Craft Beer
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50 free Craft Beer trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Craft beer began as a rebellion. In the 1960s and 70s a handful of stubborn Americans started brewing flavorful beer in tiny batches, at a time when a few national brands dominated every bar. Their idea spread to thousands of small breweries around the world, and it brought back styles that had almost vanished, from hop-heavy IPAs to sour wheat beers. This quiz covers the whole taproom. You will meet the founders and breweries that started the movement, the hops and techniques that give modern beers their aroma, the styles on a typical tap list, and the labels, festivals, apps and trade rules that shape what ends up in your glass. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story behind the pint as you play. It is written for anyone who enjoys a good beer, whether you are putting together a trivia night at a brewery, printing a handout for a tasting, or just testing your own beer knowledge. The questions start with the names most drinkers know and work up to ones that will stretch a homebrewer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Fritz Maytag, who rescued Anchor Brewing in 1965, was heir to a fortune built on which products?
Washing machines
Washing machines made the Maytag family rich, and Fritz used his share to buy a San Francisco brewery that was about to close. His revival of Anchor Steam made him the father of modern microbrewing.
Q 02Which US president signed the 1978 bill that lifted the federal ban on brewing beer at home?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337, which removed the restrictions and excise taxes on homemade beer. Many of the first craft brewers learned their trade as homebrewers.
Q 03Which Founding Father from a brewing family is the namesake of Boston Beer Company's flagship lager?
Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams was Jim Koch's pick for a lager he first brewed in his kitchen from an old family recipe. The beer went on sale over Patriots' Day weekend in 1985.
Q 04Which color of glass gives beer the best protection from the light that turns it skunky?
Brown
Brown glass gives some protection, while green and clear glass give almost none. Light breaks down hop compounds into a chemical very like the one in a skunk's spray.
Q 05Which English beer writer, who shared his name with a pop superstar, hosted TV's The Beer Hunter?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson wrote The World Guide to Beer in 1977, and its way of sorting beers into local styles became the basis for how brewers and judges classify beer.
Q 06Which brewing giant makes Blue Moon, the Belgian-style wheat beer often served with an orange slice?
Molson Coors
Molson Coors owns Blue Moon, which was created by Keith Villa, a brewer at the company's small ballpark brewery in Colorado. The Brewers Association once criticized its labels for not naming the parent company.
Q 07Which Colorado city hosts the Great American Beer Festival, with medals in over 100 beer styles?
Denver
Denver took over a festival that began up the road in Boulder in 1982 with just 24 breweries, 47 beers and 800 attendees.
Q 08What name is given to the refillable jug that drinkers use to carry draft beer home from a taproom?
Growler
Growler may go back to the 1800s, when beer was carried home from the pub in a lidded pail. One story says the gas escaping past the lid made a growling sound.
Q 09BrewDog, the brewer that once sold a 55% beer inside stuffed animals, was founded in which country?
Scotland
Scotland is home: James Watt and Martin Dickie started BrewDog in the fishing port of Fraserburgh in 2007. The 55% beer, The End of History, cost £500 or more each.
Q 10In the beer style name IPA, first used for ales British brewers exported, what does the I stand for?
India
India was the destination: the style grew from pale ales that London brewer George Hodgson shipped to East India Company traders in the late 1700s.
Q 11Which brewery's flagship Pale Ale, first brewed in Chico in 1980, showcases Cascade hops?
Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada was started by homebrewers Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi, who pieced together their first brewhouse from discarded dairy equipment and scrapyard metal.
Q 12Which state is home to The Alchemist, whose Heady Topper double IPA started the hazy beer craze?
Vermont
Vermont is where John Kimmich first brewed Heady Topper, at his Waterbury brewpub in 2004. Its cloudy look and soft, fruity taste are why the style is also called Hazy or Juicy IPA.
Q 13Which small East Coast state is home to Dogfish Head, the brewer of 60 Minute and 90 Minute IPA?
Delaware
Q 21Which nuclear engineer turned homebrewing author founded the Great American Beer Festival?
Charlie Papazian
Charlie Papazian also wrote The Complete Joy of Home Brewing and founded the American Homebrewers Association. National Pie Day, held on his birthday, was his idea too.
Q 22Which British consumer group, formed by four men in an Irish pub in 1971, champions cask beer?
Campaign for Real Ale
Campaign for Real Ale, or CAMRA, began in Kruger's Bar in Dunquin, County Kerry, among drinkers opposed to mass-produced beer. It publishes the Good Beer Guide to pubs that serve it well.
Q 23Which I Love New York logo designer drew Brooklyn Brewery's logo and was paid in company shares?
Delaware is its home, though the name comes from Dogfish Head in Maine, where founder Sam Calagione spent childhood summers. The minutes are how long hops are added during the boil.
Q 14Which flagship beer of New Belgium Brewing grew out of a co-founder's tour of Belgian breweries?
Fat Tire
Fat Tire recalls the bicycle a co-founder rode from brewery to brewery on that trip. New Belgium opened in Fort Collins in 1991 and parks colorful vintage bikes outside the brewery.
Q 15Which Roman naturalist, often credited with an early mention of hops, gives his name to Russian River's double IPA?
Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder wrote about a plant the brewery takes to be hops. Russian River's rarer triple IPA is named after his nephew, and its yearly release has drawn lines around the block.
Q 16The Brewers Association's independent craft brewer seal shows which object turned upside down?
A beer bottle
A beer bottle, flipped on its head, stands for the way small American brewers turned beer upside down. Only breweries certified as independent may print the seal on their cans and labels.
Q 17Which fruit aroma, made by the yeast rather than added fruit, is a hallmark of German hefeweizen?
Banana
Banana notes come from an ester called isoamyl acetate, which hefeweizen yeast gives off as it ferments. The same yeast adds a spicy hint of clove.
Q 18In craft beer, which word describes a lower-alcohol brew meant for drinking several in one sitting?
Session
Session comes from British and Irish pub talk for a long, sociable stretch of drinking. The idea is a beer you can enjoy a few of and keep your wits about you.
Q 19Which technique adds hops while the beer ferments, after the boil, to boost aroma in an IPA?
Dry hopping
Dry hopping happens once the wort has cooled, so the hops give up fragrant oils without being boiled. The DDH on some IPA labels stands for double dry hopped.
Q 20Which creature has glared from the labels of Stone Brewing since its first beers in 1996?
Gargoyle
Gargoyle figures traditionally guard buildings against evil spirits, and Stone calls its own the guardian of its beers. Greg Koch and Steve Wagner opened the brewery in San Marcos.
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser was hired by founders Steve Hindy and Tom Potter, downstairs neighbors who quit their jobs to start the brewery in 1988. Hindy had learned to brew while living in the Middle East.
Q 24Which Colorado brewery began canning Dale's Pale Ale in 2002, when craft beer rarely came in cans?
Oskar Blues
Oskar Blues started as a restaurant in the small town of Lyons and first brewed in its basement. By 2011 about 50 American craft brewers had followed it into cans.
Q 25Which Chicago brewery's Bourbon County Stout was among the first beers aged in used bourbon barrels?
Goose Island
Goose Island brewer Greg Hall made the stout after Jim Beam passed along a couple of used barrels. The brewery was sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2011.
Q 26Which Michigan city, home to Founders Brewing, is known by the nickname Beer City USA?
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids tied with Asheville, North Carolina for the title in a 2012 online poll, then won it outright the next year. Founders is known for stouts such as KBS.
Q 27Which brewing giant bought half of Lagunitas Brewing in 2015 and the rest two years later?
Heineken
Heineken's stake meant Lagunitas, founded by Tony Magee in 1993, stopped counting as a craft brewery, because the definition requires a brewer to be independent of the big groups.
Q 28Which brewery, begun at the back of a San Diego homebrew shop, was sold for $1 billion in 2015?
Ballast Point
Ballast Point grew out of Jack White's Home Brew Mart. Four years after buying it, Constellation Brands sold it to a Chicago-based brewery for what observers put at a fraction of the price.
Q 29Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Pale Ale come from which brewery in Bend, Oregon?
Deschutes
Deschutes takes its name from an Oregon river, and began in 1988 as a small downtown brewpub opened by Gary Fish.
Q 30Which Maine brewery did Rob Tod found in 1995 to make a Belgian-style wheat beer called White?
Allagash
Allagash started with that single beer because Tod saw German and British styles all over America while Belgian ones were hard to find.