{"id":87,"date":"2006-09-01T14:01:39","date_gmt":"2006-09-01T14:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/?p=87"},"modified":"2012-10-31T13:27:30","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T19:27:30","slug":"25-beers-you-wouldnt-kick-out-of-the-fridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/25-beers-you-wouldnt-kick-out-of-the-fridge\/","title":{"rendered":"25 beers you wouldn’t kick out of the fridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another list. This one from Men’s Journal<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

It’s received plenty of attention on beer discussion boards – see Rate Beer<\/a> discussion; Beer Advocate<\/a> – because notice in such a high profile publication always seems like validation.<\/p>\n

It helps that it is a list of very good beers:<\/p>\n

1 Firestone Walker Pale Ale
\n2 Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
\n3 Stoudt’s Pils
\n4 Russian River Temptation
\n5 Avery Mephistopheles
\n6 Anderson Valley Boont Amber
\n7 Great Lakes Holy Moses White Ale
\n8 Full Sail Session Lager
\n9 Rogue Brutal Bitter
\n10 Bell’s Expedition Stout
\n11 Southampton Double White
\n12 Smuttynose Big A IPA
\n13 Penn Weizen
\n14 Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale
\n15 Ommegang Hennepin
\n16 Samuel Adams Black Lager
\n17 Sprecher Hefe-Weiss
\n18 Alaskan Amber
\n19 Deschutes Broken Top Bock
\n20 Lost Abbey Avant Garde
\n21 Jolly Pumpkin Bam Bier
\n22 Victory St. Victorious Doppelbock
\n23 Allagash Interlude
\n24 Alesmith Speedway Stout
\n25 New Glarus Yokel <\/p>\n

I like that it gives extra credit for striking a balance between innovation and tradition. <\/p>\n

I like that they made Firestone Walker Pale Ale their No. 1, even if I might prefer the Double Barrel Ale, because the brewery wins medals right and left in blind tastings but can’t seem to get any love from online beer activists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I like that it is cutting edge – with the funky little (4.6% abv) Bam Biere from the funky little Jolly Pumpkin brewery sneaking in at No. 21. And you can’t be much more up-to-date than Lost Abbey Avant Garde from Port Brewing (a beer that deserves a post of its own – in the next few days).<\/p>\n

What I don’t like is the promo on the cover – “25 Greatest American Beers” – or the headline on the story – “25 Best Beers in America.”<\/p>\n

What a silly notion. You need only compare the list Men’s Journal<\/i> published in 2004 to the 2006 list (in 2005 the magazine picked the “Best 50” beers in the world, equally silly).<\/p>\n

Only one beer – Alaskan Amber – made the 2004 and 2006 lists. Did everybody else forget how to brew?<\/p>\n

No, 12 of the 23 breweries that were on the 2004 list (two breweries had two beers) also made the 2006 list. But instead of calling Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale No. 1, as in 2004, the authors listed Deschutes Broken Top Bock at No. 19.<\/p>\n

Instead of honoring Victory Brewing’s Prima Pils – No. 2 in the U.S. in 2004, No. 1 pilsner in the world in 2006 – they singled out Victory St. Victorious Doppelbock (No. 22). <\/p>\n

You can’t sell magazines publishing the same list every year. Of course, that’s not altogether bad for the breweries on the list, because it gives them more accolades to promote (one more thing I like about the list).<\/p>\n

Still … 25 Greatest?<\/p>\n

No. What they really published is a list of “24 really good beers we didn’t write about two years ago and Alaskan Amber.” A job well done, but a lousy headline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another list. This one from Men’s Journal. It’s received plenty of attention on beer discussion boards – see Rate Beer discussion; Beer Advocate – because notice in such a high profile publication always seems like validation. It helps that it is a list of very good beers: 1 Firestone Walker Pale Ale 2 Dogfish Head … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,292],"tags":[346,204,259],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beers-of-conviction","category-musing","tag-alaskan-amber","tag-firestone-walker","tag-jolly-pumpkin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-1p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9837,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/9837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}