The Best Beer of 2010: Lists come in 5, 10, 14, and 25 Packs

This photoshop blows chunks

The flood of 2010 Year In Review Top 5-10-whatever Lists is upon us. Are all craft breweries represented, or do a few stand tall over then landscape? North American or European? Bottle or draft? Innie or outie? Forget that last one. Ew.

Let’s sort this mess out.

The length of the lists is completely arbitrary. Who’s to say someone should like 20 beers when they like 5? Ten if the like 60? Doesn’t really matter, since we’re about to disect the lists, because we can.

We took ten 2010 Top-n lists from DRAFT Magazine, Beer Universe, Beer Talk, The Hopry, MetroWest Daily News Beer Nut, SFoodie, Phoenix New Times Restaurants and Dinding blog, Eater.com, Paste Magazine, and Wasshington City Paper’s Beerspotter to get a glance of the beer preferences from last year. These outlets represent different regions of the US (and one from England), including both established beers and newcomers to the American craft scene.

Of the 125 individual beers included in these lists…

Geography

- 101 US and 24 international beers
- 25 US states represented
- California (26), Colorado (11), Oregon (11) led the US contigency
- England (10), Belgium (4), Canada (2), Denmark (2), Germany (2), Scotland (2), Czech Rep (1), Ireland (1) made up the European market

Style

- 55 Ales
- 32 IPA’s (India, England, American)
- 22 Stouts
- 3 Lagers, Pilsners, Barleywines
- 2 Hefeweizens, Porters
- 1 Wheatwine, Smoked

California and Oregon numbers aren’t really much of a surprise. Sierra Nevada Brewing (CA) is widely creidted as founding the American craft brewing movement back in the 1980′s, and Portland (OR) brewer Rogue has had such success that it was inevitable that copycats would arise. The American craft beer scene is a beautiful embarrassment of riches.

Amongst the forest of esoteric crafts, there are three corporate beers. Certain people (ones who want to let Timmy smoke) have chosen Pilsner Urquell (fine), Guinness (fine), and Bud Light Lime as members of their annual recalls. Bud, Light, Lime……fuck me with a chainsaw.

TPG can only boast to have sampled a small percentage of this conglomerate, but it should serve as a great starting point for this year. So go ahead, check out the lists, and enjoy some great craft beer. Or a BLL if you want.