I unfortunately missed very first relaunched Session last month as I was away on holidays. But this month, it’s hosted by Boak & Bailey, with the prompt of what’s the best beer you can drink at home right now.

Let me just say that I’m in an extremely privileged situation.

One, I live in Berlin, Germany, and I can get quality beer for a rather low price in the local supermarket, literally 2 minutes away from my flat. The selection is not super varied, i.e. mostly German industrial pale lagers, but for some choice, we have Spätis, small shops that are open late and sell beer, among other things, and often a greater variety (and at almost any time of the day) than at supermarkets.

Two, I’ve been home-brewing for over 10 years now, with a focus on lager beers in recent years, and I now am experienced enough to brew beer that I consistently like to drink even with a heightened sense of self-criticism (and self-doubt!), and I usually brew the beer styles that I cannot easily get or that interest me from a technical perspective.

Three, I have a beer fridge which I use for storing bottled beer as well as for fermentation and lagering of my home-brewed beer. So I always have a stash of a variety of beers at home.

That said, these are the best beers I can drink at home right now that I chose for each of the categories of privilege:

Supermarket/Späti beers

• The number 1: Augustiner Lagerbier Hell. I mean… it’s Augustiner. Some people may find its slight sulphur note a bit divisive, but it’s a Berlin staple for a very good reason, in a place that previously was dominated by German Pils for decades.
• The contender: Tegernseer Hell. People who like Helles but aren’t as much of a fan of Augustiner usually like Tegernseer a lot. Personally, I sometimes prefer Augustiner over Tegernseer, sometimes the other way around. Either way, both are great beers. Usually, it’s easier to find Tegernseer Hell in Spätis than in supermarkets.
• The wildcard: Wicküler Pils. I consider this beer to be the better Jever. As dry and bitter as bottled Jever, but with a smoother bitterness, and significantly cheaper, too. Former neighbours of ours used to do an annual beer blind taste test among their friends. Wicküler Pils consistently came out as the best by far. That’s how I learned about the beer, and I’ve been a convert ever since.

Home-brewed beers

Just to be clear, since the question is “best beers you can drink at home right now”, I’m not listing my best home-brewed beers I ever brewed, but literally what I have in my fridge at the time of writing.

• The number 1: the 2024 batch of my Czech Dark Lager. It is just sooo good. I wrote about this in late 2022, and even though the 2024 is slightly different, it’s just as good as previous years.
• The contender: my 2024 Kellerbier experiment. Not the freshest anymore, and only very few bottles left, but since the bottles were always refrigerated, it kept well.
• The wildcard: random bottles of Barley Wine that I brewed 5 to 10 years ago and kept in a crate my work room. They’re oxidised, but last time I tried one of them, it was oxidised in a good way, with lots of dried fruit and sherry notes.

Beers from the beer fridge

This is all the weird and wonderful stuff that I keep in my beer fridge. What I have in there was definitely in there at the time of writing.

• The number 1: Krug-Bräu Lager. A insanely drinkable dark lager from Breitenlesau in Franconia. Only a few places in Berlin sell this beer (I got mine from the Ambrosetti beer shop), but when I stop there, I will usually bring one of those back home, and that’s what’s currently in the fridge.
• The contender: Thornbridge Nouveau, brewed in collaboration with BRŁO brewery, a DDH Session IPA. Funnily enough, this was a free sample handed to me at the booth of Totally Naturally Solutions at BrauBeviale last year, as two of their products (hop extracts) were used in brewing that beer (hashtag not an ad). I’m usually not someone who often drinks pale ales or IPAs, but this one was pretty amazing when I had the first of two cans they gave to us.
• The wildcard: Goldfinger Danube Swabian. When Tom Beckmann, who brewed a historic Vienna Lager with malt made by Sugar Creek Malt using some of the historic descriptions of the malting process from my book, handed me a four-pack of that beer last year, I drank three of them and thoroughly enjoyed them, but I just can’t bring myself to have the fourth and last one.