Beer City USA 2013 Final Result

It seems that whoever "wins" these polls is whoever does the best promoting on social media or locally in order to pad the vote. I'm not saying Grand Rapids isn't a great beer city, I just can't get behind these types of contests.

 

I'd have to say the title should be "Beer City Michagan" since 54% of the 50,000 votes came from Michigan.

 

Yikes! I don't want to offend anyone on BA, but some of the cities in the top-ten list are a joke!

 

I'm offended. Now, buy me a beer.

 

Why? I didn't actually mention Jacksonville by name.

 

Congrats Grand Rapids!

 

The people in San Diego had more important and/or fun things to do than take part in that poll.. Michigan has some nice brews, but let's not get carried away lol

 

LOL

 

There's always a certain amount of butthurt about this. Very typical reactions:
1. it's only a social poll and doesn't mean anything (reply #1)
2. the list of choices was incomplete/disagreeable (reply #4)
3. we're better but we're too cool to participate (reply #7)
I guess we can shut this thread down!

No seriously, all of the above replies are very valid. It is only a social poll, there's always gonna be a better list to choose from, and some folks will always claim they'd have won if they had just shown up.
Fact is, this is meant for fun, and to give a city a chance to try and use it for marketing purposes. And it works. Asheville has capitalized on the Beer City designation quite a bit, and it brings in tourism, money to the local economy, and national notice of a growing beer scene.
We all think we could do it better, but Mr. Charlie's the only one doing it!

 

I "Like" lots of breweries on Facebook and I'm prety sure Founders is the only one that encouraged voting.

Having grown up in Michigan and swearing I would never live there again I would have voted for San Diego. Or Portland. Or Bend.

 

This is mainly a poll for bragging rights, however, the economic impact that this has had on the GR area in the last year and will have in the forthcoming year cannot be understated. Asheville rode it pretty hard for several years and did very well for themselves. I expect we'll do the same.

 

White flame,hopcat, pike 51, perrin,vivant ect... all had it on their facebook.

 

Glad to see GR on top. That being said, the poll results are laughable. There are only a limited amount of places in the country that really incubate a beer city. Grand Rapids has a few amazing/world-class breweries (a ton of lesser known as well), a proactive homebrewing community, abundance of stores that support and stock craft beer, and an overall acceptance that beer is "better."

I would assume (never visited) that Asheville is much like this.

 

Pretty close, but Asheville has no stand-out breweries. I've lived near and visited Asheville since I was a kid, and all the city has going for it (beer-wise) is the acceptance, promotion and availability of good beer. No world-class beer is brewed there. (YET, and even then, not actually IN Asheville.)

 

There was no "we" mentioned in reply #7 (notice the Texas location), or anyone butthurt. That was me making fun of that list. I don't take any of these lists seriously at all because they're typically ridiculous. This one is no different. San Diego not even in the top ten? That's a joke

 

Grand Rapids is home to the top rated beer bar (Hopcat), top rated beer retailer (Siciliano's) and third rated brewery (Founders) in the country. Never mind the fact that Founders has 9 beers in the BA top 250, more than all of the offerings combined from Oregon and North Carolina.

This is a very dumb competition because it is a social media poll, but using the eye test alone and a little well reasoned judgment should bring you to the same outcome as the competition.

 

I can't comment on 7/10 of these since I've never been to them. However, I have been to Phoenix-Tempe-Scottsdale and I can say with certainty that should be #1 on the list.

I mean, picture yourself sitting on the patio at SanTan brewing. It's a beautiful 110 degree day in late April and there's not a hit of wind. You're sipping on a Sex Panther Porter, upon which BA users have bestowed the high honor of a "good" rating, while daydreaming about all the great brews you'll be sampling from one of the six or seven worthy establishments in this gigantic metro area during the next 6 months of blazing heat.

 

Exactly, I feel sorry for Garret Ellison, the guy assigned the task of having write about the survey as though it wasn't a complete joke.

 

Right. My oversight. Let me fix that:

3. we're they're better but we're they're too cool to participate (reply #7)