Why You Should Care About [THIS STATE]’s Beer

In November, I spent a good chunk of time analyzing data collected from Beer Advocate’s “best beer” lists, studying differences between states and finding patterns in our rating habits.

Among all the research for those posts, one thing stood out as clear as an American lager: some states aren’t getting any love.

Consistently, I’d find a handful of states ranked at the bottom of all 51 options, which included Washington, D.C., when considering Beer Advocate’s proprietary “Weighted Rank” scale.

But with more than 3,000 breweries spread across the U.S. and many more on the way, it’s important to put this outcome in context. Many states are still in their sudsy infancies or simply get lost among the attention thrown at California, Oregon, Colorado and more.

So this week I’m setting out to rectify that.

Over a few days we’ll hear from “representatives” of three states that performed rather poorly according to Beer Advocate’s raters: Louisiana, South Dakota and Arkansas. I reached out to folks from each state, offering them the chance to better explain their impressions of their state’s beer industry and what kind of tasty brews might be offered to people not ready to write-off a state’s beer.

Because heaven forbid we don’t do anything drastic for those brewers lagging behind…

@beerbecue7 Also, if your state’s best beer can’t pull above a 4 on BA, you should be forced to leave the Union. Go join Canada or something

— Jacob Berg (@jacobsberg) December 26, 2014

(please note that’s a tongue-in-cheek joke)

Come back tomorrow when we hear from Nora D. McGunnigle, a freelance beer and food writer living in New Orleans who will tell us about the beer scene in Louisiana.

Learn more about under-appreciated beer from:

+Bryan Roth
“Don’t drink to get drunk. Drink to enjoy life.” — Jack Kerouac