Most people buy craft beer based on the label or whatever's trending on Untappd. That's fine, but it's mostly noise.

Here's how I approach it:

1. Learn the brewery, not the beer. A great brewery rarely has a bad beer. Find 3-5 breweries you trust and follow them closely. New England IPAs from a West Coast shop? Pass. Lagers from a German-trained brewer? Different story.

2. Avoid anything with a collab you don't recognize. Collabs are marketing. Some are great, most are a cash grab. If you don't know both breweries, treat it as unknown.

3. Regional beers beat distributed beers almost every time. The moment a craft brewery starts hitting Walmart shelves nationwide, quality control drifts. Freshness matters more than reputation.

4. Style consistency > one-hit wonders. If a brewery can only make one great DIPA but their other beers are forgettable, they're not in my rotation. Consistency is the real flex.

5. Follow the brewers, not the brands. Head brewers move around. When someone good moves to a new spot, that's a brewery worth watching.

That's the framework. Happy to go deeper on any of this — drop a comment.