OT: Top Breweries in America
Slow day and thought others would appreciate checking this out.
2018 Zymurgy’s Best Beers in America Results:
Top Beer:
Bell's Two Hearted Ale - Top Beer Two Years in a Row
Top Breweries:
#1: Bells
#2: Founders
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/best-beers-in-america/
What's your favorite beer on the list?
What's a beer you love that didn't make the list?
Really, what's he-man beer? Bud? Busch light draft? IPA is just a kind of beer. Some live it some don't. I'd say sours are the new "in" thing. Everyone is trying to make them, but alot ate really bad.
Man, if you're going to steal the "IPAs are just Pumpkin Spice Lattes for White Men" joke, at least get it right.
I've never understand the "my beer is better than your beer, this specific category of beer is for assholes" crowd. I drink the beers that I perceive as good. If you're overthinking beer, you don't deserve beer.
If you are overthinking beer, you probably should be drinking wine.
Pollyanna is the best Chicago micro brew
These lists are even sillier than way-too-early preseason football rankings, but it serves as a fine point for launching discussion just the same. Founders is better than Bells, but Bells would be better if they actually bottled the best beers that they make.
That's true of every brewery. I have been to alot of tap rooms. They always have beers that you can't buy in the stores. Breweries bottle things that are marketable to the most people. Niche beers are usually only on tap.
I love both Founders and Bells, but I can't get over that Founders most popular beer is that aweful Rubaeus. Yech.
Founder's most popular beer, by far, is All Day IPA. It's 60% of their total output
Nothing wrong with All Day IPA if you operate heavy machinery and want to drink at work.
Rubaeus? Like the other guy said, ADIPA is their most popular "common/session" beer and KBS, CBS, and many other limited release beers get way more hype than Rubaeus. I live in GR and while Rubaeus is tasty for a fruit beer, it is never THE reason to visit Founders.
I brought Bell's Two Hearted Ale to a monthly poker game. The next month a guy asked me what the beer I brought the last time was. It's a good beer. I still go for a Sol Sun in the summer though. (Oberon)
Bell's & Founders can expand to Colorado anytime now...
the fact that there's nothing from alesmith on this list is nuts. their speedway stout is amazing as is their grand cru. maine beer also makes some amazing beers, which also aren't on the list. i recommend the MO and the lunch. i think ommegang is underrepresented. i recommend hennepin. they rate the alchemist heady topper higher than i think it deserves. it's good, but there are 50 better beers.
I think it's a pretty good list, and skewed toward beers that aren't too hard to get, which I appreciate. Other than maybe the two Tree House beers, pretty much everything in the Top 50 can be bought off the shelf, at least in some parts of country.
Contrast with BA's Top Beers list: only 1 beer in the top 10 isn't incredibly difficult to acquire (Heady Topper) and most of the Top 50 is pretty difficult. Their #1 beer regularly sells for over $1000/12oz bottle.
Neither approach is necessarily right or wrong, but they are doing different things.
Founders Dirty Bastard Ale is underrated at T43rd, imh(umble)o
I prefer Stouts/Porters and Sours to hoppier beers, so CBS is probably my favorite on that list.
I live in the Tampa Bay Area, so I have to say Cigar City Brewing's Hunahpu and Marshal Zhukov's should have made the list.
I agree with the people who basically said the best beers are usually small batch local releases that will never make a national list. My two favorite local breweries down here are 7venth Sun (located in Dunedin, FL and Tampa, FL) and Arkane Ale Works (Largo, FL). Both make amazing sours and aren't afraid to push the limits any given style.
In Michigan, I love Jolly Pumpkin, Oddside Ales and Right Brain as much as, or more than, Founders or Bells. All three are so creative and consistently good.
Southern Tier Oat is pretty fantastic
I've only had like 6 on the list.
Schells brewery in New Ulm MN isn't on the list but one of my favorites.
Pliny the Younger is my favorite on this list.
It is much better than Pliny the Elder, which is #2 overall. PtY is pure nectar. PtE is solid, but I can name fifteen California IPAs I like better.
Modern Times and Fieldwork both have epic brews. Fieldwork sort of does something new every week or so, and changes up its line up so much that it is hard to know what to even put on a list like this.
Founders would be cool if they stopped cutting me off when I go there! I can have 4 dirty bastards if I want to damn it!
I tend to get hooked on Breweries and enjoy exploring their repertoire, so a few of my favorites from the list are:
- Dogfish Head
I'm curious the list includes the 3 Timed IPA's (60/90/120 Minute) from Dogfish Head all made the list which are all very similar and could reasonably rated as a single class, but their Shelter Pale Ale did not, which is my favorite of Dogfish Head. - New Belgium
The Ranger and Voodoo Ranger are couple of righteous IPA's. Glad to see the New Belgium Brewery made the list - they make a really good Belgian Ale called Trippel, and a Pilsner called Blue Paddle. - Founder's All Day IPA is nice when you planning to drink a lot.
- Bell's Hopslam is the bombslam, if you can get it. Fortunately, you don't need very many.
Not from the list but worth plugging:
- DCBrau
The Corruption IPA, The Citizen Belgian Style. Next time you're in DC, you need to try this. You can find it in local pubs, bars and restaurants, as well as in cans at the store, but it's more fun to go for a brewery tour and fill up yer growler, if you brought one.
Beers I love that made the list: Founders' All Day IPA, Ballast Point's Sculpin, Dogfish Head's 90 Min & 60 Mins, Great Lakes' Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, and Creature Comforts' Tropicalia (the best beer in the top 50, IMO).
Beers I don't understand the love for on the list: Bells' Two Hearted and Hoplsam, New Holland's Dragons Milk, and Oberon (it's decent, I just think it's supremely overrated).
Oh and add Oskar Blues' Dale's Pale Ale to the I don't understand list. I love their Pinner, but I hated Dale's Pale Ale.
No beer from Perrin. Hmm..
Can't argue with Two Hearted or Bell's as tops. Drinking Oberon at the moment. I'm shocked the Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin is tied for 49th. That's easily a top-10 beer IMO. But my personal favorite on the list is PseudoSue. That is a damn good beer.
Bottle Logic
Cycle
Side Project
Holy Mountain
Pulpit Rock
Being in Alaska, we have a lot of great breweries to sample from Alaskan Brewing, Midnight Sun, Glacier Brewhouse, 49th State and King Street to name a few.
Though not a local Alaskan beer, I've recently discovered the Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA and it's quickly become one of my favorites. Nice summer beer IMO.
Sweetwater in Atlanta
Cigar City in Tampa
Wicked Weed in Asheville
Bell’s in Kalamazoo
Goose Island in Chicago
If you are in Milwaukee
try Eagle Park Brewery. It’s new but great place and great selection of beers.
I love that I live in the golden age of beer. So many great selections. Gone are the days of relying on garbage beer like Miller, Bud, Coors, and the like.
I've spent enough of my life in SD to love both stone and ballast point. I love stone but its really variations on a theme. I will give Ballast Point this, they have tried branching out in their style and being owned by constellation has been really helpful in me getting their brews more widely than just california
Funky Buddha down here in Fort Lauderdale is my local go to
Ummm. Two Hearted is very basic in the scheme of things. Its a handle in the bar now. Love it but way better imho
Ummm. Two Hearted is very basic in the scheme of things. Its a handle in the bar now. Love it but way better options in pubs now ... its a college beer. imho
College beer? WTF. Or it’s just a really great beer that is extremely popular. I am a beer snob like you seem to be, but Two Hearted is fantastic.
I have walked to Founders. Quite an operation. In my WMU years and since, I have been going to Bell's for over 20 years (gulp).
Come to Grand Rapids. Get a hotel and an Uber, fergodsakes. Go to Founders. It's a temple of beer. Also go to New Holland's Knickerbocker on Bridge St NW, which is also a beer temple. Get to the Mitten on Leonard. Eat the pizza. Go back to Harmony Hall on Bridge. More pizza. Make your way over to Elk Brewing on Wealthy. Hell yeah. Then hop skip to Brewery Vivant on Cherry St. Oh, and we have a Jolly Pumpkin on Bridge also.
Go ahead and split this up over a couple of days. Somehow squeeze in Perrin north of town on your way out or on your way in or whatever the hell you please. Just do this. Chase down the Flying Dutchman if you need more recommendations.
Some of my favorite go-to beers here. Ballast Point Sculpin. Surly Todd the Axe Man. Two-Hearted.
But Zombie Dust. Hoo boy, the liquor store in my town limits it to one six-pack per customer. And it's never available. I know it's a popular "top beer" choice... but there's a reason for it. That stuff is just absurd.
If the Alchemist distributed like bells, Heady Topper would be on the top of this list. If you haven't gone to Vermont and gotten a Heady Topper, put it on you bucket list. They recently built a tap room in Stowe that is very nice.
A case could be made for Short’s and Right Brain to be on that list for top breweries, but that’s just me.