The Highest-Rated Stout in Every State (2024)

Hey, I'm hoping that the author is a BA member, or at least reading our feedback, so that she might take my comment as motivation to take a step farther for next year's list. Dream on, right?

 

I don't use UT but my wife does, so I have a basic knowledge about the site. I thought they were better than that. I'll revise my "moderate amount of research" statement above to a lot of research.

 

I installed the Untappd app this morning based on some comments in this thread (specifically this one, I believe, from @AlcahueteJ) about how many ratings it has. I played around with it a little bit but did not create an account—so maybe that makes a difference in terms of what I can see. But all I can say based on 5 minutes scrolling through ratings for Parabola 2024 is that UT might be wide, but it also sure seems shallow. Twitter for beer. BA is a more familiar platform, of course, but if I want to know what people liked or disliked about a specific beer I need more than a sentence or two. UT just seems cluttered and low on useful information—which is probably perfect for its target demo, which is apparently 20 to 30 years younger than me.

 

Double Stack
Score: 99
745 ratings

Matryoshka
Score: 95
84 ratings

Gonna take a lot more ratings for Matryoshka to supplant Grape Lotion. Looks like we have our work cut out for us.

 

Fair Rating. Nothing really trumps CBS in MI.

 

One of my local places with many taps has 2019 CBS available now. I'll have to ask them whether they hoarded it or if the the distributor did. Or I suppose Founders might have done so and maybe they have released more of them into distro.

 

I filtered for top beers overall (since there's so many stout categories), beers in production, and then specifically for MA.

I scrolled down until the first stout appeared, and that was what I saw. Could totally be wrong though, I'm not an Untappd expert!

 

I think there's a wide age range who uses it. I'm in my 40s and know quite a few people who use it.

The strength is, you're likely to find ratings for just about any beer out there, where on Beeradvocate you might not even find it. Moreover, if you do find it on Beeradvocate, there will be a very low amount of ratings.

Think an article ranking an item with lots of detail describing pros/cons vs. Amazon ratings.

I'm also not sure if Untappd uses an algorithm that weights rankings like Beeradvocate does.

 

I'm not sure if it sold out at the brewery yet or not, but the 12oz cans is the way to go with these. The 25.4oz bombers were too hard to finish on your own. 12oz is an easy sipper.

I can't say its the best in the state, but Trickery doesn't disappoint.

 

Even offerings from Wax Wings?

 

Hmm, should the BA slogan be:

 

I was at a local beer hall/sports bar the other day and was noticing how many people were checking in beers live during the Patriots game. A LOT of people use Untappd!

 

We are pretty far off topic on the Untappt tangent so I’ll try to keep it brief.

Re: badges: “Untappd badges are like Pokémon Go for beer fans; they’re cool digital beer collectibles … It’s a treasure hunt inside Untappd that’s already happening.” Enough said.

Re: check-ins: I have no use for this either. Review a beer once then walk away.

Re: number of ratings: It’s quantity vs. quality. If there were more depth and nuance to UT ratings they might be more useful, but without that it’s just an aggregate of a lot of somewhat meaningless numbers. Most new beers I try are local NW beers, and they may never get more than a handful of ratings—but I know who the reviewers are (based on their other reviews) and I generally trust their judgment.

It seems Untappd might be more useful for people who drink a lot of their beer on tap (hence the name), and that’s usually not me. So I’m not knocking it per se, just saying it doesn’t seem to complement my beer drinking habits.

 

I use it to keep track of what I've tried and to see what breweries I should seek out based on the ratings.
It's not tried and true, but I know I prefer the stout profile of Side Project compared to Equilibrium or Mortalis. A 4.5 Side Project rated stout will be worth chasing more than the NY breweries I just mentioned.

 

I think a list like this would be more interesting if you just included ratings entered this year

 

100%. Certainly more variability year over year as well. But this would require the author to do more than 10 minutes of work then.

 

Maybe Founders sent kegs out into your area in an attempt to pickup business. It's an eye-opener beer, and could get people trying their other stuff. Have you ever had it?

It's not an annual seasonal (2019 was the last time they brewed it), and I don't recall the exact wording they used when they stopped releasing it annually, but it was something to the effect, 'we're retiring it, but we'll brew it whenever the timing is right.'