This is a weird one. The Houston Press’ Brew Blog did a map showing soft drinks from each state in a post last week called the United States of Soft Drinks. Due to popular demand, they did a new one this week, tackling beer in another post entitled the United States of Beer. After a decidedly unfunny “alcoholics” joke, they apparently “hunkered down all weekend, doing the kind of brutal and difficult work that it takes to determine a fitting beer for every last one of our 50 states.” They’re not all bad choices. I might have chosen Anchor (for its history) or Sierra Nevada (for its size) in California, but Stone Brewing isn’t a bad pick. I imagine many could quibble with the choices of at least some of the other states, too.
But a few others are just embarrassing. Four Loko for Nevada? First of all, it’s not much of a beer, though technically a malt-based beverage and taxed as a beer, certainly it’s not marketed as a beer, and it was recently banned anyway. At any rate, Four Loko was made by Phusion Projects of Chicago, Illinois d.b.a. Drink Four Brewing Company. Then there’s the Epic Pale Ale they show for Utah. That Epic is a beer from … New Zealand. There is an Epic Brewing from Salt Lake City, but their Pale Ale is called Capt’n Crompton’s Pale Ale.
While Budweiser is certainly appropriate for Missouri, there’s an Anheuser-Busch family beer for Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia. And while ABI does operate a dozen breweries around the country, none are in those three states. Similarly Miller makes sense in Wisconsin, but there are also MillerCoors beers for Alabama, Florida and North Dakota. And again, MillerCoors does have ten breweries in as many states, but none are located in the three states listed on the map. Pabst Blue Ribbon is listed for Virginia. Pabst, of course, owns no breweries and, as far as I know, doesn’t brew their beer in Virginia. Their headquarters are in Illinois, although the Pabst website lists their home at the bottom of the page as Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the contact page takes you to San Antonio, Texas.
The post details some of what they refer to as the “logic” employed for some of their choices, but I’m not entirely certain logic was in fact used. What do you think of their choices?
You can see the map full size here, and it’s easier to read the key on the bigger map.
Darren says
Love that Four Loko got a run, but yes that is prety sad
Kyle says
Not a lot of journalistic research done on this map. Kona Longboard is not from Hawaii but Portland, Oregon.
Greg Warwick says
I’m glad that they chose Shiner for TX, as it is the logical choice. Tremendous heritage, but equally stellar beers, including the commemorative beers leading up to and beyond the brewery’s 100th birthday in 2009. Cheers to Shiner!
Pliny the Elder says
Great job of research! Too bad someone at the paper wasn’t hip enough to get your input on their project. Keep up the good work!
Erik says
Midwest looks pretty accurate overall. Indiana with 3 Floyds, Illinois with Goose Island, Michigan with Bells and Ohio with Great Lakes.. I think those are absolutely the right choices. I would give the map a C overall. I think it’s pretty lackadaisical to go to the huge macro’s for more than 1/10 of the states instead of just their home states.