The 13 best beer countries in the world, ranked

[MaureenCretis]

Craft beer

It’s called Beer here. We’ve been making it for over two thousand years.

 

[Jesus X]

love belgian beer nothing nicer than a chimay or the clean ass taste of a duvel you also have the high ABV.


the u.s are the kings of craft beer though NEIPA(a.k.a juice bombs a.k.a haze) ,IPA or the stouts in the U.S are matched by no one globally.

 

[Jesus X]

the US has amazing beer, New England area running shit.

treehouse
alchemist
NeBCO
two roads
Counterweight
trillium

New England alone blows away any euro beers..

NEIPA are really nice beers to drink, I started with the crappier west coast versions of NEIPA at monkish and even those were really good.

 

[gspieler]

Is this a joke?

US is far and away #1. It's not even close. The rest of the world has "historical" beers or a few shitty large breweries.

The US microbrew scene makes the best versions of those historical recipes and has tons of new styles.

No other country is playing the same game.

I'm quite frankly amazed that alcoholism is a thing and beer is one of hte world's top selling products and it took this long for a great microbrew scene to rise.

Legit alcoholics don't drink hipster beer.

 

[Kalmah]

What a shitty list. Where's Czech Republic?

 

[Damien Karras]

I'm surprised Canada is ranked that high

 

[Jesus X]

Japan should be higher.

those are relatively crappy beers japan only makes light low abv beers.

 

[MaureenCretis]

As a matter of interest, how many of you extolling the virtues of American beer have actually been to any of the other major beer-producing countries?

 

[Jesus X]

1, 2, and 3 are crystal clear and inarguable.

USA is 1. No one can produce stouts like they can. No one can produce IPAs like they can. No one can produce pale ales like they can. No one has the variety. No one has the innovation. USA's craft brew scene is absurd with over 5000 breweries in operation right now. Not all are good, but the good ones are very, very good.
Belgium is 2. Lambic, traditional trappist styles, and saisons. I will argue that American produces better saisons (Hill Farmstead, Casey, Jolly Pumpkin, Side Project, etc) but that's subjective. The other 2 are not.
Germany is 3. They absolutely dominate all lagers and no one is close. A handful of US breweries do nice lagers but on the whole, Germany smokes the USA in that area.

After that, I'd probably go England, AUS/NZ, then flip a coin for the rest. No one is doing anything worth consistently reaching for.

I agree ,although brazil is doing a lot in craft beer they really love beer down there.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

What you know about that Baltika #9 extra strong joint?

8% abc

Was the go-to drink in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

 

[snakedafunky]

They have a list of best beer countries without the Czech Republic?

Anyway, the whole US microbrew BS is just a hipster fad.
For all real beer drinker, they only have two favorite beers in the world.
The first one is free and the second one is cold.
You simply can't match what German or Czech beers offer in price and overall quality.
They are doing it for 500 years or so.

 

[TheNinja]

1, 2, and 3 are crystal clear and inarguable.

USA is 1. No one can produce stouts like they can. No one can produce IPAs like they can. No one can produce pale ales like they can. No one has the variety. No one has the innovation. USA's craft brew scene is absurd with over 5000 breweries in operation right now. Not all are good, but the good ones are very, very good.
Belgium is 2. Lambic, traditional trappist styles, and saisons. I will argue that American produces better saisons (Hill Farmstead, Casey, Jolly Pumpkin, Side Project, etc) but that's subjective. The other 2 are not.
Germany is 3. They absolutely dominate all lagers and no one is close. A handful of US breweries do nice lagers but on the whole, Germany smokes the USA in that area.

After that, I'd probably go England, AUS/NZ, then flip a coin for the rest. No one is doing anything worth consistently reaching for.

Spot on!

 

[Sir Galahad]

those are relatively crappy beers japan only makes light low abv beers.

But it's the best beers in Asia.

 

[The_Renaissance]

13. Ireland
12. New Zealand
11. Sweden
10. Italy
9. Norway
8. Netherlands
7. Canada
6. Japan
5. Denmark
4. Germany
3. United Kingdom
2. United States
1. Belgium

I’m surprised that Mexico isn’t on this list and that the United States is ranked so high.

I'd agree with that top 4, definitely. And in the same order too.......although.....I might swap Belgium with the USA and UK but ONLY because i'm not a giant fan of those Trappist type beers that Belgium is most famous for. I love tons of other Belgian beers though.

 

[MaureenCretis]

As a matter of interest, how many of you extolling the virtues of American beer have actually been to any of the other major beer-producing countries?

Would it be easier if I just asked how many of you have ever owned a passport?

 

[weich]

As a matter of interest, how many of you extolling the virtues of American beer have actually been to any of the other major beer-producing countries?

I have. I've been to England and most of the other western European countries. I've also been drinking imported beers for a long time.

 

[MMA since 1993]

TS, are you really surprised by mexico not being there?

their beers are trash, with the exception of maybe 2.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

USA should already be #1. It's amazing how quickly we took beer over.

LMFAO UK@#3. What a joke.

Was debating this with my boss several months back after she proclaimed that Germany makes the best beer. I could only surmise that she'd traveled here from the 80s to proclaim her ignorance of current events.

Literally every other country is jumping on the hop-centric bandwagon, and most of the best beers are from the United States (many of them specifically from California).

While Trappist ales are still great, in my mind, the US just blew past the old guard over the past decade with our dry hopped lagers and bourbon barrel aged stouts and so on and so forth. The creativity here took it all up several notches.

(The above isn't meant to imply I believe america created stout beer - Samuel Smith chocolate stout is great - the US just took everything up in class with the craft brewer explosion).

 

[Rimbaud82]

agreed. i always laugh at the fat monk as their symbol:

I love it. There's a whole subreddit to similar pictures, cracks me up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/monkslookingatbeer/

 

[IIIIIIII]

As a matter of interest, how many of you extolling the virtues of American beer have actually been to any of the other major beer-producing countries?

i've been to most of western europe. depending on your criteria, the country with the best overall beers are either the usa, belgium, or germany, in my opinion. england just misses out at #4.