Written by Michael Rood
on 

AHA beer rankings - Obliterating Taste Buds since at least 2010

In 2011 I began ignoring the AHA beer rankings after it became apparent my walk in beer, and those of my AHA brothers, are following very different paths. After the better part of a decade I am confident that we will never find ourselves hand-in-hand through the flowery meads. I am sure of this fact as I sit here reading the 2018 AHA beer rankings, 7 years after the last time I looked, in pessimistically dulled expectation of little change.

Here’s the top 10 list:

  1. Bell’s Two Hearted Ale. (7% ABV) American IPA
  2. Pliny the Elder. (8% ABV) American Double/Imperial IPA.
  3. The Alchemist Heady Topper (8% ABV) New England IPA
  4. Bell’s Hopslam (10% ABV) American Double/Imperial IPA.
  5. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (5.6% ABV) American Pale Ale
  6. Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout (11.70% ABV) American Imperial Stout
  7. Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (11.2% ABV) American Double/Imperial Stout.
  8. Three Flyds Zombie Dust (6.2% ABV) American Pale Ale
  9. Founders Breakfast Stout ((8.3% ABV) American Imperial Stout
  10. WeldWerks Juicy Bits (6.7% ABV) New England IPA
  11. Founders All Day IPA (4.7% ABV) American IPA

If anything, my brothers and I have drifted further apart since 2011 as Vermont has now begun colonizing the list with perfectly opaque and fully pulped orange juice that is somehow sold alongside other IPAs as if they were substitutes. And how did Founders get 3 variations of an Imperial Stout on this list?

As much as I’d like to be done with this list, a small optimist inside me is still holding out that one day, on that list, I might see even a single pilsner or lager. A dream that people will hold beers like Chuckanut Pilsner in the same high regard as I do.