I often look at my top rated breweries and just noticed Neon Raptor are moving up the list.
But it made me think. What are my top 10 breweries where each is from a different country. i.e ignore a brewery in your list if it’s below one for the same country. As an example. Wander Beyond are top for me so I ignored all other English breweries in the list below.
Interesting stats, not something I often look at as I see very little variance in mine.
Brewery
Country
Average
Beers Rated
O/O Brewing
Sweden
4.1
5
Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan
Germany
4.06
5
Verdant Brewing Co
England
4.02
62
Modern Times Beer
USA
3.96
10
Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!
Canada
3.92
6
8 Wired Brewing
New Zealand
3.9
12
Whiplash
Ireland
3.9
16
Hop Hooligans
Romania
3.9
21
Garage Beer Co
Spain
3.9
22
Põhjala
Estonia
3.88
9
So many other good breweries just a few hundredths of a point below these. I’d like to sample more from the breweries with under 10 ratings
I must admit I didn’t realise Weihenstephaner was still so high. I fell in love with wheat beers before really getting into craft so I rated those really highly back then. Rarely drink the style these days so I suspect I might be a little more critical if I ever get around to re-rating. Surprised not to see a Belgian brewer there though given my proclivity for hoppy IPAs and big impy stouts it’s understandable.
The consistency of how good Verdant are shows here, over 60 beers and still averaging over 4.0 is incredible. Yes I’m a generous rater but still!
Brewery Country Beers Average
Geuzestekerij De Cam Belgium 7 4.13
Bearded Iris Brewing USA 5 4.08
Brauerei Heller Germany 7 4.01
Goachers England 12 3.8
Indie Alehouse Brewing Canada 5 3.76
Amundsen Brewery Norway 5 3.74
Kaapse Brouwers Netherlands 6 3.73
Baird Brewing Co. Japan 6 3.68
Revelation Cat Craft Italy 14 3.68
Mikkeller Denmark 214 3.67
A few surprises. Goachers just keeps Kernel out of top spot in England. Amundsen was a surprise in Norway as were Kaapse and Baird and Revelation Caat.
Also surprised how many breweries I had to go through to get 10 countries.
Brauerei Heller [Bavaria] 3.74 Hecks Farmhouse Cider [Somerset] 3.74 Traquair House [Scotland] 3.72 Chimay [Belgium] 3.7 TiM (Nectar Polska) [Poland] 3.62 Civale [Italy] 3.58 Panimoravintola Huvila (-2009) [Finland] 3.55 Bryggeriet Djævlebryg [Denmark] 3.53 SNAB [Netherlands] 3.51 Pivovar U Tří Růží [Czech Republic] 3.5
Followed by representatives of France, US, NZ, Lithuania, Canada, and finally my home country of Estonia (and not the one you’d expect).
Several surprises there - mostly as many breweries are ones I’ve not seen in a long time. Then again, I do believe most craft beer’s jumped the shark, so perhaps there’s no surprise.
I could have brought back 5 or more 8 Wired cans from Riga last week that would have pulled them right out of your top 10, maybe your top 50. I only brought back the least terrible sounding one, they were all trashy modern adjuncted kettle sours, and I’m glad I saved my pennies. They are what makes NZ my 13th country, but were I to type that review in from my backlog, they’d swiftly plummet.
{update: review entered, and now nz is behind estonia}
That is true for almost all of the breweries in my top as most of them have bunch of crapier beers I haven’t rated. Only Heller, Cantillon, and La Trappe would definitely stay up there.
Trillium Brewing Company, United States, 3.86, 8 beers
Brouwerij ‘t IJ, Netherlands, 3.77, 6 beers
Põhjala, Estonia, 3.77, 9 beers
Fierce Beer Co, Scotland, 3.76, 7 beers
Northern Monk Brew Co, England, 3.75, 13 beers
Mikkeller, Denmark, 3.74, 13 beers
8 Wired, New Zealand, 3.7, 6 beers
't IJ is a surprise, other than that pretty standard. I also notice how few beers I’ve had by each and wonder if this is more of a statistical anomaly…
Couple of surprises here. The Perry’s ciders were rated in my early RB days when I tended to rate beers I liked extremely highly. I’ve since toned things down somewhat. Wander Beyond is a close second. I am surprised about Belching Beaver, though I stand by my ratings. De Dolle again I rated highly when I visited the brewery in the early days, but it’s a great brewery so why not.
Oh, man, you can’t tell how happy I am seeing Estonia on so many people’s lists! When I moved here it was a bit of a desert, beerwise, and I have seen all of the changes first hand, so I’m crazily happy to see it getting international appreciation now.
