Most Popular Beer Styles: 2012 NHC Entry Results

Two weeks ago saw thousands of homebrewers descend on Seattle, WA for the 2012 National Homebrewers Conference.  The conference, among many things, offers seminars, demonstrations, and camaraderie with amateur brewers from all over the country and beyond.  But one of the center points of the event is the culmination of the National Homebrew Competition.  The final round of the comp is held during the Conference with the venerated awards given at the banquet on the last night. 

We've explored the popularity of the different style entries in prior years (2011, 2010).  With the 2012 HNC awards in the books, it was worthwhile to revisit the results and see if the preferred beer style trends continue to be the same or if there is a shift in brewers' preferences. 

For this analysis, I’m only looking at the beer categories themselves (my apologies to the cider and mead makers out there). To normalize the data, all categories are given as the percentage of the total entry pool that they represent. From this year's NHC competition, the most popular and the least popular styles are as follows (with the full dataset given below).

2012 MOST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 1. Stouts (cat. 13) - 630 entries or 8.7% of total

 2. American Ales (cat. 10) - 603 entries or 8.3% of total

 3. India Pale Ales (cat. 14) - 553 entries or 7.6% of total

 4. Belgian and French Ales (cat. 16) - 491 entries or 6.8% of total

 5. Belgian Strong Ales (cat. 18) - 454 entries or 6.2% of total

2012 LEAST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 23. Euro Amber Lagers (cat. 3) - 158 entries or 2.2% of total

 22. Dark Lagers (cat. 4) - 162 entries or 2.2% of total

 21. Fruit Beers (cat. 20) - 169 entries or 2.3% of total

 20. Amber Hybrid Beers (cat. 7) - 174 entries or 2.4% of total

 19. Bock (cat. 5) - 195 entries or 2.7% of total

The top five beer categories have been the same five styles for the past 5 years with the only change being in the ordering.  Belgian & French Ales flip-flopped with Belgian Strong Ales, otherwise the top 5 style rankings remained the same.  As an overall percentage, the number of entries in the top 5 categories increased slightly from 2012 (37.5% vs. 35.7%) representing a slight strengthening in their overall popularity. 

On the other side of the spectrum, lagers still continue to take a beating.  Of the five lager beer style categories, three of them are in the bottom five.  Light Lagers and Pilsners experienced a surge this year, both jumping up two slots (to #15 and #17 respectively), while Bock beers tumbled hard by 5 slots down to #19.  As has been in the past, there are more than three times as many beers entered in the top five categories as compared to the bottom five categories.  

Looking at trends across the past five years (2008 – 2012), popularity has been surging or failing for some categories as the style gain favor or loses it.  Below are the top movers in the positive and negative direction across thefive year span. 

MOST POSITIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '12 / '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Smoke / Wood-Aged Beer - cat. 22 (Ranks: 8, 8, 11, 13, 16)

 2. Sour Ales - cat. 17 (Ranks: 14, 18, 19, 18, 21)

 3. Herb / Spice / Vegetable Beers - cat. 21 (Ranks: 7, 9, 10, 9, 12)

 3. Specialty Beers - cat. 23 (Ranks: 6, 6, 7, 10, 11)

MOST NEGATIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Bock - cat. 5 (Ranks: 19, 14, 15, 16, 14)

 2. Light Hybrid Beers - cat. 6 (Ranks: 11, 10, 9, 8, 7)

 2. Dark Lagers - cat. 4 (Ranks: 22, 20, 22, 20, 18)

 3. Strong Ales - cat. 19 (Ranks: 12, 13, 12, 12, 9)

 3. German Wheat Beers - cat. 15 (Ranks: 16, 16, 13, 15, 13)

The growing popularity of barrel-aged beers and sour beers have definitely played a factor in the rise in popularity of Categories 22 and 17 respectively. For our 2011 analysis, barrel-aged beers were the most positive mover as well.  However, this years tragic drop for Bock beer caused it to shoot up the leaderboard for most negative mover.  A good Maibock or Doppelbock are stable beers, but the style seems to be getting the cold shoulder from competition participants in the last half decade.  

The complete data set for how each beer style category performed is presented below.  

2012 NHC Entry Rankings by Beer Style Categories

2012 Rank	Cat. #	Name	# of Entries (2010)	% of Entries (2010)	2011 Rank	2010 Rank
1	13	Stout	630	8.7%	1	2
2	10	American Ale	603	8.3%	2	1
3	14	IPA	553	7.6%	3	4
4	16	Belg & French	491	6.8%	5	3
5	18	Belgian Strong	454	6.2%	4	5
6	23	Specialty Beers	383	5.3%	6	7
7	21	Spiced / Herb	362	5.0%	9	10
8	22	Smoke / Wood	335	4.6%	8	11
9	12	Porter	326	4.5%	7	6
10	9	Scottish & Irish	308	4.2%	11	8
11	6	Light Hybrids	303	4.2%	10	9
12	19	Strong Ale	279	3.8%	13	12
13	8	English Pale Ale	265	3.6%	12	16
14	17	Sour Ale	255	3.5%	18	19
15	2	Pilsner	237	3.3%	17	17
15	15	German Wheat Beer	237	3.3%	16	13
17	1	Light Lager	200	2.7%	19	18
18	11	English Brown	198	2.7%	15	14
19	5	Bock	195	2.7%	14	15
20	7	Amber Hybrid Beer	174	2.4%	21	20
21	20	Fruit Beer	159	2.3%	22	21
22	4	Dark Lager	162	2.2%	20	22
23	3	Euro Amber Lager	158	2.2%	23	21

Everyone has a list of favorite beer styles – let us know which are your favorites and how they are represented in the competition scene.

Slainte!

-JW


"In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer"
-A. J. P. Taylor

Lug Wrench Brewing's Second Anniversary

It seems like I was just writting about our first year anniversary when the reminder that our second year milestone was coming up quickly.  I know it is cliche, but where does the time go?!?  I thought it would be fitting to carry on the tradition of rolling up our numbers and seeing what the stats looked like for our little "pet project".  (I promise this will be the last 'round-up' type post for a while.)

Since our very first post back on January 3, 2010 and in the two years that have ensued...

Number of Posts: 227
Number of Days Old: 730
Number of Blog Comments: 119
Number of Subscribers (via Feedburner): 100

Top 10 Pages Visited (via Google Analytics):

1. Nanobreweries - How Small Is Small (5,883 pageviews)
2. Brew-In-A-Bag Brewing: Something Worth Trying (2,402 pageviews)
3. SRM Color Ranges By Beer Style Chart (2,160 pageviews)
4. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #3 - Build Steps (2,081 pageviews)
5. IBU Bitterness Ranges By Beer Style Chart (1,970 pageviews)
6. Fermentation Attenuation Ranges By Beer Style Chart (1,495 pageviews)
7. Original and Final Gravity Ranges By Beer Style Chart (1,453 pageviews)
8. Single Hop Beer Experiment (1,218 pageviews)
9. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #2 - Parts List (1,189 pageviews)
10. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #1 - Concept (1,182 pageviews)

Number of Tags Used: 258
Top Ten Tages Used (as of today):

1. Humor (22 tags)
2. Poll Results (20 tags)
3. Homebrew Recipe (19 tags)
4. Nanobrewery (19 tags)
5. Competitions (18 tags)
6. Homebrewing Clubs (17 tags)
7. Breweries (17 tags)
8. Interview (16 tags)
9. Charts (15 tags)
10. Collaborative Beers (15 tags)
11. Nanobrewery Interviews (15 tags)

Number of Lug Wrench Collagorative Beers: 6 - no new beers :(
Number of Gallons of Collaborative Beer Brewed: 36 gallons
Number of Gallons Remaining: ?

• Midnight Wheat - Wheat Wine Braggot
• Mason Dixon Line Mead
• Flemish Fisherman - Pannepot Clone
• Brother Barleywine - English Barleywine
• Dragon's Breath - Dragon's Milk Clone
• Devoted Brother - Devotion Ale Clone

Number of Blog Polls: 20
Number of Poll Participants: 427
Top 5 Most Popular/Active Polls:

1. Favorite "Summer" Beer Style (33 participants)
2. Ideal ABV for Favorite Beer Style (32 participants)
3. Homebrewing Recipe Sources (30 participants)
4. Consumption of 'Holiday'-styled Beers (29 participants)
5. Ultimate Summer-Time Beer (26 participants)

So far, the Lug Wrench BRewing experience has been very possitive for both Tom and I as we continue the blog's de facto motto: a fraternal bond over beer.  However, we are very curious to know what the readers think - has any of this been interesting?, entertaining?, motivating?, etc.  Please leave us a comment or shoot me an email with your thoughts.  Feedback is what allows for continued improvment.

Slainte!

-JW


"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer.  Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine intervention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."
-Dave Barry

200th Post: Still Going Strong....

I would not have guessed we would have made it this far when Tom and I started this little 'project', but here is our bicentenial post.  I'm a bit of a data hound, so as I've done for our prior milestone posts, here's a roll up of all the content that have passed through these pages.

As of today...

Number of Posts: 200
Number of Days Old: 635
Number of Comments: 110
Number of Subscribers (via Feedburner): 97

Top 10 Pages Visited (via Google Analytics):

1. Nanobreweries - How Small Is Small? (5,543 page views)
2. Brew-In-The-Bag Brewing: Something Worth Trying (2,095 page views)
3. SRM Color Ranges By Beer Style Chart (1,929 page views)
4. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #3 - Build Steps (1,857 page views)
5. IBU Bitterness Ranges by Beer Style Chart (1,668 page views)
6. Fermentation Attenuation Ranges by Yeast Strain (1,348 page views)
7. Original and Final Gravity Ranges by Beer Style (1,285 page views)
8. Single Hop Beer Experiment (1,108 page views)
9. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #2 - Parts List (1,044 page views)
10. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #1 - Concept (1,035 page views)

Number of Tags: 233
Top Ten Tags:

1. Nanobrewery (19 tags)
2. Humor (18 tags)
3. Competitions (17 tags)
4. Homebrew Recipe (17 tags)
5. Poll Results (17 tags)
6. Breweries (17 tags)
7. Homebrewing Clubs (16 tags)
8. Interview (16 tags)
9. Collaborative Beers (15 tags)
10. Nanobrewery Interviews (15 tags)

Number of Lug Wrench Collaborative Beers: 6
Number of Gallons of Collaborative Beers Brewed: 36 gallons
Number of Gallons Remaining: ?

• Midnight Wheat - Wheat Wine Braggot
• Mason Dixon Line Mead
• Flemish Fisherman - Pannepot Clone
• Brother Barleywine - English Barleywine
• Dragon's Breath - Dragon's Milk Clone
• Devoted Brother - Devotion Ale Clone

Look for our 201st post to be coming out next week and we are hoping to keep up the same posting cadence moving forward.  As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions about anything on the site, please let us know - we always love hearing from readers.

Slainte!

-JW


"If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given stomachs."
-David Daye

Most Popular Beer Styles: 2011 NHC Entry Results

Its no surprise to anyone who has entered a beer competition that some categories are incredible competitive and others barely have a pulse.  Dozens of bottles are entered in the popular styles and other less popular styles get grouped together and relegated to the 'no-one-loves-me' table in the back.

We've explored this phenomenon last year when the 2010 National Homebrewing Comp was in progress.  With the 2011 NHC complete and awarded, it was worthwhile to revisit the results and see if the preferred beer style trends continue to be the same or if there is a shift brewers preferences. 

For this analysis, I’m only looking at the beer categories themselves (my apologies to the cider and mead makers out there). To normalized the data, all categories are given as the percentage of the total entry pool that they represent. From this year's NHC competition, the most popular and the least popular styles are as follows (with the full dataset given below).

2011 MOST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 1. Stouts (cat. 13) - 566 entries or 8.7% of total

 2. American Ales (cat. 10) - 493 entries or 7.6% of total

 3. India Pale Ales (cat. 14) - 462 entries or 7.1% of total

 4. Belgian Strong Ales (cat. 18) - 404 entries or 6.2% of total

 5. Belgian and French Ales (cat. 16) - 394 entries or 6.1% of total

2011 LEAST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 23. Euro Amber Lagers (cat. 3) - 140 entries or 2.2% of total

 22. Fruit Beers (cat. 20) - 143 entries or 2.2% of total

 21. Amber Hybrid Beers (cat. 7) - 157 entries or 2.4% of total

 20. Dark Lagers (cat. 4) - 171 entries or 2.6% of total

 19. Light Lagers (cat. 1) - 191 entries or 2.9% of total

The top five beer categories have been the same five styles for the past 4 years with the only change being in the ordering.  Stouts and American Ales have flip-flopped for the number one seat each year, while IPAs and the Belgians fight for seats 3 through 5. 

One the other side of the spectrum, lagers in general are taking a beating.  Of the five lager beer styles, three of them are in the bottom five while Pilsners (#17) and Bocks (#14) aren't that much further up.  As has been in the past, there are nearly three times as many beers entered in the top five categories as compared to the bottom five categories.  

Over the past four years (2008 – 2011), there has been some have been changes in the popularity rankings as some style gain favor and others lose it.  As mentioned, the Top Five slots have really changed.  However, there have been other styles have been consistantly climbing or falling. 

MOST POSITIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Smoke / Wood-Aged Beer - cat. 22 (Ranks: 8, 11, 13, 16)

 2. Specialty Beers - cat. 23 (Ranks: 6, 7, 10, 11)

 3. Herb / Spice / Vegtable Beers - cat. 21 (Ranks: 9, 10, 9, 12)

 3. Sour Ales - cat. 17 (Ranks: 18, 19, 18, 21)

MOST NEGATIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Light Lagers - cat. 1 (Ranks: 19, 18, 17, 15)

 1. Strong Ales - cat. 19 (Ranks: 13, 12, 12, 9)

 3. German Wheat Beers - cat. 15 (Ranks: 16, 13, 15, 13)

 3. Scottish & Irish Ales - cat. 9 (Ranks: 11, 8, 7, 8)

 3. Light Hybrid Beers - cat. 6 (Ranks: 10, 9, 8, 7)

The growing popularity of barrel-ages beers and extreme beers has definitely played a factor in the rise in popularity of Categories 22 and 23. Those two categories were also the fastest rising categories last year.  However, I was shocked to see Hefeweizens and Scottish/Irish Ales amongst the sinkings beers.  Category 9 is one of my all time favorites styles, yet entry selection has been fickle to it in the past few years.  Sad.

The complete data set for how each beer style category performed is presented below.  

2011 NHC Entry Rankings by Beer Style Categories

2011 Rank	Cat. #	Name	# of Entries (2010)	% of Entries (2010)	2010 Rank	2009 Rank
1	13	Stout	566	8.7%	2	1
2	10	American Ale	493	7.6%	1	2
3	14	IPA	462	7.1%	4	4
4	18	Belgian Strong	404	6.2%	5	5
5	16	Belg & French	394	6.1%	3	3
6	23	Specialty Beers	346	5.3%	7	10
7	12	Porter	320	4.9%	6	6
8	22	Smoke / Wood	289	4.5%	11	13
9	21	Spiced/Herb	286	4.4%	10	9
10	6	Light Hybrids	272	4.2%	9	8
11	9	Scottish & Irish	257	4.0%	8	7
12	8	English Pale Ale	256	3.9%	16	11
13	19	Strong Ale	252	3.9%	12	12
14	5	Bock	230	3.5%	15	16
15	11	English Brown	227	3.5%	14	19
16	15	German Wheat Beer	216	3.3%	13	15
17	2	Pilsner	215	3.3%	17	14
18	17	Sour Ales	204	3.1%	19	18
19	1	Light Lager	191	2.9%	18	17
20	4	Dark Lager	171	2.6%	22	20
21	7	Amber Hybrid Beer	157	2.4%	20	22
22	20	Fruit Beer	143	2.2%	21	22
23	3	Euro Amber Lager	140	2.2%	21	23

Everyone has a list of favorite beer styles – let us know which are your favorites and how they are represented in the competition scene.

Slainte!

-JW


"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
-Homer Simpson

Top 50 US Craft Breweries in 2010: Where Are They Located?

Every year at about this time, the Brewers Association puts out their annual list of the Top 50 Breweries in the US and the Top 50 Craft Breweries in the US.  Rankings are based on sales volume from the prior year, with craft beer breweries being defined a "small, independent, and traditional.   For the most part, these lists represent the household names in beer, with a few less know breweries jumping on and off from one year to the next.

Last year, I started tracking where the Top 50 Craft Breweries where located through out the US.  I was curious how they were distributed.  Which states claim the most Top Craft Breweries?  Are there more on the east coast or the west coast?  How many of them are close to me?  With the new BA ranking recently being published, I figured it was time to update the map and share it.

Below is the resulting map showing the locations of all 50 Craft Breweries from this year's BA ranking.

Overall, there were not too many changes to the list with California, Colorado, and Oregon taking the top positions respectively.  Many of the breweries changed positions on the ranking, but between 2009 and 2010, only four names changed on the list: Oregon's Ninkasi Brewery and Texas's Real Ale Brewing were added, while Colorado's Boulder Beer and Washington's Pyramid Brewery (as a result of a merger with Magic Hat) fell off the list.

A run-down of all the states with ranking craft breweries is listed below.

States with Top Craft Breweries in 2010

Rank	State	No. of Breweries	% of Total	YtY Change
1	California	11	22%	-
2	Colorado	5	10%	-1
2	Oregon	5	10%	+1
4	New York	3	6%	-
4	Texas	3	6%	+1
6	Massachusetts	2	4%	-
6	Missouri	2	4%	-
6	Vermont	2	4%	-
6	Wisconsin	2	4%	-
10	Alaska	1	2%	-
10	Delaware	1	2%	-
10	Georgia	1	2%	-
10	Hawaii	1	2%	-
10	Louisiana	1	2%	-
10	Maine	1	2%	-
10	Maryland	1	2%	-
10	Michigan	1	2%	-
10	Minnesota	1	2%	-
10	Montana	1	2%	-
10	Ohio	1	2%	-
10	Pennsylvania	1	2%	-
10	Tennessee	1	2%	-
10	Utah	1	2%	-
10	Washington	1	2%	-1

Harpoon and the Boston Beer Company still remain the closest breweries to me.  What about you?

Slainte!

-JW


"It's amazing to me that we've been able to go from invisible to infinitesimal to today we've gotten all the way to tiny. Someday I hope to get all the way to small."
-Jim Koch

Lug Wrench Brewing's One Year Anniversary

With 2010 now just a scene in the rear view mirror, it is a bit surprising to mention that Lug Wrench Brewing has officially been online for a full year now.  While Tom and I had discussed the concept of doing a blog for much longer than a year, it was 1/3/10 when our first post hit the cyber landscape.  Now, here we are on the anniversary and this pet project strangely does not feel like a one-year-old.  Time flies.

Looking back at our short history, I wanted to roll up the numbers we have achieved and look at what some of the most popular topics have been.  As of today, a year after the first words were published ...

Number of Posts: 123
Number of Days Old: 365
Number of Comments: 63
Number of Subscribers (via Feedburner): 82

Top 10 Pages Visited (via Google Analytics):

1. Nanobreweries - How Small is Small? (2,119 pageviews)
2. SRM Color Range by Beer Style Chart (1,306 pageviews)
3. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #3 - Build Steps (1,211 pageviews)
4. Brew-in-a-Bag-Brewing: Something Worth Trying (1,106 pageviews)
5. IBU Bitterness Ranges by Beer Style Chart (993 pageviews)
6. Fermentation Attenuation Ranges by Yeast Strain (909 pageviews)
7. Original and Final Gravity Ranges by Beer Style Chart (835 pageviews)
8. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #2 - Parts List (677 pageviews)
9. Wort Pump in a Toolbox #1 - Concept (642 pageviews)
10. Single Hop Beer Experiment (601 pageviews)

Number of Tags: 167
Top Ten Tags Used:

1. Breweries (15 tags)
2. Nanobrewery (15 tags)
3. Homebrew Recipes (14 tags)
4. Interviews (14 tags)
5. Nanobrewery Interviews (13 tags)
6. Charts (12 tags)
7. Collaborative Beers (12 tags)
8. Humor (12 tags)
9. The Session (11 tags)
10. Poll Results (9 tags)

Number of Lug Wrench Collaborative Beers: 6
Number of Gallons of Collaborative Beer Brewed: 36 gallons
Number of Gallons Remaining: ?

• Midnight Wheat - Wheat Wine Braggot
• Mason Dixon Line Mead
• Flemish Fisherman - Pannepot Clone
• Brother Barleywine - English Barleywine
• Dragon's Breath - Dragon's Milk Clone
• Devoted Brother - Devotion Ale Clone

Number of Blog Polls:
Number of Poll Participants: 190

• Pairing with Autumnal Feasts
• Oldest Beer Sampled
• Hard Cider
• Ideal ABV
• Hombrewing Affecting Commercial Beer
• Summer Beer
• Brewpub Frequency
• Seasonal Homebrewing
• Homebrewing History

Now, with our foot into 2011, we hope to keep the momentum and posting cadence we've been able to maintain so far.  As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions about anything on the site, please let us know - we always love hearing from readers.

Slainte!

-JW


"There is more to life than beer alone, but beer makes those other things even better."
-Stephen Morris

Beer Production & Consumption Around the World

Anyone that has been reading this blog knows I'm a sucker for statistics, especially ones that are presented in a visual format.  The image below I picked up from a post over on Daily Infographic.  Using data similar to what we used for our Beer Taxes Per Capita analysis, the graphic below ranks the nations based on the amount of beer brewed and the number of pints emptied within a respective country's borders.

Enjoy - if you can't read the text, click on the image and a high-resolution version should appear.

Slainte!

-JW


"Give me a women who loves beer, and I'll conquer the world."
-Kaiser Welhelm

100th Post: A Look Back

Neither Tom or I realized until recently that we were quickly approaching the 100th post on the Lug Wrench Brewing blog.  As such, we wanted to take a moment and look back at all the content that has crossed these pages.

As of today...

Number of Posts: 100
Number of Days Old: 289
Number of Comments: 55
Number of Subscribers: 64 (via Feedburner)

Number of Tags: 134
Top Ten Tags Used:

1. Breweries (11 Tags)
2. Charts (11 Tags)
3. Homebrew Recipe (11 Tags)
4. Humor (11 Tags)
5. Nanobrewery (11 Tags)
6. Collaborative Beers (10 Tags)
7. Interview (10 Tags)
8. The Session (10 Tags)
9. Homebrewing Clubs (9  Tags)
10. Nanobrewery Interviews (9 Tags)

Number of Lug Wrench Collaborative Beers: 4
Number of Gallons of Collaborative Beer Brewed: 24 gallons
Number of Gallons Remaining: ? :)

• Flemish Fisherman - Spiced Belgian Quad
• Brother Barleywine - English Barleywine
• Dragon's Breath - Dragon's Milk Clone
• Devoted Brother - Devotion Ale Clone

Number of Blog Polls: 7
Number of Poll Participants: 144

• Hard Cider
• Ideal ABV
• Homebrewing Affecting Commercial Beer
• Summer Beer
• Brewpub Frequency
• Seasonal Homebrewing
• Homebrewing History

Lug Wrench has been a fun project for us to collaborate on, especially when distance prevents us from getting together more than once or twice a year.  With many more topics and a lot more in store for the blog, we are very much looking forward to the next 100 posts.  Whether you are a new or long-time reader, let us know your thoughts on the blog, its content, ideas for us to explore, or just about anything else.

Slainte!

-JW


"Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer."
-Frederick the Great

Most Popular Beer Style Categories: 2010 NHC First Round

Anyone who has entered a beer into competition knows that for some reason, some beer styles always outweigh others in terms of popularity. Year after year, competition after competition, the “darling” styles always receive a good deal of attention, while some of the more interesting categories are left out in the cold.

Given this notion in mind, I figured it might be interesting, and a bit entertaining, to identify the most popular style categories (as defined by the BJCP) and see if there have been any trends in that popularity over the past few years. With the 2010 National Homebrewing Competition Finals is just around the corner, the 5,759 beer entries that made up the first round are the ideal pool of data to examine. 

For this analysis, I’m only looking at the beer categories themselves (my apologies to the cider and mead makers out there). To normalized the data, all categories are given as the percentage of the total entry pool that they represent. From this year's NHC first round, the most popular and the least popular styles are as follows (with the full dataset given below).

2010 MOST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 1. American Ales (cat. 10) - 509 entries or 8.8% of total

 2. Stouts (cat. 13) - 476 entries or 8.3% of total

 3. Belgian and French Ales (cat. 16) - 410 entries or 7.1% of total

 4. India Pale Ales (cat. 14) - 386 entries or 6.7% of total

 5. Belgian Strong Ales (cat. 18) - 362 entries or 6.3% of total

2010 LEAST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 23. Fruit Beers (cat. 20) - 130 entries or 2.3% of total

 22. Dark Lagers (cat. 4) - 144 entries or 2.5% of total

 21. Euro Amber Lagers (cat. 3) - 145 entries or 2.5% of total

 20. Amber Hybrid Beers (cat. 7) - 152 entries or 2.6% of total

 19. Sour Ales (cat. 17) - 163 entries or 2.8% of total

It’s not hard to imaging why Sour Ales trend toward the bottom of the list.  While they have a popularity amongst craft beer fanatics, sour beers take a good deal of effort to perfect and they can take years to finish properly.  But, what about the other four least popular beer styles – they are fantastic beer styles, but seem to get the cold shoulder from the homebrewing community.  There are nearly three times as many beers in the Top Five group as there are in the Bottom Five.

Over the past three years (2008 – 2010), there has been some have been changes in the popularity rankings as some style gain favor and others lose it.  The Top Five slots have been consistent all three years, with the same five beer styles always being represented (although with some jockeying back and forth in position). Listed below are the beer styles that have seen the most amount of movement, either positively or negatively, in the rankings.

MOST POSITIVE MOVERS ('10 Rank / '09 Rank / '08 Rank)

 1. Smoke / Wood-Aged Beer - cat. 22 (Ranks: 11, 13, 16)

 2. Specialty Beers - cat. 23 (Ranks: 7, 10, 11)

 3. English Brown Ales - cat. 11 (Ranks: 14, 19, 17)

MOST NEGATIVE MOVERS ('10 Rank / '09 Rank / '08 Rank)

 1. English Pale Ale - cat. 8 (Ranks: 16, 11, 10)

 2. Dark Lagers - cat. 4 (Ranks: 22, 20, 18)

 3. Light Lagers - cat. 1 (Ranks: 18, 17, 15)

 4. Strong Ales - cat. 19 (Ranks: 12, 12, 9)

The growing popularity of barrel-ages beers and extreme beers has definitely played a factor in the rise in popularity of Categories 22 and 23. However, I was very shocked to see how English Pale Ales have been falling like a rock in popularity.  I personally find this trend very disappointing, as EPA’s (and other session beers) would certainly be on my list of favorite beer styles.  Someday, hopefully soon, this style will see a resurgence back to the limelight.

Without any further lamenting or analyzing, here is the complete data how each beer style category was presented this year…

NHC First Round Entry Rankings by Beer Style Categories

2010 Rank	Cat. #	Name	# of Entries (2010)	% of Entries (2010)	2009 Rank	2008 Rank
1	10	American Ale	509	8.8%	2	1
2	13	Stout	476	8.3%	1	2
3	16	Belg & French	410	7.1%	3	5
4	14	IPA	386	6.7%	4	4
5	18	Belgian Strong	362	6.3%	5	3
6	12	Porter	292	5.1%	6	6
7	23	Specialty Beers	275	4.8%	10	11
8	9	Scottish & Irish	247	4.3%	7	8
9	6	Light Hybrids	245	4.3%	8	7
10	21	Spiced/Herb	244	4.2%	9	12
11	22	Smoke/Wood-Aged	226	3.9%	13	16
12	19	Strong Ales	215	3.7%	12	9
13	15	German Wheat Beers	206	3.6%	15	13
14	11	English Brown	199	3.5%	19	17
15	5	Bock	190	3.3%	16	14
16	8	English Pale Ale	186	3.2%	11	10
17	2	Pilsner	183	3.2%	14	19
19	17	Sour Ales	163	2.8%	18	21
20	7	Amber Hybrids	152	2.6%	22	20
21	3	European Amber Lager	145	2.5%	23	23
22	4	Dark Lager	144	2.5%	20	18
23	20	Fruit Beer	130	2.3%	21	22

Everyone has a list of favorite beer styles – let us know which are your favorites and how they are represented in the competition scene.

Slainte!

-JW


"Mmmmm.....Beer."
-Homer Simpson

Top 50 Craft Breweries in the US: Where Are They Located?

Anyone that regularly reads beer blogs has no doubt already heard that the Brewers Association has come out with their 2009 version for the Top 50 Breweries in the US and the Top 50 Craft Breweries in the US. I’ve always interested to watch the lists from year to year and see how certain breweries fall in and out of favor. If you haven’t already seen it, go read Jay Brook’s Annotated List of the Top 50 Breweries, as Jay tracks who the movers on the list between 2008 and 2009.

While reading through this year’s rankings, as I’ve done on other topics, I kept wondering where these Craft Breweries are actually located throughout the US. Which states claim the most Top 50 Craft Breweries? Are there more on the east coast vs. the west coast?  Are any of them close to me?

This line of thought got me goofing around with Adobe Illustrator and I began plotting out the 2009 Top 50 Craft Breweries.  When finished, Tom encouraged me to post the resulting map on our blog and share it with anyone who points their web browsers our way. So, without much fan fare, below is the resulting map showing the locations of all 50 Craft Breweries from this year’s BA ranking.

Circling back to the question I posed at the beginning of this post: which states claim the most Top 50 Craft Breweries? The Golden State was the front runner with 11 Californian breweries followed by Colorado with a very respectable 6 craft breweries. A run-down of all the states with ranking craft breweries is listed below.

Top 50 Craft Breweries by State

Rank	State	No. of Breweries	% of Total
1	California	11	22%
2	Colorado	6	12%
3	Oregon	4	8%
4	New York	3	6%
5	Massachusetts	2	4%
5	Missouri	2	4%
5	Texas	2	4%
5	Vermont	2	4%
5	Washington	2	4%
5	Wisconsin	2	4%
11	Alaska	1	2%
11	Delaware	1	2%
11	Georgia	1	2%
11	Hawaii	1	2%
11	Louisiana	1	2%
11	Maine	1	2%
11	Maryland	1	2%
11	Michigan	1	2%
11	Minnesota	1	2%
11	Montana	1	2%
11	Ohio	1	2%
11	Pennsylvania	1	2%
11	Tennessee	1	2%
11	Utah	1	2%

Jim Koch and the Boston Beer Company is the closest craft brewery to me, at least by car.  If I felt like going to a marathon swim, Blue Point Brewering Co. would be just across the Long Island Sound.  What about you?

Slainte!

-JW


“You can never buy beer, you just rent it.”
-Archie Bunker

Beer Taxes: How much is the government taxing your beer?

This post is fitting given that today is the deadline for individual federal tax returns here in the USA (unless you’re like me, being in a state affected by the recent flooding where Obama has kindly given us a 4 week extension). With all the paperwork and number crunching associated with these returns, it got me thinking about how much money government officials are receiving from taxes buried in the price of the commercial beer I purchase (i.e. excise taxes, etc).

The answer, it turns out, depends greatly on where beer is sold given that excises tax rates greatly vary from state to state. Alaskans, for example, have the misfortune of paying the highest state excise tax - $1.07 per gallon, while Wisconsin and Missouri share the lowest excise tax rate - $0.06 per gallon. But what the hell does 'state excise tax rate' really mean to the consumer? How much am I personally paying each year as a beer consumer?

To get an idea of what different state resident pays for “beer taxes”, I took the individual state excise tax rates and multiplied it by the annual per capita beer consumption for each state. The results indicate what an average individual would be paying out of pocket (in the form of margins built into the retail beer price) each year in state levied “beer taxes”.  While the range of annual expenditures is not a large burden, the relative differences between states can be very dramatic. (For the purposes of this post, the reference to "states" includes the 50 US states and the District of Columbia.)

Top 5 States with the Highest “Beer Taxes” Paid Per Capita
  1. Alaska ($32.64 per resident)
  2. Hawaii ($30.97 per resident)
  3. South Carolina ($27.95 per resident)
  4. New Mexico ($16.15 per resident)
  5. Alabama ($16.06 per resident)

Top 5 States with the Lowest “Beer Taxes” Paid Per Capita
  1. Missouri ($2.01 per resident)
  2. Kentucky ($2.09 per resident)
  3. Wisconsin ($2.32 per resident)
  4. Maryland ($2.34 per resident)
  5. Pennsylvania ($2.40 per resident)

So according to all this number crunching (the full dataset presented below), I’m only paying $2.90 per year to the lovely Ocean State in “Beer Taxes”. Of course this doesn’t cover the federal taxes levied or sales taxes lumped on top of the retail price, but overall these numbers are showing that Rhode Islanders are actually doing quite well.  As a comparison, for example, the beer drinkers in Alaska, Hawaii and South Carolina are paying just about 10x what we pay here in RI.  So for every dime I pay in "beer taxes", the residents of these states are dropping down a full dollar on the counter. 

And of course, in good fraternal rivalry, I’m happy to my New England state of Rhode Island (#42) is only paying 40% of the taxes that my brother Tom has the privilege of paying down in Virginia (#18).  Right on.

Ok, enough rambling.  Here’s the overall data…

The state excise tax rates were taken from the Federation of Tax Administrators and the Per Capita Beer Consumption Rates were taken from the Beer Institute . State populations were taken from the 2009 US Census estimates.

So where did your state net out? Let us know…

Slainte!

-JW

“… how unfairly taxes are levied on the brewing industry, who have to pay more taxes than any other product in America, except tabacco.”
-Jay Brooks

2009 Breweries Per Capita – Ranking by State

The recent attention from media outlets on the 2010 U.S. Census got me pondering the topic of beer-related demographics – specifically breweries and brewpubs. Where are all of these breweries and brewpubs distributed throughout the country? Are there some areas of the country that have more than others? Certainly.  Some states just outnumber other states in terms of breweries or brewpubs. But simply looking at the absolute numbers doesn’t really tell the story. Sure California has the most brewing establishments in the US, but isn’t it also the most populated state? So what matters more: shear numbers or some other measure?

In order to get a better idea about how these breweries/brewpubs are patterned throughout the US, I decided to calculate out the breweries per capita numbers for each state – the number of brewing establishment per 100,000 residents. By taking the number of breweries in each state and dividing it out by the 2009 US Consensus estimates, I arrived at the data presented below. (It should be noted that the term ‘brewery’ in this post will refer to both breweries and brewpubs, and the term ‘state’ refers to the 50 US states plus the District of Columbia)

While this ‘Per Capita’ method has its faults (for example, states with smaller populations get a positive bias), by normalizing the data in such a fashion, it makes it possible to gauge the presence of breweries within a particular state, independent of population. While Vermont (#1) and Alaska (#5) have small populations (less than 1 million residents), these states have between three and four times as many breweries/brewpubs per capita than such venerated state as California (#18). This means that establishments in Vermont and Alaska have one-third to one-quarter of the local resources (patrons, employees, supplies, etc) as many other states, but these brewing operations are still able to thrive. Why is this? Probably because of strong, accommodating communities within the states that embrace beer culture - states like Oregon (#2), Colorado (#6), and Washington (#8) certainly exemplify this.

Of course, these data have to be taken with a proverbial grain of malt. Are these data definitive in sorting out which states have the best beer cultures in the US? Of course not. It’s merely another way to slice the information and examine how different parts of the country foster and support brewery-based businesses. If nothing else, its just plain fun to sift through stats looking at which states beat which states.

Ok, enough long-winded musing - here’s the data…

Top 5 ‘Brewery Per Capita’ States for 2009
1. Vermont (#1)      2.734 breweries per 100,000 residents
2. Oregon (#2)        2.640 breweries per 100,000 residents
3. Montana (#3)      2.564 breweries per 100,000 residents
4. Maine (#4)          2.503 breweries per 100,000 residents
5. Alaska (#5)         2.148 breweries per 100,000 residents

Worst 5 ‘Brewery Per Capita’ States for 2009
1. Mississippi (#51)       0.034 breweries per 100,000 residents
2. Alabama (#50)          0.085 breweries per 100,000 residents
3. Arkansas (#49)         0.138 breweries per 100,000 residents
4. Kentucky (#48)         0.139 breweries per 100,000 residents
5. North Dakota (#47)  0.155 breweries per 100,000 residents

If one compares the per capita rates from 2009 with those of 2008, there is some jockeying of the positions. The top 10 states see only one change - Oregon (#2), which clawed up and flip-flopped positions with Montana (#3). The bigger changes can be seen further back in the pack.

Biggest Positive Movers from 2008 to 2009
1. Indiana               (up to #20 in 2009 from #27 in 2008)
2. West Virginia     (up to #37 in 2009 from #44 in 2008)
3. North Carolina   (up to #27 in 2009 from #32 in 2008)

Biggest Negative Movers from 2008 to 2009
1. Kansas              (down to #30 in 2009 from #24 in 2008)
2. Nevada             (down to #19 in 2009 from #14 in 2008)
3. South Carolina   (down to #39 in 2009 from #35 in 2008)
4. Arkansas           (down to #49 in 2009 from #45 in 2008)

And on a personal note, I’m very pleased to see that Lug Wrench’s ‘facility’ in Rhode Island (#31) beat out the Lug Wrench ‘facility’ in Virginia (#34). So how about a big “neener neener neener” to you folks down in Virginia, Tom. : )

2009 Breweries Per Capita - Ranking by State

2009 Rank	2008 Rank	State	Breweries/ Brewpubs	2009 State Population	Breweries Per 100,000
1	1	Vermont	17	621,760	2.734
2	3	Oregon	101	3,825,657	2.640
3	2	Montana	25	974,989	2.564
4	4	Maine	33	1,318,301	2.503
5	5	Alaska	15	698,473	2.148
6	6	Colorado	104	5,024,748	2.070
7	7	Wyoming	10	544,270	1.837
8	8	Washington	113	6,664,195	1.696
9	9	Wisconsin	80	5,654,774	1.415
10	10	Idaho	21	1,545,801	1.359
11	15	Delaware	10	885,122	1.130
12	11	New Hampshire	14	1,324,575	1.057
13	12	Nebraska	16	1,796,619	0.891
14	13	New Mexico	16	2,009,671	0.796
15	17	Michigan	77	9,969,727	0.772
16	16	Hawaii	9	1,295,178	0.695
17	20	Iowa	20	3,007,856	0.665
18	18	California	238	36,961,664	0.644
19	14	Nevada	17	2,643,085	0.643
20	27	Indiana	41	6,423,113	0.638
21	19	Massachusetts	42	6,593,587	0.637
22	25	Missouri	38	5,987,580	0.635
23	21	South Dakota	5	812,383	0.615
24	23	Utah	17	2,784,572	0.611
25	22	Pennsylvania	75	12,604,767	0.595
26	26	Arizona	35	6,595,778	0.531
27	32	North Carolina	49	9,380,884	0.522
28	28	Minnesota	27	5,266,214	0.513
29	29	Distr. of Columbia	3	599,657	0.500
30	24	Kansas	14	2,818,747	0.497
31	31	Rhode Island	5	1,053,209	0.475
32	34	Maryland	27	5,699,478	0.474
33	30	Connecticut	16	3,518,288	0.455
34	33	Virginia	32	7,882,590	0.406
35	36	Ohio	44	11,542,645	0.381
36	37	Illinois	45	12,910,409	0.349
37	44	West Virginia	6	1,819,777	0.330
38	38	New York	63	19,541,453	0.322
39	35	South Carolina	14	4,561,242	0.307
40	39	Oklahoma	10	3,687,050	0.271
41	43	Tennessee	17	6,296,254	0.270
42	40	New Jersey	20	8,707,739	0.230
43	41	Florida	41	18,537,969	0.221
44	42	Louisiana	9	4,492,076	0.200
45	49	Georgia	16	9,829,211	0.163
46	48	Texas	39	24,782,302	0.157
47	47	North Dakota	1	646,844	0.155
48	46	Kentucky	6	4,314,113	0.139
49	45	Arkansas	4	2,889,450	0.138
50	50	Alabama	4	4,708,708	0.085
51	51	Mississippi	1	2,951,996	0.034

The number of breweries/brewpubs was taken from Beer Advocate’s BeerFly Directory. State populations were taken from the 2009 US Census estimates.

If you’ve braved it all the way down to the bottom of this post, please take a moment and let us know how your state did.

Slainte!

-JW


“The pub has always been much more than just a tavern – it is a clubhouse, a meeting place, a community center.”
-Anthony Dias Blue