ACESFULL wrote:These lists should be renamed... They should be called 50 hype train beers.
There are good beers on this list hell maybe even great but a lot of them come with a shit ton of hype. I have found that with said hype the beers dont live up to said hype. 1 example for me is Heady Topper. Is it a good beer yep but worth the hype and bullshit to trade for it. Not a chance. The Hill Farmstead beers have been a lot of the same. Good solid beers but to much hype. Or at least I am/was expecting more from them.
A couple of comments... First, no beer list will be perfect. Too many variables to be able to honestly complete a best beers list.
Take for example this year's list and the sours that are on it. Without much doubt many people would say cantillon is top of sours, however, this year the first sour on the list is from CCB. Now I'll be the first to say that CCB makes great beers but I've had the pilot series Berliner Weisse and while it is a great beer I can't say it is better than all the other sours I have had.
Also, the moment you try and make a top list you automatically create hype if the list maker has any kind of credibility. I say this because there are countless blogs out there making lists of the best this or the best that... because these blogs don't have the credibility to back them up if someone disagrees with the list they chalk it up to the lists problem and not theirs. However, once a credible source like ratebeer makes a list, all of a sudden if that beer isn't the best beer we no longer blame the list but we blame the system.
Each and every beer list that ever comes out needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I had an amazing sour that was dry flowered with actual flour pedals a few weeks ago and it would have held its own against CCB's pilot series BW or the couple cantillons I've had. But because they are a nanobrewery in the unheard of city of Longwood, FL they don't even touch the list.
Let the list of beers be what the list of beers will be. A celebration of good craft beer. Obviously none of the beers that make the lists is a bad beer. And if you happen to find beers that match or are even better than beers on the list, promote them. Tell your friends, tell the BN network. Today we have so much good beer that it can be difficult to sift through the good from the bad.
Again my 2 cents
