GABF Hardware and Best State For Beer

Last week's announcement of the Great American Beerfest ("GABF") winners got me thinking... BUT first, major congratulations are in order to DC/Baltimore area breweries that came away with medals:

-Brewer’s Alley Restaurant and Brewery, MD
Brewer’s Alley India Pale Ale won Bronze for English-Style India Pale Ale

-Clipper City Brewing Co., MD
Clipper City Marzhon Vienna Lager won Bronze for Vienna Style Lager

-DOG Brewing Co. MD
Pub Dog Black Dog Stout won Bronze for Classic Irish Style Dry Stout

-Flying Dog Brewery, MD
Horn Dog Vintage 2007 won Gold for Aged Beer
Dogtoberfest won Gold for German Style Märzen
Gonzo Imperial Porter won Gold for Imperial Stout
Barrel Aged Gonzo won Silver for Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer

-Devils Backbone Brewing Co., VA
Gold Leaf Lager won Gold for International-Style Pilsener
Natural Born Keller won Silver for Kellerbier/Zwickelbier
Danzig won Silver for Baltic-Style Porter
Vienna Lager won Silver for Vienna Style Lager

-Great American Restaurants ( Sweet Water Tavern ), VA
Crazy Jackass Ale won Gold for Rye Beer
Wits End won Bronze for Belgian-Style Witbier

-Rock Bottom Brewery – Arlington, VA
Dude! Where’s My Vespa? won Gold for Coffee Flavored Beer

-Starr Hill Brewery, VA
Dark Starr Stout won Gold for Classic Irish Style Dry Stout

Also the “Mid Size Brewery of the Year” went to Flying Dog and Brew Master Rob Malone of Frederick, Maryland.

All of this talk about the GABF got me thinking again about the best city or state for beer. As you can see from the results of the HolzBrew poll on the right, California won the poll easily. What if we look at the state whose breweries have won the most GABF medals? I logged onto the GABF website and downloaded the results of the last four years, 2006 - 2009(it actually took a little Excel work in order to extract the necessary data, that's why I stopped after 4 years). The top 10 states in order of total medals were:

California: 158
Colorado: 134
Oregon: 67
Wisconsin: 51
Illinois: 43
Pennsylvania: 40
Washington: 35
New York: 28
Michigan: 25
Delaware: 21

According to this analysis California is the best state for beer in the US. BUT is this really fair considering that California is the most populated state in the US? I mean California can sustain a lot of great breweries with such a large population. What if you adjust the rankings to account for population? By using the 2008 census estimate, I divided the total awards won from 2006 - 2009 by the population of that state. This yields the following results (stated in medals per million residents):

Colorado: 27.1
Delaware: 24.1
Alaska: 21.9
Oregon: 17.7
Wyoming: 15.0
Montana: 9.3
Wisconsin: 9.1
Utah: 7.3
Washington: 5.3
Vermont: 4.8

Congrats to all GABF winners,

HolzBrew