USA #1 in beer?

Lets be fair here, comparing the USA to other European countries makes just as much sense as comparing California to Vermont. In other words no sense at all. Now compare The USA to the Entire European Continent plus Great Britain and Scotland and there you have a fair comparison. Not such as clear winner now eh?

 

Competition in the sense of "local brewery A was making fairly mediocre beer, but since local brewery B opened (who make great beer), they've really stepped up their game" - this is a good thing in beer

Competition in the sense of "my country has more styles and greater production/sales per capita than country XYZ" - not necessarily a bad thing in beer, just completely unimportant as far as I'm concerned, and slightly against the spirit of what good beer is about.

 

We've done it before and we'll do it again!

 

They are number one for me. Haven't had an import that I enjoy as much as black Tuesday. Like crooked stave better than cantillon and 3f.

 

I personally do not view beer style variety as a gimmick. I thoroughly enjoy going to a number of local brewpubs and being able to order beers like:

· Doppelbock

· Rauchbier

· Kolsch

· Dunkel

· Triple

· Dubbel

· Bitter (on cask)

· Berliner Weisse

· Oatmeal Stout

· IPA: American style or English style

· APA

· Brown Ale

· Mild

· Saison

· Wit

· Hefeweizen

· Porter: American style and English style

· Dry Stout

· Russian Imperial Stout

· Vienna Lager

· Czech Pilsner

· German Pilsner

· Etc.

Whew, boy you name it?

Oh, my first Grodziskie (Polish Smoked Wheat beer) was brewed last year by Manayunk Brewpub.

Cheers!

 

I think America is by far the best place in the world for beer right now. By far the most variety, we have your traditional styles done well(Belgians, German, English, even sours), then we have our own takes on those styles IE American IPA, but then we also arent afraid to do some cool experimental shit unlike the Germans (reinheitsgebot).

We are living in the golden age of beer right now honestly, sooo much amazing(but also soo much shitty) beer coming from all over the country.

Like Greesy Fizeek said every country has their thing in beer they are good at, but the reason American beer culture is great is because its a giant mixture of all the best beer cultures in the world! Everyone brought their own styles and techniques over when this country was first coming about and now you have the best of all those beer cultures rolled into one badass beer country.

American beer all the way in my book.

 

Okay, accurate then. WY has over 20 breweries...

 

@premierpro This would be my response to your response of my post
Sure, we have cafes, pubs, and biergartens, but they feel artificial (especially the kitchy British knock-off pubs in the States)...like they're trying to create an atmosphere instead of letting one naturally happen. IMHO

 

Nail.Hit.On.Head

Was about to use Spotted Pig in NYC as a perfect example re: knock-off pub

 

I think my definition of competition is different than yours. Of course competition in the business sense is good- the breweries who make high quality beer at good prices and treat their customers right will prevail over breweries who don't care about their customers, or don't work on making consistent quality beer. And this idea of competition has led to IPA being a premiere style in this country- every brewery is taking a crack at the style- and some breweries have truly made excellent ones.

A good example is Long Trail. They are located in Vermont, a current hotbed for craft beer. Lawson's, The Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, etc, are cranking out high quality, highly desired beer. This competition has led each of them to step their game up. Long Trail Limbo is really easy for me to get, and very tasty, and stands up quite well to other highly regarded IPAs.

There is a different idea of competition that I think is negative. The "we're better than you" ideal is bad for trying and learning new things. If somebody from Germany thought that all American beer was garbage, and that German beer was superior in every way, they might not ever experience the absolute magic that some American breweries can spin with hop forward beers. On the other side of that coin, if somebody in America propagated the whole 'MURICA! thing, how we're the center of the universe and do everything better than everybody else, and only drank American beers, they would never get to appreciate the long and storied traditions of European brewing countries. They would never have the desire to visit these countries, England, The Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, and many others, and soak up their respective beer cultures, and experience everything these countries and the whole world have to offer.

An us vs them mentality shuts people out to most of the world, and that's why I think it's negative.

 

I don't consider those substitutes for the real thing. If you do, more power to you. IMO, most of them are "Czech/German/Polish/UK/Vienna" in name only. If you were to add "American-style" to those names, then I would agree with you.

 

I will be doing just that in 1 months time. I haven't been to Denver, so I'm very much looking forward to it.

 

Which breweries from which countries are brewing ~19% ABV bb stouts that you can compare to? There can't be many out there.

I haven't had a cask mild in the US that compares to anything I've had in the UK. Doesn't make the UK a better country for beer, as there's things on offer in the US (i.e. Black Tuesday) that I can't find elsewhere

 

Please read this back to yourself a few times, then tell me you really meant it

I mean I can see you sitting in a monster truck with a massive eagle painted on the side, typing this into your phone

 

In a perfect world where bottled imports taste exactly the same as drinking the same beer close to the source, then fair enough - unfortunately reality isn't like that

 

Judging from the map, San Diego's completely out of control.

Thumbs up San Diego!