PASTE: The 50 Best American Breweries of the 2010s

In what world does Grimm outrank OH, especially given the fact that although neither have been going a full decade, Grimm have only had a dedicated brewery for a little over a year.

More importantly why is HF not number one?

But to be fair though, there are a lot of hitters on this list

 

Fascinating list, clearly meant to spur conversation (and yes outrage) on sites just like this. Jack Abbey and Founders are brutally low for their impacts, but other than that I can see how they took a holistic approach. I've become a fan of Paste Magazine due to all their beer lists, they seem to do a pretty great job especially on their blind tastes. Hoping they do a top 50 beers of the decade, for that I feel will be much more contentious.

 

It's a list that has some good breweries on it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Yeah having HF at 9 was a bit of a head scratcher, and having SARA at 36 with Rare Barrel at 12 is borderline criminal--those should be flipped. But interesting list overall.

 

Possible reasons:
OH is inconsistent.
OH concentrates on a narrower range of styles.
They're not knocking Grimm for having been an itinerant brewery, just the quality of the beer.
Grimm is better, overall.

This would track with my personal experience and my buddies in NYC who are into such things. None of this is a knock on Grimm and I realize simply by virtue of OH being a hype brewery this qualifies as a Hot Take, but would align.

But I suspect it's simpler than that. From The Article:

"we’ve sampled comparatively fewer of Other Half’s beers than most of the other breweries on this list"

and

"Few breweries ever went on such a pronounced hot streak in Paste blind tastings as Grimm, which once landed three different IPAs within the top 26 of a blind tasting of 247...
So too have they taken home multiple GABF medals for their Double Negative imperial stout,"

So they think they brew better hazy beer than OH and better other beers, generally, and they put that all in the article, and gave some solid reasoning behind it.

Not exactly a mystery for the ages.

 

re: HF

"We’ve still never had a chance to taste quite as many of them as we’d like, but we’ve had enough to possess a deep respect for everything Hill Farmstead has done to elevate the genre."

 

Wasn’t being deadly serious - was more just taking the opportunity to be the first to rant at the latest Paste list

my serious take on OH vs Grimm is that I can totally appreciate why people would prefer Grimm, but a significant part of the criteria seems to be the extent to which a brewery has influenced their local beer community and the broader craft sphere, and had an influence on styles.

living in NYC it would take a pretty compelling argument to change my mind that OH tops Grimm in that regard - OH appear to me to be significantly more ingrained in the local beer culture and general improvement in the (previously very lacking) local beer scene.

 

Grimm's place on this list is insane. I'll be honest, I've never even heard of Austin Beer Garden and I'm a big pilsner drinker. But Maine Beer, which has very limited range stylistically and was passed by Bissell Bros as the "it" brewery in Maine several years ago, being ahead of Hill Farmstead is criminal.

And Oscar Blues is only on this list because they were earlier than most to start canning, right?

 

Paste agrees with you. Again, from the article:

"Today, they are rightly considered one of the East Coast’s finest producers of hazy IPA, with a singular focus on the style that is perhaps slightly limiting, but common in this day and age. There’s no denying that they make immaculate hazies, if that’s what you’re in the market for, but the brewery’s greatest accomplishment is likely the way it pushed so many of the other NYC brewers to up their games in the process."

 

I take it back then

flawless list Paste team. keep up the good work

 

I would rank Grimm's hoppy beers over OHs, but just personal preference. I think the rating nod in the article was because of Grimm's success in diverse styles- hoppy, sour, and stout.

 

Ranking better breweries lower than worse breweries just because you don’t have as much access to the better breweries seems like an odd approach. Maybe try getting raters with broader tasting experiences rather than artificially bumping worse breweries up in the rankings.

 

Tackling the top 50 breweries was probably hard enough given the 7000ish breweries in the country.

I feel like a top 50 beers of the decade list would be impossible. They already ran into issues with this list not having enough beers from a brewery, and having to rank it lower (Hill Farmstead).

They're the "other" lager brewery in Austin that's not Live Oak. I found out about them after I left Texas. I was pissed because I've heard they're just as good, if not better than Live Oak.

I recall that their Pils is at least better than Live Oak's. Probably not the Hefeweizen though.

@JackHorzempa and @hopfenunmaltz have been to Austin a few times before I think. Maybe they can chime in.

If I had to guess it's simply because they've had a bunch of beers from Maine Beer Co. And because MBC's beers rate highly in their blind tastings.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Bissell beer on their lists (not because they're not good, they just didn't acquire them), and as has already been stated, they haven't had too much from Hill Farmstead either.

But Bissell should absolutely be ahead of MBC on this list. Their IPAs are better, and they do a wider range of styles now. Their Helles is actually really good. I don't think MBC even makes a lager.

And Bissell alone arguably made Portland a beer destination and sparked a surge in breweries in that area.

Perhaps the other factor is that MBC has been around since 2009, and Bissell since 2013. But the fact that MBC's prices are as high as they are and they STILL don't can in 2019 (not only that, they're still selling 16.9 oz. single bottles), should be enough to push them down the list.

At least they got Allagash right on this list.

 

yeah Allagash @ 4 was their most solid decision

 

People might be better off using this link instead:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/11/best-breweries-of-the-decade-2010s-american.html

The link in the first post is to the second page of the article, and the link to go back to the first page is all the way down at the #1 on the list.

@M-Fox24 - Perhaps you'd like to ask a mod to edit your post.

 

I think the internet would be mature enough to understand they can't try every single beer....... LMAO JUST KIDDING PEOPLE WOULD FREAK!

 

Kind of surprised but good to see Triple Crossing is on the list, they seem much smaller and less known than most/all the others.

 

"Importance" was one of their criteria, and out of the 80+ breweries listed and given honorable mention, they failed to include what is easily one of the most important breweries of the decade: Goose Island.

Certainly even Paste considers them important since they mentioned them at least four times in the article.

But wait, here's a quote from a different Paste article:

 

I have had the pleasure of drinking beers from the majority of the breweries on that list. All of the beers from those breweries have been quality beers.

Another good list from Paste Magazine in my opinion.

Cheers!