Franconian Beer Message Board

RateBeer Best Awards
Posted by barry on 2014-02-04 06:57:59
I read the posting from Gerhard on Fleecebook and it is very interesting.  It is noticeable that the overwhelming majority of breweries listed are from the USA. Is this because (a) there are more breweries in the USA than the rest of the world (b) US breweries are simply brewing better beer than anyone else (c) there are more raters in the USA than the rest of the world.

It is interesting to note that in categories that originate outside the USA (actually, that is most categories), the home brewing countries don't perform as well as US-breweries. I wonder why? The IPA category is especially interesting in that all 15 top beers come from the USA. I know that US brewers have really gone to town on IPA's in recent years but can it really be that no UK brewers can produce an IPA to match them? Likewise, in the stout category, 14 of the 15 are US - the 15th is from Denmark! Only 1 non-American beer makes it into the strong beer category - that's from Norway - and only 1 porter (from Fuller's) prevents an American clean sweep. One category that I don't understand is 'traditional' - surely every country has it's own traditional styles, e.g. mild/bitter in England, pils in Czech Rep and hell/dunkel in Germany (among other styles).

Given some of the comments made here about raters' methods, can we really take these awards seriously?
 
Followups:
       RateBeer Best Awards by barry on  2014-02-04 12:35:59
         RateBeer Best Awards by barry on  2014-02-05 01:59:11
         RateBeer Best Awards by Gerhard Schoolmann on  2014-02-05 03:57:37
           RateBeer Best Awards by Gerhard Schoolmann on  2014-02-05 04:08:28
           RateBeer Best Awards by barry on  2014-02-05 04:27:59
             RateBeer Best Awards by Gerhard Schoolmann on  2014-02-05 06:11:57
               RateBeer Best Awards by FredW on  2014-02-05 07:09:31
                 Finkenkrug by FredW on  2014-02-05 07:12:59
               RateBeer Best Awards by barry on  2014-02-05 09:07:57
                 Multi-tap pubs by mike004 on  2014-02-06 01:18:04
                 RateBeer Best Awards by Nick B. on  2014-02-06 01:18:34
                   RateBeer Best Awards by barry on  2014-02-06 02:14:17
                 RateBeer Best Awards by DonS on  2014-02-06 06:24:04
                   Multi-tap pubs by DonS on  2014-02-06 06:28:20
                     Multi-tap pubs by barry on  2014-02-06 09:43:55
                   RateBeer Best Awards by barry on  2014-02-06 09:51:06
                     RateBeer Best Awards by Nick B. on  2014-02-07 00:34:59
                       RateBeer Best Awards by barry on  2014-02-07 01:57:32