Meet The Team / Joshua M. Bernstein

At 5:30 p.m. on a weekday, there are few places more madcap than New York's Grand Central Station. Packs of commuters skitter up and down the stairs trying to catch trains home. But amid all the hubbub, one room remains a model of serenity: the glamorous Grand Central Oyster Bar, where I arrive last Thursday to drink a beer made with a bivalve.

Tonight, Harpoon Brewery is unveiling the second iteration of its 100 Barrel Series Island Creek Oyster Stout, an elixir bursting with the briny goodness of freshly shucked oysters. Don't blanch. While slippery, salinic oysters and a roasty stout may seem as incompatible as toothpaste and orange juice, these these luxuries are ideal mates. For eons, barflies have known that Guinness goes grandly with bivalves. What Harpoon and breweries such as Flying Fish and Porterhouse have done is ramp up the inherent pairing by tossing oysters and their juice into the brew kettle.

Pop by my Brooklyn apartment, and chances are you'll only find two things to drink: coffee and beer. Those two liquids fuel my mornings and my evenings, and not always in the order that you'd expect.

Yet lately, the line separating java and beer has grown as blurry as my eyes at last call. Brewers have begun blending the a.m. and p.m. quaffs into a deliciously eye-opening hybrid. Don't consider the blend to be Four Loko's successor. Inky porters and chewy stouts naturally possess notes of chocolate and coffee. Adding ground java, either during the brewing process or steeped like tea post-brewing, plays up beer's existing coffee flavors.

As a kid, I was terrified by the horror flick "Killer Klowns From Outer Space." In it, evil extraterrestrial clowns attack a sleepy California town, cocooning residents in a cotton candy–like substance that turns them into slurpable goo. The film was nightmare fuel, and in some ways contributed to a lifelong dislike of clowns.

Thus, you'll understand my apprehension when word wound my way about new Massachusetts' Clown Shoes Beer. "It's kind of a long story," founder Gregg Berman says of the moniker. Well? Basically, Berman explains, several years ago website Beer Advocate ran a contest to name its collaborative brew crafted with Dogfish Head. For the brown ale, which was made with pecan wood–smoked malt, Berman and Co. suggested Clown Shoes. They lost. Wrath of Pecant won.

For years, the words "premium American pilsner" have been oxymoronic, the kind of marketing dribble used to describe Miller Lite and its cohorts of low-cost, low-flavor beer. So color me surprised when I spied a black can of Boulder, Colorado–based Avery Brewing's newest year-round release: Joe's Premium American Pilsner.

See, since 1993 Avery has built its name on bold, uncompromising ales that give your palate the ol' one-two punch. There's the Czar, a souped-up Russian imperial stout; the massively hopped Maharajah imperial IPA; and the burly Beast, a deeply nuanced, rum-esque elixir that can age for more than 10 years. Then there's humble Joe.

When I was a kid, I had a very curious sweet tooth. Sure, I adored a cold Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, but I mainly took my sugary pleasure from offbeat, second-tier candy bars such as the nut-stuffed Mr. Goodbar, crunchy Krackel and those twin coconut treats, Mounds and Almond Joy.

Yet my sweet tooth has waned over the years, replaced by a yen for scrumptious suds. These days, I get my kicks from inky stouts and bitter IPAs, leaving candy bars to kids -- and my girlfriend. But last week, one sip of Hawaii-based Kona Brewing's Koko Brown took me back to eating an Almond Joy in third grade. The brown ale's roasty, biscuit-like flavors were complemented by a tidal wave of nutty toasted coconut. Instead of overwhelming the tongue, Koko drank featherlight. What a delight.