USA #1 in beer?

You're right mate. I'm done here now. US is #1.

 

“I also find that the perception that the U.S. can't do X style as well as the native version is way overblown. There is some bias creeping in…”

A BIG =1 to that.

Cheers to @HuskyHawk !

P.S. Maybe a Bronze Medal for the above post!?!

 

Actually I think you already know. Its for pretty much the same reason I can't find a proper portion of Maroni to go with Weihnachtspunsch or a proper Heurigen outside of Vienna.

And to keep this related to beer, I estimate that those Heuriger are part of the reason Vienna and Austria in general are not better known as a beer brewing place.

 

I am an American restaurant. I do American-style food extremely well.
I also do German, French, Chinese, Thai, and Indian style food pretty well.

The German, French, Chinese, Thai, and Indian restaurants in town do their own specialties extremely well.
They do not do American food or even seem to care to attempt it.

Therefore my restaurant is the best.

Got it.

 

Plus I probably haven't been to the German, French, Thai or Indian restaurants before - just got some lukewarm delivery from them a couple of times, so I really have no basis for comparison, but I'm going to make a big statement anyway.

 

Also, it's not worth going to any of those places to experience their food and culture, because you have had all of those types of food right there in you home town delivered to your door. Now that's variety *and* convenience!

 

How about America's brewpubs

 

Ah yes, AB-INBEV is the number one beer in the world.

 

Um, no you didn't get it actually. In your analogy, the German, French, Chinese, Thai & Indian restaurants do nothing but their singular respective styles on the whole; It's not that they simply don't do American food. German breweries are not making world class ESBs, fruited sours, lambics, etc... They make only world class styles traditional in their culture. And in a discussion about a generality such as beer which is made of dozens of styles, how can you even be in the conversation of best in the world if you only partake in 5% of what the beer world is making?

Also, this isn't a singular brewer as you've pared down your singular "restaurant" to in comparison. It's an entire country of breweries and would be equated to a large selection of restaurants. I didn't say a singular brewery is making all of these vast beer styles amazingly well.

What I am saying is that there is far more high quality diversity and competence of beer styles in the US than in any other singular country in the world, and nobody here has given evidence otherwise. That isn't ignorance; it's awareness.

 

Ever heard the expression "Jack of all trades, master of none"? Quantity does not equal quality. By your logic a brewery like Orval would be among the world's absolute worst.

 

Our obsession with rankings is a needless distraction. Find quality where it is, enjoy it , sing its praises, but we need not say mine is better than yours. Listen, that we are at this juncture in quality beer evolution is amazing to me. We are all very lucky.

 

Definitely a futile argument

It's hard enough to compare Belgium to Germany to the UK without having to compare them to a country with four to thirty times the population and thirty to three hundred times the land area. And that's before you get to different demographics and even political ideologies which can affect beer production/consumption

You might try comparing europe or the EU to the US and you'd find more breweries in Europe still (but with whole countries with next to no beer culture) probably a similar proportion making shite/great beer to the US.

 

In sum, having the ability to take a day trip to a few great breweries and being able to buy quality beer from across the U.S. at the grocery store are definitely things I took for granted when I lived in the States.[/QUOTE]

Well I've traveled extensively in the US (Two year motorhome wander about) and let me tell you there are areas in the US much much larger than Sweden where you will count yourself lucky to find much of anything better than stale Sierra Nevada or Boston Lager. Ever been to North Dakota? or Arkansas? Even here in Beervania Oregon there are large areas that have only a pittance of what is even brewed in this State.

That all said I'm VERY grateful to live here and I appreciate the hell out of my local offerings. But I'm not going to compare my country with Europe and proclaim us better because we make MORE beer or shuffle it around to metropolitan areas better. And I'm pretty sure more than just a few Europeans would feel the same way with good justification about their continent. I'd just say equal but different and leave it at that.

 

No offense, but you still don't seem to be grasping the difference between a singular brewery and a brewing culture in a country as a whole. I didn't say anything about any specific brewery anywhere. Orval may make the best belgian ale, but that doesn't have anything to do with if Belgium is the best overall brewing country...
There is simply more diversity in brewing with high quality examples in the US than anywhere else. You can find 100 quality German Hefs here, 100 quality sour ales here, 100 quality Pilsners here, and on and on. You cannot find comparable quality to that broad extent across the board elsewhere, but of course you will find singular better examples perhaps anywhere.

 

It's not that I "don't get it," it's that I don't accept the comparison. There are too many variables that go into creating, maintaining, and cultivating a national brewing culture that to reduce it to something so simplistic as the number of passable (or not) versions of some arbitrary styles is not only naive, it's basically meaningless.

 

Driven from one side of Arkansas to the other, but I can't claim either Dakota. I'll trade you Belarus and your pick of the Balkans for the Dakota beer selection, though. Just let me keep Montenegro. I'm partial to them for the sake of Negroni jokes.

 

it is number 1

 

See my post shortly after that one: