Top 50 U.S. craft breweries

Just an awful list.

 

THANK YOU! jesus christ almighty these people must do literally no research before they compile these lists

 

Okay, I know BAs love to hate these lists, but that's ~50% of what this site's about, right?! Plenty of notable omissions (GI?!?!?!) But my bias is satisfied, as I think all the notable Colorado breweries are represented (although I certainly question the order). Anyway, worth throwing it out there to see how quickly this list can be thoroughly discredited/dismantled.

http://www.thedailymeal.com/50-best-craft-breweries-america-slideshow

 

And if you can't stand clicking through a bunch of slides...

#50 Devils Backbone Brewing Company — Roseland, Virginia
#49 Cascade Brewing Company — Portland, Oregon
#48 Short’s Brewing Company — Bellaire, Michigan
#47 Jack’s Abby Brewing Company — Framingham, Massachusetts
#46 Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery — Athens, Ohio
#45 Fat Head’s Brewery — Middleburg Heights, Ohio
#44 Sixpoint Brewery — Brooklyn, New York
#43 Stillwater Artisanal Ales — Baltimore, Maryland
#42 Surly Brewing Company — Minneapolis, Minnesota
#41 Dark Horse Brewing Company — Marshall, Michigan
#40 Sierra Nevada Brewing Company — Chico, California
#39 Maine Beer Company — Freeport, Maine
#38 HooDoo Brewery — Fairbanks, Alaska
#37 Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales — Dexter, Michigan
#36 AleSmith Brewing Company — San Diego, California
#35 The Lost Abbey — San Marcos, California
#34 Anchor Brewing Company — San Francisco, California
#33 21st Amendment Brewing — San Francisco, California
#32 Crooked Stave — Denver, Colorado
#31 Evil Twin Brewing — Brooklyn, New York
#30 Flying Dog Brewery — Frederick, Maryland
#29 Great Lakes Brewing Company — Cleveland, Ohio
#28 Hill Farmstead Brewery — Greensboro Bend, Vermont
#27 Odell Brewing Company — Fort Collins, Colorado
#26 Green Flash Brewing Company — San Diego, California
#25 The Bruery — Orange County, California
#24 Ballast Point Brewing Company — San Diego, California
#23 Boulevard Brewing Company — Kansas City, Missouri
#22 New Glarus Brewing — New Glarus, Wisconsin
#21 The Alchemist — Waterbury, Vermont
#20 Brewery Ommegang — Cooperstown, New York
#19 Allagash Brewing Company — Portland, Maine
#18 Great Divide Brewing Company — Denver, Colorado
#17 Victory Brewing Company — Downingtown, Pennsylvania
#16 Epic Brewing Company — Salt Lake City, Utah; Denver, Colorado
#15 Prairie Artisan Ales — Tulsa, Oklahoma
#14 Southern Tier Brewing Company — Lakewood, New York
#13 Deschutes Brewery — Bend, Oregon
#12 Avery Brewing Company — Boulder, Colorado
#11 Firestone Walker Brewing Company — Paso Robles and Buelton, California
#10 Three Floyds Brewing Company — Munster, Indiana
#9 Oskar Blues Brewery — Longmont, Colorado
#8 Cigar City Brewing — Tampa, Florida
#7 New Belgium Brewing — Fort Collins, Colorado
#6 Lagunitas Brewing Company — Petaluma, California
#5 Bell's Brewery — Kalamazoo, Michigan
#4 Dogfish Head Brewery — Milton, Delaware
#3 Russian River Brewing Company — Santa Rosa, California
#2 Stone Brewing Company — Escondido, California
#1 Founders Brewing — Grand Rapids, Michigan

P.S. I disagree with all of these.

 

Only 2 from the PNW...wtf!!!

 

Three if you count HooDoo. But for me, the fact that they included them, but left off Anchorage, invalidates this entire list.

 

Agreed

 

Good for DFH...despite them coming out with a bunch of weird one offs lately, they have a lot of solid year round beers that are awesome.

 

0 in the Seattle metro area....who wrote this list/article? Probably some jackass from Denver still pissed about the Super Bowl!

 

Another stupid "best" list

 

Thank you! I really hate when sites use that to get more hits.

Certainly disagree with the order of the list, but some of my favorite breweries are on there.

 

"lately"?

 

Green Flash at #26, ahead of:

Hill Farmstead, #28
Alesmith, #36
Maine Beer Co, #39
Sierra Nevada, #40

Bwahahaha, most lists are bad, but this is comical.

 

Surprised there haven't been any angry people from Iowa commenting yet

 

I consider myself far from being any sort of "expert" on craft beer (just a loving consumer), but considering that there are only a couple breweries on the list that I'm not familiar with it seems to me that the "expert" panel that summarily dismissed over 96% of breweries as not ever worthy of consideration stuck with more well known entities. Now you put it up for a vote to the people who follow your website and again you have people voting who may never have sampled anything from the majority of the breweries that made the cut. Bottom line - there are probably 50 great breweries out of the roughly 2900 that missed the cut that many (if not most) of us never heard of due to location/limited production or whatever. Even though I am sure there are significant omissions, I still like reading stuff like this since it often gives me new things to consider.

 

Founbders at #1 and Bells at #5.

Any list that is smart enough to rank Michigan brewers so high, must be dead on with the rest of their rankings.

Michigan holds ten percent of the rankings in this list, this may be the best subjective list yet!!!!

 

I'm going to guess this guy isn't a lager fan. The top 5 leaves a bit to be desired if you are.......especially the top 2.

 

People who know, know. OR and WA have awesome beer. Sadly the craze in CA midwest and NE beers now bc its "hip/new"
Even this southerner knows the NW (including CA) pioneered. I will also throw in CO in the mix just bc I love that state. Stay on the downlow so when I make it up there for a visit there will be more beer for me!

 

or the most biased??

 

Well since biased is a synonym for subjective, sure.