Beer, Motorcycles and Cigars — Beer, Bikes and Butts

Always remember and never forget, Budweiser is the number one selling beer in America, meaning that the average American has no idea what a good beer tastes like.  If you poll the readers of a magazine devoted to homemade craft beers, you might reasonably assume you will be polling more educated beer drinkers.  And that is confirmed by looking through the list below, since Budweiser and Coors do not appear.

But here is the problem with the poll.  Assume for purposes of this hypothetical that the best beer in America is made by a micro-brewery in San Diego, California.  What are the chances that in a nationwide poll that the San Diego beer will appear on enough lists to put it into the top 50?  Instead, the beers that appear on the most lists will be the beers that have the greatest distribution and are therefore known to the greatest number of people.  So, while Budweiser and Coors* are properly omitted, the list still favors mass-produced beers.

For that reason, a beer like Out-of-Bounds Stout by Avery Brewing (Boulder, Colorado) — arguably the best stout in the country –appears nowhere on the list, but you see multiple entries by Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada, and Dogfish.  Nothing against these beers, but top 50?  Two of the top three beers are IPAs?  Really?  Arrogant Bastard is the sixth best beer in America?  Really?

And how do you explain that a double IPA, Russisn River’s Pliny the Elder, has been number one three straight years?  Well, sadly, that’s a backlash against the commercial beers.  Budweiser is so watery and tasteless, that some assume a beer on the other end of the spectrum — strong with alcohol and hops — must be what a real beer tastes like.

So, with all of the above explanations and disclaimers, here is the list published by Zymurgy:

1. Russian River Pliny the Elder