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Editor’s Note: This biweekly column is sponsored by Dominion Wine and Beer (107 Rowell Court, Falls Church). It is written by Garrett Cruce, a Certified Beer Server in the Cicerone Certification Program.

Is there a sound of summer more satisfying than the crack of opening an aluminum can? In one percussive moment, it conjures memories of picnics, grilling or cooling off after mowing the lawn. It’s the container that requires no opener other than your own fingers.

Since 1933, when the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company began shipping their Krueger’s Finest Beer in cans, beer drinking just hasn’t been the same. Of course, those cans required a churchkey to punch holes in the top for drinking, but they heralded a new delivery system for beer.

Though consumers might still associate beer cans with mass-produced, light lagers, there has been a real craft beer movement brewing around the aluminum can.

Oskar Blues Brewery started the trend in 2002 with Dale’s Pale Ale, committing to be a bottle-free brewery. According to craftcans.com Cantastic Database of Canned Craft Beer, there are approximately 508 breweries canning beer in the United States today.

Aluminum has numerous benefits that make it a more attractive container for beer than glass. It effectively blocks out harmful light and air — the seal on a can is tighter than that of a bottle cap. Cans are lightweight and less costly to recycle than glass. And, the durability of aluminum means that breweries lose less beer to breakage in shipping. Not to mention that the can is immensely portable for the beer drinker, too.

Here are several tasty brews that just happen to come in a can:

Oskar Blues Brewery Pinner Throwback IPA (4.9 percent ABV)

This session IPA has “throwback” in its name because it’s so easy to throw them back. It’s a cute joke for a serious beer. The aroma is piney followed by a citrus tang. Grapefruit dominates the flavor. The bitter citrus flavor is so big, that it’s easy to forget that there isn’t much alcohol. This is a delicious and refreshing IPA that doesn’t knock you out. It’s great for an afternoon outside.

21st Amendment Brewery Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer (4.9 percent ABV)

Brewed by the brewery named for the Constitutional amendment that repeal prohibition, Hell or High Watermelon is rather standard — albeit fruity — American wheat.

21st Amendment is better known for it hoppy beers than for malty ones, but they have made a perennial favorite for many craft beer drinkers. This beer starts out as a typical American wheat beer then goes through a secondary fermentation with fresh watermelon. The finished product is a beer that both smells and tastes almost entirely of watermelon. It’s refreshing beer on a hot day and goes well with just about any grilled food. You should be able to find this until late summer.

Maui Brewing Co. Coconut Porter (6.0 percent ABV)

Maui’s Coconut Porter is a favorite of their line-up — the Washington Post named it the champion of Beer Madness 2012. Though it’s the darkest of the beers here, the fact that it’s a porter makes a great choice for a summer cookout.

The aroma is mineral with toast and cocoa, betraying just a hint of the toasted coconut used in the brewing. Chocolate and the bittering of the toasted malt is all over the flavor — I got little of the coconut in the flavor. Regardless, at 6 percent this beer is still going to go down easy with a big flavor that pleases.

Brothers Craft Brewing Drift Session Ale (5.0 percent ABV)

The can that I had was still labeled with their old brewery name: 3 Brothers Brewing Co. After a legal dispute left them with the choice of limiting their distribution to Virginia only or changing their name, they chose change.

Drift falls rightly into a category they created called Weekender beers. I have just one word for this delicious beer — pine. It’s in the aroma and flavor, and it’s what makes this beer a great find. Out of Harrisonburg, Va., Brothers Brewing Co. is only distributing within the state. But, as their name change implies, they aren’t interested in limiting themselves.

I didn’t mention all the great Virginia breweries that use some or all cans, nor most of the other U.S. breweries that do. What is your favorite can of beer? Cheers!

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Editor’s Note: This biweekly column is sponsored by Dominion Wine and Beer (107 Rowell Court, Falls Church). It is written by Garrett Cruce, a Certified Beer Server in the Cicerone Certification Program.

Full disclosure: I have not been a fan of sours in the past. I took on this little challenge as an opportunity to broaden my palate. It worked, sort of.

I tasted four sours: two European and two American. Like with IPAs, American craft breweries have gone to extremes with sours. Where the two Flemish sours that I tried mixed the sweet, maltiness of brown ales with a fruity tang, the American sours were all sour.

Traditionally, sour beers like Flanders reds, oud bruins and Berlinner Weisse were aged in vertical wood barrels, called foeders, where the beer interacted with so-called acidifying bacteria — like lactobacillus — resulting in a souring of the beer. This was desired. European breweries blend aged sour beer or lambics — “wild” beers that use a combination of wild yeast and bacteria for their sourness — with young beer. The result is a beer that still has many of the flavors of a brown or red ale, but with a lactic sourness.

According to The Oxford Companion to Beer, American craft breweries are forging new roads into the world of sours. Dubbed “new world” sours, these beers are as varied as the ingredients that are used in them. One of the beers in this column is inspired by the “old world” sours, but it lacks any of the subtleness of them. The other American sour here uses blood oranges to bring a big citrus tang to an otherwise “old world” style, the gose.

Anderson Valley Brewing Company Blood Orange Gose (4.2 percent ABV)
This is the gose — a wheat beer brewed with salt and coriander. The sourness comes from the addition of lactobacillus and a large number of blood oranges. In the glass, the aroma is reminiscent of sodium bicarbonate — a flat, Alka-Selzer-like scent — with just a hint of bitter orange. The flavor is nearly all sour! You get a big citrusy sourness from the oranges, which tapers off to a lightly sweet biscuit flavor in the finish. This is a refreshing, sessionable beer that will be perfect in the heat of a summer day.

New Belgium Brewing Company La Folie 2015 (7 percent ABV)
This beer makes claims to the long lineage of European sours — Flanders reds and oud bruins. It’s made using a blend of aged sour beers that New Belgium is nurturing. Starting out as lagers, the component beers sour over time in wood foeders. Each one has a different character so that when they are blended you get this complex sour beer. The aroma is tart plum with a hint of the sodium bicarbonate. In the mouth, it’s entirely plum and other dark stone fruit with little to no sweetness, lightened by an effervescent carbonation. This is a strong, funky beer. Alex from Dominion Wine & Beer suggests letting this one age before opening it.

BROUWERIJ ALVINNE Omega Sour Blond Ale (6 percent ABV)
Omega is a Flemish sour beer that uses a blond ale instead of the traditional brown ale in the blend. Alvinne bills itself as a craft brewery in Belgium and it shows in its varied line up of beers. This beer has a fantastic winey and biscuity aroma that hints at the complexity of the flavor. There’s no doubt that this is a sour from the first sip. Starting out strong, the sourness mellows to become fruity right before the sweetness of the malt kicks in. I found the journey from sour to almost sweet made this beer really stand out.

Vanderghinste Brewery Oud Bruin (5.5 percent ABV)
This Flemish brown ale is a sour is made in the Flanders tradition. Originally called “Ouden Tripel,” Vanderghinste gave Oud Bruin a makeover, including a rename, and found success. Oud Bruin is a brown ale that is blended with an oak-aged lambic to create the Flemish sour brown ale. The aroma is of prune and cinnamon apple. The flavor derives from the lambic and from the yeast — tart stone fruit that sweetens in the finish. This traditional sour was actually the least sour of the group. I enjoyed it immensely as a drinkable sour ale. This approachability and the trend toward sours has made the demand for Vanderghinste’s Oud Bruin so great that the brewery has announced plans to expand.

What are you drinking? Cheers!

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Editor’s Note: This biweekly column is sponsored by Dominion Wine and Beer (107 Rowell Court, Falls Church). It is written by Garrett Cruce, a Certified Beer Server in the Cicerone Certification Program.

When I think of a winery that has a vineyard, I don’t picture the usual trappings of a farm. To be sure, a vineyard is not called a grape farm. But if you say “farm brewery,” I absolutely picture the archetypal farm — a silo, a barn and equipment everywhere.

After all, the main ingredient of beer — grains — are field crops.

This brings me to today’s topic, one that has piqued my curiosity as a craft beer lover: farm breweries. Two area breweries operate on the farms that yield most, if not all, their ingredients — Richmond’s Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery and Mt. Airy’s The Red Shedman Farm Brewery & Hop Yard. What these two breweries have in common is a deep connection to the land they work.

Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery (LCCB)

Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery (LCCB) is known as “Virginia’s Farm Brewery” and opened its doors in September 2013 northwest of Richmond in Goochland. It has continued growing its capabilities and offerings ever since. I first became aware of LCCB in 2013 when they grew a large Instagram following with nothing but photos of their first plantings and the construction of their brewery building. It was clear then that this was a unique brewery.

The brewery and its farm are “water-conscious and biologically friendly.” They use well-water and they reintroduce purified waste water back into the Lickinghole Creek watershed. A main aspect of their mission is to begin with the farm for the ingredients they need, then outsource for those that they cannot get. In fact, the Estate Series was created to use as many LCCB-grown ingredients as possible. While their other beers may not be made from ingredients grown on their own farm, they are often sourced from local farms or providers.

I was only able to get a hold of one LCCB beer for this article, but it was an absolute gem!

Their Estate Series Mango-Habanero Brown Ale is a real treat. The heat from the pepper balances well with the tang of the mango. Behind the fruit and pepper is a hoppy and sweet brown ale that shows the higher ABV (8.5 percent) without tasting too boozy. You can get this, and other Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery beers at Dominion Wine and Beer — they often have growler fills in addition to bottles and cans.

The Red Shedman Farm Brewery & Hop Yard

Opened by Vic Aellen in 2014, The Red Shedman Farm Brewery & Hop Yard sprouted on the farm that houses Linganore Winecellars in Mt. Airy, Md. Vic’s brother, Anthony Aellen, runs Linganore, which was opened in 1971 by his parents Jack and Lucille Aellen. The Red Shedman’s canning operation started in late November, allowing them to self-distribute their brews locally.

In order to obtain a farm brewery license in Maryland, a brewery must grow at least one ingredient that they use. The Red Shedman goes one better by growing barley and hops. Though the barley they grow doesn’t provide enough grain for their beer just yet, they are using farm-grown hops in all their beers.

All of The Red Shedman’s canned beers are available at Georgetown Square’s sister store, Downtown Crown Wine and Beer. The standouts among their solid line up are their Pump House IPA and Vanilla Porter.

Pump House IPA is a West Coast IPA that balances piney hops with a pleasantly sweet maltiness. This beer is mash hopped, which instills a vibrant hop flavor without too much bitterness as the hops are not boiled. The result is a very drinkable IPA, with plenty of flavor.

Their Vanilla Porter is a simple and flavorful beer that is suitable for a light dessert or even with creamy cheeses. The bitterness from the black malt balances the warming vanilla to create a memorable experience. I mentioned in my Instagram post about the Vanilla Porter that this was the best one of its kind that I’ve had. That may have been a bit of hyperbole, but you cannot go wrong with this beer!

Do you have a favorite or new farm brewery that you can share? Or have you tried either of today’s breweries’ offerings? Tell us about them. Cheers!

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Editor’s Note: This biweekly column is sponsored by Dominion Wine and Beer (107 Rowell Court, Falls Church). It is written by Garrett Cruce, a Certified Beer Server in the Cicerone Certification Program.

I sat in the cavernous tasting room at Tröegs Brewing Co. pondering the deep golden red of my Nugget Nectar just days after its annual release.

The place was wall-to-wall beer lovers — two men at our table were in town from upstate New York. It occurred to me that this beloved hoppy red ale was a sign that this category of beer (splitting the difference between a pale ale and a brown ale) still has legs. It’s so important to Tröegs that the wall just inside the entrance is decorated with a two-story decal of the Nugget Nectar hop squeezing fist.

In the early days of the American microbrew movement, American brewers used the term “amber” to help beer consumers differentiate this hoppy, reddish ale from paler colored pale ales. Ironically, the earliest amber ales were actually pale ales that matched the darker color of European pales.

American consumers were confused, however, as they expected pale ales to be light in color. The name stuck and became a legitimate category of beer.

The American amber ale is characterized by its balance of moderate to high hop and malt flavors. Typically, amber ales are hoppier (with the piney or citrusy American hops) than brown ales and maltier than American pale ales.

This style has included American red ales, Irish red ales and American versions of the British style, Extra Special Bitters.

More often than not, though, an American amber ale consistently matches the flavor profile above. Below, let’s look some amber ales that run the gamut from the typical, hoppy style to more old-fashioned malt-balanced reds.

Tröegs Brewing Co. Nugget Nectar Imperial Amber Ale (7.5% ABV)

This perennial favorite is a classic example of this style. The hops burst forward in the piney aroma and floral flavor. Malt takes a back seat in this ale, but it’s not overly bitter either. It also lacks the alcohol-derived sweetness of other imperial ales, which makes this a sneaky beer. It’s so drinkable, that you’ll want to be a bit careful with this slightly strong beer. It’s no wonder that this Pennsylvania beer is sought after every year. You can enjoy this anytime.

Apocalypse Beer Works Red Hoppocalypse Imperial Red Ale (8% ABV)

Brewed by the wildly original Virginia brewery, Apocalypse Beer Works, Red Hoppocalypse won the silver medal at the 2014 U.S. Open Championship. I can see why. The aroma of this tasty local beer is a caramel malt that is spiced with hops, very much like a malt-forward imperial IPA. There is a spicy sweetness in the flavor that starts with the sip and continues through after you swallow. The finish is all the more interesting as the black tea-like hop flavor adds a complexity that I wasn’t anticipating. This is one of two of their beers that are currently available in cans, the rest you can only get in kegs.

Terrapin Beer Co. Mosaic Red Rye IPA (6.3%)

Terrapin’s seasonal red is quite the complex beer. On the one hand, it’s an amber, on the other, it’s an IPA — and then there’s the rye. Not to mention the fact that they’ve made it with only Mosaic hops — a newish hop variety that seems to burst with all the major American hop characteristics (floral, piney, citrusy, earthy, tropical fruit and so on). The aroma is on the earthy hop side, masking any maltiness. You really get the complexity of this beer in the flavor: Spicy rye combines with big citrusy hops and a dry malt to create a thoroughly enjoyable beer. These cans won’t be around long, get them while you can.

Three Notch’d Brewing Hydraulion Red Ale (5.3% ABV)

Named after the only fire engine that the University of Virginia’s first fire department owned, Hydraulion is a tribute to Three Notch’d Brewing’s hometown. It’s also like a bit of history itself. Eschewing the hoppy ambers and reds of today, Three Notch’d has made a malt-balanced red ale, truly in the Irish tradition. The addition of the English Golding hops, rather than an American variety means that the hops will be more subtle. Though this beer does not lack hop bitterness altogether, it’s definitely not pronounced. What you get, instead, is a tasty malty brew that is pleasantly offset by a slight hop bitterness around the edges. You can’t go wrong with this 2014 Great American Beer Festival Bronze medal winner for Irish-style ales.

These ambers are now available at Georgetown Square Wine and Beer, but I have a couple more that I have to tell you about.

My first is Laurel, Maryland’s Jailbreak Brewing Co. Infinite Amber Ale, a local amber that nicely walks the line between malt and hops. It’s the very definition of the American Amber Ale. It’s only available on tap — I had it at Georgetown Square’s sister store, Downtown Crown Wine and Beer.

My second must-share amber is New Jersey’s Carton Brewing Co. Red Rye Returning Ale, which combines several American hop varieties with the spiciness of rye to create an immensely quaffable amber that’s full of flavor. I had this at a great little craft beer restaurant in the East Village in New York called Cooper’s Craft and Kitchen. Now, tell me about your favorite ambers. Cheers!

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.