I think he wrote about Sam Smith because he was familiar with them as a Yorkshire brewery. I understand that you also like them, but “they are good” is a weak statement for a brewery which still pasteurises its beers and uses sugar to substitute for some of the malt - these are universally regarded as indicators of poor brewing.
No - Budweiser is the most recognised brand, but the top selling lagers are Stella, Fosters, and Carling.
But we are talking on Ratebeer here, so the assumption when we talk amongst ourselves is that we are talking about beer geeks, or at least those who have some interest in beer.
That can happen. And Greeks are born in Italy and Italians are born in Greece, but as a useful generalisation we will say that Greeks come from Greece and Italians come from Italy. From experience we will find that X Brewery uses modern citric hops, while Y Brewery prefers traditional British hops. If your taste is for modern citric hops then I would hazard a guess that you would prefer X Brewery. If your taste is for traditional British hops then it is likely you’d prefer Y Brewery. So when offered a choice of X Brewery IPA and Y Brewery IPA, you would incline toward the brewery that in your experience uses the hops you prefer. Yes, randomness happens, but if we don’t look for the patterns then everything is random, and we learn nothing.
