A Hoppy Ale to Rule Them All

A couple-three weeks back, Zymurgy magazine released its annual poll of readers’ favorite commercial beers.  Homebrewers do not in any way represent the average beer drinker, but they have been, since the 1970s, on the cutting edge of American brewing.  They were the first to use American hops, it was from their ranks that the first craft brewers emerged, and they have long been the leading practitioners of techniques now standard in professional brewing.  (I mentioned their latest innovation recently.) 

Where beer culture emerges, it does so buoyed by the enthusiasm of the most avid fans.  Look to their preferences if you want to see the state of the country.  The following list will therefore in no way surprise you.  It contains a surfeit of hoppy ales, a few dark ales, and a very thin smattering of outliers.  (Depending on how you classify things, 35 of the fifty listed beers were hoppy ales; another nine were dark ales.  Five were flavored, four were barrel-aged.  The first beer tha …