Question About Most Popular Michigan Beer

Oberon would be the Faygo of MI beers by far. Although Soft Parade by Short's may be the panty dropper. Some like Raspberry Ale but that just takes too much time. I prefer to think of Soft Parade as **** in a bottle.

 

Two hearted

 

If this damn website was a little more user friendly, the answer to your question would be as simple as clicking MI brews, and sorting by number of ratings...

but thanks to the ownership of this site, who are dramatically against user analytics, we can not extract the most popular beer in a state. I imagine it ultimately comes down to business decisions, rather than beer-advocacy, which is pretty shitty, considering...

 

You inspired me to do this in Excel. It looks like the highest # of ratings for MI beers (at least those in the top 100 of MI beers) is Founders Breakfast Stout (3,659), then Hopslam (3,432), then Two Hearted (3,408). It's basically the same list if you base it on "Hads" as well, except Two Hearted goes ahead of Hopslam. For reference, Oberon has 1,707 reviews, which is less than a handful of other MI beers as well (KBS, Founders Imperial, Backwoods Bastard, Centennial IPA, and Dirty Bastard).

 

Here is a fun fact. Oberon has 1707 reviews, like @croush stated above. Gumballhead has 1509. But the availability of the former to the latter is ridiculous. Bell's now distributes Oberon to over half the states in the county, while FFF is barely existent in 5 states.

Gumballhead however, shows up at #17 on the Indiana best beers page, while Oberon isn't even on the map in MI. I may be making an assumption here, but I suspect people are reviewing Gumballhead more often just because of how the website presents it.

The bias beeradvocate promotes via its GUI, leads to bias in quantity of reviews, and subsequently contributes to hype of certain beers.

 

Big difference in a national-ish vs regional beer but it's also a seasonal vs year-round beer thing. Also, Gumballhead (can't believe this is actually true) has become a shelf turd. So it's BA popularity also reflects the years when it was more highly regarded

 

I think people don't tend to review Oberon as much because it's more of a "regular" beer (or less hyped, if you will, among the users of BA). Even though KBS may be made less than Oberon, people are more likely to review the KBS because it's more of a special occasion.

 

There are definitely multiple contributors. I'm guilty of it myself, reviewing the rarer treat type beers, part of which is just too see how many of the MI top 100 I can tick...then again that's the only way I can see MI beers, which is pretty lame.

 

Lots of good suggestions.
If you want something only available in MI, shoot me a PM. I'd be happy to get you something and ship it to you.
Shorts Melt My Brain might be something your gf would like - my gf that will not drink beer likes it.

 

Founders Rubaeus. Haven't met a girl yet who doesn't like that beer.

 

No shit

 

hopnado, sometimes I wonder why you aren't called archiebunkerjr. You sure do come across as surly sometime. Keep fightin' the good fight.

 

Yeah, I can be a real dick but I'm always honest...and a real dick

 

As mentioned, Rubaeus is the correct answer.

 

If you're looking for something more exclusive to Michigan, choosing a beer from Short's like Soft Parade would be the best bet (only very recently did they start to distribute outside of Michigan, and only in a few select midwest states). They've always been known as a Michigan brand, and therefore would certainly fit the "how did you know" criteria.

As others have said, Oberon is common and accessible in many states across the country.