USA #1 in beer?

These are the people you will get a straight answer to you question from. Perhaps you should ask them. People truly interested in "craft" will inevitably tell you that beer is not a competition.

 

Things I read here about special release days and beer truck itineraries may suggest otherwise.

 

No other country has as big and as good of a variety of well made styles and examples.

 

I don't think you understood my point, but we can move on

 

I think what he is referring to is the fact that a lot of imported beer, especially of time-sensitive styles (helles, pilsner, bitter, alt, etc) gets to America in very different shape than when it was bottled across the ocean. For a lot of beers, its impossible to get it fresh, due to logistical, time, and geography constraints. And the vast majority of beer is best enjoyed fresh.

I really do think a lot of the "country homerism" apparent in threads like this is because someone, in the respective country they are from, is drinking the best representation of beer made by breweries near by, and when they drink a old bottle of beer from another country, they are clearly not going to like it as well as the fresh beer they can get in their town.

 

How many times have you read something like this on this site?
Beer X (American) is a stellar example of the (X) style, but doesn't compare to the original brewed in X (European) brewery?
Put in almost every style except AIPA, and Barrel aged stuff and I'l bet it's hundreds of times

 

See @GreesyFizeek 's post above

 

Someone asked earlier what I thought were the biggest gimmicks and/or worst things about "craft" culture. This -- and the hoarding/trading/hyping scene that comes with it -- is my answer. Other gimmicks include, but are not limited to, basic blonde ales called "Koelsch," brown ales called "Alt," sour ales called "Berliner weisse," and wheat ales called "Bavarian Hefeweizen." You can attach a cool, "new" name to your old junk all you want, doesn't change the poorly crafted beer underneath.

 

I would say without a doubt but there are brewers in the uk such as brewdog siren Buxton kernel et al who are catching up

 

Agreed, which would put the number of "US is best" or "US version of style X" is best, in the thousands. Just have a read through this thread for evidence.

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that's why us is number one for me, because beer like black Tuesday exists and is amazing.

 

I believe it's certainly possible for beer transportation to become more advanced, but I can imagine it's gotta be hard to ship something in fresh condition across the ocean, unless its refrigerated the whole way. It can't be cheap to go that route. It's hard enough for me to get fresh versions of California IPAs in New York- I've only ever seen Union Jack/Double Jack fresh here once in good ol' Western New York. At this point in time, and probably for a while, the best way to experience imported beer is to go to where it is made.

I hope you realize that I am in no way putting down American's contributions to the beer world with my comments in this thread. I think we are an amazing country when it comes to beer, in many ways, I just believe that we are one of many countries that should be recognized as well.

 

You wont for the same reason you can't buy Pliny or Heady Topper in your local store. The locals will drink all of it up.

 

Maybe you should go look at the beers of fame list and notice that the top beers that are not either hop foreword IPAs or Barrel Aged stouts or American Wilds are all European (Tens of thousands of opinions)

 

Competition is a good thing. No doubt about it. But it can have negative side effects, because as great as the concept of an open/free market is, it basically turns "makes the most money" into a surrogate for "best". In this equation, good things fail, simply because they didn't sell for reasons that may not have anything to do with their level of quality. I'm sure most beer drinkers who've been around the scene for long enough can name a beer or two that is no longer produced that they miss. In a competitive environment, things like Celebration Ale succeed, but things like Tumbler fail.

But perhaps more to the point, just because there is competition doesn't mean there has to be a winner. Having a winner implies a sense of finality, and as far as I'm concerned, the best type of competition is indefinite, where the participants continually compete to get better and better, driving their competitors to do the same. To that end, we could re-frame your original question and ask "[insert brewery] #1 in USA beer?"

Is it Sierra Nevada? Stone? Founders? Boulevard? Hill Farmstead? Russian River? Odell? Deschutes? Cigar City? Westbrook? Who is #1? How do we measure it? Most variety? Highest sales? Highest average ratings on BA and that other beer site?

I don't know who the winner is, but I do know that the existence of the 3,000+ breweries in the U.S. in perpetual competition to be the best they can be, and we as the beer drinkers are the beneficiaries.

 

I consider the US to be the best country for beer and have for awhile. I travel a good bit and have lived in various countries, including Belgium. Other countries have amazing beer, but they typically stick to a handful of styles and usually are the best in the world in those styles. But that's the majority of what you can get there. In the States, you can usually find that beer, American takes on the style, and then everything else the States have to offer. My non-American friends always bash the States for its beer. And then they actually visit.

Cantillon is one of the beers you can't really find in the States, as we all know. And it's fantastic - the king of spontaneous fermentation. Being fortunate enough to have lived blocks from the brewery, I've consumed more of it than I'm guessing 90%-95% of this website. I'm going to be honest, it's still my favorite, but the American sours are catching up. Not quite there yet, but they're not far behind. Same goes for Quads and the like. But then the States have so much more, on top of this. And it's constantly growing with a passion that I've only seen here in Paris (where it is too often stifled by unfriendly taxes, centuries wine drinking heritage, and one of the most xenophobic and protectionist cultures in the world) or in Japan with their rapidly developing whiskey culture.

America has the interest (brewers and drinkers), resources, and diversity to expand its beer industry in a seemingly endless fashion. And it has. Belgium has the legends, but my general feeling towards a large portion of the microbrewery culture there was that they're simply trying to make cheap knock offs of the Trappists to sell to ignorant tourists who think any beer from Belgium has to be good. Yes, there are wonderful exceptions (Brussels Beer Project, I'm looking at you), but they are exceptions. They can generally subsist off the reputation built by our dear monk friends and just coast along. French food (particularly Paris) is another example of this; if you aren''t eating at a Michelin starred restaurant, you have a 1/3 chance of dropping $50 on microwaved duck "confit" and a crème brûlée that might as well have come from a pudding cup. The U.S. doesn't have such a reputation and I think it's created kind of a chip on the shoulder of the beer industry, which has led to all the stuff our community cherishes.

As someone else said, shutting off other cultures and creating an "us verse them" mentality is never a good thing. You miss a lot of good stuff. And this is something that the American beer industry hasn't done. It takes styles from around the world and tries to replicate them, and then modify, tweak, and improve them. Going back to Belgium, the bulk of my Belgian friends are terrible about this. They extol their national beer, ridicule the rest, and then end up only drinking Leffe and Lindemans. I believe both their beer industry and culture have suffered as a result.

I'm typically quite a fan of America bashing (don't talk to me about criminal justice systems, public education, or fried potatoes) but I think beer is an area where a little of the ole' American swagger might be appropriate. But don't spread that around; let them keep the chip on their shoulder.