Describing Stone as a brewery with attitude is a bit like describing a diamond as ‘fairly hard’. Ever since founders Greg Koch and Steve Wagner opened their San Diego microbrewery in 1996, Stone has been shaking things up and causing trouble, with the beer world’s big hitters clearly in the crosshairs. And they’ve made quite an impact.

BeerAdvocate named Stone 'All-time Top Brewery on the Planet'. Twice. Their uncompromising, hop-forward West Coast IPAs are amongst the most celebrated of the iconic style that's taken the beer world by storm, much as lager did for a previous generation. With newly opened breweries in Richmond, Virginia, and Berlin, Germany, those beers are kicking ass on a global stage.

The company's iconic mascot is a suitably arrogant gargoyle, used for centuries to ward off evil spirits. Since 1996, Stone claim, their gargoyle has been used to ward off 'cheap ingredients, pasteurisation, and chemical additives... the modern day evil spirits of beer!' Whether that’s superstition or a true trade secret, the end result is the same. Some of the world’s best beer.