final stop on our recent European escapade. This city, famous for producing some of the globe’s top musical talents, now rocks a booming craft beer scene, including Track Brewing.

Track Brewing’s rise to fame has been long and winding, much like Founder Sam Dyson’s epic cycling trek across the States and the world, which inspired him to launch a modern craft brewery.

For the past ten years, Track has carved out a place among the European craft beer elite, crafting some of the most sought-after beers. Nearly every style is represented on their draft board and done expertly. Their taproom has a serious vibe, and the pizza on-site is so on point!

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Alvarado Street Brewery

Monterey, CA
Submitted by: Dustin Jeffers, Vice President, Brewery Product & Experience, Next Glass

California has no lack of top-tier breweries, and Alvarado Street Brewery proves year after year that it belongs on that list. They have become synonymous with creative branding, clean execution, and world-class IPAs. The team had another banner year in 2025, taking home three medals at the World Beer Cup—gold for Howzit Punch, silver for Contains No Juice, and bronze for Gold Label Mai Tai. Would it be a beer competition if Mai Tai didn’t win a medal?!? Simply put, they’ve built a decade-long run of consistency that most breweries would only dream of, and in 2025, they proved they are still one of the best in the game.

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