At the end of January, the Houston Press’ Brew Blog did a map showing a beer for every state that seemed to miss the mark for more than a few of their choices. I ranted about it in my post, The United States of Beer? Apparently I wasn’t the only one, because an alert reader (thanks, David) tipped me that they’ve redone the map, this time calling it The United States of Good Beer, though over at Good, the internet portal that originally created the map and posted it to the Houston Press.
Seeing as the map was done by the paper’s food section, I wasn’t too surprised how embarrassing the first attempt was, but in the new effort they at least reached out to their readers for suggestions. And it shows in the Good Beer Map, which is light years ahead of the first one.
Sadly, Idaho still got left out, despite their being at least 8 breweries and 15 brewpubs in the the state. Surely, someone could picked one of those instead of leaving an empty question mark?
Good’s Food editor Nicola Twilley remarks that after seeing Beer Wars, “It’s clearly time for a beer revolution.” And while I’m sincerely thrilled she’s getting up to speed, I’m constantly amazed that so many “foodies” don’t seem to get that beer is food and have paid it almost no attention whatsoever even as it has undergone such a revolutionary change in the U.S. over the past thirty years. How could so many “food professionals” committed to what they put in their body completely miss that? Most have noticed wine is different now than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but beer … not so much. That’s such a sticking point for me that while I’m glad things are changing, I can’t help but continue to be curmudgeonly about this dichotomy of how the two beverages are treated.
Still, I’m encouraged that they were swayed by people’s comments, admitted mistakes, and forged ahead to create a better map of America’s beer scene.
You can see the new map full size here, and as before it’s easier to read the key on the bigger map.
I’m not sure what’s worse Idaho or Florida!
Speaking of foodies ignoring the beer ‘revolution’, I may have missed something, but there has not been any mention of SF Beer Week in the SF Chronicle.
Okay… BIG problem with this. Yes, we’ve already addresed the Idaho situation, but what about Florida? Landshark is an A-B brand. “Margaritaville Brewing Company” is a beer marketing firm, aka a DBA for AB-InBev to sell Landshark without it being directly associated with them. It is NOT a privately-owned small brewer, as the criteria of this map suggests.
Unfortunate.
My FL vote is for Cigar City.
Cheers
I too was going to complain about my state’s selection, but Jon beat me to it. Cigar City would be a worthy representative. Truly one of the best up and coming breweries in the country.