This week’s stat attack is thankfully a lot calmer — skipping past Estonia , Finland and Wales , we find ourselves in Switzerland
According to the Most Difficult Countries to Drink list, 4,538 users have rated at least one beer from Switzerland.
Switzerland is a small landlocked country in Central Europe, but is also a pretty unique place. They have four official languages: Swiss German, French, Italian, and Romansch.
Switzerland, unlike most of Europe, is neutral. Also, it is not part of the European Union , the European Economic Area, the Eurozone, or NATO. Their army/militia is mainly made up of conscripts and volunteers, and (if I have my facts right) soldiers keep their guns at home, but with no ammo. Switzerland is also known for its “direct democracy”, which lets any group of citizens challenge federal laws by holding referendums (this really appeals to me… it would have been great to reverse Brexit, but I digress). Swiss cities consistently rank top in the best places to live in the world.
I have never visited Switzerland. I have an image of it in my mind as a very beautiful, clean, calm, and wealthy place.
So to throw some stereotypes out there to make up for my weak knowledge of the country: Swiss cheese, expensive watches , Swiss army knives, mountains , stunning landscapes, small houses made out of wood, skiing , chocolate , and banks . Damn, I would love to visit the place to be honest.
OK, as for beer, according to RateBeer, there is a lot of it in the country. In fact, one of our users, @Bov, has compiled an excellent guide listing all the breweries in all the 26 country’s cantons (regions): the Ultimate Switzerland Beer Guide.
The RateBeer database contains 679 active breweries, 5 meaderies, 15 cideries, and 0 sake producers. It takes 105 beers to enter the top 50.
As it stands, the biggest raters of Swiss beers is the aforementioned Bov, with a massive 5,392 Swiss beer ratings, or 67% of the current database . The rest of the top ten is made up of users from Switzerland , Canada , Austria , Hungary , and Germany . Quite a few well-known names here:
NAME | COUNT | % COUNTRY |
---|---|---|
Bov | 5392 | 67% |
CH-303 | 1004 | 13% |
anstei | 920 | 11% |
fiulijn | 826 | 10% |
caribou43 | 749 | 9% |
PowY | 732 | 9% |
Lore | 725 | 9% |
rand | 673 | 8% |
SinH4 | 611 | 8% |
Koelschtrinker | 605 | 8% |
In terms of the locals, the picture looks like this:
Name | Ratings | |
---|---|---|
1 | Bov | 14983 |
2 | CH-303 | 3855 |
3 | anstei | 3818 |
4 | kto | 3095 |
5 | rand | 2949 |
6 | Embrouille | 2868 |
7 | caribou43 | 2614 |
8 | eduardovl | 1820 |
9 | King_Alex_II | 1227 |
10 | weark | 1190 |
Switzerland was one of the countries for which were lucky enough to get a region breakdown. In terms of regions, @CH-303 holds the crown with a clean 26 out of 26 regions, while Bov is in second with 25.