Four milestones made U.S. the world's craft beer champ

From Bloomberg News:

The Brewers Association, the main trade group for U.S. beer-makers, announced June 20 that the number of American breweries had surpassed 2,500, more than at any time since at least the 1880s and more than in any other nation. 

The vast majority (more than 2,300) are craft breweries, independently owned companies that make beer on a small scale using traditional ingredients. There are also, according to the association, as many as 1,559 breweries in the planning stages, most of them craft.
This growth shouldn't be surprising, given that craft beer's share of the $99 billion U.S. beer market increased to $10.2 billion in 2012, from $8.7 billion in 2011.

Go America! Go!

All Hail the King

Pliny the Elder does it again. From the American Homebrewers Association:

For the past 11 years, we've asked Zymurgy readers to share a list of their 20 favorite beers that are commercially available in the United States. We tallied the votes, and here are the results for the 2013 Best Beers in America survey. 

Top-Ranked Beers 

For 2013, we have a five-peat! Russian River's Pliny the Elder, a double IPA, claimed the top spot for the fifth straight year. Finishing second for the fourth straight year was Bell's Two Hearted Ale, an IPA.

Top-twenty pasted below; for the complete list, visit Homebrewers Association.

1. Russian River Pliny the Elder
2. Bell's Two Hearted Ale
3. Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
4. Bell's Hopslam Ale
5. Ballast Point Sculpin IPA
6. Founders Breakfast Stout
7. Arrogant Bastard Ale
8. Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye IPA
9. Lagunitas Sucks
10. Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
11. Stone Ruination IPA
12. North Coast Old Rasputin
13. Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA
14. Stone Enjoy By IPA
15. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
16. The Alchemist Heady Topper
17. Firestone Walker Double Jack
18. Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout
19. Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale
20. Firestone Walker Wookey Jack

Bikes and Beer

I'm sure the 2 people that read this will remember when I recently wrote about beer-oriented development and mentioned some of the great synergies between biking and beer (disclaimer: ride responsibly). I even concluded with the suggestion that Surly Brewing and Surly Bikes team up, not aware at the time that Surly Bikes is also a Minnesota company. Well, I'm proud to say that our new home state of Wisconsin is a place that embraces this idea whole-heartedly. The state is famous for its long tradition of beer-centric culture. Perhaps you've heard of our professional baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers. The name is not for coffee like some probable PacNW minor league franchise (though I could see the name working in Portland for several reasons), we're talking about beer here. WI ranks 9th in the number of craft breweries per capita and is home to Macro-brewer Miller and Pabst (formerly). The state has even received some recent negative attention for the amount of drinking, beer or otherwise, that its residents do. We continuously rank high for binge drinking frequency and number of drinks (recent MMWR on alcohol consumption). Not exactly a point of pride but you can see how beer is a part of the life here. See if you can find Wisconsin on this quickly-becoming-classic map of (county-level) grocery store to bar ratio.

Wisconsin is also home to several well-known bicycle and bike parts manufacturers, including Trek, Saris, Planet Bike, and Pacific Cycle which now owns Schwinn and Mongoose. Though it has slipped recently, the state is still in the top 10 nationally for overall bike-friendliness. There are networks of trails that connect cities through natural prairies and along classic Midwest cornfields. The state is also relatively flat, but not as boring as, say Kansas (sorry Kansas). This makes it a great state to tour by bike, and when you combine that with great craft breweries sprinkled across the landscape it can make for a epically delicious trip.

Now while I'm gushing about this state, I should disclose that I've lived for less than a year, but you find out about these things pretty quick here. Sure, I'm into beer and bikes but they're also a big part of life here. When I recently became a member of the Wisconsin Bike Federation I was also given a free copy of their new quarterly(?) magazine. There was a great piece in there about a brewery tour across the state by bike (found here) which prompted this post. An interactive map of their trip is below. Now, who else is thinking DSBC outing?

View Badger Craft Brewery Trail in a larger map