Just something I have been thinking about a little bit lately. I realize that great beers of every style come from all over the United States, but I was curious if people generally associated certain styles with specific regions of the country. This can be styles you think your region does particularly well, or styles you think other people typically associate with your region of the country and the accuracy of those associations. A couple of styles I would associate with the Great Lakes region would be Pale Ales and Imperial Stouts, but that is definitely debatable.
I would say West Coast Sours with the Bruery, Cascade, Lost Abbey, Logsdon Farmhouse Ales and RR turning out some fantastic stuff over the years. And now some other breweries following in their footsteps like Almanac, The Rare Barrel, Modern Times, and now Green Flash and Firestone Walker are getting into the act. I know I have missed some good ones in there but this is a good start. Oh and of course the West Coast style IPA's.
Beer styles are becoming less and less regional. In times past before effective communication and travel communities and brewers were isolated, so they would develop styles that were fitting for the environment and used what ingredients were available to them. Now you can make almost any style anywhere. There's "New England/Vermont" IPAs in California and "West Coast" IPAs in Germany. Baltic porters were made for traveling across the Baltic, etc.
I enjoy the maltier pale ales around the mid Atlantic and personally NJ puts out some really good representations of belgian styles.
