Beers of Boise

BEERS

OF BOISE

BY DAVE SOUTHORN

Boise is an incredible beer city, with a wide variety of great places for a pint, each providing unique tastes, views, and connections to the community. If you’re looking for something specific or are in the mood for a tasty adventure, you’re in the right place.

Pucker up

Experimentation and one-of-a-kind flavors are the name of the game at Barbarian Brewing. And one of those styles – sours – is what has made Barbarian a Boise favorite since 2015. Be it strawberries, cherries, peaches, blackberries, and even gummy candies, multiple sours are always on tap at Barbarian’s downtown or new Garden City locations. Check out their rotating dessert ales, which use some of your favorite chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter candies to create some tasty, adventurous brews. Since 1996, Sockeye Brewing has produced some of Idaho’s favorite beers, including the popular Dagger Falls IPA, but the stalwart brewery also churns out some delicious sours on a rotating basis, including the tart Sour Puss and the darker Huggy Bear, which took silver at the 2017 Best of Craft Beer Awards. Keep your eyes out for a planned second 12,000-squarefoot location coming to northwest Boise!

Enjoy the great outdoors

There is nothing quite like patio season in Boise, and few outdoor gathering areas are more popular than at Payette Brewing. Located just off the Boise Greenbelt, the 11,000-square-foot beer garden includes a fire pit for chilly nights, outdoor games, and a food truck – kids and dogs are welcome, too! The space is ideal for events like monthly yoga, a silent disco, or even a temporary pool for a belly flop contest.

Downtown on Broad Street, within walking distance to just about anywhere, Boise Brewing features a cozy patio that lets you enjoy a drink while seeing the city abuzz right in front of you. The brewery isn’t just in a great spot, it is also connected with the community – it is community-owned, with nearly 300 individuals and businesses helping it open in 2014. You can still invest and become an owner.

Part of what makes microbreweries so popular around the country and so special to the communities they serve is that they like to do things a little differently.

Slush cup! / Courtesy Wesstern Collective

Look beyond the brew

And if you aren’t a beer aficionado, don’t you worry, there are plenty of other options at Boise breweries. One big hit in town lies at Western Collective, with its variety of kickedup slushes. From cherry to peach and even prickly pear, they’re a great way to beat the summer heat, especially at the Garden City spot’s hopping back patio in the summer. Grab a colorchanging slush cup while you’re there! With two locations in Boise, Edge Brewing has been beloved for its beer and food options. In late 2021, Edge introduced Off the Clock, canned vodka sodas that come in five great flavors: huckleberry, pineapple, grape, hoppy haze (spearmint, lemongrass, and hop oil), and orange creamsicle.

The brewery also makes ciders, including Wild Fire, which includes notes of cinnamon and habanero.

Get off the clock with Edge Brewing’s canned

vodka soda. / Courtesy Edge Brewing

Take the road less traveled

Part of what makes microbreweries so popular around the country and so special to the communities they serve is that they like to do things a little differently. For Lost Grove Brewing,

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that meant becoming the first Idaho brewery to become a B Corp in January 2022, just one of 19 in the nation at the time. What is a B Corp? It’s a designation given to for-profit companies dedicated to using their business for good in their community. Lost Grove strives for sustainable environmental practices and also highlights a nonprofit one night a month, giving 50% of proceeds, plus $2 per beer that month from a designated tap.

In northern Idaho, Wallace Brewing is an integral part of the community, located in an old hardware building in the historic mining town and naming its beers to reflect that history, like 1910 Black Lager, which recognizes a fire that destroyed nearly the entire city. Wallace’s distribution has expanded across southern Idaho in recent years and can be found at retailers around Boise or online.

Eugene, Oregon-based Ninkasi Brewing (named after the Sumerian goddess of beer) has become a favorite in Boise with its IPAs, lagers, but also the brewery’s course purpose: Perpetuate Better Living. Through Ninkasi’s Beer Is Love program, it has provided beer donations to Boise nonprofits for community events, primarily groups that support women, equality, recreation, the environment, and the arts.

Catch a show

Want a little entertainment while you have a pint? One of the area’s newest breweries, Twisted District, has you covered. The family-owned brewery and restaurant (which focuses on an array of hot dogs and bratwursts) opened in Garden City in late 2020 and has made a key part of its weekends highlighting some local talent. Friday nights are comedy nights, while on Saturday nights, local musicians take the stage for some live music.

At Boise’s oldest brewery (since 1992), Highlands Hollow has made local music a draw for patrons every Wednesday night. The welcoming interior – with rafters that originally were part of a stadium at Boise State – includes a fireplace, harkening a winter lodge with vintage beer cans, coasters, and signs adorning the walls throughout.

Swallow a rainbow of beer samplers at

Twisted District. / Courtesy of Twisted District